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May 21, 2020 By Lynda Foster

Podcast: A Leader’s Guide to Getting More, Fresh, High Quality Ideas from Their Teams 050420

Join John Phillips, President of the Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Council, along with Mary Miller, Director of RAMP, and the authors of A Leader’s Guide to Getting More, Fresh, High Quality Ideas from Their Teams Lynda McNutt Foster, CEO of Cortex Leadership Consulting and Richard Hammer, Associate VP Cloud Factory, 1901 Group, in an in-depth conversation about the findings of a 5-year study that included over 100,000 data points with more than 3,500 leaders and their teams.

Transcript of Podcast A Leader’s Guide to Getting More, Fresh, High Quality Ideas from Their Teams:

John:              Good afternoon. I’m John Phillips, your host and along with your co-host, Mary Miller. Thank you for joining us for another edition of Business at Lunch show brought to you by the Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Council. Each day at the noon hour, we seek to talk with the leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs in the Roanoke and Blacksburg regions, to learn how they are using innovative strategies and just sheer determination to navigate their way through this unique period as we together create the new economy for our future. 

It is Monday and that brings in our regular topic, what’s working at work with Lynda McNutt-Foster and today we’re focusing on innovation of ideas in the workplace. In addition to Lynda, we have a second guest today. If you remember Lynda has been labeled a business icon by Valley Business Front and is a regular contributor to Forbes magazine. She is a certified conversational intelligence executive coach which makes her perfect for this talk show and she is joining us live on today’s show. 

John:              Great to have you join us and we also have Richard Hammer, Senior IT Consultant, Data Analysts, Enterprise Architect and Associate Vice President of the CloudFactory, and also with 1901 group. Richard, I see a vast experience leading teams involved in software development, and you’re certainly an expert in business analytical tools. Please take a minute and introduce yourself to our audience.

Richard:         Thank you for that introduction. The thing that I like most about what I do is building and tuning high velocity teams across the industry. I’ve had a successful 30-year career doing it and really enjoy working with this region on growing the companies and solving problems here.

John:              We appreciate you joining us for today’s show. Today’s show gets us a great opportunity to introduce a paper that Lynda has worked on. She says the RBTC and Cortex, Lynda ‘s consulting group. A first five part of a five-year study about the ability of leaders and their teams to generate new and fresh ideas. Title of the study A Leader’s Guide to Getting More Fresh High Quality Ideas from Their Teams Right Now, as she labels it “A Wake-Up Call to Any Leader That Needs to Innovate and Thrive”. Especially important in today’s environment as we’ve entered and continue to be in a marketplace where businesses and organizations are requiring constant creativity and problem solving. So, Lynda , tell us about this idea and what fascinated you about degeneration?

Transcript of Podcast A Leader’s Guide to Getting More, Fresh, High Quality Ideas from Their Teams:

Lynda:            Well, I’m just going to admit it. I am Lynda and I am an ideator. I grew up in a family of ideators. I’m someone who literally has now created an entire career about creative problem solving. So, I was fascinated and very curious about why when I was on some teams that worked, and we innovated and created the sort of break through things if I was in a position of authority. When I wasn’t in a position of authority, why were most of my ideas shut down? So, I’ve always been curious about that and I started gathering research about it. 

As I started working with teams, in anywhere from 12 person companies to 1,500 to 5,000 person companies, I started seeing these patterns of behavior. We started collecting data pretty extensively. We had to actually create a brand new software system to be able to collect the data. I wanted to see what’s happening between coaching sessions? What’s happening after the meetings? I wanted to observe teams and take notes on what they were saying to each other. 

So, we had to build an entire new technology. We had to figure out how to do conversational mapping and we had to be able to get people to want to and understand why self-awareness through assessments was helpful to them. The data would be helpful to us in helping to solve the problems that they were seeing on their teams. Look, McKinsey & Company came out with 94% of leaders want their teams to generate ideas and be innovative and none of them are for those people like they’re very disappointed. 

Well, that’s one of the main reasons they come to me and us is to go, “Wait, when we bring up something and say, ‘Hey, I need new fresh ideas.’ It’s crickets.” So, we have to do all that on a budget and we had to stay viable as an organization. So, none of it mattered at all. It wasn’t like this was theoretical. We had to stay in business so we needed to get results from our clients. There’s not a lot of studies out there like that from midsize and small companies and so this was a very unique set of data points that we’ve collected over these five years.

John:              Well, let me allow Mary to jump in here and ask some questions as well.

Mary:             So, Lynda, this journey sounds fascinating. Let me ask you what did jump out at you? What startled you as you began to look at the data? 

Lynda:            There were two things Mary. There’s like two parts. One was the data itself. So, it was very — from a macro level, we were easily seeing that only 12% to 19% of leaders themselves and their team members were strong in idea generation. Only 5% or 6% of leaders were strong in vision. So, it’s a four-part process: coming up with a vision, figuring out which ideas would work, planning and execution. You’ve got only 25% of any of the teams or even leadership groups who were strong in that first part. So, that didn’t really startled me. What startled me is when I asked the data person that I was working with at the time, he kind of pulled reports for me, I said, “Can you tell me, there’s a score that comes out in these assessments that says that people literally actively avoid one of the phases?”

What startled me in the data part was that 58% of the people had their lowest scores in ideation or idea generation, so to speak, 58%. 23% avoided vision. So, you sort of sit there and go, “Wait a minute, they’re not only not doing it, they’re actively avoiding it.” Then the second part was, how are they avoiding it? What does it actually sound like? What was so fascinating and doing the conversational mapping, actually, within meetings and after meetings with these quick touch points of the software that we had them literally like talk to it became a coach in their pocket, was that small things made a huge difference. 

If a leader was in a meeting and he was asking for ideas, and somebody threw out an idea, and he or she immediately said, “No, no. We’ve tried that before.” If an idea was shot out and someone said, “Yeah, but –” “Yeah, we’ve tried that before. That’s not going to work.” Then even if someone was strong and the beginning of entering a team with ideation those micro moments, those small conversations that we started tracking were shutting them down. So, exactly what 94% of leaders were saying they wanted, they were actually actively working against the outcome that they wanted to have.

Mary:             Wow. A lot to dig into there. So, talk to me just a little bit about why you think that’s the case. Why is it that we say we want one thing, and yet we don’t embrace it when we hear it? Or do we not know what we’re hearing? 

Lynda:            This is what I think, what’s so hard — this is a great question, Mary, because adult behavior change is very difficult. The success rate on adult behavior change is so low, that it’s studied extensively. So, we’re unconscious of most of our behaviors. In other words, if you for years have been in meetings and you say, “Yeah, but –” You say, “Yeah, but –” You don’t even know you said it. You’re not intentionally trying to shut down an idea. You’re not even aware that small thing just shut down somebody.

You don’t know that just by changing it like to “yes and”, you invite the person, it validates the other person. So, sometimes we’re focused on these big changes, right? These huge cultural changes, these massive, huge, expensive programs and that’s not what our research would say. Our research showed that these micro moments, changing people’s vocabulary, adding rules of engagement that they had to follow in meetings made a huge difference in whether the teams were getting better and better at creative problem solving.

John:              Well, let me jump in here and let everybody know that I’m John Phillips and you’re listening to Business at Lunchbrought to you by the Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Council. Today, we are with Lynda McNutt-Foster and Richard Hammer, who together are the authors of A Leader’s Guide to Getting More, Fresh, High Quality Ideas from Their Teams Right Now.We hope you’ll join in our conversation by calling in at 540-795-2510. That’s 540-795-2510. 

We know if you’ve worked with any type of team, you’ve been through interesting situations to create ideas and motivate the team and we’d love to hear what do you have to say on this conversation. Let me bring Richard in to this conversation. Richard, tell me about what brought you into working with Lynda on the project and how you’re experienced in the IT world when it comes to what you guys found in this study how it all relates together?

Richard:         Well, John, the truth of it is working with instruments like DISC and Team [strengths? 00:10:13], you get a really good sense of what’s working, what’s not, and why. Having the opportunity to build and tune this model with Lynda, was also a lot of fun. We worked with the teams. We collected the data. We did data analysis. As you as you dive into the data, as Lynda shared, you start to see some patterns and then you start to see some exceptions. 

What’s most fascinating about those exceptions is bringing them to light and having those as hard or, as Lynda likes to say, sweaty conversations to figure out what can pivot and what can change and how to better engage the team strengths and ideation in particular. It’s been a really fun journey with Lynda and the team at Cortex and I don’t know that I would change any of those work that we did in helping the region grow.

John:              Mary, I’ll let you take it back from here.

Mary:             So, Richard, it’s so interesting. It’s all so interesting. So, I want to summarize again, what you saw and I’ve often said this, it’s easy to get some big things right. It’s all the little things that do actually add up and matter. So, what you all saw was some patterns. Can you speak to at all what the big takeaways are besides this –? I like this “yes and”. We can share that. Can you speak to some of the takeaways that you might be employing with the 1901 group?

Richard:         I can speak to that at length, but we only have like 45 minutes, so I’ll try and keep it concise. The single largest empowering piece is drawing people in in a way that they’re comfortable being drawn in and creating an environment where that comfort can exist without conflict or the perception of conflict. As Lynda was saying, even something as simple as pivoting “but” to “yes, and” is really important when you’re learning how to interact with and share ideas. Being included or invited to the conversation is also important. 

A lot of time folks won’t speak up if they believe their view is already represented or if they believe they’re going to be shut down. The shutdown is a receiving perspective. It’s not the intention generally of a manager or a director to shoot somebody down. They’re trying to be ruthlessly efficient and solve the problem. They have a desire to be short, fast and specific. Taking a moment to create the culture and draw people in in these micro expressions and micro interactions is a really key factor. Keeping things focused on the organizational mission is also critical. 

So, if we are tackling complex problems with clients, ensuring that we understand both the big picture and that the devils really in the details of execution is a critical success factor. Having everyone on the same page. Having everyone make sure they understand and can articulate that mission and know they have a voice and we are committed to listening to that voice is a key success factor. Those are just a couple.

Transcript of Podcast A Leader’s Guide to Getting More, Fresh, High Quality Ideas from Their Teams:

Mary:             So, Lynda, I just want to throw out to both of you.  I’m just thinking out loud here in this conversation. Is it helpful to have just a meeting or just a group think around ideation, rather than kind of hitting on it really quickly and moving on to something else? Is that a safer place? Because we would all like all of our team to be able to share their best thinking. I don’t think any leader wants to shut down the best thinking. We want to let it out. I’m wondering what kind of environment — what if we’ve been the leader who has been shutting it down and we want time to think on this and change to become the leader that wants to engage? See if you can help me walk through some of those changes. 

Lynda:            I think the best way to explain it is through an example. I’m working with literally a team I’ve been working with for the last month. So, they’re in crisis. They’re in a segment of talent acquisition that’s shifting in a big way. The presenting problem that the team leader was having was, “Hey, we’re going to have to come up with some innovation as we move through this and afterwards with our recruiting team, and I’m not getting ideas. I’m getting crickets.” This is a real life story. I just got out of a session, the fifth session this morning to unlock and so I actually had to do a lot of individual one on one conversations with the team members to see what their perspective was. 

We identified that there were some trust issues. We did a couple of sessions on trust and what might be breaking down trust, what could build it? Then I had them each get together in pairs with two or three of their team members and do an exercise around trust so that they could have that “sweaty conversation” individually. Also, they didn’t understand clearly what right could look like. They didn’t know how to develop that, that vision. Their team leader was shutting them down I found out, literally just by their body language. So, she would be sitting in a meeting and she’s just a thinker. 

So, she was sitting back in her chair and having this sort of emotional space. It was making all these behavioral types that were the opposite of hers think that she was thinking bad things about what they were saying. So, it was the thing that was like, once I got the trust built, once they understood what it was, once I said, “Hey, team leader, smile every now and then.” Use a couple of terms to reinforce that they’re on the right channel. 

We just had a session that was one of the most innovative I’ve had with the team. So, within one month, they went from total crickets to they literally today came up with 25 ideas and a specific executable plan for each one of them to start executing. So, that’s an example of what right looks like and what you’re going to need to do. You got to slow down the beat at first.

Mary:             So, Lynda, I think we’re going to take a break here in just a second. Maybe I know John could invite people to call in with questions. I’m wondering at this moment, if an outside point of view was what was needed to move that team forward. I’m just going to ask you, I’m going to come back after our break and talk a little bit about some of the other data in your paper. This is five-years worth of what you were observing. We’ve talked a little bit about it. You’re generously providing it as a download off of the newsletter on Wednesday. I think that’s incredibly generous and it opens up a kind of opportunity for a conversation across our region for this ideation that maybe we hadn’t been focused on. 

I heard a couple of comments about somebody may be stressed, maybe people aren’t smiling as much, all of those things are possible among any of us right now. I think there’s plenty of stress. So, I can imagine that solving problems might, under this situation, be a little more challenging. At the same time, we need to give each other that kind of — the freedom to be themselves as to how they’re addressing. So, John, you want to invite people to call in and I think it’s almost time for the news.

John:              Well, I will. I’m John Phillips, and you’re joined in with the Business at Lunchshow. Today, we’re fortunate to have Lynda McNutt-Foster talking about degeneration along with Richard Hammer, and together they are the authors of A Leader’s Guide to Getting More Fresh, High Quality Ideas from Your Teams Right Now. I hope you’ll call in, join in our conversation at 540-795-2510. Before we go to that break, we’ve got a few more minutes. I’ll ask you, Lynda, to talk a little bit about the string zones that are in generating and executing new ideas, you list out four of them in your paper. It’d be interesting to go through them and see how they relate to this conversation.

Lynda:            Yeah, I’m going to run through those very quickly and then I’m going to pitch it to Richard to explain — Mary had a great thought about, is it helpful to have somebody from the outside sort of come in and look and is that more powerful than the leader trying to fix this stuff on their own? I think he can speak to that because he’s worked in those types of environments and had outsiders come in and he can talk to that. I would say, look, visionaries you give them a white sheet of paper. So, that’s the first phase. The people who are strong in vision can answer the question, what do we want to have at the end of all of this? 

If it’s in recruiting, it might be we want to have great relationships with our candidates so they remember us. Then what are some ideas on the ways to get there? So people who are strong in ideation are very good at just throwing out ideas. “Well, maybe we could do a software. Maybe we can have a virtual event. Maybe we can do some virtual lunches. Maybe we could –” just all kinds of things that would lead to get you to your vision, and the outcome that you want. Once you have the ideas, the next strength is planning. So, planners love feasibility. They love to be able to go, “Hey, that idea won’t work. I don’t think that will work, but you know what, this one is the one we should start with, and I think we can really make it happen.”

Then finally, execution is these people just have a list. They like to get things done. Tell me what it is. They’re happiest when they can be involved a little bit in the planning because the person who’s faced front with execution is the one who’s right reputation is on the line, right? So, what was brilliant about the work that Richard and I did was where I was strong, he had offsetting strengths and there were some crossovers.

We had people on the team as we did this research that had strengths in each area. That’s really what you want to kind of do is create a team environment with a system to do this. Not relying on people’s strengths necessarily. So Richard, if there’s time bringing in an outsider, what do you think about that? How have you seen that work?

Transcript of Podcast A Leader’s Guide to Getting More, Fresh, High Quality Ideas from Their Teams:

Richard:         I think that the outsider provides a unique perspective and is able to listen without bias. All of us are in meetings, all of us have coworkers, some of us have had coworkers for 5, 10, 15 years. We know exactly what to expect. We anticipate what they’re going to say. We really kind of listened to reply versus really taking a moment to listen to understand. The value of an outsider coming in is they are truly invested in listening to understand and to better the environment. 

New employees are really the best outsiders that you can find because you hire somebody, and you bring them in, and the first four weeks that they come in, their eyes are innocent on everything you have going on. Even if they’re subject matter experts, even if they’re industry leaders, they’re trying to get a sense of where you are, of how you move, of how things move forward, of where the strengths are, of where the gaps are. They’re really trying to identify the culture and the environment so they can be successful as well. 

The outside consultants and coaches and trainers do that same thing and they are ruthlessly efficient to doing that. To kind of hit on a really important question that Mary asked, each of the core strength areas that we talked to, there’s a phase for and there’s dedicated time too. So, when you’re putting a vision down, the last thing you want to be doing is planning execution. When you’re doing ideation, the last thing you want to do is be shooting these ideas down, or trying to figure out how they work together or if they will work at all. 

So, each step is kind of a critical success factor that’s built on the others. There are small overlaps between them. Visionaries work with ideas really well back and forth to figure out what the master plan is. Ideators work with planners in figuring out where the boundaries are, as long as the planner understands that the boundary right now is ideation. Then executors really love to work with planners on the entry point to the work they need to get done. So, I hope that doesn’t require any further clarification.

John:              Richard, that helps. That’s a very good insight there and as we move toward the bottom of the hour, we’re move back over to the news and I I’ll turn it back over to Bill Trifiro here in a moment and we’ll be back after this news break and continue our discussion. I’m john Phillips and you’re back along with Mary Miller and you’re listening to Business at Lunchbrought to you by the Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Council. Today, we are working with Lynda McNutt-Foster and Richard Hamer and together they are the authors of The Leaders Guide to Getting More, Fresh, High Quality Ideas from Their TeamsRight Now. 

Join in our conversation by calling in at area code 540-795-2510. That’s 540-795-2510 and help us with our conversation. Richard brought up before the break how someone who is new to the organization, a new hire comes in for the first couple of weeks with a entirely different set of eyes and that’s also a benefit of using a consultant in your company, but I’ll ask the question to Richard, to you and to Lynda, either one of you take it, on how to cultivate that new person and not shut those ideas down when they come into that organization.

Lynda:            I’ll jump in and then I’ll pitch it to Richard and just I do want to sort of get in here how lucky we were to get to work with Richard. We certainly couldn’t afford him. Thank God, what we do and the projects we were working on was something he found interesting. He’s very much about trying to solve really complex problems. So, I deeply appreciate that and what I — I’m going to repeat some something I said before, which was what’s working at work is mission value statements on a wall, on a poster that senior leadership sort of push out there are not what create an innovative team. What creates an innovative team is welcoming, making time for other people’s perspective. 

So, what it sounds like is “Hey, guys, we got a new team member. I can’t wait –” before you’ve been jaded or bias about any of us or this company, “Hey, I just want to have a session where we kind of tell you some of the problems that we’re having. I just want your first brand new thought about what you’re seeing.” So, that’s what I’m noticing is that rules of engagement where you literally say we appreciate other strengths and ability to contribute. We remain curious and issue practices like making time, specific time to gather different perspectives, and especially those that are new and youngest on the team are really valuable. What do you think, Richard?

Richard:         I think that’s valuable. I think having the ability to listen to understand is also critical. A lot of us are really in a hurry to listen to reply. We really don’t take a minute to embrace a different view that might be from the person beside us or in front of us. In a work environment, the creative genius that comes out of simply being present and saying, “That’s a really good idea” is rarely heard because we’re always moving on to that next step of execution and drive and solution. 

The key in addressing those boundaries with any team is really establishing a trust, as Lynda has rules of engagement are a key success factor, and then an openness to we’re going to fail. We’re going to get it wrong. We’re going to learn together. We already have failed. We’ve had great success at failing a lot of time because innovation comes out of failure. When a new team member joins, they’re going to be terrified and excited. When a consultant comes in, they’re going to be terrified and excited. When a coach comes in — but we’re not really ever terrified. But we are definitely excited because there’s always something new to understand. 

That’s where Lynda gets her passion. That’s why she’s an ideator and that’s why she really enjoys engaging these complex problems. I’m more on the technology side, everything is virtual. So, with enough time and money, if it can be imagined, it can be solved from a technology perspective. That can be inhibiting and that can be freeing because the investment is made. The key is really getting your key people to ideate in a safe environment with you.

Lynda:            Yeah, I’m just going to chime in and sort of talk about the crisis that we’re in right now as businesses. So, when you have a lack of ideation right now, what it sounds like is the marketplace is basically crashed underneath of us. The customers aren’t calling in. We can’t go see them the way that we used to. We don’t have enough resources. We don’t have enough money. We don’t know if — that’s what it sounds like on a team right now, if you’re stuck. 

What it sounds like on a healthy team, and I’m getting to see it all the time right now with some of the companies that we’ve worked with over the last few years, it sounds like, “Okay. Here’s the issue. We need to contact customers, but they don’t really want to hear about our product right now. What are five other ways that we can reach out to them and connect with them? Maybe we could do a newsletter. Maybe we could do a quick Zoom to teach some of our clients. Maybe we can have a virtual lunch with them and just listen to what they’re saying.” 

So, there’s differences right now between teams that went into it with tools and teams that didn’t have the ideation generation process in place to be able to get people unstuck from, “Oh, my gosh,” still in shock almost that what’s happening is happening. So, what do you think, Mary? 

Mary:             Yeah, Lynda, I’ve got all kinds of thoughts. I want to go back [inaudible 00:31:34] our listeners, I want to go back to week after week, early on, we talked about the DISC assessment, and understanding where our strengths are, and how we function. So, I go back as you’re building a team and the team that has these tools, that is who are your team members. I just really love Richard repeating again, listening to understand the importance of that, as everybody is really, I believe, bringing their best thoughts to the problem before. 

I want to tie in the paper and some of the data that you saw and hoping that our listeners will download that. The leader reading through that, could you just maybe talk about them coming out of the paper? What could be some real concrete first steps? Because not only are we — unless you talk about the problems and how challenging it is, right now, people can’t necessarily clearly formulate the totality of the problem. Would you agree with that? 

That we’re not quite sure when the situation [inaudible 00:32:56], people are talking about timing. They’re talking about needs. They’re talking about customers and how all of us are going through assessments and saying, “What is it we need? What do we have to do next? Who are our critical partners?” So, all of us are kind of in a similar situation and we need our leaders and our teams to step up. So, could you talk a little bit about Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, download the paper, read the paper? How could you bring your team together around the conversation in that regard? 

Lynda:            Yeah, I think that’s great. What I would say is one of the main conclusions is the ability of senior leaders and their managers to remain curious by actively seeking different perspectives from all levels of the organization. That’s one of the main takeaways. You guys have talked about that and we’ve talked about that. What I would say which is always so fascinating in the research and studies we do is how much money an organization will spend collecting data about their customers and the marketplace and all of this, and how they think their experience with people gives them the ability to instantly be able to identify what people’s strengths, behaviors and motivators are. 

I just did a test with a team earlier today where they guessed and all of them were wrong about their leader, and what was motivating her and what her highest behavioral type was and what her strengths was and things like that. So, we don’t guess what the marketplace is going to do, but yet we guess about people. I mean, it’s so cheap. I mean, you’re talking about you didn’t want to do a full study on your team for $2,500 to $5,000. I mean, a full in depth, give a specific outline of what you need to do to be more effective at creative problem solving and what type of methodology you need to apply to be better at experimentation. 

Here’s what we realized in the studies is nobody at work wants to seem stupid. So, they’re afraid to throw out their ideas. Why are they afraid to throw out their ideas? Because they don’t want to seem incompetent at their job. So, what can leaders do right now is exactly what Richard was talking about, which is listen to understand, listen for information, not confirmation. Lean in with curiosity. What that sounds like is going up to the youngest person on your team tomorrow and saying, “Hey, I haven’t only really heard your thoughts since this has been going on. What do you think?”

I don’t care if that’s a [inaudible 00:35:45]. I don’t care if it’s the city of Roanoke and it’s the person collecting “Thank you, God” or trash every day, once a week. Go to the front lines of your company of the people who are contacting your customers who are executing and ask them what they think. Just say, “Thank you.” Don’t shut them down. Don’t say, “Oh, yeah.” And give them an explanation. Just say, “What else are you thinking?” and listen for information.

John:              I’m John Phillips and you’re listening to Business at Lunch, along with Mary Miller, Lynda McNutt-Foster and Richard Hammer. We’re talking about generating ideas at work and they’re recently published article A Leader’s Guide to Get More, Fresh, High Quality Ideas from Their Teams Right Now. We hope you’ll join in our conversation by calling in at 540-795-2510. I’m curious to ask Richard and bring Richard into the conversation. We’ve talked a lot about how to continue ideas and the creation of ideas, but as a manager, how do you assess tolerance of ideas in your culture? If you’re a manager, how would you go about doing that?

Richard:         Wow. Assess the tolerance of ideas in my culture? I’m going to try and break that down a little bit. I think ideation is a challenging topic. I think when you’re talking about ideation, I don’t know that there is such a thing as a bad idea, in truth, when you’re when you’re going through the ideation phase. In fact, I actually have an exercise I do with teams sometimes when we’re stuck, when we’re looking at a network problem or a software problem or a cloud infrastructure problem.

I say, “Okay. We’re going to put everything traditional aside here. I’ve got 10 subject matter experts in the room. I’ve got opinions and frustration because we have this connectivity issue or this routing issue or the software issue or this security issue that we can’t get around.” I’ll say, “Throw everything that we know aside.” I erased the whiteboard completely and I say, “I would like to know every bad idea you can think of.” Obviously, the first answer is, well, the only secure computer is a computer that’s not on and plugged in and has no access to it behind the safe and the world can’t operate if compute is put that way. 

Now, the least safe computer is one that’s sitting out on the internet for anybody to do anything that they want to publicly. We’re looking for ideas on how to ensure safety, configuration, integrity of data, that processes are followed for access, that all the laws and regulations are followed, but I want every idea. I want the bad ideas. I want the good ideas. I want to spawn and foster thought and communication on solving the problem forward as opposed to shooting each other down or saying, “No, that won’t work.” Or saying, “The process doesn’t work that way.”

So, when you’re really focused on ideation, you’re completely open to anything and everything being possible no matter how ridiculous or absurd it may sound because if I were to say, “Hey, let’s just hook this computer up to the Internet, and let everybody access it.” One of my engineers might come back and say, “We could set up a DMZ, allow routing, provide secondary authentication, and really get by this problem we’re having with security by setting up a jump box or gateway.” 

All of a sudden, my stupid idea has become a gateway to understanding and discovery of a possible solution that hadn’t been visible before because it didn’t trigger the brain, the cortex to solve the problem. So, that’s kind of where I go with that endeavor when there are a tolerance issues or conflict issues involved in the team.

John:              What certainly puts the —

Lynda:            I’m just going to jump in there.

John:              Go ahead, Lynda.

Lynda:            I was going to jump in there because in the article on Wednesday and in the report you’re going to be able to download Wednesday, there’s actually five specific questions. So, everything that Richard is saying, is an exact way to sort of listen to your team and see what’s happening. There’s these five questions that leaders and their teams can sort of go through on Wednesday and say things like, “How many new ideas to solve your toughest challenges have you considered in the last week? Do the consultants you use work directly with senior leaders and your teams do not just generate ideas, which is the question, but do they teach you how to generate ideas in your teams? If polled, what percentage of meetings would you your people in your organization think are a waste of time?”

Our data is showing that you can literally eliminate 50% of the time in meetings and see only good things come from it. So, if you have an hour long meeting, cut it to a half an hour. If you have a 30-minute meeting, cut it to 15 minutes. Challenge yourself over the next two weeks to cut your meetings in half time wise and see if you don’t get more engagement from the people in that team. You know what? Measure your failure tolerance. Are you measuring your failure tolerance? How many things have failed?

I can tell you in some organizations that I’ve gone into, been a part of if you’re not failing consistently, they literally think you’re not trying. They’re like, “You haven’t considered enough ideas,” Because if everything that you do is working, that means you’re not pushing the envelope of innovation because innovation is messy. It’s just messy. It doesn’t even have to be expensive, as much as it is a little messy because it’s trial, error, trial, error.  I mean Thomas Edison, what did he say? I found 1000 ways not to make a light bulb. Nobody just wakes up tomorrow — and it’s innovation. It’s trial and error and we have to have tolerance for that. So, John, you were [inaudible 00:42:09].

John:              Recently we had — go ahead, Mary.

Mary:             I was just going to say so Lynda, we work with the startup community. Sometimes startups don’t realize how — we look to big companies, and we actually think they’ve got it figured out, but we’re not looking on the inside of big companies. So, many people attended an event with W. L. Gore, we brought someone in from W. L. Gore, who was head of ideation for the company. He literally funds teams to go down a road to develop something knowing clear well that probably only 2 in 10 will actually move to a later phase, that probably 8 in 10 will fail. 

So, it’s a really interesting concept in big corporations that get it right, they understand it, but small teams, they just are afraid of failure. They don’t think they have any tolerance for it. So, embracing failure, I love hearing that. I thought it was a really good comment that we have to expect to fail. We can’t be right all the time and we have to have some tolerance for that. So, I thought that was really a good takeaway for some of our smaller companies that might be listening. 

Lynda:            I mean, the question is, is as you get bigger, are you playing to win? Are you playing not to lose? So, that’s a big thing. The bigger the corporation, the more money the executives make, the more they have to lose. So, they’re literally just playing protectionism with their ideas. They’re, “I don’t want to fail because we’re the number one. We don’t really want to push it.” If you’re a startup entrepreneur, and I’ve been one four times and I’m grateful that I sold one to an international company and every one of them have made a profit, however small sometimes. But, certainly I’ve always made more money than I could make working for somebody else at any given time, which is a success for me. 

So, with entrepreneurs, it’s interesting. I mean, you have a certain runway. So it’s like, how long can you keep that runway going so you can experiment enough until you land on something that the marketplace finds viable and valuable. So, you can sustain sort of that customer relationship, whatever that is, for a period of time while you continue to experiment. So, a lot of entrepreneurs I see spend a lot of time in planning. They have an idea, which they think is a vision, or they have a vision that they think is an idea. Then they spend these months, sometimes years, planning exactly how it’s going to be before they actually interact with the first customer. 

I know Samantha Steidel in our region has done a ton of research and I think her dissertation is somewhat about this particular topic with entrepreneurship. So, they don’t even do any customer discovery. Then they go out there, they have $100,000, or sometimes a million, and it fails miserably because there was no experimentation in the customer discovery process. 

A Leader’s Guide to Getting More, Fresh, High Quality Ideas from Their Teams

Mary:             Yes. We really do focus that customer discovery and the importance of it and so you can’t develop in a vacuum. You’ve got to engage and find out what your customers, not only what they need, but what are they willing to buy? So, sometimes people need things but they’re not willing to buy them and there therein lies the challenge in and of itself. So, this has been really fascinating. I know we’re getting close to the end, John, I’m going to hand this back to you and let you wrap up with some questions. I look forward to next Monday with Lynda. Thank you, Lynda, so much and thank you, Richard, also appreciate that. 

Lynda:            Yeah. I think we have a caller on the line.

John:              Thanks, Mary. We do. So. I’ll let Bill put the caller through and Simone is on the line from Roanoke. 

Simone:          Hi.

John:              Simone, thank you for joining us today.

Simone:          Thank you. My question is related to small teams who have had no exposure at all to ideation. How do you suggest that a safe space is created for teams especially for those teams who have maybe had processes and ideas dictated to them and they have no idea where to begin? 

Lynda:            I’m going to answer that a little bit, and then also pitch it over to Richard. What I would say is there was a phenomenon that we witnessed in our conversational mapping, which was a learned helplessness. So, if a leader is really strong in ideation and vision, they sort of come to the team with those things, and then the team gets used to., “Okay. We need to plan it. We need to execute it.” It’s like a muscle that had atrophy. So, they just rely on the one ideator in the room who is generating the ideas. So, the ideas are in depth. So, it’s kind of a learned helplessness. What do you think, Richard, from what we’re seeing from our research?

Richard:         My favorite exercise in answering the question is the team building exercises where that ideator muscle is asked to make observations only and not speak. You present the team with a complex set of tabletop exercises, or a puzzle to solve or a game to play where it requires out of box ideation and a set of hard rules in what that works. You encourage the playfulness and freedom and laughter and failure in building trust amongst the team members in that fashion. So, it doesn’t even have to be a work related problem. It can be something as simple as or as complicated as we need to get to the movie theater, how do we do that? 

As the tabletop exercise and the narrator walk through the process, you discover certain things about how to get to the movie theater, whether you have a vehicle, whether you’re wearing shoes, whether it’s snowing, and you kind of walk through the exercise to see who the thinkers are. The next important piece in that process is observing who’s participating, but not necessarily speaking up and invite and engage them softly into the process. 

The number of times, folks sit quiet and observe because they don’t feel like they’re invited to participate is shocking to me. Explicitly inviting, to lightly inviting their participation makes a huge difference, especially if it’s a safe environment where there really isn’t judgment on it being wrong.

John:              Lynda, as we move toward the close of the hour and the close the show, tell us, if you were talking to entrepreneurs, for the first time on this subject, what are some of the key things you’d like them to take away from our conversation that we’ve had today?

Lynda:            Small things really matter. The way that you engage people in a conversation and invite them in, matters. It’s the small things, rarely the big things, that are affecting your ability to creatively problem solve. Embrace failure, do not shun it. Give rewards for the best idea that failed this month and do lessons learn from it. So, have some fun, and build trust on your team and start finding fun ways to creatively problem solve. That’s what I would take away, I would have people take away.

John:              Certainly, in today’s environment, as we move through a very uncharted territory and a restless economy, ideas are more important than ever. As we all come together and find different ways to solve the problems that many of which we have not had an opportunity to be through before, but together, these ideas can help us bring together the future of our businesses and as we move into the reopening of the economy, which we hope is very soon, we’ll be able to put many of those to work. We do want to close today and say I’m John Phillips and I appreciate you for listening to Business at Lunchbrought to you by the Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Council.

Special thanks and appreciation to Lynda McNutt-Foster and Richard Hammer. Together, they are the authors of A Leader’s Guide to Getting More Fresh, High Quality Ideas from Their Teams Right Now. We truly value and appreciate our listening audience and appreciate your call in today and this concludes our show for today. We’ll return on Tuesday when we talk entrepreneurship with several technology startup companies from our region. We hope you’ll stay safe and have a successful day and I’ll turn this back to Bill.

Filed Under: Blog, Press Releases Tagged With: 1901 Group, A Leaders Guide, Blacksburg, Christiansburg, Cortex Leadershipship, Leader, Lynda McNutt Foster, North Carolina, rbtc, richard hammer, Roanoke, Survey, team

May 3, 2020 By Lynda Foster

Authors of: A Leader’s Guide to Getting More, Fresh, High Quality Ideas from Their Teams Right Now

Lynda McNutt- Foster
Founder, CEO
Cortex Leadership Consulting

Lynda McNutt Foster

Lynda McNutt Foster has been an innovator in business since 1987 when she opened her first company at only 20 years old.  

Designing new processes that became industry standards in pest control, advertising, and now the coaching industry, Lynda is a sought after executive coach, strategist, and keynote speaker.

Lynda is the CEO and founder of Cortex Leadership Consulting and was named a Business Icon by Valley Business Front magazine.  Lynda’s work has been published on forbes.com and an expert executive coach commentator on WFXR news in Southwest Virginia.  She is the founder of www.goMonti.com, an innovative coaching enhancement tool designed to increase retention and implementation of leadership practices.

Lynda is a Conversational Intelligence® certified coach and trainer.

Lynda has conducted more than 3,000 executive coaching sessions and trained more than 10,000 professionals in the areas of communication, change management, time mastery, conversational intelligence, leadership coaching, facilitation, and executive presence.  She has used the research she has gathered and analyzed from those sessions, trainings, and goMonti, to advise international coaching firms like Axialent, a firm Cortex partners with who work with clients like Amazon, Google, Proctor & Gamble, and Facebook.

Lynda is the author of two ebooks. Time Mastery: 7 Simple Steps to Richer Outcomesand 4 Keys to More Effective Leadership Behaviors. 

Lynda is the mother of a daughter much smarter than she is, a husband much kinder, and she is the CEO of Cortex Leadership.  She is a brain-focused trainer. Practical author. Slow runner. Day hiker. Enthusiastic zipliner. Pathetic speller and bowler.

Richard Hammer
Senior IT Consultant/ Data Analyst/ Enterprise Architect
Cortex Leadership Consulting
Associate Vice President, Cloud Factory
1901 Group

Richard Hammer Cortex Leadership

In his current position with 1901 Group, Richard leads a 45 person team of experienced SMEs and researches and defines industry best practices and people, process and tools approach to implement an assembly line approach to software development and migration.

Richard has over 30 years of experience in consulting, data analytics, and management of technology teams. From directing $400K to $3M initiatives, to managing over $20M in VC/equity funding, Richard understands how to achieve success and what to do when you have it. One of his greatest successes was the transition he made from advertising and marketing to a new project resulted in moving the needle on children’s’ education throughout our country. Richard’s work building Interactive Achievement allowed him to make a powerful impact and one he expects will continue with the PowerSchool organization, who recently acquired Interactive Achievement. 

With experience as an enterprise architect with organizations like NASA, AOL, Discovery Channel, and Freddie Mac, and 1901 Group Richard has led teams that consistently delivered the right innovation at the right time.

Richard has a talent of transforming low performing IT teams with his ability to synergize the worlds of technology, business, and people. 

Richard is an expert in SQL and other business analytic tools that allow him to find holes in data that others can’t and presents them to clients in a language they can understand. Combining this with his “big picture” understanding of success, it is not surprising that Richard is highly regarded as a community technology leader. 

Filed Under: Press Releases Tagged With: a leaders guide to getting more fresh high quality ideas from their teams, Lynda McNutt Foster, richard hammer, roanoke blacksburg technology council

April 29, 2020 By Lynda Foster

What’s Working at Work = The Currency of Trust – RBTC COVIDVirginia radio show

The Currency of Trust

Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Council Radio Program
“What’s working at work” with Lynda Foster
Aired on:  COVIDVA radio which can be found at COVIDVIRGINIA.com
FULL AUDIO of show can be found here:

April 20, 2020 Noon-1pm

Full transcript

John:Good afternoon. I’m John Phillips, your host, along with your co-host, Mary Miller. Thank you for joining us for the Business Lunch Show. Each day for the noon hour, we seek to talk with the leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs in the Roanoke and Blacksburg regions to learn how they are using innovative strategies and just sheer determination to navigate their way through this unique period as we together create the new economy for our future. As always, we enjoy hearing from you. Join in our conversation by calling in at 540-795-2510. Today we are kicking off the week with a thought-provoking Monday series ‘What’s working at work?” with Lynda McNutt Foster, CEO, Cortex Leadership Consulting.

Mary: It’s great to have Lynda on the show with us today. And I think a number of Mondays, there are any number of challenging questions I think that come to mind as we continue to try to help businesses move forward. And so, I know Lynda will bring some of the strategies and some questions and things to think about as we move forward in our work environment.

John:Well, the economy is a challenge every day, especially… particularly while we’re all at home. And those pressures affect us both personally and professionally. And so, Mary, go ahead and bring Lynda into the conversation.

Mary: Lynda, good afternoon. How are you?

Lynda:I’m doing very well today. Thank you. It’s Monday, a lot of rest over the weekend and hiking, so very happy this morning.

Mary:So, Lynda, I believe that many of our, our listeners may… may know who you are, but let me just do a shout out that you are the CEO of Cortex Leadership, and you have for many years brought leadership strategies and training. You work as an executive coach. I know that you work with a lot of teams. And so, I appreciate your contributions to the RBTC and for being our guest on these Monday segments as we tried to tackle. Without… without COVID-19, businesses have plenty of challenges to be as good as they can be. With COVID-19, I think there’s other stress points and things that may… we might want to consider. Can you talk a little bit about some of the changes that… and I know that, you know, having managed a lot of people over my career, change is hard for some people. So, what might some of our people who maybe change could be hard for, what might they be feeling right now?

Lynda:They’re probably a little disoriented. Like, it’s very disorienting to be doing the same structured sort of teamwork together or tasks, and then all of a sudden, everything changes overnight. And I think the real challenges is some people are familiar with working from their home or other distributed workplaces that they might be in right now. And some people aren’t at all, and they’re having to deal with multiple things happening at the same time at their home and at work. So, I would say the word is probably disorienting for a lot of people right now.

Mary:So, when we talked about this series, the term that I really like a lot you… you brought to us the currency of trust. And so, we certainly do trust that we’re all trying to do our best. But can you talk about this disorienting and some of the challenges, how… how trust plays into that across our teams? 

Lynda:Yeah, I think it’s the micro moments of communication that build trust or jeopardize it. It’s simple things in the workplace that… like returning someone’s email in a timely manner, or consistently not returning emails or calls or things like that. You know, when you were in a workplace together and you didn’t hear back from somebody, a lot of times, you could just get up, walk over and say, “Hey, what about this?” You’re sort of at the… people can really rope themselves off right now. And it could be that they’re incredibly overwhelmed. So, what I’m seeing in the workplace right now is that there really weren’t systems of communication in place before all of this happened to have a distributed workforce. So, they’re using email for conversation when email is really a space for transactional conversations, not conversations that require feedback. You know, you say something, then I say something, and based on what I said is what your next… your next statement or question is. 

So, transactional is more like, “Hey, can you get this task done? Hey, can you check this?” that sort of thing. And those transactional conversations build trust. The simple things that we agree to, in order to get a task done, and then it is being responded to in the way we agreed to – those things are what start building trust. Those simple things, you can imagine in a meeting, like it probably wasn’t that big of a deal because you had all these side conversations at work that were happening down the hall or whatever before a meeting or after a meeting. But now, it’s like the meetings themselves online need to be used to build trust so that people feel heard and understood, which is sort of the basis at work of people trusting you to, quote, ‘have their back’. It’s really those things that build or jeopardize trust.


John:Lynda, interesting you bring up the email. I think email ends up being almost habit forming for a lot of folks and they get into a routine with email. And now, we’re in a shock to the systems that have been placed at work and the kind of what the society norms are. And it takes a while to make that adjustment. How do folks make that adjustment away from it being their dependence on it, recognizing it as a more transactional medium?

Lynda:I think there’s 2 things. One is to understand that there are 3 levels of conversation that build to the highest level of trust. The first is transactional. That’s the one we’ve been talking about. Positional usually happens in a meeting. You have your point of view, I have my point of view, one of us may win or lose, whatever that is. And then the third is transformative where 1 plus 1 equals 3. 

So, in transactional conversations, which is the baseline of building trust, you have to have some rules of engagement. And so, the first thing you have to do is go, “Is email the right way for us to be communicating this, or are Google Docs a much better way to do it?” or whatever team working format that you have. So, everybody can kind of contribute to the conversation or the task list, and every person, rather than having to filter through 50 emails from all their team members and respond, they can look at this one spreadsheet or software system and go, “Okay, that’s where we’re at now. Okay, I want to comment on that particular thing.” And they can, in a couple of minutes, sort of see what’s happening, and be able to trace what’s happening with clarity. 

You have to start somewhere. We want to get rid of email, which you should. About 90% of use of emails from our tracking and research are not… you don’t need email to do it, and it’s very inefficient. You have to start with analyzing what the actual conversations are happening, and then finding a different way that’s much more efficient to have those conversations.

Mary:Lynda, let me just ask a couple of questions here. Because I think you’re right in that, even good teams are trying to grab for efficiency and trying to grab for the tools that seemed close at hand, which certainly are email, for some people, it’s texting. And I just have to… I’ll share with you. And honestly, in my… occasionally, I get texts and sometimes I send text, but I don’t keep a ding on my phone when an incoming text comes in. So, if somebody thinks that they’re going to text me and that’s going to be my top-of-mind, quickest way to get me, my text is not making a noise. So, I’ve kind of casually, at the end of the day or something, like see if I had any text. 

So, it gets back to that rules of engagement. We have Zoom. We certainly have online meetings. We have ways to connect collaboratively in visual and through audio. So, are challenged to have better transactions is that what you’re saying?  Maybe we don’t need as many emails, does that mean we need more Zoom meetings, Lynda?

Lynda:More huddles. I think you’ve asked an excellent question, Mary. Like, what you need is a lot more huddles and you need more communication about communication. Like, there needs to be more communication about how communication is going to occur with each person and on the team, and then how is it going every week, so you can do continuous improvement. So, we’re just not having enough communication about how we’re going to actually communicate, and then therefore, the communication is really poor right now.

So, yeah, you might have to jump on a Zoom call, but a huddle looks like a scrum meeting almost, right? And I’m sure you’re familiar with that, because you’re so familiar with sort of the agile workplace. You ran one, and so many of your members do. It’s to sort of, you know, huddle together for a set 10 minutes with your 5 team members, and you go around, which means you ask each person, “What did you do yesterday? What are you doing today? And what kind of obstacles can I remove so someone facilitate?” And people get very used to having that morning, quick meeting, and you have to set it for a time limit. Because team members will tire of it quickly if every time it’s supposed to be a 10-minute meeting, and an hour and a half later every day, you’re done. And if it’s an hour and a half, it’s just not facilitated properly.

So, the challenge right now is people haven’t been trained in facilitation. They aren’t communicating about their communication. Like, they weren’t ready for this. And they need to slow down the beat for a second this week and get ready for communicating and do a wrap up on, “What went well? What’s not going well?” that sort of thing. 

Mary:Wow.

John:I’m John Phillips and along with Mary Miller with you today, as you are listening to Business Lunch brought to you by the Roanoke Blacksburg Technology Council with our guest, Lynda Foster. An interesting discussion Lynda’s having about the means of communication. And, Lynda, I’ve had my share of bosses in my life and with… both with the army and then the boss for lots of folks with my own business. How do you… what’s the conversation like when you’re trying to reset that communication? And you really want to talk with your… your boss about how that communication is going, it’s often uncomfortable conversation, or is there… are there some techniques to make it more comfortable?

Lynda:For any bosses listening, you’re the one that should be initiating these conversations. For any team members that are listening whose bosses are not initiating these conversations, the thing is to just make a suggestion, “Hey, can we talk about what’s went right? What we want right to look like over the… you know, what’s went right over the last week? What kinds of behaviors have we seen in the past? What’s right going to look like next week this time if we’re where we want to be?” So, you can… you know, I would make us a respectful suggestion of, “Hey, can we just talk about talking and how that’s going at our next meeting? Or can I jump on the phone with you and talk about something I learned on a radio program?” The leadership coach the other day, you know, maybe find something that’s written about what I’m talking about. We have tons of stuff online at my website, 500 articles with all kinds of things you can pass along to your boss to start the conversation. 

John:Lynda, where… where do you go after you’ve had that conversation? And we want to make the journey through good open communications, particularly when we’re working remote and then… and what are some good ways or techniques to approach that? 

Lynda:So, let’s… let’s go to what’s working at work. I want to highlight a couple of companies and what they’re doing right. You know, a company like Omni Source (which is a division of Steel Dynamics) is using rounding. So, rounding in a meeting, you can do it… you should be doing it live. But if you haven’t yet, Zoom is perfect thing to start, is that you go, “Hey, we have about 5 minutes. Here’s the question, ‘What’s going right right now?’ Can each person… can we go around and each person take about 30 seconds to be able to tell us what that looks like?”

So, OmniSource uses rules of engagement, rounding, that structure to be able to make sure everyone’s heard. I think of a company like one that we work with called Haskell Engineering out of the Atlantic Division. The head of the division, Bela, is fantastically creative right now. So, she’s doing things to build trust, like she’s having lunch every day virtually with team members to be able to just have casual conversation, to build that sincerity element of trust, which is, “I care about you. I care about you beyond the job. You matter to me. So, I’m going to take the time to listen.” Some people are doing virtual bingo during meetings. I mean, they’re getting creative with how to have fun in these meetings, and create an engagement level that allows people to feel connected with one another. 

Mary:Lynda, you’ve got some wonderful rules of engagement. And I know I’ve had meetings where you’ve shared some of those. Could we just reflect for a second? Because you keep referring back to these rules of engagement, can you give our listeners some examples of what rules, what are you talking about If they’re not thinking of rules of engagement?

Lynda:Thank you, I think these are great questions. Foundational things that you can do in meetings or between people to make sure that everybody’s on the same path, the same ground rules, let’s say. So, if you’re doing a team meeting with rules of engagement, we have things that we suggest like we start with the desired outcome in mind. Like, are all of us on the same page? Do we all want to get to the same place? Or do we already have some disagreement there and, and need to… to talk about that first?

Another rule of engagement is to you use I-statements, and that means, “Hey, from my perspective, this is what I think is going right. What do you think is going right?” Things like remove all distractions? So, if you’re in a meeting, be in a meeting. A lot of bad meetings occur because nobody… everybody’s distracted the entire time, so the problem never needs to be solved. So, a main rule is, if you’re in a meeting, be in the meeting. If you have to leave the meeting, then actually leave the meeting. But don’t act like you’re in a meeting and then you’re not actually in a meeting. 

Always leave the meeting with clearly defined next steps is another rule. So, does everybody leave a meeting know what’s expected of them next? And how will they be held accountable for that? And our main rule of engagement is remain curious. So, especially when you don’t disagree… especially when you disagree with someone, you remained curious and say, “Hey, what… I don’t know everything. I’m listening for… for information, not confirmation.” So, those are some principled rules of engagement. 

Some other rules of engagement that are basic or be on time, be on time. If the meeting starts at 12:00, then either 12:00, not 12:05, not 12:10, but 12:00. So, you can do some tactical things, but you can also do some rules of engagement for principals, right?


John:Are there companies out there that do this exceptionally well, Lynda, that you might use as a good example? Or when you’ve taught some of your classes, what are some good examples of how folks use this?

Lynda:Yes, I mean, we really teach them in every single group session and workshop that we do. And the ones that are doing it right, what works is that they create those rules of engagement. There can’t be too many and too long, but they go around at the beginning of any meeting that lasts more than 30 minutes. And they have each person agree to the rules and then commit to them.

 And so, when it’s working right, any of the companies that we’re working with right now aren’t putting them on a wall, aren’t putting in in the middle of the table and hoping people read it every time, but really going around the room each time and making sure that everyone’s fully committed to those rules. Because they don’t mean anything if they’re allowed to be broken. And the leader is setting… whoever’s leading that meeting is holding the person accountable. If they take out their phone, and you know, a couple of times and are just completely distracted, then the person leading the meeting is going to say, “Hey, John, do you… it looks like you need to take care of something. No problem if you want to take care of it. You know, just go ahead and step out.” So, you respectfully hold people accountable to the rules, because if you don’t hold anybody accountable, right, trust.

Mary:Maybe if we want to tighten up or Zoom meetings, what might be a couple of guidance points you’d like to share? 

Lynda:Yeah, I would say, you know, everything that you do now, in today’s distributed workforce has to be intentional. So, having an agenda for what’s going to happen on that Zoom meeting so that people can feel prepared. Second, making it… it’s a meeting like you would in person. You don’t show up and stand on the other side of the wall outside of the meeting and scream through the wall. So, everyone needs to have a camera on. That’s a… it’s a level of accountability, but it’s also a level of connectiveness. 

A rule on Zoom is mute yourself, unless you’re called on or you have something to say. So, learn… learn the platform. I don’t care if it’s WebEx or Microsoft Teams or Zoom, don’t just try to jump on the platform and go, “Wait, let me figure this out,” be professional. Learn how to use it, watch a YouTube video, play with it and then get on a meeting. A lot of people are not getting jobs right now because they don’t even know how to use basic video conferencing. 

So, this is your professional brand. So, I think a big rule for the leaders and the team members is to go, “You’re showing your executive brand right now. Do you know how to use digital technology in a digital world right now? Do you have the basic grasp of it? Do you know how to communicate through these things with, you know, listening for con… information instead of confirmation? So, are you asking good questions? Are you fully engaged in the meeting?”

Definitely take a break. You know, so an hour-long, 2-hour long meeting on Zoom is this tiresome is as a 2-hour meeting in person. So, set in brakes to your agenda. We do that all the time now in our virtual sessions and strategy sessions and trainings where clients will say, “Okay, at 11 o’clock, we’re going to take a break.” And they know ahead of time 11:00 to 11:05. And we just let them get up. You know, instead of them having to step out during the meeting, they know when they can step out. Have people turn off their camera and audio if they have to step out. You know, those type of rules help. 

Mary:Yeah, those are really helped… yeah, they’re really helpful. Personally, one of the things that is difficult is when people… and I know we’re all working from home, some people are finding the place to sit with maybe a lot of light at their back, and they don’t realize that they come across the camera really dark because the light behind him is so bright, they’re backlit. And so, they’ve got a lot of light coming in. So, sitting in front of a set of open windows makes it difficult for other people to see your face as you’re trying to share your ideas. And I think seeing our faces or… I feel, like you do, it’s really critical as we’re listening to one another at this distance that seeing people face to face can be very helpful. I know that talking about breaks, I know John’s going to get jumped in and take… we take a bottom-of-the-hour break. John, can I pass this back to you?

John:Absolutely. I’m curious, before we go to break, Lynda, what are some of the other topics you want to make sure we accomplish today?

Lynda:I think it’s important to talk about what’s breaking down in communication. And I love Mary’s framework of do’s and don’ts and basic communication that hasn’t changed in a distributed workforce versus an in-person one So that’s…

John:That’s true.

Lynda:That’s a great framework to talk about, “How do you build trust? How don’t you? And how do you communicate? How don’t you?” those types of things? 

John:Well, thank you. I’m John Phillips along with Mary Miller. And today, you’re listening to Business Lunch brought to you by the Roanoke Blacksburg Technology Council with our guests, Lynda Foster. And we’ll be back here right after the news. I’ll turn it over to Bill with the news desk. 

Lynda, we appreciate you continuing our conversation. I’m John Phillips, along with Mary Miller with you today listening to Business Lunch, brought to you by the Roanoke Blacksburg Technology Council with our guest, Lynda Foster. If you would like to join us and direct us with some questions at 540-795-2510. Lynda, we’ve been talking about communication and certainly being deliberate in our communication. And you have a tremendous history of coaching and working with folks. So, there’s a lot of folks that think of coaches probably more on the football field than in the corporate office. But when you’re approaching working with a coach, or you as a coach are working with executives and teaching them how to be deliberate in communications, how do you go about doing that? As a coach, how do you work with an executive?

Lynda:So, I… yeah, that’s a great question. I think the first thing I do is sort of see what their self-awareness is about their behavioral styles, what motivates them? What are their values at home and at work? You know, how much in alignment with those things they know about themselves is their current work environment? Where do they want to go? So, where is the ship headed? What’s their desired outcome? Why are they doing what they’re doing? So, that’s the first thing I kind of work with anybody with is, especially CEOs to make sure that they have a real clear vision and foundation of why they’re doing what they’re doing and what they can see in the future. Because if they don’t do that, their communication is not going to be clear, right? So, any communication starts with that. 

Then we kind of evaluate the team members. And when I say evaluate, I don’t know if that’s the best word to use, as much as we scan the landscape of the… their teams and who they’re working with. What are the strengths, the weaknesses, experiences that lead to what potential the team might have? So, I designed this sort of method years ago of measuring potential, and it’s your… it’s the sum of your skills, your behaviors, and your resources.

So, I also asked questions I was like, “What are your resources? So, you want to get there, what… what resources…?” I don’t just mean in capital. That’s a big mistake most people make is they look at their bank account, and that’s what their resources are. But assessing the people around you, and most importantly, the relationships that you’ve built, are probably the biggest resource that you have. I think it’s been said that Disney went bankrupt 7 times or something in different projects. But each time, he listened something and built in a new relationship through that. And so, those people were willing to go into the next center with them. 

So, it’s really a self-evaluation then who is around you, and then measuring sort of what your impact is from a communication leadership brand is. So, how credible are you to other people? And are… are you able to measure that? And so, we try to figure out ways to measure that in… in conversation terms. Yes, maybe some surveys, but also like where the leader can ask the person questions about how they’re impacting them, not just, “Am I impacting new 0 to 10?” but, “Okay, if you give me a 5, tell me more about that. Give me an example of how I… how you felt when I did that. Can you tell me what you think right would look like if I did it properly with you?” So, it’s… those are sort of the baseline things that helped set the foundation for good, clear communication and development of a leader or team member.

John:It’s interesting when we think about that, all of us are very comfortable in a positive conversation, like some of the negative conversations come from that too. And both an employee and the employer or the boss, the worker has got to be comfortable with having or receiving negative information. How do you coach along those executives to make sure they understand how to receive negative information, but maybe turn it into a positive manner?

Lynda:You know, I think that’s a great question and perspective to come to this with, is leaders who are proactive versus reactive are going to take the information as a data point. Because here’s why I think it’s… negative or positive is actually an extremely subjective way of looking at something. 

Mary:Right.

Lynda:If a leader can simply take the information in and it’s a data point, “Well, that’s interesting. So, Mary thinks this when I do that. What does John think? Mary is very put off by that. Golly ned, John thinks I’m the best leader in the world because I do that. Sam over here lands on him that way. So, and so.” And you start collecting data, not to sort of homogenize your communication down to the most politically, quote, ‘correct’ way of doing it so you’re not actually saying anything, but to receive information in a way that is… you don’t take it personal, whether it’s positive or negative. “Wow, Lynda, I thought your speech was great! Wow, Lynda, I thought it was terrible!” You know, more than being awesome, give me a reason why it landed on you that way today.  And that’s the same question for… to each person. Because now, it’s… now, it’s about them, and it’s not about me. And so, I think that’s what’s most important in that feedback exchange is going, “These are very subjective. Active pieces of data and information that are situational and personal to the person giving you the feedback.”

Mary:So, Lynda, I’m going to follow up on that a little bit. But I also want to… as we talk today, (and I like listening to you talk), I am listening for a nugget that I’m going to take away and continue, because I think most of us want to be better, better, better, but how do we become the better? How do we… how do we improve even under these situations? And last Monday, you shared something with me that I have to tell you, I reflected on all during the week when you were on the radio. You said that most people are well-intended. 

And so, that little piece of nugget that I just kind of hung on to, and as I read emails and tried to deal with the communications that were coming my way and perhaps some of the issues coming my way. And I think that it’s an easy time for us without… I liked having the filter that I kept saying to myself, “Most people are well intended. And so, if I’m kind of… if that’s hitting me wrong right now, that could be for a lot of reasons. What I really want to believe is that this communication is well intended, and how can I better respond to it?”

And so, I do… I do appreciate that from last week. And as I’m thinking about some of what you just covered, the reality is we’re talking about how to be better communicators. And it’s impossible for us to think about that without thinking about the added burden right now of… or our new opportunities we have working remotely. And so, I really do appreciate some of your thoughts right now on how to even think about the situation of whether or not that was negative or positive, it was just a data point. 

And so, what we have to do is dig into that data point a little… learn a little bit More and see how we can, that may be what you’re talking about, breaking down our communication to look at a little bit, and why the big sense of breaking down communication can happen so easily, especially at a distance if we can’t follow up with the data that we need. Maybe you could address that.

John:Mary, I think we have a caller on line. Let’s see if we have David who is on the line with a question. 

David:I haven’t heard your program before, so this is new to me. You may have covered this, but one of the challenges that I’m looking at is continuing to build a business in a remote setting, trying to get to know people and build this trust relationship with people you don’t know as potential prospect for the business.

John:Since we all work remotely, we certainly are challenged with how to build those relationships and how to network, but… which is fundamental to a business. 

Lynda:Yeah, I think… I think that… thank you, David for the question, because I think a lot of people are trying to build a business right now, and they’ve been thrown into this sort of remote distributed workforce and distributed clients. You know, a lot of people used to have a lot of interactions with their customers and their clients, and they would pick up on their tone and their body language, or they would see them and that would give them affirmation. And right now, those affirmation touch points aren’t really there. So, you have to be intentional about creating them. 

And so, it’s im… it’s important to intentionally schedule those touch points to build those relationships, even if they’re just for a few minutes. So, to just pick up the phone and serendipitously call someone and say, “Hey, I just… just want to check on you see… see how are you we’re doing through all this. You know, I just have really been thinking about you.” That element of sincerity trust can be important in motivating and engaging people that you have your back, they have… you have their back, that they… that they can trust you. And they’re much more motivated and engaged to do business with you when they think that you care about them, and not just about your business or getting your goal met. Taking time to ask your team members in your clients, what are their goals? What are their desired outcomes? Where… where do they want to be when this is over? Where do they want to be at the end of the year? And just empathetically listening to get information from them that will help you support them through this. And each person is going to give you different information. So…

David:We’re also trying to think about how… how do we touch base with people that we don’t know yet but that are potential prospects for the business.

Lynda:Yeah. I think that this… you know, for the last 5 years, I’ve been telling people to start their LinkedIn account, because it’s really hard to create a network of people at the last minute. And, you know, people will not be on LinkedIn, and then they suddenly lose their job. I think LinkedIn for business is the most powerful tool that I am seeing right now, people who have created their network of people. If you haven’t created your network of people, most influencers I know… in fact, I think all Fortune 500 CEOs are on LinkedIn. 

And so, if it’s a business to business that if you want to use other social media sites, like Tik Tok, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, to sort of start creating. And start with one-on-one conversations on these social mediums. Like, just reach out to 1 person and in message, “How are you doing? Like, do you have any needs right now?” and start a conversation with them. 

People right now are actually very open to having conversations in messaged on social media, because they’re sort of longing for those connections. As long as you’re not pushing sales with them and you’re starting conversations, they’re very open. I know most of my posts are getting 2500 views apiece right now. And they used to before this when everybody was sort of distracted and not on it as much, maybe 500 to 1000. So, they’re there. That’s the way to network right now. 

John:Folks are definitely looking for connection, and they’re looking for the opportunities right now to bring in expertise and help much, much more important probably than sales that touching base with folks and then being able to build that relationship. Lynda, do you see that those techniques on… that we do normally, how do you… how you transfer them over into the digital world? We do pretty well with LinkedIn and, but also, you know, the Blacksburg Technology Council, we’ve been trying to have multiple events and… and really get folks… get folks a chance to interact.

I know, it’s been very popular… we haven’t tried it yet, we’re going to, but it’s been very popular to do some of the after-hours events and try to do them in a networking style. Have you attended one of those or have some advice in that direction? 

Lynda:Yeah. I haven’t attended one of those. But knowing the video conferencing mediums the way that I do, what’s really cool, for instance, what Zoom is popular right now, is that you can have 50 people on a call and then you… a lot of people don’t do this, but it’s very easy to break up them into rooms. And then what would be super fun is to, you know, to break them up into like 5 groups and each person… each of them are facilitated to have people talk. But then you could take those 50 people and set up 25 rooms and arbitrarily Just put them into rooms together and maybe, you know, have them do something like, “You know, what’s your name? What company are you with? Why are you here? And what’s something you’d love to learn about out the other person?” you know, and have that exchange happen and then switch and then switch and then switch. 

So, the tools are very sophisticated right now on a way to be able to do mass meetings and still have that one-on-one contact, I would say, the way I build my business is to do very small group meetings and reach out to 5 people and say, “Hey, do you have time at 8:00 AM Friday morning to get together? I would like to, you know, just to… I’d like to introduce you to a few of my friends. And… and I think you guys have some things in common about business, and I’d like to talk about this topic.”

 So, it’s… it’s really your imagination right now (not the limit of your technology) to bring anything, and sometimes even better, to… you know, at networking events, people tend to click together. You know, here you can almost, you know, force that interaction.

John:Well, I’m John Phillips, along with Mary Miller with you today as you’re listening to Business Lunch, brought to you by the Roanoke Blacksburg Technology Council with our guests, Lynda Foster. And we appreciate those that will call in. And you can reach us at 540-795-2510. And I would… I know that Mary participated last week in an event where some of these different programs were introduced and talked about with regards to networking in a digital manner. Mary, did you pick up any good tips from that interaction.?

Mary:What Lynda said is true right now. I think there are people who actually have some time that they’re willing to contribute to this kind of new interaction, where they’re willing to meet new people, share new ideas. And it’s a special kind of time where the distance, I’m not thinking of driving somewhere, I don’t need to drive in my car across the region in order to connect. And so, our networks, we have an ability right now to connect in a different way. 

And I know the gentleman, David, called in about trying to build his network and market, even last week I had a great interaction with someone who literally ultimately has a sales… a product he would like to sell to me. Under normal conditions, I don’t think I would have ever seen him. We had a Zoom call. I looked at his New York apartment. He told me how things were going there. We kind of connected in regard to how we were both doing, which in the… in the normal world, we act as if we don’t even have time for that. 

So, I found it rather refreshing that I have had a chance, I’ve been in some of these chat rooms, Lynda, that you discussed, put into a room, asked to discuss topic. And then on the timer, the rooms switch or you come back and you kind of report out. So, I think there are some possibilities that we can remain curious, learn some new things, meet some new people, and build a different kind of network than some of us are normally accustomed to. Our region is diverse and our world is big. And so, there’s a lot of opportunity for us to connect in that regard. 

John:So, you’re listening to Business Lunch, brought to you by the Roanoke Blacksburg Technology Council with our guests, Lynda Foster. And feel free to join us at 540-795-2510 as we explore communication in the workplace, particularly communication in a digital workplace while we’re all finding our way in through this together. And but we’re separate in our homes, but maybe together in the experience. Lynda, what… what ideas do you have to encourage people on working in this environment?

Lynda:You know, I think of be patient that everybody has different level of skills and the stuff right now. So, being generous. You know, people, you know, certainly be generous and do things like clean out your closet and deliver it to the rescue mission or goodwill. You know, generously give what you can right now for all of those who are less fortunate than us in our community, or you in the community? And so, I think it’s this generosity of heart though too, generosity of patience, generosity of assuming other people’s good intentions. I think those things are critical. 

You know, I also want to say that we need to ask for what we need from other people instead of playing this guessing game of ‘should’s and ‘shoulding’ all over people, “They should know that that’s offensive. They should know that that’s disrespectful. They should know that they shouldn’t have done that to me.” Ask for what you need, get a commitment from them, and then if they don’t do it, then you can sort of circle back around and go, “Hey, you committed to doing this. Did something come up? Did something happen,” whatever that is. 

And mostly, don’t assume you know what someone else is thinking. I’ve had some situations recently where I had this really young team assume that they knew what their boss was thinking. And I almost laughed a little. It was fun, because when they told me what it was, I said, “That’s not at all what that person was thinking. You’re not even close.” Like, you were thinking they were judging you for what you were saying, and they were actually internally going, “I should have done that better. Like, yeah, maybe what can I do to make this better?” Like, they were internalizing it as their leader to see what they could do better. They weren’t judging their comments at all. But because on Zoom, it just looked like the person was emotionless, they assumed that that was negative, when in fact, it was extremely, quote, ‘positive’ towards them and positive towards developing. 

So, ask for what… do ask for what you need. And don’t assume what other people are thinking. Ask them what they’re thinking, “What are you thinking now? What are you thinking now? What are you thinking now?” so you can get an algorithm for how they digest things, you know? 

Mary:Yeah. So, Lynda, I really liked that. And I know we don’t have a lot of time left today. Can I ask you, one of… one of the things that you shared with us last time, and I want to circle around to a topic, because I just like the way it’s worded, is how do we think at our highest level during a crisis? So, it’s kind of like, “I want to be the best I can be during this time.” So, thinking at your highest level during a crisis, what is some guidance, or what can you share to the individual who’s out there listening today that really wants to be contributing their very best?


Lynda:I think systems thinking. So, there was a book written by an MIT professor called ‘The Fifth Discipline’. And it was all about systems thinking, which is sort of this, when I push on this place, when I don’t return this email, or I don’t return… when I don’t do something I’ve committed to in a task orientation, how does that affect the system? Right? It wasn’t just that I didn’t do this, it could have been that I didn’t do a commitment, and therefore, I jeopardize trust. 

To be able to think at that level almost globally and your interactions and your decisions, you have to really know when you’re under anxiety, and most people don’t. Like, be able to go, “Oh my gosh, I’m in fight, flight, freeze or appease right now, which means I’m not at my highest level, I’m in a very foundational level,” and then learn techniques to move you in to a higher level thinking to remove that anxiety, to make… we’re always under anxiety, it keeps… our brain’s job is to keep us safe. But to be able to use it to almost fuel us.

John:Lynda, we’re fortunate to have Kimberly calling in from Roanoke with a question. Kimberly, how are you today? And what can we answer for you? 

Kimberly:Thank you, John and Mary. I love this talk about trust, and I heard about the team and the leader to the team and that leader to the client. What happens or what do you do when team members don’t trust each other? How do you facilitate that remotely? 

Lynda:That’s an… that’s an excellent question. You know, it’s probably that you need to set up a system to always be building trust, and also flushing out conflicts. So, you really… so, conflicts reduce productivity. So, there’s a real dollar figure to conflicts between team members and team members not trusting. So, if you can set up some interactions that actually build trust with each other, you know, virtual lunches can do that. The more I know about you as a human being, the less I can objectify you, which means just say, “Oh, you know, she’s just like that,” or, “I just don’t like her.” It’s I know you have 2 kids and that your husband has this and that you guys vacation there, and who your mother was and how you grew up and things like that, it helps me see you as a human being. 

And I think that’s the biggest challenge right now is to maintain those types of sincere interactions that build trust by going, “You know, wait, this is a human being I’m dealing with.” And also using a system of conflict resolution where you ask people to get together, and maybe the boss facilitated by saying, “Hey, what… what’s right going to look like in this situation? What do you think? What do you think?” and ask each person. And then, “What do you think we need to start, stop, and continue doing? Hey, team member A, what do you think you need to start stop and continue doing to get to that desired outcome and what right looks like? Hey, team member B, what do you need to start, stop, and continue doing?” And that’s a very simple conflict-resolution tool that you… it’s actually magic. 

Like, I have watched it. So, we had… we had 2 team members one time on a team that we’re literally not talking to each other, and they’re on the leadership team so it’s quite a problem. And it’s been going on for 2 years. And we sat down, got them together, and used that… really, that basic tool. And… and they started realizing how much they were alike and how they both wanted to get to the same outcome. And they both took responsibility for things they could do to make it better. And I’m not even kidding, this isn’t like hypothetical, like these 2 people are now managing through a difficult crisis at a healthcare facility, as leaders, working collaboratively and co-creating results at that organization.

John:Lynda, you’ve done a great job of walking us through this today. How can people learn more about this subject? What… what are some references or areas you would suggest? 

Lynda:I have about 500 articles about these types of topics at www.cortexleadership.com. I’m on LinkedIn posting almost every day about topics of this nature. I have about 300 television appearances that I’ve done on these types of things that you can find on our YouTube channel at Cortex Leadership. So, this isn’t a commercial, but as much as I’ve interviewed the author of ‘Conversational Intelligence’, which is all about the neuroscience of trust, Judith Glaser, when I was in New York with her. So, just a lot of resources out there, and those resources point you to other ones. 

John:So, Judith Glaser, would she be one of your favorite authors on the topic or what would be some others that you have? 

Lynda:By far, by far. Judith Glaser took a lot of the trust work, did scientific research on neuroscience and pulled it together to give leaders the simple map for how to build trust, how… what jeopardizes it, and how to mend it when it’s broken. John:You’ve been listening to Business Lunch, brought to you by the Roanoke Blacksburg Technology Council with our guest, Lynda Foster. We appreciate your time today and advice. Thanks to 

Filed Under: Blog, Press Releases Tagged With: Cortex Leadership, cover virginia, Lynda McNutt Foster, mary miller, radio, the currency of trust

January 7, 2019 By Lynda Foster

Scot Thomas Chooses Cortex

Leadership Associate

Scot Thomas, Cortex Leadership

Scot Thomas has chosen the Cortex Team to work with as a Leadership Associate.

Scot Thomas is certified in DISC and will be leading the continued expansion of Cortex organization in the New River Valley region while working with other consultants and coaches on the Cortex team to help organizations realize their leadership and team potential.

For 23 years Scot Thomas was the head softball coach at Virginia Tech. Scot was the chief architect for designing the program when it started in 1995 which pioneered more women’s sports at the University and fulfilled the school’s Title IX.  He proudly led the Hokies softball program to 8 NCAA regional appearances, 8 conference tournament championship appearances and in 2008 to the Women’s College World Series. Under Scot’s leadership and coaching the Hokies would be considered a team of national prominence.

Scot was named the VA State Coach of the Year 6 times, NCAA Regional Coaching Staff of the Year 5 times and twice named Conference Coach of the Year in the Atlantic 10 and Atlantic Coast Conferences.

A veteran of the United States Naval Reserves, Scot has a passionate interest in community involvement working with the American Heart Association, Help Save the Next Girl, The Aware Foundation, hurricane and flood relief, and Hogs4Hokies. He has two kids, Andrew (21) and Liza (17), that are both musically inclined and often sing alongside their Dad who plays guitar and mandolin. He is an avid sports fan, loves to play golf, hunt, fish and is a proud Harley-Davidson enthusiast.

Filed Under: Press Releases Tagged With: Associate, Blacksburg, Christiansburg, Cortex Leadership, Leadership Consulting, New River Valley, Scot Thomas, Southwest Virginia

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