John Maxwell once said, “A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” But exactly how do we train our leaders to do just that? Bestselling author, noted speaker, and leadership expert Marcia Daszko sits down with Rob and talks about her book, PIVOT DISRUPT TRANSFORM, How Leaders Beat the Odds and Survive. Lots of leadership tips in this Pocket Sized Pep Talk!
Originally Published: January 16, 2023
Episode Notes
In this Pocket Sized Pep Talk, you’ll learn:
- How Marcia’s approach is different than other leadership books.
- What it means to pivot?
- Why do some leaders do it and others don’t!
- How her book was put together and how that benefits the reader.
- Some of the traits many leaders are missing today.
- How can leaders pivot.
- What are some foundational strategies that leaders are missing today.
To learn more about this guest:
mdaszko.com
Rob Jolles (00:00):
John Maxwell once said, A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way and shows the way. But exactly how do we train our leaders to do just that? Let’s have ourselves in pocket size pep talk because the odds are against most leaders. And today’s guest is here to help you beat those odds.
Intro (00:22):
A pocket size pep talk, the podcast that can help energize your business and your life with a quick inspiring message. Now, here’s your host, Rob Jolles.
Rob Jolles (00:34):
Marsha Dako has been a strategic catalyst for transformative change in innovation for more than 25 years, working with local and global executive teams. She’s been a trusted advisor and guide for navigating both crisis and rapid growth, a leading authority on pivoting leadership thinking in action. She’s the bestselling author of Pivot, disrupt, transform, a noted speaker, and an B, a professor on leadership. And I’m glad she’s with us. Happy to have you on the show today, Marsha.
Marcia Daszko (01:05):
Thanks so much, Rob. I’m happy to be here.
Rob Jolles (01:08):
Yeah. Well, Marsha and I spent a little time at an author’s retreat where we planned our action, so it’s really is a pleasure to finally get you to sit down with me. So let’s just start with this title of yours. Not exactly passive pivot. Disrupt, transform How Leaders Beat the Odds or And Survive. Now, every book has a story, so this is a double loaded question. I want to hear how the book found you, and then I want to hear how that title found you.
Marcia Daszko (01:37):
Over the years that I’ve been consulting, I’ve been observing so many boards and leaders and executive teams and their staffs struggle, flounder, fail, and I go into organizations, sometimes they’re near bankruptcy, and the owner or president might call and say, we’ve got all these problems, can you help? And it’s like I shrug and I, I’m know, I have to take a look. But what happens is when I go in and talk to people and assess and look through my lens of I’ve got a theoretical foundation of leadership and management, when I look through that lens, most of the time what I see is 50 to 80% of waste, complexity, fear, dysfunctional behaviors, you know, name it everything you want to put in a garbage bag and schlep out. And the thing is, they don’t need to be floundering like that. And so I want them to stop. So that’s why I wrote the book. There is a different way, a better way, a bolder way, an innovative way for leaders to let go of management fads, best practices, buzzwords and flashy trends. And if they let go of those, then they can pivot their thinking and actions and through the, it takes a lot of learning. Transformation is hard, and it means learning new ways, beliefs, assumptions practices, tools in order to get on a path where they can wildly progress, improve, innovate, succeed, collaborate, all of the great things and have fun.
Rob Jolles (03:46):
Right, right. It’s interesting you say that it, it’s to me I, I’m sort of trying to go back and figure out what causes these leaders to sort of misfire. And I’m thinking as a trainer, how many leaders aren’t really trained as leaders. They moved a widget faster than anyone else could move a widget. And somebody said, now you’re a leader now. Now you’re going to manage these people and you’re going to lead these people. And really they were able to do their job well. But that’s a completely different set of skills then leading.
Marcia Daszko (04:21):
So there’s a difference too, of managing, creating, and designing and managing to optimize and transform a system. And there’s leading and inspiring people, not motivating them, but inspiring people and those things. Both of those are not well taught. I periodically teach M B A classes when I have time on developing leadership. And some of my students have said, Marsha, why is this my last class? And I’m just learning these concepts now. Systems thinking, statistical thinking, theory of knowledge, theory of psychology, communication theory. Why are we getting one class at the end of our M B A program where really these concepts should be taught from when children are little all the way through grade school, through high school and beyond.
Rob Jolles (05:23):
Yeah. Yeah. Because it’s not exactly instinctive, but I got to back you up for a second because you said something really interesting that made me stop when you said not motivating, inspiring. So you’ve drawn a line between the two. Yes. Spell that out for me a little bit more. That’s interesting.
Marcia Daszko (05:39):
Okay. So in fact, a few months ago, I was speaking to 500 executive women and I asked them, how many of you feel that it’s important to motivate your peers, your teams, your colleagues? And almost all the hands went up. And then I said, stop. That is not the role of leadership. That is not your job. Your job is to create an environment, create the workplace where people want to come and they are, they can contribute, they can share ideas, they can learn and work together to improve the products and services to serve the customer. That is a huge difference because many leaders think, oh, I need to motivate my employees. Most often they demotivate their employees and they put many practices and the best practices and fads in place that demotivate when their real job as a leader is to create the environment where people are self-motivated, excited to come to work and contribute.
Rob Jolles (06:57):
Okay, got it. That, so why I can’t motivate them, but I’m allowed to inspire them. They be inspired on their own when they get there or how come I’m allowed to inspire and not motivate? Sorry to be hanging on to this, but it’s a selfish question, Marsha, because I always sort of run the two together and we’ll tell clients, I will inform, entertain, I inspire, and I will motivate. And all of a sudden you cut one wheel out of out of my spoke there. So <laugh> just there. I’m allowed to inspire, but I’m not allowed to motivate. Now, don’t get off this, I promise.
Marcia Daszko (07:30):
<laugh> inspire it. I love it. So when I inspire, I might inspire by my question or by a story or by an observation that I share that might be inspirational because they will find a link, they’ll find that connection that for them is inspirational. We might have a conversation and based on our conversation, you inspire me to take an action to change my focus, to get a new perspective. So I’m not telling people what to think or do or shift, but because I was triggered by something like inspirational that you said or you shared it, it made me think I have a possibility I can go forward into my future with a new chase opportunity or experiment with something.
Rob Jolles (08:40):
Okay. All right. I’m going to let you off the hook. I got it now. Okay. And I think it’s interesting that you draw that line. I’ve actually never heard anybody do that before. And if I had a little more time, I googled both of them, but I, I’m getting the line now and that helps me. So it’s a leadership book, and yet I run this program a meetup sometimes where I help people who are in career transitions and I put ’em in different areas. I get more people packed into that leadership area. There’s a lot of them. So to me it’s almost like I call it a sea of sameness. And yet you’ve written this book. Tell me what makes this book different than another leadership book. I might pick up
Marcia Daszko (09:27):
So many of leadership books grab a bunch of characteristics or principles, and they’re the old traditional thinking. There’s not many books that challenge and question and say No, all of those bads and best practices, no, stop. Those are the things that are making you and your organization struggle and flounder. And so get rid of that thinking. The issue is, for example, there’s a startup company for example. So the startup gets 10 or 20 employees and says, oh, now we need to hire an HR manager. HR manager comes in and says, oh, now, and they bring their quote knowledge about hr, which might include performance appraisals, performance management setting, arbitrary numerical goals and targets, and people have to meet those. And if they don’t, then put ’em on a pip performance improvement, improvement planner or something like that. Those are all destructive demotivating. And the thing is, people can fill their organizations with those practices and they will implode. They destroy their organization, their culture, their collaboration, the teamwork, the communication. They will instill fear and barriers to people working together. One time I asked a group of a couple hundred CEOs, I said how many fears do you think you have in your organization? And they talked together and said, oh, five or six. And I challenged them and I said, you need to start discovering, you probably have more than a hundred. But also they, they’re thinking about oh, that point that we were just talking about I asked them about
(11:53)
How many of you have the values in your organization such as teamwork and collaboration. Those are common values in any organization. And most of the hands went up. And I said, okay, how many of you have performance appraisals where you judge, criticize, blame, rank, and rate your people? And about maybe 70, 80% of the hands went up. Not everybody does performance appraisals. I said, okay. So on one hand you want people to collaborate and work as a team, and then you are creating, you have this tool where you pit people against each other and you make them. So you’re creating internal competition. And then on top of you, on top of it, you link that to the compensation system. So people are fighting for only so much money in the pot and even maybe so many bonuses or incentives or whatever that they’re trying to meet the quota.
(13:08)
So the thing is today with leaders too many are not thinking. They get the position, they get the title, they start the job, and they go in autopilot. What did they learn before? What’s out there that other people are doing? That’s not the way to lead an organization. That’s not the way to create the system and optimize it, transform it, and serve their customers. They need to question all of those things. And that is why the book is different. Got it. Because especially in the first third of the book, I talk about what to stop doing, and there are probably at least 7, 8, 9, 10 examples of these are the things you have to let go of. And if you do, you can then experience flow. And that’s what we want in our organization, workflow, communication flow, information flow, because we a leader really is if they have a foundation of, I say three strategies, they can look at this three-legged stool as quality as a business strategy, continual improvement as a business strategy and innovation as a business strategy. And if they are always working, those three, they’ve got a solid foundation.
Rob Jolles (14:43):
And I like the way you’ve got it into the three legs that that’s the process piece I’m always looking for. And there’s where we also by way line up as a trainer obviously I want to inspire, but if all I’m there to do is inspire, people are wasting their time with me. That’s kind of the easy part. The hard part is doing what you just did, which is putting a stool out there with three legs, which is saying, I’ve got something that is repeatable and predictable. Now you’re going to stylize it and we’re going to shape the shot. We were talking before we went on the air about golf. We’re going to run a fundamental swing, but we’re going to adjust based on conditions in fairway. We’ll do the same. But I always appreciate a process because then we have a way of measuring what we’re doing. And as they say, when you can measure it, you can fix it. And that gets us out of, well.
Marcia Daszko (15:36):
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
Rob Jolles (15:37):
Whoa, whoa, whoa,
Marcia Daszko (15:38):
Whoa, whoa.
Rob Jolles (15:39):
<laugh>. Yeah, put the whoa on me. All right.
Marcia Daszko (15:43):
Yeah. I might want to stop you when you just said, when we can measure it, we can fix it. Why do you believe that?
Rob Jolles (15:53):
Oh, because when I can’t measure something that I’m doing, when I have no measurement system I don’t really have an accurate way of assessing whether something even needs fixing. Maybe whatever I’m looking at is an anomaly. Maybe I’m in a bad mood, maybe I had a rough customer. Now, when I throw out things like that, I can’t say so across the board in every situation, but in the world of sales, in the world of persuasion, influence, even in the world of training I try and measure as much as I can through a process because I actually frequently don’t. I care whether it’s successful or not, but I care more whether I can make an accurate reading on whether it’s successful or not. And I think too often, if can give you an example, people in training will say at the end, I want you to have a greater appreciation for how to do X, Y, Z will measure it.
(16:52)
How do you know whether they at the end, are they’re going to just nod their heads and go feel? No. At the end, you’re going to have, you’ll be able to, you utilize three different skills, four different mindsets you’ll be able to do. And at the end, they can either do it or they can’t. That helps me assess what I need to do more or less. So yeah, I buckle down on trying to measure as much as I can. There’s certain things I can’t measure, can’t measure trust, for instance. But many of the skills that I at least teach, I try and process. So I’m always hunting ’em down when I’m talking to other authors that help.
Marcia Daszko (17:28):
Yes, I would. I think you and I could have a really long deep conversation about measures.
Rob Jolles (17:34):
Well, let’s have a short shallow one. <laugh>. Give me, hold on there, folks. This is good. Just give me 60 seconds back. I’m not fighting you on this. I I’d love to hear your thoughts on it. Yeah.
Marcia Daszko (17:46):
Okay. One of my mentors, Dr. Debbie Deming, has been
Rob Jolles (17:51):
mentor already. I’m feeling a little overwhelmed, but keep going.
Marcia Daszko (17:56):
Okay. One of his quotes is, the most important measures are unknown and unknowable. So when you talk about optimization of the system, things that you need in your organization, things you need from leadership, communication, kindness, empathy teamwork I could go on and on with the adjectives. The most important things, sometimes even quality we can’t measure. Now, there are qualitative measures, there are quantitative measures, and with processes especially, we can measure many. And it’s helpful as long as we’re not just measuring one or two things because in to understand what’s really going on, all the connections and interdependencies of what, what’s going on between teams and impact to customers and things like that, we need multiple measures because we get different perspectives. That’s why with my clients, I want them using different tools. I want them using cause and effect diagrams. I want them to use run charts or control charts. They’re like, I don’t know, 11, 12 management tools and seven basic measurement tools. But I want them not to just use one or two. I want them to use several so they get a bigger perspective, and that leads them to ask more questions. Yeah.
Rob Jolles (19:38):
Okay. Well, you had me at Demings, by the way but I was a quality trainer for Xerox. So we studied Demings, and I will tell you that as a quality instructor, we not only put process behaviors behind problem solving, quality improvement, you name it and measured them. But we were tasked with walking around with a laminated card in our pocket that had those processes. And at any given time, we could be stopped in the hallway, least the trainers at Xerox and said, got your card, and you show that laminated card. But I think we’re in agreement that not everything can get me measured or processed. And I’m learning that the hard way, by the way, as I meet with more and more authors that some things are just not measurable, but the intent is there. So let me pivot if I may. And speaking of pivot, which is in your title there you used that as part of your title when you used the word pivot. What do you mean by that? For a leader?
Marcia Daszko (20:44):
For a leader, that means you see a need and you make an offered rapid change in direction to meet it. It’s very simple, but leaders see the need, assess the situation say, okay, we’re going to do this. So create a compelling name, pulls a team together to focus on that and makes a difference, creates the system and the processes to make a difference to serve customers, or that can be patients, members students, whatever. And they can also create a brand new market. So it’s not just current customers, but the future. So whenever you have a constancy of purpose, a compelling aim, you want to see it today, communicate it effectively, that’s a whole nother conversation, which is essential leaders have to be great communicators and they have to use many methods to communicate, and they have to check and see what are you hearing teams, individuals, managers, what are you hearing me say? And based on what you hear me say, how can you contribute to that aim? And then we can all go forward. Yeah, that direction.
Rob Jolles (22:13):
No, I hear you. It’s one of the reasons why for so many years I was writing about selling, and the last couple years have been sort of drawn into just the concept of authenticity, of how any need an individual, not just a salesperson, but a leader, a manager, anyone. Does that team believe you? I know what you’re saying, that you’ve got the words, right, but does that team believe you? And sometimes it’s your actions, certainly, right? But a lot of times it’s the way you’re u way you’re communicating you. And I’ll have to dig into that one at some point. But why do you think some leaders can grasp the concept of pivoting and some leaders? Clearly,
Marcia Daszko (22:56):
When I’m looking for leaders, I look for two things. An open, deep commitment to continual learning and challenging. W, what’s in place? And number two, courage. Because their job is transformation to transform the organization continually. And if they are not courageous, they can’t transform because they have to do hard things and try new things. And I don’t love the word fail. And the reason is because in our society, we see failures as bad things when oftentimes it should be considered. It’s a step in the learning process. So we have to, the more and more and more we experiment and discover and make mistakes, the more we’re learning. And if we’re slow at learning, then we’re going to be slow. We might not succeed because it’s too slow. So we need leaders who will take on being pivotal. And oftentimes too we have leaders who are not that creative.
(24:12)
And through the whole pandemic I kept saying and posting and so forth, through this time, I think the people who will be most successful and be able to survive are the people who are the most creative. So they have to either. And let’s say that I’m the c e O of a company. I’m very operational, I’m very whatever, but I’m not very creative. But acknowledging the importance of creativity for new ideas and new ways to connect with customers and future markets, and to create new products and services, I have to have the environment where I open it up. And if I’m not creative, I have to encourage a lot of creative ideas and a creative process, and I have to have an innovation system. On my website, there’s a white paper that’s about innovation. As a system, we just oftentimes assume that, oh, well by chance or by focus, we’ll try to innovate and come up with new products and services. But no, it takes us system. And that system has to be led. And the difference between having be creativity and innovation is creativity is having the idea, innovation is taking the creative idea to market and not might be in an internal market or whatever, but it’s taking it to be useful.
Rob Jolles (25:46):
Yeah, the book is Pivot, disrupt, transform how Leaders Beat the Odds and Survive. I agree with you as an entrepreneur, this is not foreign to me what you’re saying, but not everybody’s an entrepreneur. Most entrepreneurs are not as fearful of failure. Like I skydived one time, and to this day, I think I was 18 years old, 17, I remember this instructor nailed it when he said, you are here because you are motivated by 51% curiosity and 49% fear. And I thought, yeah, that’s about right, <laugh>, he’s got the number that’s about. And so a lot of times it is, it’s a close ballgame in terms of how much is fear holding us back or how much is that curiosity winning the day. And there’s a movie of mine, I talk about it probably every 20 shows, but called Defending Your Life. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen that movie done in the nineties with Meryl Streep and Albert Brooks, but in 20 seconds it’s a movie about he dies.
(26:57)
And whether you move forward in universe to go back and there’s a judgment. And so what’s the criteria? And the criteria is looking at a series of events in your life where fear either held you back or you overcame your fear. So the prosecutor wants to show where fear held you back and the defender is showing you, and it really makes you sit back and think, yes, some of my greatest days were when, of course I was afraid, but I was more curious. I decided that the risk was worth it. And yes man, that’s when you’re living, that’s the way to go.
Marcia Daszko (27:33):
What I would say, I don’t often list traits of great leaders, but curiosity is way up there. If I had that list, because when I was working with one of my first clients we were making good progress in the first few months, and then I went to visit them and it was like, bam. They hit a brick wall. And I was like, what happened? Why did the progress come to a screeching halt? And so I began talking to the people. I kind of just walked around and tell me what’s happening? Tell me what’s happening. Fear, fear, fear, fear of change, fear of the unknown, fear of making mistakes, fear of on and on. And I thought, oh my goodness. Well, and those were in the days where every time you turned around, there was a new workshop for something. So I start looking for a workshop to send them to about this fear topic, and I couldn’t find nothing.
(28:33)
But luckily, the book had just come out by Daniel’s, right? And Kathleen Ryan called Driving Fear Out of the Workplace. I grabbed that book, I read it that I said, this is perfect. And now it’s probably 25 years old. And I called Kathleen and I said, Hey, when are you putting on your workshop? Oh, no, no, no, I’m not doing that. Because she was a researcher. She’s like, think she was a college professor. She was not getting up in front of a bunch of people. So she said, Marsha, take the book and create a workshop. I’m like, why do I have to do the workshop anyway? But my clients needed it. So that’s exactly what I did. I created a two-day workshop called How to Reduce Fear and Build Trust. And then I thought, oh my, and it just helped my clients so much, and they progress came about again.
(29:37)
And then I thought, whoa, my other clients need it also. So I did it with them. And then I thought then I was co-founder of the Bay Area Deming user group, one of the largest study group in the world at the time. And we met monthly for over 15 years. So I introduced it to them, and I ended up doing for 10 years, mult to the public, multiple two day workshops on the topic of fear and trust. And then I just got sick of it. I became known for the fear lady. I said, I don’t want this. That’s not what I want to be known for. So I stopped. But then in recent years, I have changed that a bit and come around because people need it. They need to. So now I call it whether it’s a speech or a workshop, fear, the short title, fear Erodes Profits.
(30:33)
The longer title is Fear erodes People Productivity and Profits. And if people don’t think that fear is impacting that bottom line, they don’t have a clue because like I said, there are more than a hundred fears in organizations and barriers and so forth, and it’s job to identify them, to have people talk about them, to diffuse the bad energy around fear, and to put you really a plan an or organic plan in place to reduce the fears. You’ll never eliminate them, but can reduce them and build the trust, which is done through more and more and more communication.
Rob Jolles (31:23):
Yeah. Well, boy, all trains seem to keep landing back at communication. I’ll tell you that I’m going to be 30 years in my business in April, and I will tell you that the hottest topic in the sales profession for 30 years has always been pretty much the same thing. Fear of change when in a sales world, that’s what we’re working with. So I can be working with NASA on Monday, a night and a half and a bank on Tuesday, and you name it, Toyota on Wednesday at it. All the trains keep leading back to, I have this idea, we have a customer who’s not completely happy, but the fear of change is outweighing the risk that they want to take to change it. So really in my world, when we dig in, we build processes that are measurable but build processes basically to help people pass their fear of change.
(32:23)
It’s the biggest objection out there, really. And quite frankly, I think it certainly creeps into your world of leadership because now I’m leading a group of people and things are changing within the corporation or the organization. And as a leader, I may not like those changes, but they call me a leader because if I don’t like it, I’ll talk to somebody behind the scenes, my manager or whoever, but in front of the troops, my dad was a Marine in front of the troops. I we’re taking that hill if that’s what the company just told us, to take that hill. And I need to get people past that fear of change. I need to get them to embrace the changes of the company, which I think that that’s the one time where you and I could share a stage and ease into at least that element of change.
Marcia Daszko (33:11):
And now I think we’re seeing, especially the fear of the unknown. So organizations that are laying off, hunkering down, tightening the budgets cost cutting. Oh, sometimes some, I will say sometimes it makes sense. I’m not going to say that that’s never makes sense, but sometimes their fear or their anticipation that they go sliding down a bad slide. One of my colleagues used to say about this, he said, okay, do you want to cut costs? And they go, yeah, yeah, we want to cut costs. He said, I’ve got the perfect idea for you. And they’re all ears. And he goes, shut the door and put the clothes sign up that will cut all the costs. No labor, no utilities, no lease, so on. And they’re, they’re rattled by that. But it, it’s the extreme to say, come on, get your courage up. Take a look if you think that things are going to slide in your industry or in your market or your customers are going away, because if we talk about, for example, Peloton, there are only so many bikes that people can buy or ride or whatever.
(34:42)
And at some point, maybe the market is going to get more saturated. It’s not going to keep hockey stick going up. So take a look and anticipate and think, okay, the pivot is needed. We need to disrupt ourselves. We need to transform. Where are we going into the future? So if they stop, hunker down and let the fear eat away at them, they are not going to be able to look, pursue possibilities and opportunities, and they’re not going to see the landscape. Leaders have to be scouts. They have to always be looking outward and then bringing ideas in and back and forth like the accordion. But their job is really creating the future and creating those new markets and serving the customers today. And it’s not, it’s by going to your customer and saying, what do you want? What do you want? What do you need? That is not the way to, that is not their job. Like Dr. Deming said, the customers didn’t ask for the light bulb or the car or fax machine or whatever. Those come out of the work that an organization does, the teams do together. What do they want to create and put out there and see what kind of market do they have?
Rob Jolles (36:22):
Yeah. Well, no, you’ve nailed it. And what I like talking about you it I’m enjoying is your passion for this topic. It comes through in every answer that you provide. I’m sitting here ki kind of quietly smiling, going, I appreciate passion. We kind of come back to that. Maybe we’ll have to do another talk sometime about how leaders communicate. I wish that we could bottle that up for people or build a process, which you got me there, by the way. There ain’t going to be a process and we’re not going to be able to measure it real well. But it doesn’t, yeah, it’s so important to me for people who lead me and when I’m leading, and it’s not the end all cure all. It’s not the only characteristic, but boy, it needs to be in there for sure. Okay, so fear is one of them. A couple, but couple final questions for you. So fear is something that a strategy, trying to help people pass that fear. Give me one or two other fundamental strategies that you think leaders typically might miss out on.
Marcia Daszko (37:33):
One thing is I’m just going to pull a couple of ideas from the book because then they can dig deeper if they want to learn about those or listen to it on Audible. I had a bank president call me one day and tell me that she’s read the book twice, bought it for the management team, and the C E O has listened to it four times. And I’m like, what? I haven’t done that even,
Rob Jolles (37:55):
Did you read your book many times?
Marcia Daszko (37:57):
Yeah. no, but I
Rob Jolles (37:59):
did you for the audio book?
Marcia Daszko (38:02):
Oh, no, no, no. I, and the more excited, I have a high voice and I go higher and higher. That is not very soothing for a reader. I mean, it might have passion, but I could also probably click ’em all right off. So no, the publisher asked me, but I said, no, please get a professional reader. And which they did, and she’s fantastic.
Rob Jolles (38:29):
Good, good. All right. So you’re cherry picking a strategy or two for me.
Marcia Daszko (38:35):
One thing this is, we think might think it’s not that important because it sounds small, but it’s huge. And that is language, the vocabulary that leaders use that also needs to pivot. So there’s an exercise that I do at conferences and presentations and so forth, and I have these large laminated signs. And on the signs I line people up on two sides of the room. And on one side I give them laminated words in black and white. And on the other side, I give them laminated words with lots of colors, like neon orange and hot pink and so forth. So I ask the first side to, I’ll say, you’re company A, this is company B. Read off your words. And it says fear cut costs, bottom line layoffs on. And on the other side it says, wow, fun, serve customers, process focus, continual improvement, innovation, on and on. So we have these two sides that read off probably 20 or well, 30 words. And then I ask them, which company do you want to work for? A or B? And of course, everybody says B. And I’m like, why? And they say, well, that one is focused on collaboration and teamwork and fun and wow, and we’re going to serve customers and it’s full of energy and passion and a foundation so that we can do all those things together and create new products and services over here. It’s depressing.
(40:47)
We just feel rejected and dejected, and we go into our silos and there’s fear. So we’re fear of not, and we don’t speak up and we can’t share, and we’re judged and measured and blamed. Everything’s about the bottom line but it seems small. Well change the go in, change the language. But until you it’s such an aha for people to go through that exercise because they have to then assess, examine, check themselves and their team and their organization. How many of those negativity and depressive behaviors do they have in their organization? And that’s why they are stuck in the mud. They’re floundering, but if they pivot their thinking and their vocabulary, they’re language they’re learning, then it at least creates a different workplace when that’s created.
Rob Jolles (42:02):
Yeah, no and there’s your classic pivot, by the way, because I don’t believe we’re prisoners of thoughts like that. We’re just what we call in the world of training unconsciously incompetent. We just don’t know that. We don’t know. It’s one of the reasons why, I wrote an article recently about why I love podcast anymore, and I like blogging because when I’m blogging, I’m sort of sitting there with my thoughts. And when I’m podcasting, I get to listen to your thoughts. And it’s never lost on me how some very simple things just you back to just bat one back in sales, just asking open questions instead of closed questions, which everybody’s learned, but most people don’t do. Just doing that is a dramatic change in a conversation. And so little things are not lost on me at all. The little ones we hear about, there’s the little ones that we implement, and that’s why we need authors. You get our books out. And I think it’s no coincidence that you got a c e O who wanted to hear it four times which meant that was not a casual, casual listener there. That’s somebody who really wants to grasp it. So you should feel good about that. How about you personally? Last question for you, you personally, what qualities do you look for in a leader? You are the author,
Marcia Daszko (43:22):
The commitment to learning, the curiosity and the courage. Those are the most important things because and the ability to really have an exchange like you and I are having really to have some new ideas come up and explore them and question them. And I know that the conversation will go further. I remember when my first career was in marketing and corporate communications, and then I was hired by a consulting firm owned by Dr. Perry Luckman. And he and I would have he was like the absent-minded professor, absolutely brilliant, knew Dr. Deming’s philosophy, how to teach it and guide the application of it. And we would get together when he was teaching me, we would get together for 3, 4, 5 hour conversations and go back and forth. Now, I was reading at that time, five to 10 books a week. Wow. And I was going to Dr.
(44:29)
Deming. I had gone his first four day seminar, which pretty much went right over my head. So then I went back a second time. That’s when I met him. And he said he was going to be my teacher. And I thought, oh my gosh, I’m scared to death. Talk about fear, what sky high? But he asked me to come back as often as I could to learn. And I went to 20 of his four day seminars. So I was reading, studying, having conversations with Perry so on and so on, and that it just goes deeper and deeper. And I had thought, ah, I’ve got my master’s degree. I’m done learning. And I’m like, oh my goodness. I just started learning when I was in my thirties.
Rob Jolles (45:16):
Wow. Well, I, yeah, I, I’d pick my chin off the, I jaw off floor when you were hitting me with that 10 books a week that certainly move the dial. Wow.
Marcia Daszko (45:27):
Yeah, I flew a lot. I went on airplane. So I had a plant, a Hawaii, two in Texas, one in Washington, DC P b s. So I was on a lot of planes. So that’s where I did all my reading.
Rob Jolles (45:40):
Yeah, it’s interesting. It’s too bad we didn’t sit next to each other. It would’ve been a comical site because I’ve written, every book that I’ve written has pretty much been on a plane. So I’m the guy sitting next to you who also isn’t talking, but I’ve got my fingers on the keyboard and I’m following an outline of some sort and been nesting with some thoughts until we got to 10,000 feet and the wheel and the trays tables can come down and I’m ready to pounce on the keyboard as a writer, but I don’t I always felt I was traveling so much that I didn’t want to come home and be away from my children and my wife writing. So I had this natural white noise up there, but that’s where I did it. So you’re the reader. I’m the writer, at least in the air. Yeah.
Marcia Daszko (46:26):
And can you sleep on flights when you’re tired?
Rob Jolles (46:29):
I Rarely sleep on flights. It’s just my own little system of trying to adapt to wherever I’m going. Even when I go international, I don’t, because I’ll fly for a day and a half if that’s what it takes to get to the Cairo a bunch of times, things like that. I’ll just grind it out then wait when I’m there till it’s 10 o’clock, 11 o’clock at night, and then I am so exhausted. My body doesn’t care what time it is. So it’s just how I do it. I, if I sleep on a plane, I feel like I’m resetting my system. So now remember, that’s just my system. But now I rarely, if ever I don’t want to sleep on a plane. I want to be up.
Marcia Daszko (47:09):
I just remember one time, it was a Friday night. I was so exhausted coming home from a week of consulting. The minute I sat down in that seat, I was out like a light ne, never felt the takeoff. And I woke up when we hit the tarmac on the other side, I slept solid. I didn’t hear any anybody around me.
Rob Jolles (47:35):
That’s the perfect flight I have from time to time, because we’re both workshop people. Drilled a few back to back two day workshops, been in New York, hit LaGuardia. They have what they call their own rush hour on the tarmac. So you could be 18, 19 planes in line. It’s dark. And at that time, I have fallen asleep <laugh> on the tarmac and woken up halfway to wherever I was home or whatever. That’s the roughest time for me before we take off if I’m really exhausted. But anyway, we could share road warrior stories all day long. Listen, you have been terrific and I want to remind people that this book that we’re talking about, pivot, disrupt, transform how leaders Beat the Odds and Survive. Good news, everyone, you can get it everywhere. So don’t tell me you can’t find it. It’s everywhere. It’s a very successful book. See, when you get to Amazon you’ll take a look at some of those reviews and you’ll even write one of your own, because that is what we all want as authors. I don’t ask as much, but I love asking for other people. So I’m asking for, Marsha, get that book and get yourself a review there after you read it. Cause you’re going to like it. But get that review on there. I can’t thank you enough. Tell me how people get ahold of you.
Marcia Daszko (49:00):
So yeah, it’s easy. If they go to Amazon, find the book, then they know how to spell my name because that can be a challenge.
Rob Jolles (49:08):
Yeah, good luck with that one. And then they,
Marcia Daszko (49:10):
Yeah. Yeah. So Marsha Dash Go, and my website is Content Rich. I really encourage people to go to the website, m-go.com because I’ve got blog, podcasts white papers leadership assessment, a self-assessment, they can take it right there for free. New workshops new video, online courses. We just launched those two weeks ago and a coaching. So if people want to reach out and talk or share thing, anything they’re struggling with, just jump on there and we can schedule that. There you go.
Rob Jolles (49:56):
You’re listening to the Real Deal here, folks. Believe me Marsha’s got quite a footprint out there. And for those of you who are going to take 15 attempts to try and figure out that last name, I’m actually going to spell it for you. <laugh> it. That website is M, and then her last name is D A S Z K O. And you’ll put a.com on there. And again, somebody shoot me an email and tell me who got that one right the first time. We, that’s not the easiest, but there it is. It’s, it’s pronounced Daco, but it’s D A S Z K O. Listen, loved having you on. Glad we were able. This took months, by the way, to finally get Marsha to sit down and have this conversation. And so thank you so much. Very grateful and really learned a lot. Appreciate it.
Marcia Daszko (50:44):
Thank you so much. This was an amazing exchange. I love robust conversations and you and I, we just could go on for hours. I know,
Rob Jolles (50:53):
And we probably will when we’re done <laugh>. But anyway, folks, we’ll do it again as well as we can next time. Until then, stay safe.
Outro (51:03):
Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoy today’s show, please rate and recommend it on iTunes, outcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. You can also get more information on this show and rob@jolles.com.