Stories That Move

Randy Mayes | Purpose-Driven Leadership

• DreamOn Studios • Season 1 • Episode 8

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Have you ever wondered how leadership styles can make or break a team's success? Join us for an enlightening conversation with Randy Mayes, the owner of DRYVE Leadership Group, who unveils the secrets behind effective leadership. Discover how shifting from an authoritative approach to fostering shared purpose and collective engagement can transform your organization. Randy dives into the importance of acting as a supportive figure, promoting intuitive processes, and maintaining a motivated, engaged workforce.

We explore the generational divide in the workplace and how to create a culture where everyone feels valued and connected to a greater mission. Randy emphasizes the need for leaders to move away from profit-centric mindsets and focus on people and purpose, especially when engaging Millennials and Gen Z. Through real-life examples and meaningful conversations, we learn how to cultivate critical thinkers who are personally invested in the organization's success.

Prepare to challenge outdated models of leadership and embrace a servant leadership approach that fosters psychological ownership and buy-in. We'll also touch on the neuroscience of conversational intelligence and the significance of trust in fostering a collaborative environment. From transforming middle managers into impactful leaders to enhancing communication and relationships, this episode is packed with actionable insights. Tune in to understand how purpose-driven businesses can lead to greater satisfaction and success, and be inspired to implement these strategies in your own leadership journey.

Randy Mayes
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/randymayes/

DRYVE Leadership
Website: https://dlg.coach/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dryve-leadership-group/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dryveleadershipgroup/

Speaker 1:

The primary role of a leader is not to be the focus or the attention. It's about the team, the people, the cause, the mission. As a leader, normally you're the bottleneck. If you can readjust that, find your appropriate place as a support for your team and someone who engages your team, you're going to be overwhelmingly successful.

Speaker 3:

Welcome back to the Stories that Move podcast brought to you by DreamOn Studios. I'm Matt Duhl and I'm Mason Geiger. Today, we're excited to bring you an episode that dives into the world of leadership and organizational growth with an extraordinary guest, Randy Mays, the owner of Drive Leadership Group.

Speaker 2:

Randy has been transforming companies and coaching top leaders across the nation, focusing on cultivating high performance teams and effective leadership. He's here to share his unique insights on what makes organizations thrive in today's competitive market.

Speaker 3:

organizations thrive in today's competitive market. So whether you're looking to inspire your team or take your company to the next level, stay tuned, as Randy's story is sure to ignite a drive within you to lead more effectively. So let's get started.

Speaker 2:

Welcome back to the Stories that Move podcast brought to you by Dribon Studios. I'm your host, matt Duhl, with me as always, mason Geiger. How's everybody?

Speaker 3:

doing today.

Speaker 2:

Great man, how are you doing?

Speaker 3:

Doing good. I'm excited for today's conversation.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely so. Today we have with us, coming from Springfield, missouri, randy Mays. He is the owner of Drive Leadership Group. Randy, thanks so much for joining us this morning. Oh, glad to be here, awesome. Well, we are so excited to get to know you and to dive into your story and hear about what you're doing. So, to start off, let our listeners know about Drive Leadership and just kind of what you're up to today through that company.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, perfect. So drives kind of a little different approach to leadership and growing and developing people. We really take the approach that the power is in the people and their creativity, their ability to perform and do things. So what I frequently find is, in fact, just last week I had a conversation with a business owner that was interested in using our services and they were so frustrated because they couldn't find any good employees. And that's particularly common among people that are a little older baby boomers where all the hard workers all I have is snowflakes, people who really don't want to work, and what I find universally that that is true if you see it from that perspective. But the problem is is those leaders are not leading well, and if they led well, they would have no problem finding great team members who want to be a part of something bigger than themselves. So what we do at Drive is we help people get their people engaged, and I usually put it in three buckets we help set clear direction or define what winning looks like.

Speaker 1:

Owners have these expectations, leaders have these expectations, but they're not shared, and I always call that a shared purpose. They don't really have a shared purpose with their team and when they can build a shared purpose. It changes everything. Shared purpose, intuitive processes, things that people actually can do and naturally do, as opposed to some complex system, and then engaged and motivated people. If you get those three things to working together, you know sometimes I'll refer to it as the car, the driver and the destination. If you can clearly define those three things, you've got a good chance of getting there. But if any one of those is not working or dysfunctional, it's not going to happen. So what we do is we come and we walk alongside leaders and their people not just the leaders, but their people to build a shared purpose and develop, create a collaborative culture that drives better results.

Speaker 2:

Wow, that's amazing. That is amazing, I think, what you just said. There we could spend the rest of the time talking about and people would be thrilled. I mean, what you just identified there right at the beginning of just the generational gap that is happening right now in business, I mean that's a game changer. What was it that just caused you to lean into that?

Speaker 1:

Well, I think we'll get into the story a little later and my origin, but it really came from my roots and my father who always talked about the little guy and he was always a leader. He was a bivocational Southern Baptist church planner in Michigan and so that value system of listening and appreciating and valuing everyone at the table, not just the type A, traditional leaders. You know it's interesting. When you study leadership there's this really strong correlation between narcissism and leadership. Like normally when you analyze leaders, many of them are narcissists. That's not a good thing. It's a true thing, but not a good thing.

Speaker 1:

So how do you truly become that servant leader? How do you turn the organization upside down? So the leader's job is to support their team, and so I've come up with this definition of leadership. I wasn't happy with the ones that were out there, so it's taking people places they would not or could not go on their own. So it's not about the leader at all. It's about the cause, the mission, the purpose, the team. And if you can lead from that posture, you'll have no trouble finding great people. And I always say you know you can, and I always say you know you can. Millennials, gen Z's, are wired just like the baby boomers. Physiologically their brains are the same. They have different experiences and value systems, but what they want is they want purpose and meaning in their work. They want to be a part of something bigger than themselves, and if you'll champion that space, you'll have no problem with motivation. Amazing, no kidding.

Speaker 2:

Love that. Yeah, love that, love that. And if you'll champion that space, you'll have no problem with motivation. That's amazing.

Speaker 3:

No kidding, love that. Yeah, love that, love that. So, yeah, let's dive into your origin story. I'd love to hear, like kind of where I mean what was growing up like for you. You talked about your dad and kind of getting to see him in these leadership roles. Can you kind of walk us through your upbringing and the kind of, yeah, we'll dive into your story and how you got to where you're at today?

Speaker 1:

My dad was from near Chattanooga, tennessee, true, true Southern boy, hillbilly. He married my mother when he was in the Air Force. She was from San Antonio. He was stationed there, near San Antonio, texas. So lots of Southern roots.

Speaker 1:

There was no work in the South in the early 50s. There was no work in the South in the early 50s. So he migrated to Cleveland where his brother got him a job with Fisher Body and the auto plant and of course he was a hard worker, worked himself up the ranks, became a white-collar supervisor person. But he never forgot about that small guy. But his real passion was planting these churches. So here we are, southern Baptists in Michigan. You know those just don't go together. Okay. And he would go out and start these little mission churches in these towns around southeastern Michigan and he was passionate about it.

Speaker 1:

But the problem we had is we couldn't find any good leaders in those churches. Two things If we were looking for a pastor, they were either incompetent or incapable, because the churches were small and they couldn't pay anything, or they were somehow unethical. They had robbed, stole, lied, cheated, whatever. So we got all the leftovers basically. So I saw that as a young teenage boy moved by God to say, hey, I want to make a difference in this. So it was a leadership issue that really struck my heart. I'm going to go to school, study and come back here and help lead these churches.

Speaker 1:

Well, I could choose anywhere, being a Southern Baptist. I had to travel, so I happened to come to Southwest Baptist in Missouri. So that's how I got to Missouri originally, and I got down here and started preaching in these small churches and I realized I don't like talking at people, I like talking with people, and so it was pretty much I wasn't going to be a preacher. Now the pastoral and the leadership calling spot on. Okay.

Speaker 1:

But I've always loved business. So I started a business, ran a traditional business for almost 20 years my church Fellowship Bible Church in Rogersville, missouri. One Sunday one of the elders got up and said we're praying for a small groups pastor and God kind of tapped me on the shoulder and said Randy, they're praying for you. Now I didn't tell anybody that for about six months. Okay, I wasn't about. I'm running this successful business, I'm happy with my life, I'm like no, no, no, no, no, no, no. So I came on board as a small groups pastor and administrative pastor, sold my business. To do that, this successful business sold it and went to work at this church. Well, I was in charge of these small groups and what I would find resoundingly if you got a group of people together and got them talking to each other their ability to problem solve, discern, judge was tremendous. So I mean, traditionally in a church, the pastor tells people what to do and I'm using hyperbole there.

Speaker 1:

Okay, it's not always the case, but you're kind of giving them direction and telling them how they need to behave and what they need to do. Well, this just was a total flip the cart upside down and it was like the people are telling us what they want to do and what's important. But it was vetted in what I've come to call a public conversation, these small groups where they're talking to each other. So I would to the chagrin of the elders I would let the groups pick their own leaders. After three or four weeks of meeting together, I would look at them and say who should lead your group and they would almost universally point to one person and it was almost always the best person to lead that group.

Speaker 1:

So that little seed really resonated with me. After running a conventional business, going through the traditional leadership modalities of what a leader is and how to lead, and top-down authoritarian type approach tell, sell and yell approach I'm like wow, we're really missing it. What if we got everybody engaged? How powerful would that be? So that became the nucleus, the seed, if you will, the DNA for my whole consulting model, which is really about getting people engaged in the conversation.

Speaker 2:

Wow, that's incredible. So back us up just a little bit. So the company that you sold prior to going into the ministry, so the company, that you sold prior to going into the ministry. I read your bio on your website. It said kind of starting in, kind of janitorial work and cleaning supplies. Is that what that was involved in? Yep, yep, yep. Tell us about that, how you started in that and what it grew to.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So I had a friend who owned a contract cleaning company in Springfield I was still living in Bolivar at the time, where Southwest Baptist is and he had gotten some major contracts to clean some grocery stores and it was way beyond the scope of what he would be able to do on his own. So I'm a great manager. I've been managing restaurants, food service. I'm good with people, relationships. Those have all been natural spaces for me. So I came on as his general manager and started running this operation which covered four states, 85 employees, a pretty intense arena.

Speaker 1:

I always wanted to own my own business. I did not want to compete against him. So a supply business someone who sold the cleaning supplies the mops, the waxes, the floor machines was a great compliment to what he was doing. And he actually became my first partner in the supply business. So he and I started the supply business on the side. I eventually bought it out from him. It has done very well. It was successful. When I had it I sold it to a fella who wanted to, had been in the space but was no longer a distributor, wanted to own a distribution center. So I sold it to him and went to work for the church.

Speaker 3:

Wow. So in those early businesses, whenever you're, I always like to go like the origin of, like leaders and stuff. What were those like key learnings that you had in your journey like leaders and stuff? What were those like key learnings that you had in your journey like starting and you know, leading your first teams and things that work didn't work things that you saw.

Speaker 1:

What are some of those early learnings that you had? Yeah, so telling people what to do and didn't work very well. You had to get them engaged. You had to get them involved. And you know, one of the old sayings that you've I've heard my whole life growing up as a leadership student is people don't do what you expect, they do what you inspect. And that's kind of one of those old school power moves like, yeah, I got to watch them like a hawk, okay, and I'm like, well, the better truth to me and there is some truth to that. I'm not saying it's categorically wrong, but what people really do is what they expect, not what you expect. So if you can develop and create a shared purpose, wow, that switches the whole game. It just entirely turns it around. Now people are seamlessly adjusting to this shared purpose as opposed to trying to keep the boss happy.

Speaker 1:

So I really didn't. I found, while initially it was satisfying, gratifying, nice to have people who would do what you told them to do, I real quickly realized that I didn't want people who would do what I tell them to do. I want people who would look out for my best interest, be critical thinkers and think on their feet. And again, the tell, sell, yell model does not produce that, it produces more. Yes, men, and if you really want to go somewhere, if you really want to get something done, you're not going to get there like that, unless you're willing to use a lot of fear tactics. I use this term all the time. I don't want power over people I want power with people, and that is just a huge paradigm shift.

Speaker 1:

But in order to do that, it takes leadership. You have to invite people to the conversation because they won't naturally come. I mean, in our society, particularly the Midwest where we live, people are waiting for the boss to tell them what to do. They just are. That's the expectation. And unless you consistently and regularly invite them to the conversation. And then, once you invite them to the conversation, you have to let them actually weigh in and help set directions, solve problems, define what's going on. So you get them to lean in. By inviting them, you let them weigh in. Once they weigh in, there's a really good chance they're going to buy in, because they have an ownership, a psychological ownership state now, which is entirely different than working for the man or working for a paycheck or just doing transactional type things.

Speaker 1:

Most businesses are set up on what I call a common purpose, which is I need an employee, you need a paycheck. That's a transaction. It's not bad I'm not knocking it, but there's so much more. What if us as humans could do something that we couldn't do alone, that we desperately need each other to do? That's that shared purpose, as opposed to just a common purpose, which is a transaction, a shared purpose, is something we're willing to die on a hill for. It's something deep and meaningful. We have a personal ownership stake in it and every human's created and wired for that At our best life.

Speaker 1:

We don't want to go punch a clock and hopefully I can say this no one wants to suck at work. We just don't. We don't want to show up and suck for 40 hours a week. We want to make a difference. We want to be a rock star wonders. So leadership's job is again to take people places they would not or could not go on their own, by inviting them to that conversation, engaging them around something that's has real purpose, meaning and impact. And then I call that defining what winning looks like, because most employees, most team members, don't know what winning looks like. It's in the owner's mind or the leader's mind, but it's not in the people's mind. And the only way you can establish that with humans is through a conversation, through meaningful dialogue.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, Wow, wow. I want to touch back on something you said. I think it's fascinating. I'm just curious. You said, specifically for the Midwest, there's just this mindset, maybe cultural DNA, that says I'm waiting for the boss to tell me what to do. Why do you think that is yeah?

Speaker 1:

Oh, we've just been conditioned to it. You know, humans are herd animals. We just are. You know the Bible, the scripture, calls us sheep. We're very much herd animals. We think we're strong and independent. There's no self-made man. We all got help along the way and so we are very influenced by our culture and expected standards. That's just the way it works. There's an old saying birds of a feather flock together. I rarely ever hear the end of that statement and there is an end to it. There's another piece to it and they all fly away to the same place. So, yes, they do flock together, but they're going somewhere together and every group of humans is going somewhere together. So this whole, there's six. I've identified six major intrinsic motivators. One of those is belonging. We all want to belong and be a part of something we all do. We need that. We want that we're wired that way as humans If that belonging can be part of making a significant difference or impact in the world, a purpose wow, that's incredible.

Speaker 3:

I I mean, I'm just like sitting here like there's no way anyone is listening to this and isn't like that's what I want for my company, right? Yes, how, how do you start that conversation like? With the team and it's like yeah, what are some tangibles on like, like starting that conversation, getting your team aligned around that soul, like vision, purpose and defining the win? Yeah. Mace says that's great, if I could just digress for a second and share a story real story just happened last week and I think I alluded to it earlier.

Speaker 1:

I'm sitting in front of this group of leaders 50, 60 employees. There's three of them there, the leadership team and they're literally telling me you know, I don't want to be a jerk, but I don't feel like I have any other alternative. I don't know how to get out of this box that I've been backed into and all I know is my old school methods and technology. All I know is to watch them closer, to produce fear, to not trust all those dynamics. So I'll go back to it's a lot simpler in terms of it's simple, but it's difficult to do. So that is being patient enough to get people engaged in the conversation. Normally, when I'm working with a client, it starts with strategic and operational planning. Well, first of all, what we do is we go do what we call a listening tour. We listen to everybody in their company in small groups of 10 to 12 people. Sounds like that small group back at that church, right?

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

So we get those people in a group and we just simply ask them and I'm totally comfortable sharing all my intellectual property because I want to change the way people lead. That's my passion is changing the way we lead Wow. So we do this listening tour what's working, what's not working, what would you like to change? And we facilitate that conversation, rather than the leader or the owner, because they'll tell us things they would never tell you. But if we do say five or six or 10 of these groups and the same things keep coming up over and over again, there's a pretty good chance that those are issues or problems. Whether they be good or challenges, bad, they're probably problems. Now we know what we need to work on. We know where the angst, the rub is the wind drag, if you will, is at.

Speaker 1:

Then we do strategic and operational planning and we don't do that with just a leadership team. So you know, there's systems out there like EOS, great system but it focuses on engaging the management and not the whole company. What we focus on is engaging the whole company management, middle management and then all the way down to the janitor. Okay, because all those people are people and they have something powerful to contribute if they're invited to the conversation. So we do this strategic and operational planning with a cross-functional group of people executive leadership, middle management and rank and file workers and together we co-create what's working, what's not working. I'm simplifying it, but we basically do a SWOT strength, weakness, opportunities and threats. We help them establish core values and a mission or purpose statement if they don't have one, and then we talk about what are the three to five most important things we need to do over the next 12 months to make this company better, to make it grow, to help everyone here not just leadership make profit, but to make this a great place, a great culture place for people to work at. And so you know my forte and my team's forte is facilitation. And the number one thing I mean I've done hundreds of these across the country with companies the number one thing people say at the end of that strategic and operational plan is I had no idea how much agreement we had about our challenges and opportunities and what we need to do next. They're just not having the conversation. And when you don't communicate as humans, nothing good happens. It's all about the communication process. So what we do is we get them to the table, get them talking to each other. So I use this process all the time.

Speaker 1:

I call it the collaborative leadership model. Collaboration bring the relevant parties to the table. If you have a stake in the game, you need to be included. Or a representative of your area needs to be included Because it's going to affect you. And if we want ownership and buy-in, that's how we get it. So we collaborate.

Speaker 1:

Out of that collaboration comes clarity. People rarely disagree. They just think they do Universally. True, I found that over my 65 years of life, we think we disagree, but we really don't. We may disagree about words or nuances, but most of us want exactly the same thing. So we've got collaboration, we've got clarity.

Speaker 1:

Then we ask for commitment. What do we not you? What do we? I'm not calling people out what do we want to do about this? So, really, there's a neuroscience researcher called Judith Glazer. I've studied her work a lot and she says that the fastest way to build trust and most of us are familiar with the term psychological safety the fastest way to build trust is to ask questions you actually don't have answers for and then co-create solutions together. Wow, think about how honoring that is to another human to go. I don't know. I don't know what the answer is. I know we got an issue or problem here or we need to do something. How can we do this? What would that look like? Let's talk back and forth about it, and when you co-create those solutions, it naturally builds trust and throughput.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, how do you lean in with a team of people? Because I would imagine, in that moment when you're having kind of some of those vulnerable conversations and again when the team is sort of programmed to look to the boss, to look to the leader by title and say what's the solution, how do you almost deprogram that to where the team gets engaged in that problem solving?

Speaker 1:

Oh, great question, because that's a real problem. So when we engage with a company, we're going to work and discern whether or not what the leader's profile is. If this is a really strong, dominant leader, I may ask them to not say anything in strategic and operational planning, only ask some questions. So we actually put a fence there. Now, if they're a very approachable leader and naturally collaborative anyway again, because they're a relevant party, they actually need to be in the conversation. But rarely are they ever disappointed with the output that their people create. And I mean, when I'm talking to them I say look, you know, you've been leading like this for the last 20 years and you want something more, you want a better result. Work with me on this.

Speaker 1:

And generally they're very willing to do that because they're frustrated, just like those guys I was talking to. Those three folks I was talking to last week. They're just frustrated to no end. They just don't know how to get out of the trap. They want something better. They want something better for their people. They want something better for themselves. They don't want to be fielding calls on the weekend, and they are now because the buck stops with them. There's another old school saying the buck stops with them, no, no, the buck stops with them. There's another old school saying the buck stops with them, no, no, the buck stops with us. But there's gotta be psychological ownership and buy-in before that buck stops with your team, otherwise it stops with you as a leader.

Speaker 2:

So how hard is it I mean, you mentioned it right at the beginning where you have a lot of leaders who are, yeah, not just leaders, but they're narcissistic, or maybe they're just narcissistic. How do you start off I think even just in your sales process of just picking up the phone and just saying, hey, you got a problem and it's you?

Speaker 1:

Great question, great question. Well, typically our clients have some level of self-awareness and there's some frustration, just like the folks I've been talking about. They're very frustrated and they know they're frustrated. They just don't know what the answer is. So, look I talk about. I talk about five things that are important for a client to work, you know, to be a good fit for us, a good cultural fit for us, and and one of those is they've got to give a rip about people, and that's just my language. They got to actually care about people. If it's just about profit, money or power, I'm not a good fit for you. Our company is not a good fit for you, because our whole value system is about people and how to get them to the table and value them. Now what I will tell you is resoundingly if you do that, you're going to get a lot better results, you're going to make a lot more money and you're going to be able to pay your people a lot better. So we're looking for that kind of mindset, or at least some curiosity around that, from a leader to go huh, could there be a better way, you know? So one of the statements I challenge audiences with all the time is the old statement again, old school. But I love the statement because it makes us think critically.

Speaker 1:

What kind of blank survive? It's often attributed to Darwin. But what kind of groups survive? And it's almost always the strong. That's not what he said. He said the adaptable survive. The adaptable Can you adapt to today's workforce? Can you morph and change? Not because we're silly putty, but honestly.

Speaker 1:

May I go back to some basic principles here? A millennial will not sell their soul. We're talking generalities here for a buck. Is that good or bad? I think it's wonderful. It took most of my generation to be in their 60s or 65 before they looked back and said that was stupid. Selling my soul for a buck. You know they won't do that. That's a win Touchdown. You know that's awesome. So then it puts the onus on the leader to have a business that's really built on a purpose or cause or meaning. That's not just about themselves. And if your business is just about yourself, again you're not a good client for me. We vet that out in the initial conversation, but generally people that are leaning into what we're talking about, they're biting on this kind of a conversation. Is there another way? Could I really do more for my people and myself. I actually care about my people. I just don't know how to care about them without them taking advantage of me. Those are the kind of conversations we're looking for.

Speaker 3:

That's so good. I want to kind of build and expand on that a little bit, looking back at your career and being in consulting, seeing businesses over the last couple of decades. What are some of the biggest changes you've seen in consulting, seeing businesses over the last couple of decades? What are some of the biggest changes you've seen from the old way to the current way and what do you maybe see coming down, the future as Gen Z and this next generation is entering the workforce of changes, and how we can meet them where they're at?

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, and I'll just double down on this thing that we have to have businesses and organizations that run on purpose, cause or mission, not for profit. Okay, they're not focused on profit or profitability, or power or control. They're focused on making a real difference in the world. And I tell people all the time a not-for-profit and a for-profit business should be run exactly the same way. Yes, build on a purpose, a mission or a cause.

Speaker 3:

Amen, the same way Build on a purpose, a mission or a cause Either one, either one.

Speaker 1:

And then I definitely see that this generation, today's workforce, is asking and requiring a lot more leadership than they ever have before. They don't want to stand in line and get a paycheck. They want a life of meaning and purpose. They want a life that's balanced. They want and this is really a big change is when I grew up, there was a personal life and a business life.

Speaker 1:

Okay, that never was true or real. You only have one life, okay, but business owners like to segment those. That's your problem. No, it's our problem. We're people, we're connected. We're a community. We need to deeply care about our people. That's your problem. No, it's our problem. We're people, we're connected. We're a community. We need to deeply care about our people.

Speaker 1:

That doesn't mean we give them everything, and I, you know, one of the statements that I go back to all the time from a principal standpoint is stop doing things for your people and start doing things with your people. You know, I find that most leaders successful leaders that have been successful for a period of time most of them are really kind, caring people. They actually are. They have big hearts, they actually want to help, and sometimes they get in their own way, because they try to do too many things for their people, and that's true with pay and benefits. You know, one of the other old school sayings is you know, because I would.

Speaker 1:

Basically, my distribution business was a sales organization. We sold supplies, cleaning supplies is. If you don't give people an opportunity to decide on anything but price, they will decide on price. So, as leaders simply focus on pay and benefits, what are they doing? The only option they're giving their employees is to decide on price. So that guy's going to pay me five more bucks an hour and if that's all you give them to choose on, they'll choose on the five bucks. But if you say I can give you a meaning of life and purpose, I will invest in you. I'm all in on you and our team and we're going to make a difference in the world.

Speaker 2:

Which of those would a person take yeah?

Speaker 1:

You know, it kind of becomes a no brainer. I'm not trying to cheat people. You need to pay them fairly Because, again, if you don't pay them a reasonable wage, a wage that they would expect, then that's insulting, you're demeaning them and taking advantage of them. But if you pay a competitive wage, none of the rest of that stuff matters. Even if you pay five bucks more an hour or 10 more bucks an hour, whatever it is, give them what they really want, which is meaning purpose, belonging, an opportunity to grow and develop, to be a part of something bigger than themselves. That's what leaders need to focus on and that's the change I mean. If we look at from the old school leader that was about power and growth and climb the corporate ladder and step on anybody you could on the way up, all that dynamic has changed drastically and if you're still working that model, it's a dinosaur. It's days are just numbered. It doesn't work anymore. But there's probably, there's probably a five-year tail on that and then no one will work in that environment.

Speaker 2:

And I think it's. I mean, you said it. What we're seeing so much in these next generations, the millennials and Gen Z, is they're demanding what you're talking about, right? I mean, like you said, it's a win, like they're not driven by the sell your soul for a buck, it's. I want to be about something more.

Speaker 1:

And do you realize how good that is? Do you realize how good and powerful that is? I mean, we're actually making progress in the right direction. We talk about how we didn't train our kids. Well, maybe we trained them better than we thought. Yeah, that's good. And let me just, if I can just run on this for a minute, yeah, please. Why would some Gen Z work for the man when he could go run his own business and make his own way? Why would he do that? You know you have to give them a better opportunity, which is most of them realize. Millennials and Gen Zs. They want good leadership, but what they want is good leadership. They don't want a boss, they want a leader. They know they need someone to mentor them and bring them along and invest in them and if they can get that, oh my gosh, they really want to be part of your team and they are your future yeah, no, it's okay.

Speaker 3:

I feel like it's so easy. You see leaders who are not leaders, who see bosses, managers, who will label some of those generations of like they're lazy. We don't need to worry about them going off and starting their own business because they don't have what it takes anyway. And it's like really like they have so much creativity and so much drive and passion, but it's like finding where to channel that creativity and passion and like, once you get them inspired about something, it's like can you see that light bulb click? I mean they go harder than anyone.

Speaker 1:

So, guys, I know this is really big picture, but you know, I kind of I'm a real student of trends and what's happening and where we're going. So you know, a little over 200 years ago, 250 years ago, we had some people who were under the rule of the king in England, who decided to come to the United States to start a new type of government or environment. You know, george Washington, thomas Jefferson, ben Franklin, that whole group of comrades, ok, and they did something new because they didn't want to be under the king. Ok, yeah, ok, yeah. Now we take Gen Z.

Speaker 1:

What's happened? They've not physically moved to a new continent, but a new set of constraints and possibilities with technology and culture. It really is a new world and I'm telling you it's as new as the colonialists coming to the United States. The world has changed and it will never go back to the way it is, and it's a good thing, not a bad thing. They will no longer work for a dollar or a buck or the man and I'm talking about in generalities. Okay, they want to have real purpose and meaning, and that's a whole new dimension. Now we used to see that when I was growing up with people who had worked for not-for-profits or a church. Those are the folks who are living life on meaning and purpose and cause that whole world is changing rapidly.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So what do you say to the leader? And I'll bust myself on this I've got three teenagers at home, All right, Um 13, 15, 17. I find myself now being the old man all the time saying if I did that when I was a kid or when I was, you know, just that kind of stuff. Um, how do you encourage starting the conversation of just shifting the perspective of? Um, yeah, looking at the we, hey, we have arrived in a new place, in a new time, and it's time for us to adapt.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, matt, don't do it, don't do it. That's all I got to say when I was your age you were just.

Speaker 1:

You're literally pushing them away. So you know you're just. You're literally pushing them away. So you know, big picture, let's wind the pull the lens back. Somewhere in the age 10, 11, 12, a child becomes an individual, an adult of their own. Now we really can normally control them till they're 14 or 15. And we think we're still the boss, but we've already lost control.

Speaker 1:

What's your option is there, as a good parent, is to what I call maintain relationship with that child or that young adult and help them and invest in them growing, not based on what your interests and passions are, but, just like with the employee, on their interest and passion in a very constructive way. So instead of trying to tell them what to do or what they're doing wrong, hey, let's say your son, give me a son or daughter's name, just a first name Caleb, caleb, Caleb, hey, would you like to talk about that? Kick around some ideas on what might happen with that. Yeah, no, dad, out that. Kick around some ideas on what might happen with that. No, dad, okay, yeah, it might be worth doing Caleb Now, unless he's going to kill himself, let him go skin his knees, let him fall off the bike, let him pick himself Love and logic.

Speaker 1:

I mean, that's very, very powerful and what he does. At that point he sees that you're respecting him as a person and you may go well. He has no experience? No, he doesn't. But what you have to do is maintain that relationship in a healthy way, and it's true with employees too. They will ask the craziest things. Now, what I do find in a group discussion, people rarely ask for crazy things. It's one-on-one. They'll ask for crazy stuff or demand crazy stuff, but when it's vetted in that public conversation. So maybe it's a discussion you have with all three of your kids about house rules or what would be reasonable to take care of the house around here. Things haven't been being put up. We need to have a clean place. Do you guys think we need a clean place to live in?

Speaker 3:

Don't tell them we need a clean place to live in.

Speaker 1:

You know it's guys. Would that be a value to us? It seems like it would really help and they'll go oh yeah, dad, dad. So how would we go about doing that? What would that look like? Would that mean we should clean our rooms? You know, you get the gist of the it's, it's, it's, it's what works well with humans and what. What I try to tell leaders all the time is don't treat your employees like kids, because they're not kids, they are definitely adults. And if you treat them like a kid, there's something called mirror neurons in our brains. We discovered this about 20 years ago and we reflect back what we see just seamlessly. So if you show up thinking it's a parent-child relationship with them which it has been, but it's changed what are they going to do? They're going to push back and say no, I'm an individual, I'm a person. Same thing when we show up with our employees, skeptical, distrusting of them, what are they going to do? They're going to see us the same way.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that's awesome. You started going to the mirror neurons neurons there and it made me think, so can you? Actually? We saw you're certified in the neuroscience of conversational intelligence. Can you unpack a little bit? What does that entail? And, yeah, what are some of the benefits of that?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you bet. So you know, most of us have had exposure to personality types DISC, myers-briggs, strength finders, all those are how we are uniquely different in a certain set of boxes. What is universally true for us physiologically is how our brain is wired. Okay. So if you understand how the brain works and threat responses that people run into, it's super powerful, because here's the reality and I don't know that I can show you on my camera. But if we look right here, this front part of the brain here, this ball part on my head, okay, that's where the prefrontal cortex is. That's the part of the brain that we think about when we think of thinking. It's rational, it makes good decisions, it processes. Okay. Now there's a lot more to that brain. There's a neocortex. As I go back and if I get back down here, there's a reactive brain, this brain stem, and right in the middle of that there's a valve called the amygdala. And right in the middle of that there's a valve called the amygdala which literally cuts off the blood flow to that prefrontal cortex. So when you're under a threat response or there's a threat in your environment and we'll talk about how complex that is it literally cuts off the the blood flow to this prefrontal cortex. So you don't think rationally, you. You literally don't. It's also the prefrontal cortex is also where trust resides. Distrust resides down here, in this reactive brain. Okay, so if all my blood is being pumped to this reactive brain, I am ready to fight. Okay, and we're not going to have a rational conversation. Now.

Speaker 1:

What most people think about is they think about a physical threat. But David Rock, another one of my favorite neuroscience researchers, talks about his scarf model and there's five primary areas of what he calls social pain or social threats. And it's loss of status. So if you talk down to somebody or talk at somebody instead of with them, loss of status, okay, autonomy, that's, allowing them to do it in the way they think best, as opposed to micromanaging them. It's certainty that actually it's SC certainty for the certainty.

Speaker 1:

So think about the impact COVID had on our society. We had never experienced that before. It was very uncertain and and there's still people suffering extensively from that. That's a part of a threat response. So the last one of those, the F, is fairness. Does it seem fair? Any of those can create that amygdala from cutting that blood flow off to this prefrontal cortex. So it's quite pervasive. Okay, it's not just a simple physical threat. It's all these social or emotional threats that cause that inability of a human to react in a way we would normally think they would. So what good leaders do is they understand those dynamics in a free-flowing way and they're focused on creating high-trust environments rather than low-trust environments.

Speaker 2:

Amazing, amazing Gosh. There's so many good ones and every human's wired this way.

Speaker 1:

It's not like a personality thing where some people are high Ds and some people are high C. No, every human's brain is wired exactly the same way and it's built for efficiency. So approximately every two-, two tenths of a second, you're scanning the environment to say is it safe? You're not consciously doing that. Subconsciously, you're looking for threats, because threats are the trump card over all gains. We're constantly wanting to survive and our brain's super efficient at doing that.

Speaker 3:

Yes, is there a way, like I'm just like thinking through, like resiliency, like that you can train your brain, or like to where you are more resilient to some of these fight or flight, like of what seems as deemed as a risk, that you can be in, you know, a more intense environment than someone else and be able to keep that from triggering?

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, absolutely so, the whole domain. I don't know how familiar you guys are with emotional intelligence, but that whole domain is a really powerful construct based on self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management, and so there's a lot of tools in that domain that could help people get better at this kind of stuff. Wow.

Speaker 2:

What I love is and you've said it several times what you are doing and what you're talking about is just very human behavior stuff, right, so you've found an amazing way to model this into a business to help other businesses.

Speaker 2:

Um, you talked about, you know, in my example, in a parenting role, but I'm just thinking about, like us as a society today, right, we're we're living in some of the hardest, most divided times that that we've known of. Right, where we are, everything is, yeah, just super black and white. You're Republican or Democrat, you're this or that, and that ability to sit with people and have these conversations has really broken down, right. I mean, I would say, even in our last few presidential elections, we've seen the breakdown of debate. Right, there is no debate, it's just yelling at each other in a sense. So what would you say that? So here we are in 2024, and I'm not trying to make it political but in an election year where we are being pushed to be divided, how would you encourage people to just be processing all of the information and all the things that are coming at us right now? Yeah, Wow.

Speaker 1:

It's not a good path in terms of honoring and building up people, because it's very much this challenging, judgmental. Put you in a box, make a decision. This is not helpful, and what we know is that iPhone came out in 2007. You can see levels of suicide and depression going through the roof. Our brains are overwhelmed with so much information and data that we never had before, things that we can't control, and we go back to those fear responses. The level of fear and anxiety in our society is off the chart. What I can control is myself and how I show up. I don't want to show up as a teller, seller and yeller. I want to show up as a listener. So I talk all the time about our model being a listening model. Yes, so how do I listen more diligently? How do I empathetically connect with another human? Because when I do almost nothing bad happens, almost always something good happens.

Speaker 1:

So the research on doctors who mess up with patients the ones that get sued are not the incompetent doctor. It has almost nothing to do with whether or not they get sued. It's whether they have a good bedside manner and the patient believes they care about them. Yeah, it's the arrogant doctor who has all the right answers, who get sued even if he did exactly the right thing? Because it's this thing about we talked about status being one of those fear drivers.

Speaker 1:

It's a loss of status. You have power over me instead of my friend power with me. I can't be in community with you. You're the enemy of the adversary. None of that bodes well for us as humans. So what I'm encouraging you guys, myself and all of us who are hearing this message let's be the catalyst for connection and listening as opposed to talking. Let's find out what's really going on, because again, I would go back to that statement and I'll stand by it People rarely disagree. They just think they do. They're not having a real conversation, and a conversation is a two-way dialogue where we connect with each other and each other's perspective in a box of respect.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, wow, so good. Wow, randy, talk to me about just some of the success you're seeing through Drive as you're working with companies. What are you hearing back from people after they have gone through your process?

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, it's particularly encouraging. I mean here at all levels, leadership level, but it's particularly encouraging that the middle managers and the rank and file workers are saying man, we feel heard for the first time. We really are glad we're part of this. This is amazing. We've always wanted to step up and help, we just didn't know how. And so in, the leader on the other side is going oh my gosh, I guess my people aren't all idiots. They are actually motivated. I've got a good team already, you know, and that's usually the case. It's, it's, it's. Most of your people are the right people on the bus. They're already on the bus, You're just not leading them well.

Speaker 3:

Yep, wow, you started talking about a little bit about finding, like you have, the right people on the bus. What about, like, as you go through some of these processes, like, do you see, like some hey, here's some red flags of some people who may not be on the right bus and may not be able to buy into the shift in culture and collaboration?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's a great question. So one approach is I'm going to sit and judge and box and decide for you whether you're a good person or not using hyperbole here, little little latitude here. Or I can say let's talk about what winning looks like. Engage you in the conversation. You will know. At that point, you will know if that's a good fit for you or not, and nine times out of 10, that person will opt out as in quit or do something different, because I don't want to be a part of this. Okay, I can clearly see what it is. What winning looks like. I know what's going down here and I don't want to participate. Winning looks like. I know what's going down here and I don't want to participate. They'll quit more often than not. Now, once in a while, you still have to let somebody go. I'm not taking that off the table.

Speaker 1:

This isn't about being all warm and cozy and never confronting people. It's really about productively confronting people without judgment. What's our shared purpose? What's winning look like? Here's what we talked about. What am I missing? One of the things I explain to people all the time action for humans. Actions follows clarity. It just naturally does. If I'm clear, like you know, I don't know, 69 in Fort Wayne, indiana. I know you guys aren't in Fort Wayne, but I'm trying to think what the highway was that ran through your city over there.

Speaker 3:

Highway 30.

Speaker 1:

Highway 30, yeah, would I walk out in rush hour traffic on Highway 30 without looking? No, because I'm crystal clear about what would happen I'd get smashed like a bug. My behavior reflects that. When people's behavior is not expedient not what one would expect in that situation they're not clear. They're either not clear about the consequences or the benefit of doing it. So that's a clarity conversation. But once we get clear, it's not me telling you about clarity, it's about us conversating about clarity, coming to an understanding, and then they're holding themselves up against that litmus test all the time. So most people know when they mess up and one of the things that I'll share with you guys.

Speaker 1:

I've done a lot of executive coaching. I mean brain surgeons, dentists, really smart people, lawyers, business owners and I'll tell you resoundingly that there's a bigger problem with people not thinking highly enough of themselves than them thinking too high of themselves, this insecurity for us as humans. When they're honest and they're open and they're in a safe place, people will say man, I messed that up. You know, you watch somebody perform. So I'll go back to Rock. Rock says that one in 13 negative interactions produce a positive result. And here's the kicker irrespective of who's right or wrong. One in 13. So if I show up and say you idiot, you messed that up. Do you know how you screwed that thing up? Even though they screwed it up, okay, there's one in 13 chance that's going to produce a positive result. I'm going to make the person mad, they're going to fight me, they're going to figure out how to get back at me, they're going to quit, whatever. Now, on the other hand, one out of two 50% of positive interactions with another human produce a positive result, again, irregardless of who's right or wrong.

Speaker 1:

So if I go to you and say, how do you think you did, how do you think you did Matt? Or how do you think you did Mason, you're going to go. If there's some safety there psychological safety you go. Well, I probably did good on this, but I didn't do this all well. And then my next question will be well, what would you do different next time? See the difference in that approach. It's all the difference in the world, and it's about being patient. It's about suspending judgment and becoming curious with people, and when you do that, they feel loved, accepted, endorsed and they're going to perform at their highest possible level, or they're going to opt out and tell you they don't want to be part of what you're doing.

Speaker 3:

So good.

Speaker 1:

Wow.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I think that's what everyone wants.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no kidding, no kidding, it's what every human wants, because we're wired as humans, we're communal animals. We want to belong. Every one of us wants to be a rock star, so our job is to create an environment so people can be rock stars. I mean I use this analogy a lot with leaders is we're so focused on the seed we forget about the soil or the environment? I'm a gardener. Here we are in spring. Things are starting to blossom. Don't worry about the seed. The seed is what the seed is. Work on the environment, work on the soil. Get the weeds out, make it fertile. You know it will maximize the potential of that seed.

Speaker 3:

I love that analogy yeah.

Speaker 2:

Really good, really good Lightning round. It's lightning round. All right, we got some questions, just some quick, some quick hitters for you as we're wrapping up our time. So just to kick it off, what book has specifically impacted your approach on business or leadership?

Speaker 1:

So Judith Glazer's Conversational Intelligence great book. David Rock's your Mind at Work. I love Daniel Pink's Drive where he talks about what motivates people, not the things we have historically believed. Mindsets is a great. I'm a real avid reader. Good to great, I love good to great. Now I just wrote an insight, a blog this week and just posted yesterday. It was are you the right bus? And I'm talking to leaders Are you the right bus? Because people have choices about what bus they can ride. Today. 25 years ago they didn't. Today they do, and if you're not the right bus, if you're not a good leader, they're opting out.

Speaker 3:

That's amazing. Yeah, we'll make sure to link to that blog in the show notes. Love to read that. All right. If you could have a one-hour conversation with any leader from history, who would it be and why?

Speaker 1:

Of course it's got to be Jesus, Just Lord and Savior and just awesome. You know that's a no-brainer. My second one would probably be Sparky Anderson, when he coached the 84 Detroit Tigers.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Speaker 1:

I would have loved to talk to him.

Speaker 2:

Amazing, awesome. What's a favorite quote or motto that guides you in your professional life?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I often go back to quotes or statements that I have coined, not because I'm arrogant, but because I think they redefine a truth, so that one of those that we talked about is people rarely disagree, they just think they do Another one's. Communication and conflict rarely coexist, and I think that's absolutely true. If you're actually communicating, rarely is there any conflict. The quote about leadership taking people places they would not or could not go on their own those are the kind of things that drive me. I'm a conceptual thinker, kind of an out-of-the-box guy, and so repositioning those in a way that bring new truth to the table, or additional truth or updated truth, is the things that hang my hat on.

Speaker 3:

Amazing. All right, so you talked a little bit about gardening. What's a what's a go-to activity for? You know? Just recharging the batteries after a stressful week.

Speaker 1:

Oh, uh, pick up basketball. Okay, I love playing basketball. I play try to play twice a week with a group of guys. Um, I'm the worst guy on the court, but I love being out there and banging around. Oh, that's amazing.

Speaker 3:

Love it.

Speaker 2:

What's the uh, most unusual, crazy job you've ever had?

Speaker 1:

Oh gosh, the one that immediately comes to mind when you ask that. When I was in college, I went to work for a place called Orville Davis tire. They sent us out behind the the the building, the big building in what basically was a swamp area with these big tractor tires big tractor tires and we had to pick those things up and load them on a truck. They're full of water, so you were just getting doused and the job was so bad that I wouldn't quit. It was like no, no, if it was half this bad I would have quit, but it's so bad that I am not quitting.

Speaker 3:

Oh, that's amazing. All right, I'll wrap it with this one. We'll kind of bring it full circle. What is a one leadership misconception that you'd like to debunk? I?

Speaker 1:

think I'd go back to that that the primary role of a leader is not to be the focus or the attention. It's about the team, the people, the cause, the mission. And you got to get out of your own way. You're the bottleneck as a leader. Normally you're the bottleneck and if you can readjust that, find your appropriate place as a support for your team and someone who engages your team, you're going to be overwhelmingly successful.

Speaker 2:

Wow, awesome. Randy, we cannot thank you enough. This has been incredible. I know we could talk to you all day on this stuff and I know our listeners are going to want to get in touch with you and follow some of the work you're doing. What's the best place for people to connect with you and just hear a little bit more about you and Drive?

Speaker 1:

Sure, so dlgcoach, not com, but coach. So Drive Leadership Group, it's dlgcoach. That's our website, got some info on there, a little bit about what we do and who we are and all that good stuff. And then, if people would like more of this kind of info on ongoing basis this drive leadership insights and that you can also sign up on that on the webpage under insights, perfect.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I'll definitely put a link to that in the show notes as well.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely Well, just appreciate your generosity with your thoughts, your, your thoughts and your work. Um, I just I know you're making an incredible difference in the work you're doing. This has been impactful and convicting to me. Uh, in some ways, I don't know if I want to release this podcast, because then we're going to be held accountable with our team. Uh, but no, this is, this is phenomenal, phenomenal stuff. So, thank you so much for your time, randy. We really appreciate it.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for having me Appreciate it. Thank you.

Speaker 2:

Awesome, and thanks to all of our listeners for joining in for another episode of Stories that Move.

Speaker 3:

And we look forward to joining you. Don't miss the next episode and remember, if you or your organization have a story you're eager to share with the world, Dream On Studios is here to bring that story to life.

Speaker 2:

Don't hesitate to reach out. You can find us on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook or visit our website at dreamonstudiosio. We understand how overwhelming it can be trying to bring your vision and story to life, but that's why we exist, and we've walked alongside hundreds of clients doing that very thing.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, we believe every story has the potential to inspire, to move and to make a difference. Let's make yours heard.

Speaker 2:

Until next time, keep moving forward and keep telling those stories that matter.

Speaker 3:

Take care, everyone. We'll see you next time on Stories that Move.