679: Make it Easier to Discuss Hard Things, with Jeff Wetzler

Dave Stachowiak [00:00:00]:
Leaders are not the only ones who need to have difficult conversations, but absolutely, leaders set the tone for how much people are willing and able to say. In this episode, how to make it easier for important conversations to happen. This is Coaching for Leaders, episode 679.Production Credit: Produced by Innovate Learning. Maximizing human potential.

Dave Stachowiak [00:00:28]:
Greetings to you from Orange County, California. This is Coaching for Leaders, and I’m your host, Dave Stachowiak. Leaders aren’t born, they’re made. And this weekly show helps you discover leadership wisdom through insightful conversations. One of the charges we all have as leaders is making it easier to discuss hard things, particularly making it easy for others. It’s the nature of leadership that sometimes it’s difficult for people to tell us what we need to hear and difficult sometimes to say that in the larger organization. Today, a conversation on what we can do to make that easier inside of our organizations so that communication can flow in a way that’s helpful to everyone. I’m so glad to welcome Jeff Wetzler to the show. He is co-CEO of Transcend, a nationally recognized innovation organization and an expert in learning and human potential. His experience spans 25 plus years in business and education as a management consultant to top corporations, a learning facilitator for leaders, and as chief learning officer at Teach For America. He is a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network and an Edmund Hillary Fellow. He’s the author of Ask,:Tap Into the Hidden Wisdom of People Around You for Unexpected Breakthroughs in Leadership and Life. Jeff, what a pleasure to have you on.

Jeff Wetzler [00:01:52]:
Thank you, Dave. It’s an honor to be with you.

Dave Stachowiak [00:01:54]:
I was struck by a story you tell early in the book about your time at Teach For America, and you share a story about running one of the summer institutes at Teach for America, which is central to the work of the organization. And what went wrong? Because I think there’s such a lesson there for us in how we get better at discussing hard things. Would you be game for sharing that story?

Jeff Wetzler [00:02:23]:
Absolutely. This was one of my first larger operating roles. We had hundreds of people reporting to me across many different summer institutes, each of which was very critical. And we spend almost the entirety of a year getting ready to train teachers in intensive way to be going into some of the most underserved classrooms. And I thought everything was on track. And then only really just at the last minute, did I get a call from one of my colleagues who let me know that not only was one of the institutes not on track, it was nearly about to implode. And this would have had significant consequences for probably 500 teachers and thousands of thousands of students if we didn’t get this fixed. And I was just, you know, I was, first of all, panicked because what we’re gonna do.

Jeff Wetzler [00:03:10]:
But second of all, totally perplexed because all year long, I thought I had been checking in offering help, asking questions. And largely what I was hearing and under the impression of was that things were on track. There were some minor bumps, but the team was working on them. It turned out things were very far off track. And fast forward, one of my colleagues really was able to step in and help get things, on a good course so that things ultimately did run smoothly. Jut me, but just by the the skin of our teeth. But I was left with this question. Why did people not tell me the truth? Why didn’t they actually share with me the real struggles that they were having? And in my reflection later and in talking with my colleagues, I realized it was because despite the fact that I was curious to know, despite the fact that I had asked a lot of questions, I had failed to make it safe.

Jeff Wetzler [00:04:04]:
I’d failed to actually make them feel comfortable telling me what the challenges were, telling me what the errors were, and asking for my help.

Dave Stachowiak [00:04:13]:
When I was reading that story in the book I was thinking back to a couple of situations in my own career and that sort of gut reaction that I think a lot of us have when something like you described happens is like why didn’t people just say something like why didn’t they mention that we had all these issues? Like, I’ve been asking for months. I’ve been there. I have conversations with all these people all the time. And that’s sort of the natural frustration point, I think, a lot of leaders is our first response. But sadly, I think sometimes we don’t get past that initial response and look and turn to ourselves as you did of, like, what did I do to not make this safe?

Jeff Wetzler [00:04:53]:
Yes. I mean, I’m thinking, like, they had all these chances. I would have said something if I were in there. Should all these things. But, of course.

Dave Stachowiak [00:04:58]:
Yeah.

Jeff Wetzler [00:04:59]:
Really the responsibility is on me for creating the environment.

Dave Stachowiak [00:05:02]:
You write, in one study of managers from industries that ranged from pharmaceuticals to advertising to financial services, over 85% of people interviewed admitted to remaining silent with their bosses about a concern on at least one occasion even though they felt the issue was important. What’s more nearly 3 quarters of those people said that their colleagues were also aware of the issue and also felt uncomfortable speaking up. This is such a common thing in organizations, and we don’t talk about it that much, do we?

Jeff Wetzler [00:05:32]:
It’s pervasive. It is absolutely pervasive. I mean, it lets me realize I’m in good company in that, you know, in that challenging situation. But just think about all of the mistakes that could have been avoided. But even more importantly, all of the collective intelligence or collective genius, that is going dormant, with people not only seeing things, but having ideas for what we can do about it as well. I totally agree. And it’s not just in the workplace, I would say. I mean, you may have seen in the book, there’s another survey of over 4,000 Americans, and somewhere between 60 80%, depending on the demographics, admitted to withholding information from their own personal doctor, information that could have been relevant to their health.

Jeff Wetzler [00:06:12]:
And when they were asked why they didn’t share the majority of them said, they felt they feared being judged by the doctor. They felt embarrassed or they didn’t wanna be seen as quote difficult or wasting the doctor’s time. And I just think to myself, you know, if the majority of us are not even telling things to our own doctors, that could be useful to our health. Imagine what else is not getting said in organizations and in life.

Dave Stachowiak [00:06:34]:
And it’s why I really appreciate your invitation in the book to, yes, be conscious you’re gonna have sort of that natural reaction, especially in a leadership role of, okay, why didn’t people tell me that human response? But to pretty quickly move past that and to actually take on the responsibility and say, hey, it’s actually my job as the leader to set the tone to make it safe first. And you have a couple of really great invitations for doing that. And there’s a 3 step process you outlined in the book. And one of the key steps in that is creating connection. And one thing you invite us to think about is finding the right space, connecting with people on their own turf. What does that look like?

Jeff Wetzler [00:07:17]:
Yes. So that’s basically saying it’s less important where I’m going to feel comfortable having the conversation or when I want to have the conversation than it is when they are. And so just to give you a couple examples for the book, I interviewed some iconic CEOs, people like Bill George of Medtronic or Irene Rosenfeld of Kraft. And I said to them, CEOs are notoriously vulnerable to being insulated from the truth. How did you get how did you get the truth from the people around you? And one of the first things that both of them went to was the the place and time, Bill George said, I will not ever invite somebody to my office and make them sit across the big CEO desk from me and assume they’re gonna feel comfortable telling me the truth. And Irene Rosenfeld said, I’m gonna go have lunch where they wanna have lunch, and I’m gonna go to their turf and I’m gonna go ride along on their sales calls. And that’s how I’m gonna go to the place where they feel more comfortable. And I, I, I, we see that all over the place.

Jeff Wetzler [00:08:13]:
I see that in even my own personal life with my own teenage daughter, who is much more likely to tell me what’s really going on for her if we do it on her terms, which sadly means 11 PM at night when I’m exhausted as opposed to right when she gets home from school when I wanna hear about it. And so it’s really about what’s gonna be most comfortable for the other person.

Dave Stachowiak [00:08:32]:
It it’s funny you mentioned that. I actually grabbed that paragraph, and I realized this isn’t a quote, unquote organizational example, but you write, “I have a teenage daughter, and I always wanna know what’s going on in her life and how she’s doing. However, I found that if I ask about her day when she gets home from school even over dinner, the best I get is, it’s fine, dad. If I really want to get into the details I need to stay up late, way later than in my preferred bedtime and hang out with her in her room before she goes to sleep At that time, she’s not only willing to share with me, but she actually wants to do so.” I grabbed that paragraph partially because it’s the exact same story in our house, Jeff. Our sons. Yeah. Our son’s in 6th grade.

Dave Stachowiak [00:09:10]:
He doesn’t say a lot on the way home from school or at dinner. Those are the times I would prefer to have the conversation because I’m awake. I’m moving. But then we’ll get to bedtime, and he’ll often say, hey, dad. You just wanna hang out and chat for a few minutes?

Jeff Wetzler [00:09:27]:
Right.

Dave Stachowiak [00:09:28]:
And my gut inclination is to say no. And the reason is because I’m tired at the end of the day. It’s not the time, like, I’m getting ready to wind down, pick up a book, and most of the time, I do say yes. And it’s interesting. That is 10 minutes of gold, but it does require me to sort of set aside my preference for timing and think about where am I noticing that this other person who I care about or in the case of an employee, what’s the timing that actually works better for them?

Jeff Wetzler [00:10:01]:
Yes. Absolutely. And in an organizational setting, it’s not just timing. It could be mode. There may be people who actually will feel more comfortable talking on the phone rather than on a video. Or maybe more comfortable saying, you know what, let’s have this conversation in 2 days so I can think about it more versus giving me the answer right on the spot. And so it’s it’s time, it’s space, it’s mode, it’s style.

Jeff Wetzler [00:10:24]:
And the the the underlying principle of creating connection is meet them where they’re at. Meet them of what they want. Because if you’re really trying to learn from them, they have to be comfortable.

Dave Stachowiak [00:10:34]:
Yeah. And I actually wanna ask you about texting too, thinking about that because I’ve had maybe over the last couple years, we’ve had several conversations come up with members who have said some version of, I’m having a hard time communicating with someone, but I’m noticing that they like to text me a lot. And they’ve come to me or us in our cohorts and said, I’m sort of, like, really hesitant to engage with someone on text because we’ve all heard the good advice. If you need to have an important conversation, if you need to capture the nuance, don’t do it on email. Don’t do it on text. Get in front of someone. Have the conversation live, which is generally good advice. But it’s interesting how we’ve tested out with a few of those people like, well, maybe just respond and see, like, have the text conversation.

Dave Stachowiak [00:11:23]:
And by and large, it’s really fascinating how people will come back then and say, wow. I’ve had some of these incredible conversations over text because that’s the medium this person prefers to communicate in. And it just reminds me that sometimes the things that we’ve sort of historically thought of is good advice, it it’s not necessarily true in every situation or with every person.

Jeff Wetzler [00:11:45]:
I think that’s right. And you could say that a situation of maybe 2 competing principles. One principle is have the conversation live ear to ear, face to face. The other is to have the conversation in the modality that’s going to be most comfortable for the other person. And I think I would say, like, let the second one trump. Because if they’re not comfortable in the face to face or the ear to ear, it’s not gonna matter. But if they are on text, that may be more important.

Dave Stachowiak [00:12:09]:
Have you found something that’s helpful for you and teaching other folks how to do this that’s helped you decide in the moment when those come up. Like, how do you notice which one of those paths you go down or indicators have been helpful?

Jeff Wetzler [00:12:24]:
I mean, the thing that I would say that I have found is simply to ask the question. It can be so easy for us to assume, oh, they they seem more comfortable here or they seem less comfortable. And there’s so many ways that we can make those wrong assumptions. And but just checking and saying, you know, what would it be more comfortable for you here here if we did this? Or what would be your preferred? I’m happy to follow your lead. And then I think you get the most valid information that way.

Dave Stachowiak [00:12:47]:
So often we miss the obvious question, don’t we? It’s just like, what’s what’s the best medium? What’s the time to to connect? You know?

Jeff Wetzler [00:12:53]:
Yes. Yes.

Dave Stachowiak [00:12:55]:
One of the other invitations is to open up. And you write, “people are far more likely to share what matters to them if we open up about our intentions to learn and if they perceive us as truly open to learning from them, that starts with explaining why we’re asking. That way, they don’t have to guess at our agenda.” What does that look like?

Jeff Wetzler [00:13:15]:
It can be as simple as saying to the other person, here’s why I’m asking. If, you know, if you’re going up to a colleague or someone that works for you or, or they work for, and you say, well, why are we doing it that way? Or why do you do it that way? They can very easily think, oh, God, they’re accusing me of doing it wrong. Or, oh, God, did I screw up? Or, oh, God, they’re out to get me. But if you simply say, that’s so interesting, I never would have thought to do it that way. You might be onto something. Why do you do it that way? It’s a completely different, level of safety that you create. And so often I think when we don’t explain our intentions, before we ask a question, people will guess at our agenda. And they may make more a more suspicious guess than is likely the case.

Jeff Wetzler [00:13:58]:
And so that’s one version of opening up. And another another version of doing that is opening up about what we ourselves don’t know. I’m kind of ignorant about this, or I don’t know what it’s like to be in your shoes. I don’t know what it’s like to be in your world or I’m fearing that I’m not getting this right. And I need your help. And so any of those are examples of the kind of opening up that I think can be disarming for people and increase the safety that they feel. One of the categories of people that I interviewed for the book were professional question askers and so award winning journalists. And one of them is Amanda Ripley, who wrote a great book recently called High Conflict.

Jeff Wetzler [00:14:35]:
And, you know, she said the first thing people wanna know is what’s your agenda. And she told me that earlier in her career, she thought the right thing to do was to really just kind of stay neutral. Don’t tell them the agenda, just ask the question so you don’t bias them or anything like that. But really that made people more suspicious. And so now when she interviews someone who sees the world differently, she’ll start by saying something like, hey, look, I live in DC. Most everybody I know is a Democrat. I am vastly ignorant about all of what your life is like in rural Wyoming, but I really am gonna try hard to listen. So I apologize if I ask stupid questions, but I really wanna know.

Jeff Wetzler [00:15:09]:
Something like that she found actually just is honest about where she’s coming from and what she’s trying to do and radically increases the safety that people feel.

Dave Stachowiak [00:15:19]:
I’m so glad you shared that example because I think often again, getting back to, like, conventional good advice wisdom, many of us have heard, okay, the leader should be the one to speak last. If they say something, they’re gonna bias everyone else in the room. And there are absolutely situations where that happens. Right? And so this line struck me. You write “many people, especially those in positions of power, are afraid that opening up about their own viewpoint will bias the conversation. But providing the context behind a question offers important information that allows the person to give a more useful answer.” And I read that, and I was thinking that I think there’s a distinction here between trying to bias the whole conversation and, like, saying what you believe in your whole point up front and doing what I hear you saying, which is let’s kinda talk about the big picture, kind of the meta why first before we get into some of the details. Am I framing that right? Am I hearing that distinction well?

Jeff Wetzler [00:16:22]:
Yeah. And I think that there are times when it’s important and appropriate for a leader to say, look, I really have not made up my mind. I feel open. We could go in a number of different directions. So I’m going to start by listening. And I want to just hear from every single person what you can do. But I think there’s also a lot of times when a leader has a point of view, or a leader has an instinct. And people know that.

Jeff Wetzler [00:16:43]:
And if and and often they’re trying to guess it. And sometimes they’re thinking, well, the leader just wants me to say what what what they really think so to get confirmation. And I think in those situations, it can actually be helpful sometimes for a leader to say, I have a leaning. I have an instinct to go in this direction, but I haven’t made up my mind. And I know I’m missing important information that you all have. So I’m very open to changing my mind as well. I wanted to just put that on the table, but now I’m really interested to hear what would you all do? And do you see downsides to what I’m thinking about as well? And I think sometimes that can actually elicit more rich and more valid information than if a leader just kind of holds their cards close to the vest.

Dave Stachowiak [00:17:21]:
Have you come across an indicator or a rule of thumb either for yourself or the the people you’ve interviewed and and studied that helps to, like, decide that that’s a good way to go versus maybe stepping back and being a little bit quieter. I’m just curious if that’s come up.

Jeff Wetzler [00:17:40]:
I think one indicator on the part of the leader is how open are you to influence and how open are you to be to to changing your mind. And if you’ve already made up your mind, and you literally want the team to just kind of tell you how to implement this well, I would encourage you to not that’s not a time to kinda stay quiet and hold your cards close to the vest. But if you’re partway down the track, then I think you have a choice to make. I think you can then say, I really don’t know what I’m gonna do yet. So I wanna hear everyone’s thoughts first, or you can do what we were saying earlier, which is to indicate your direction, but really go out of your way to say that you wanna hear the downsides and alternative ideas too.

Dave Stachowiak [00:18:18]:
There’s an invitation in the book to set a mutual agenda for a conversation when it starts. What is that and what does it sound like to do that?

Jeff Wetzler [00:18:28]:
A mutual agenda is a concept I learned from one of my mentors, Jamie Higgins, many years ago. And it really talks about the importance of in any interaction, allowing both people or all people involved to have agency in what we’re talking about and how we’re talking about it. And so it’s to say, here’s some things that are on my mind that I’d love to talk about. But before I just race into so okay, here’s point number 1. It’s to pause and say, what’s on your mind? Or you can do it in the, in the reverse order as well, but it’s really giving both people a chance to put on the table what they would like to talk about, what’s going on for them. And of course, there’s not always time to talk about everything for everybody. So especially then it gives you a chance to negotiate. Okay.

Jeff Wetzler [00:19:12]:
Given what’s on your mind, what’s on my mind, what’s most important to focus on? And it’s a form of asking a question to someone because we may not know that they’ve got something that’s even more important for both of us to talk about than the thing that I thought about. And so in the book, I tell one story of a situation where I was sitting down with an investor of mine, and I had three things I wanted to go over with him. And I was ready to go through the agenda. I had all my points ready and my information. And I said to him, before we do that, just to check, is there anything else you would wanna cover? And the thing that he actually wanted to cover was a with internal strategic dilemma that he was facing in his own management that it turned out was more important than any of the things that I was about to just go right into.

Dave Stachowiak [00:19:53]:
Mhmm.

Jeff Wetzler [00:19:53]:
And it turned out that that was actually, you know, deeply important both for our relationship, but also for the investing dimension of our relationship as well. Had I not paused to invite a mutual agenda in that conversation, I never would have known that that was one of the things that was going on for him.

Dave Stachowiak [00:20:08]:
You know, as you were saying that, Jeff, I was thinking back. I worked for Dale Carnegie for many years. And one of the things that I was taught at one point at Carnegie was when you come into a meeting, you’ve called and you show up hopefully with an agenda for everyone. A good question to always ask is, in addition to this, is there anything else we should add to the agenda? And and it’s essentially what you just said. It’s like that that mutual creating a mutual agenda. And it’s really interesting how yes. Sometimes people will jump in and say, okay.

Dave Stachowiak [00:20:41]:
Yes. I’ve got more. But even if they don’t, just by asking that question, it’s what you just said. It gives the other person agency. It’s not just me showing up and trying to ram this agenda forward. It’s creating a space where we are both people showing up who both have needs, both have things that we need to communicate. And even if they don’t say anything it just sets the tone for a conversation that we’re co creating this together

Jeff Wetzler [00:21:08]:
a 100% agree and it it creates another way to say it maybe it creates a spirit of mutuality in the conversation. Yeah. It’s not just my conversation or your conversation, but we have both had the chance to shape what we as human beings are doing together in this moment.

Dave Stachowiak [00:21:23]:
Yeah. And then, of course, more likely someone’s gonna say something when there is something that needs to come up that’s harder to talk about, makes it a little bit easier for someone to say something.

Jeff Wetzler [00:21:33]:
And for you to learn about that.

Dave Stachowiak [00:21:35]:
Yeah. Yeah. And to hear it. Yeah. Indeed. Okay. So one of the other steps is something you call radiating resilience. And I was really struck by the example of Jamie McKee in the book of one of your first meetings. And I’m wondering if you could share a bit of what that sounded like because I think it’s just a really great example, like how to set this up well.

Jeff Wetzler [00:22:01]:
Yes. So radiating radiating resilience is all about letting the other person know that you can handle their truth, no matter what that truth is. That you’re not gonna crumble, You’re not gonna freak out. You’re not gonna punish them. You’re not gonna blame them for your reactions. That you’re resilient enough to be able to handle what they have to say. Because people are always wondering, are are they gonna have a reaction to what I have to say? And in the work that I do, I have many investors. And often I get the sense from the investors that once they’ve made the investment, they want to know that it’s on track.

Jeff Wetzler [00:22:35]:
They want to know that the thing I pitched is happening in the way that I pitched it and what the metrics are. And of course, if they’re not, I have to figure out a way to to to share that fully, but it’s not always easy. And Jamie McKee flipped it a 180 degrees in a way that I thought was a perfect example of radiating resilience. After she made the investment in our first meeting, she said, let me just tell you my philosophy of investing. My philosophy is that if you knew exactly how the future was gonna play out, when you pitched me, you would be able to win the lottery and bet on horses and be you’d be doing a lot of other things here. But I’m assuming that you can’t perfectly predict how it’s gonna go. And in fact, I’m predicting that it’s not gonna go the way that you told me that it was gonna go when you pitched it. And in fact, if you tell me the way it’s going exactly as you expected when you pitched it, I’m gonna be suspicious of you.

Jeff Wetzler [00:23:27]:
And so what she basically did is she made discussable all the things that might feel otherwise hard to share. And in fact, said, that’s what I’m most interested in learning about. What are the ways in which this is deviated from what you pitched me? And all of a sudden that just lowered any concern or any barrier that I had around. How would she react when I told her things would go off course. And it created the foundation for me to know that she was completely resilient to hear whatever I had to say. And we could just go right to the hard stuff much faster than if I had assumed that she would not react well to that.

Dave Stachowiak [00:23:59]:
The the gold in that is her saying, if you sort of tell me what I expect to hear, I’m gonna be suspicious. Right.

Jeff Wetzler [00:24:06]:
If you know, if I have any negative reaction, it’s gonna be to the thing that most you think most investors do wanna hear from you.

Dave Stachowiak [00:24:12]:
Yeah. And I think about that and how many people who listen to the show have a very similar mindset to hers and really do want to hear truth and really do want to open up the space for people to say what they need to say. And yet, don’t say out loud what she said.

Jeff Wetzler [00:24:36]:
That I think is the one of the big insights around making it safe. We assume we wanna know from the other person. We assume because we wanna know and because we think we’re approachable and we can we think we have a good relationship that they’re gonna tell us, but there are actual things that we can, and it turns out that we need to do if we wanna ensure that it’s as comfortable, easy, and appealing as possible for others to share with us.

Dave Stachowiak [00:24:59]:
I love the line- there’s a whole bunch, by the way, of great suggestions of language that you bring in the book on so many topics. And one of the the suggestions is saying something like “if I were in your shoes I might be feeling frustrated or even resentful if that’s how you’re feeling I would understand completely please don’t hold back.” I mean, saying that doesn’t mean someone’s not gonna hold back, but, boy, it’s a lot easier for someone to make the decision than to say, okay. Maybe I will actually say a bit more and really share a bit more. And then, of course, obviously, we need to honor that. Right? We need to say, I really do understand, may not agree, but I do understand, and I do wanna hear this. Boy, just saying that out loud. Such a big difference.

Jeff Wetzler [00:25:44]:
Because it names it. And then sometimes the other person can just jump right onto the language that you put out there and say, you know, now that you said, I kinda do feel a little frustrated. Right? And and we’ve just made it that much easier because we’ve offered them some language, but also demonstrated to them. I can handle it if that’s what if that’s what you’re feeling. I I’m not gonna flip out.

Dave Stachowiak [00:26:02]:
There’s about 8 different episodes we could have done about this book because there’s so much in here Jeff that is helpful for all of us on getting better at really starting to encourage conversation and, of course, to ask for help and to open up the the doors. We’re just hitting one tiny piece of everything that you’ve mentioned in the book. So I hope if this is helpful to folks these three steps that you’ll take the next step to go get the book. Hopefully, I have you back at some point and look at some more of the details on getting curious and asking questions in effective ways because there’s so much there. I do wanna ask you one other question, though, on changing your mind. You know, leaders are always growing. The best leaders are changing their minds as they discover new things. As you’ve researched the book, as you’ve been talking with people about it, as you’ve been helping people to get better at this, what’s one thing you’ve changed your mind on?

Jeff Wetzler [00:26:57]:
Yeah. And I will say that I am a student of this as much as someone who’s written a book about it. And I’ve probably written the book that I most need to read as well, especially all around making it safe for other people. And as you referenced, making it safe is only one of the 5 practices of the of the ask approach overall. But when I try to put this entire approach into action, I remember there was a time a couple of years ago, when I was taking a ride in an Uber or Lyft. And when the when the driver pulled up, I saw a big bumper sticker that had a flag on it. And that driver also had a hat with the same flag on it. And it was it was a flag that at the time, I looked at and I thought this person must have complete opposite values that I do.

Jeff Wetzler [00:27:43]:
In fact, I have a lot of judgment about this person’s values. And I’m a little bit afraid to even be riding in the car with this person. And my initial instinct when I got in the car was to just look down, do my email, not make conversation. And then I thought to myself, you know what, this is the time to use the ask approach. This is a time for me to actually get curious. And so I opened up a conversation with the person, and we had some we had some traffic. So we had a good 45 minutes in the car. And by the end of the conversation, not only did I not have a judgment negatively about this person, I really appreciated them.

Jeff Wetzler [00:28:15]:
I wasn’t ready to fly their flag, but I was much more understanding of where they were coming from. And honestly, you know, realized that we actually had so much more in common than I realized. And, and now when I see people with that symbol or that flag, I have much more interest in really understanding their story and understand that it’s a far more complex story than I realized when I first made that original judgment.

Dave Stachowiak [00:28:38]:
We’re so quick. Aren’t all of us to put folks into a box just depending on the first thing that said or a flag or a symbol and often the times there’s so much more behind that isn’t there?

Jeff Wetzler [00:28:49]:
Absolutely. Absolutely.

Dave Stachowiak [00:28:50]:
I appreciate you saying that this is the book you need to read too. I I think about that with this podcast every week that this is the podcast I need to listen to because Yes. There’s so much for us to learn and get better at this. We never get to a place where we master leadership. It’s a continual journey.

Jeff Wetzler [00:29:06]:
That’s why they call it a practice because it’s just be an ongoing practice.

Dave Stachowiak [00:29:09]:
Jeff Wetzler is the author of Ask: Tap into the Hidden Wisdom of People Around You for Unexpected Breakthroughs in Leadership and Life. Jeff, thank you so much for your work.

Jeff Wetzler [00:29:19]:
Thank you for having me. It’s been a great joy to be in conversation with you.

Dave Stachowiak [00:29:28]:
If this conversation was helpful to you, a few related episodes I’d recommend. One of them is one Jeff reminded me of, just a few days ago. He was going back into the library and pulling some of our past episodes, and one of them that he came across is episode 454. How to ask better questions with David Marquet. He mentioned how helpful that was and and so much alignment with his book as well on how we can get better at asking questions. David, of course, the former commander of the USS Santa Fe, author of turn the ship around, an extraordinary leadership story. And David is masterful at helping us as leaders use the kind of language that aligns with what we wanna do to be able to open up conversation, to be able to empower people well. Episode 454 is a great primer on how to do a better job of asking questions. Highly recommended.

Dave Stachowiak [00:30:24]:
Also recommended episode 529, the way out of major conflict. Amanda Ripley was my guest on that episode. Two reasons I’m thinking about that episode in context of this conversation with Jeff. One is she’s mentioned in Jeff’s book a couple of times as an example of someone who does a great job in her work as a journalist of making it easier for people to discuss difficult things. And I’m also thinking about it because it’s a great compliment to this conversation. Our discussion about how to find your way out of major conflict, her book on high conflict, just fabulous, so much insight there. I’m thinking about conflict in effective ways and how to move past it. Episode 529, a great compliment to this.

Dave Stachowiak [00:31:06]:
And then I’m also thinking about the work of Amy Edmonson because Amy wrote the foreword for Jeff’s book. She’s been on the podcast a couple of times over the years, most recently on episode 663, how to grow from your errors. Amy, of course, has really set the tone on psychological safety in so much of the scholarship and literature and has really helped all of us to become better psychological safety, of course, a key component to making it easier for people to be able to discuss hard things.All of those episodes, of course, you can find inside of the coachingforleaders.com website. And if you have not yet set up your free membership, I hope you’ll take a moment to do that. Because inside the free membership, you can get access to the entire episode library of episodes since 2011, which you can find on the public directories, but what you can’t find on all the apps is the ability to search by topic. I have gone through over the years and database and categorized all of those episodes for you so you can easily find what’s most helpful for you right now.

Dave Stachowiak [00:32:07]:
So perhaps you are handling a difficult situation, or perhaps you’d like to get better in your coaching skills. You can find those topics as well as dozens more inside of the free membership. So you can zero in on what’s most important to you right now inside of our library, plus all of the other benefits of free membership. Take a few moments if you haven’t already to set up your free membership at coaching for leaders.com. And I’d also invite you to consider joining in with me and many others on Coaching for Leaders Plus. It is the next step to support you in getting even more insight from me and from our guest experts on the podcast. One thing I’m doing each week is sending out a journal entry with a resource for you, a guide on how to do something a bit differently or more perspective from me. And this past week, I sent out a entry on how do you handle it when you’re getting radio silence from a senior leader? But a lot of us have run into this situation.

Dave Stachowiak [00:33:10]:
It’s come up just twice amongst our members in the last week who’ve said, I’m waiting on a senior leader for approval, a yes or no on something. And, it’s not yes. It’s not no. It’s just nothing. I can’t get a hold of them. They don’t seem to respond. They don’t seem to wanna approve what’s next. What do I do? Well, there’s actually three things I think that you should do if you ever find yourself in that situation of when you’re getting radio silence, how do you actually proceed? It’s one of the recent entries inside of Dave’s journal inside of coaching for leaders plus that and the entire archive of entries are available to you as a Coaching for Plus member.

Dave Stachowiak [00:33:48]:
Go over to coachingforleaders.plus if you’d like to learn more about the weekly journal entries, plus all the other benefits inside of Coaching for Leaders Plus. Coaching for Leaders is edited by Andrew Kroeger. Production support is provided this week, as always, by Sierra Priest. I’ll be back next Monday for our next conversation. Thanks for listening in as always, and I hope you have a great week.