Episode 93: Leading Strong Teams in High-Stakes Workplaces with Kim Miller-Hershon

0:00: Hi everyone. 
0:01: It's Evelyn Aka from the Ask Canada Immigration Lawyer podcast. 
0:05: I am so thrilled today to have a friend and colleague joining me on the podcast. 
0:09: Her name is Kim Miller Hershon. 
0:11: Welcome, Kim. 
0:13: Hi, thank you, Evelyn, so much for having me as a guest. 
0:16: I really look fabulous. 
0:18: I love that outfit. 
0:20: You and I both love color and so I just love that and I think it's about your energy as well, and I think you're going to have a great conversation. 
0:28: So I want to tell our listeners a little bit about you, Kim, and I want you guys to know Kim is a people-focused consultant who helps organizations solve their toughest communication, leadership, and productivity challenges. 
0:42: She is the owner of Kim Miller Hershon Coaching and Consulting. 
0:46: And her focus is on business management consulting, and corporate and personal training. 
0:52: Kim specializes in manager training, remote team dynamics, and supporting leaders in transition. 
0:58: And through corporate training, strategic consulting, and executive coaching, Kim works with managers all the way to VPs and up to build stronger leaders and healthier workplace cultures. 
1:09: Kim has a Bachelor's of Arts from UC Santa Barbara and a dual MA degree from USC and Hebrew Union College. 
1:17: And she blends her academic expertise with hands-on leadership experience to help companies reduce turnover, strengthen culture, and drive results. 
1:27: I love that. 
1:28: Welcome, Kim. 
1:29: Thank you. 
1:30: So listen, you clearly have all the credentials. 
1:33: I want to know, how did you get into this type of work? 
1:36: What was it? 
1:38: Yeah, well, I glibly say, I think I've been coaching like my entire life. 
1:44: I just figured out a way to get paid for it. 
1:48: I think more practically, I got laid off of a job. 
1:56: And I was not mobile. 
1:58: My kids were in school and I owned a home, and so I had to figure it out. 
2:04: And what's interesting is that when I looked at my jobs that I had had, which I was in business development and marketing, and I looked at what I liked the best about what I did, and I was actually in engineering firms and what I, and. 
2:24: I'm not an engineer, so I made all the introductions and then I took the engineers with me to solve the technical problems. 
2:35: And I think it was really when I looked back, I was like teaching them how to do the business development part. 
2:44: was probably my favorite part of what I did. 
2:48: And so ultimately, I turned that into a business. 
2:53: What's funny though is, as I like to say, me with engineers, engineers, I know. 
3:01: So, you know, they're unique people, aren't they? 
3:04: That's right. 
3:05: But you know what's interesting about that? 
3:08: I will say that although I wouldn't say that the majority of my practice are engineers in particular, but what I would say is that I really love. 
3:20: Of working with managers and leaders who feel like they don't have the people skills, right? 
3:32: Or the natural people skills, right? 
3:35: They're the people who say, like, why can't they just do their jobs, right? 
3:39: Like, you know, and why do they need to be managed? 
3:43: And what I actually love about them is that they're very process oriented. 
3:50: And what they don't actually realize is that communication and good leadership in management can also be very process oriented. 
4:03: I love that. 
4:04: I love that. 
4:05: What an interesting way to fall into your business. 
4:07: I I worked with a lot of engineers here in, you know, Alberta with the oil and gas industry, and honestly they're brilliant, they're brilliant, they're smart, but they're very unique, generally speaking, it's a stereotype, of course, unique personalities, super academic in their heads, and you're totally right, not everybody has the same skills. 
4:27: If you did social science, you know, you learn different skills. 
4:30: I think you write differently, you communicate differently. 
4:34: So you decided to turn this. 
4:38: Thing that you'd love that ended up feeling like, this is my natural way of being into working in the workplace and bringing that out in people. 
4:46: So, it, I love the idea, it's almost like you're solving problems internally. 
4:51: Give me some examples of some of the communication or other leadership challenges you've had to deal with in your career. 
4:57: I'm sure you must have some interesting ones. 
4:59: Yeah, well, the first story that comes to mind. 
5:04: And, and I think it's a really important lesson for all of us to learn is a leader who came to me after she's a COO, OK, and a bunch of line employees all quit en masse. 
5:27: And then if that wasn't bad enough, they went to the press and aired their dirty laundry or what they perceived to be the problems, right, publicly. 
5:42: And so when the, they decided to keep the COO but then referred her for coaching, right? 
5:51: Here is what I think and it actually goes back to our discussion about engineers too, although she certainly is not an engineer, but here's, I think the misconception that people have, and this is what she had, which is I have to be a certain way in order to be a good leader, right? 
6:10: So I have to be outgoing and I have to be chit chatty, right? 
6:15: And, and I have to be whatever this thing is that I am not. 
6:21: Right. 
6:22: And she came to me and she said, Evelyn, frankly, she's like, I don't really care what you did this weekend, right? 
6:31: I mean, let's just face it, yeah, let's be honest. 
6:34: And if I have to use the 1st 15 or 20 minutes, even 10 minutes of every meeting. 
6:42: Checking in with you, like, I'm just so uninterested in that, right? 
6:49: But that was what her perception of being a good leader was, right? 
6:55: So she erred. 
6:57: On the other side, and then people thought. 
7:01: She was bossy and you know the other b word, right? 
7:05: And so. 
7:07: You know, my first thing is time out, right? 
7:09: Like, wait a second, there are lots of ways to be a good leader, right? 
7:15: So let's explore how you can authentically be who you are and be a good leader, right? 
7:23: So I kid you not, I'm going to say 4 months into our engagement. 
7:31: I'm on Zoom because she was not local. 
7:33: I'm on Zoom and I'm like. 
7:36: Where are you? 
7:37: So I text her and I say, where are you? 
7:40: And you know what she says? 
7:42: She says to me, she said, oh my God, I have so and so and so and so in my office, and we were chatting and I lost track of time. 
7:52: Oh my goodness. 
7:52: And I was like, Boom. 
7:55: Perfect. 
7:56: Done right. 
7:57: She got it. 
7:57: She got it. 
7:58: She got it. 
7:59: And then she was able to open up and she was able to authentically connect with people, without. 
8:09: Wasting like in her mind, like right wasting time on stuff that she didn't really care about. 
8:16: Oh, that's huge. 
8:17: I mean, you saved her career, you saved her future career. 
8:20: Like those are, I believe in coaching. 
8:22: I mean, you know me, I'm, I always have a coach of some sort because nobody knows everything and I feel like, you know, you, you need those people that will support you in the areas where you're lacking. 
8:33: And so for me, it's been 15 years on my own and even 10 years before that practicing, I think it's really important. 
8:41: I mean, you've partnered with startups because you are in California and global firms like FEMA and Merrill Lynch. 
8:48: what was different about working with, you know, a startup versus like a global company? 
8:53: How do you come into play in an organization like that? 
8:57: My experiences, well, people's experience in those organizations tend to be quite different, right? 
9:07: I think in the startup world, we're often dealing with, I have 3 jobs, not just 1 job, right? 
9:17: And, like the ability to set boundaries. 
9:24: To hire the right people, to grow, to, to continue to grow yourself, but grow in that intersection of what you're good at. 
9:38: And what your passion, like what you like, because oftentimes we can be very good at things that we don't like that we don't like, right? 
9:48: So I think in the startup world, it's very much and also to people in the startup world too, I find are often very stretched. 
10:01: , like emotionally, right? 
10:05: So So it that there's that work, right? 
10:10: I think that my experience working with people in bigger organizations is the, the upward mobility is much more limited. 
10:26: Right, I mean, it just depends, right? 
10:28: It depends. 
10:30: But like for instance, you know, I don't know, a year or two ago, I was working with a gal from Intel, right? 
10:37: So Intel is huge, right? 
10:40: And like they have very defined. 
10:44: Levels, right? 
10:46: And the thing is, is that even if you're ready and then, and the pyramid is also gets right, those higher level positions, there's many fewer of them, right? 
10:58: So in order my person was a senior manager in order for her to move into a director role. 
11:04: Like her boss wasn't very much older than she was, so somebody had to leave. 
11:09: Somebody has to leave, right? 
11:12: As opposed to my experience with working with startups, is it oftentimes the, the company grows and then you just grow into the next level, right? 
11:26: So I find that very. 
11:29: The, the, listen, people are people, yeah, they are, right, so a lot of the issues are the same, but I think. 
11:38: How you deal with them. 
11:40: And also, you know, I don't know if this is true or not true. 
11:43: I guess I'd have to think a little bit more about this, but, you know, Somebody who opts for a startup is a risk taker, right? 
11:54: Somebody in Intel typically is not going to be a big risk taker, right? 
12:02: So, so they're, even if. 
12:05: Maybe they have similar traits that it's going to look a little different. 
12:10: Mhm. 
12:11: Absolutely. 
12:11: Oh yeah, I, I think that's really helpful. 
12:13: That's a really good analysis there, Kim, because yeah, I think you're right. 
12:17: The people who start their own businesses like you and I. 
12:20: We are risk takers or we make do with our circumstances and we turn them into something beautiful. 
12:26: So, what personal values would you say guide the way you work with leaders and teams? 
12:31: I mean, I heard a lot in the early part of this conversation about authenticity. 
12:36: What else do you think is significant in terms of your personal values that help you become the the best coach that you can be? 
12:46: I think in terms of. 
12:50: I think you have to meet people where they are, right? 
12:54: If I would say. 
12:56: What is, I think kind of interesting about, you know, I guess me or somebody like me is that like I have such a big personality, right? 
13:05: And I have such a distinct sort of style and so forth. 
13:11: And yet when I. 
13:13: In a coaching situation, it is, it's not about me, right? 
13:17: And I'm very clear about that. 
13:20: So whereas I am maybe one of the most impatient people that you have ever met, you and I both, yeah, I'm infinitely. 
13:33: I am infinitely patient. 
13:36: With my clients, not because I am making an effort to do that, but because it's actually, I think I could say it in the positive, but I'm gonna say it in the negative. 
13:47: I actually think it's, it's disrespectful, of course, To them, right, to impose like my what, what I want, right? 
14:02: The good thing though about somebody like me who is so clear about who I am is that I attract clients who. 
14:16: Want to work with me, right, and they know who I am. 
14:21: I mean, I don't, not, not surprising, right? 
14:24: , yeah, so I think it's a blend of Respect For their journey. 
14:35: Really seeing them for who they are. 
14:40: And then I think being really creative about How to help them. 
14:47: That's great, right? 
14:49: I think that's great. 
14:50: Wow, very much about. 
14:54: Their journey and not your journey, which, you know, not everybody who coaches remembers that, right? 
15:01: You know, so listen, let's talk about becoming a leader because you've worked with people maybe at the earlier stages, managers. 
15:10: You know, senior managers trying to get to that next level, and many managers are like prompted to learn something technical, to kind of, you know, become a subject matter expert, but They lack the people skills. 
15:25: So how do you, I mean, you, you gave that perfect example of working with engineers, but maybe if you have another one of those examples, or how do you help people bridge that personality, leadership, people, skill set so that they can present differently and learn how to be that leader in that next role. 
15:47: I think 3 things come to mind like off the top of my head. 
15:51: I think one is delegation, right? 
15:55: And a great Kim Miller Hershon quote is, just because you delegate does not mean you do it well, OK? 
16:03: And I'm going to be super bold here and say that in my experience that when a project fails because you gave it to somebody and it didn't. 
16:15: It wasn't, you know, done well that I'm gonna say 90 or maybe even 90% of the time it's actually the manager's fault, not the employee's fault, right? 
16:30: But that is not our experience. 
16:33: Our experience is I knew I shouldn't have given you that, right? 
16:37: I knew it. 
16:38: I knew I should have just done it myself, right? 
16:42: So I think learning how to delegate well. 
16:44: Yes. 
16:46: and what to delegate and what not to delegate. 
16:51: I think there's a real art and science to it, right? 
16:54: There's a process, but there's also some rules that I think a lot of people don't know. 
16:58: So learning, learning that. 
17:01: I think is really important. 
17:03: I think being brave, so one of the things I think that most, a lot of managers do, or maybe don't do is they're not willing to have the hard conversations. 
17:18: So here's another Kim Miller Hershon rule if. 
17:23: You get to a performance, a yearly performance review, and you are telling your employees something that they haven't heard before, shame on you, right? 
17:36: So feedback needs to be consistent. 
17:43: And it needs to be, there need to be things that people are working on, right? 
17:50: That's concrete. 
17:52: So I think that that's another thing that you have and and oh here's a frame. 
17:59: OK, here's a frame for giving feedback because people are often afraid they don't want to hurt somebody's feelings, right? 
18:07: They don't want to have a hard conversation because they're afraid of conflict, like all the things, right? 
18:13: Or their experience of somebody can be, well, they always get defensive. 
18:17: So I don't want to deal with that. 
18:21: Here's an interesting frame though, is that as a manager and a leader, one of your biggest jobs is to grow your team and help them, move up in their career, right? 
18:37: Help in in in their professional development. 
18:40: If you are not giving them feedback. 
18:44: How are they supposed to do that? 
18:46: Mhm. 
18:47: Right. 
18:48: Yes, yes. 
18:50: Yeah, and one tip I will give people around that is this. 
18:57: Know who you are talking to. 
19:01: If somebody tends to get defensive, I think first of all, You need to learn how to read other people and speak their language. 
19:14: How do people learn that? 
19:16: How do you teach that, Kim? 
19:19: Well, you gotta have a coach. 
19:21: You've gotta have a coach, of course, of course, of course, but I mean, like, do you, you can teach them, how to read people and communicate in their way that's going to help them be received. 
19:33: Wow. 
19:34: Yeah, that's powerful. 
19:36: And then I think that, Don't be afraid to give people time to process. 
19:48: Right, so the conversation can sound something like this. 
19:53: So you know that this meeting is about feedback, so. 
19:59: I'd like to give you some feedback, and then what I'd like to do is, if you have something to say, you can say, but I want to give you some time to think about it. 
20:11: So we're going to set a meeting for tomorrow. 
20:15: Right, at this time. 
20:17: Now the thing is, is it only works if you actually set the follow up time, right? 
20:24: But especially people who you know that here's the other scenario, maybe they don't get defensive. 
20:32: Maybe you know they are somebody who it's like you give me any feedback, you have stabbed me in the heart, right? 
20:40: Because, because I want to please you. 
20:44: So if you're giving me constructive feedback, I'm not pleasing you, and that's all I can hear, right? 
20:50: I can't actually hear the feedback. 
20:54: So part of it is how you say it, and then part of it is giving them time. 
21:00: To process through it and, and, and come up with some action steps. 
21:07: That will help them, yeah, to feel like it's possible, it's doable. 
21:11: That's right. 
21:12: That's really important. 
21:13: Oh my goodness. 
21:14: one thing I always think about as the leader of my own firm is, no matter what happens, I'm responsible, and it's something that has been a hard lesson because sometimes you're like, well, that wasn't me, that was, or I delegated, or, you know, and so 15 years later, it's something I've really learned that the things that don't work are my Issue, and I have to figure it out, and the things that work, I give that credit to the team, you know, and so no matter what, it's on me. 
21:43: And I think once I accepted that, that real sense that no matter what, If I'm the top leader, if I'm the founder, it all ends with me, right? 
21:52: And so that's something that's really helped me in terms of mindset to understand truly what it is to take it all. 
22:00: Right, you know, all that stuff. 
22:03: what kind of communication breakdowns do you see in an organization because communication is so critical and everybody communicates differently. 
22:09: You and I are outgoing, we tend to be more, direct and, you know, know how to communicate in different ways than other people that may be more introverted or aren't as comfortable, even if it's culturally, to be able to, to speak their truth. 
22:25: In a professional manner, what, what kind of examples or what kind of situations have you seen where communications break down completely and they're like this, and they've just missed each other completely? 
22:35: Mhm. 
22:36: Well, I think it's a couple of things. 
22:37: First of all, I actually, interestingly enough, Evelyn, I think that It can happen no matter what your personality is, right? 
22:49: And here is the, here is the interesting thing. 
22:53: I think that sometimes the biggest trap that we can have is the perception that we are unbelievably clear. 
23:03: Right, yes, right, like, and here is the biggest, so you wanna, you wanna know, I, I don't know that it's answering your question exactly, but here's one of the biggest mistakes I see leaders doing. 
23:18: So I need you to do this. 
23:21: This way by this time. 
23:25: Clear. 
23:26: Yes, clear. 
23:28: Walk away. 
23:30: Come back, it's not done how you expected it to be done, right? 
23:36: So here's, here's a tip. 
23:40: OK, I need you to do this task this way by this time. 
23:45: OK, just to make sure that we're on the same page, what, what is it that you need to do? 
23:53: Oh, you think you need to do this? 
23:55: No, I actually need you to do it this way, right? 
23:58: Or, OK, good, we're on the same page. 
24:02: Let's put a little checkpoint in there just to make sure. 
24:06: It's going the way that we need it to go. 
24:09: Let's meet here, right? 
24:11: Yeah, blah blah bah bah ba. 
24:13: That's good, yeah, because I, yeah, it's almost like let's mirror back what I said. 
24:17: Tell me what you think. 
24:19: I said, and I do that too, because I feel like I have to because I think I'm clear, but I know now I'm not always clear. 
24:25: So I'll say, can you do this? 
24:26: And then it's, OK, what does that look like to you? 
24:29: Tell me what the steps are that you're planning on doing so that, you know, I make sure we're aligned, otherwise everybody's wasting time, right? 
24:36: That's right. 
24:37: Oh my goodness. 
24:38: And the one caveat I would say to all leaders and managers is this. 
24:44: Again, it's sort of this about reading other people, right? 
24:49: It's how you say it. 
24:52: That means everything, right? 
24:56: If you give somebody an instruction and then you say, repeat that back to me. 
25:02: It sounds like you don't trust them or you're treating them like a child, right? 
25:07: If you say something like what you just said, I love that. 
25:12: What does that look like to you? 
25:14: That's, I, that's fabulous. 
25:15: I actually may even take that. 
25:18: what, what I would normally suggest that people say is, Just to make sure we're on the same page, just to make sure you're successful. 
25:30: Yes, I love that, right? 
25:33: Let's, you know, tell me what those steps look like, right? 
25:39: you got to make sure upfront that there is, that, that actually you have the same understanding of what the task is, right? 
25:49: Employers always think or leaders that people can read their minds. 
25:53: That's right, and no. 
25:55: You know, so I've even trained myself if something goes wrong with my team or something doesn't get executed the way that I think it, I, I thought it should be. 
26:07: OK, where did I, where did I mess that up, right? 
26:11: Where did that go wrong on my end? 
26:14: And here's the thing, you know, the, the last thing I'll say on this is creating an environment. 
26:21: Where you can have those conversations and they're not loaded. 
26:26: They're just conversations, right? 
26:28: Like I, like I am just amazed. 
26:32: Like my, when I say something to like somebody on my team like that did not get executed well, they'll be like, OK, let's get on a call. 
26:42: Let's talk about it. 
26:43: What went wrong here? 
26:44: Like, and it's, it's because they feel safe. 
26:50: Yes. 
26:51: Right, and they can take responsibility and or take it as an opportunity to grow, not as an opportunity to be dressed down. 
27:01: Exactly. 
27:01: No, it's a problem solving. 
27:03: That's my thing is, hey, it's happened. 
27:04: Let's figure out how we can make sure this doesn't happen again. 
27:08: What happened in my instructions or what happened in our procedures manual that we need to improve upon so that everybody can follow, you know, and so we turn it into that. 
27:18: It's definitely always a problem solving. 
27:20: I have a firm with 19 women, and most people would like, oh my goodness, all women. 
27:28: Oh, that must be a very gossipy environment, and I would say no. 
27:32: And I've been through it where, you know, years ago I didn't know how to hire properly, and I didn't know how to cut off that negativity before it started, and it was like, woo, redo the whole firm, like 67 years ago. 
27:47: So for me, It's a part of our core values that there's no gossiping, there's no triangulation, you talk directly, you problem solve, you move on. 
27:56: How do you, how do you deal with that in a workplace when it can really, one of the things you said is gossip signals the deeper cultural issues. 
28:05: Can you explain why it matters and how leaders should respond when they're caught up in this gossip trap? 
28:12: Yeah, I think that you hit the nail on the head when. 
28:19: We're not addressing things directly, but when we're talking over here about this person here, I mean, first of all, think about how much it costs the company, so right, so you and I have this interaction. 
28:37: I'm, I'm upset about it. 
28:40: So now I go and I spend at least 15 to 20 minutes with this. 
28:46: So now as a company you've lost 40 minutes of productivity, right? 
28:50: And then however much time it gets each of us back into actually doing our work, and that's assuming that my rage is assuaged by talking to that one person and then I don't then have to go to the next person, right? 
29:06: And on and on and on, right? 
29:07: It's so, unproductive and not only culturally, but it's expensive, right. 
29:16: So one thing is modeling. 
29:18: As a leader, it is your job to model what it looks like. 
29:23: I can't tell you how many companies I have been in where even in my presence I have heard leaders talking about somebody else without talking to them directly. 
29:39: Here's the other thing. 
29:41: When I come across that with a leader, I have a lot of compassion because it's hard for a lot of people to do. 
29:53: So in a lot of ways, we get very, very micro when it comes to that, because it's just like going to the gym for the first time, right? 
30:04: Like you're going to get a little sore, right, from, from doing really. 
30:10: Low weights. 
30:11: So we have to actually craft the language. 
30:15: And here's the thing, I will never forget this. 
30:17: I had a client who, and I've actually been working for with him for a while, right? 
30:24: And so he was going to an executive, he was on the like executive committee, right? 
30:31: And, and he wanted to show up in a particular way. 
30:35: So I said, hey Michael, like you might want to think about saying it this way. 
30:40: And he looked right at me over Zoom because he's in London. 
30:43: He looked right at me and he said, Kim, I am sure that if I said that in that way, it would achieve exactly what you're talking about. 
30:52: Those words are never coming out of my mouth. 
30:55: OK, fair. 
30:57: OK, that's right. 
30:59: So when we talk about authenticity, we have to find the words that are authentic to him that he can actually say that are going to get him the results that he, he needs, right? 
31:12: So then we Worked on it and we crafted it until it felt like his words, like his words, natural, yeah, yeah, excellent. 
31:22: So you work with DC as well as 5 behaviors of a cohesive team. 
31:27: How do you feel like these tools transform collaboration, improve team? 
31:34: So, because we do disk in my office, we do disk, we do Colby, we do predictive index, we do it all because I think it's really important, yeah. 
31:46: One thing I like about disc, I think there's really two favorite things, no 3. 
31:52: OK. 
31:53: One, it's simple. 
31:55: OK, so I think in the workplace, like if you want to go really, really deep personally, I honestly think that there are different assessments that do that better, right? 
32:07: Doneagram, do Myers-Briggs, like they go really deep into you, right? 
32:16: If you want to use something in your office to work better with the people in the office, I think disk is the best tool out there, OK. 
32:29: The second way that you can use disk very effectively is when you are working on your own stuff, right? 
32:39: It's very helpful to be able to say, you know what, people with my style. 
32:45: Typically have that characteristic, right? 
32:48: And I'm going to give you an example of this. 
32:50: This is, this is personal and really it, this was a big deal for me for a long time, which is that people with my style tend to be messy, right? 
33:01: I come from parents who are fastidiously neat, and you have a lot of judgment about, about that, right? 
33:12: And so, like, It, it sounds, I don't know, like maybe it doesn't really matter, but I think when you're used to being judged about it, and yet. 
33:26: Like, I think there's a part of me that kind of wishes that I was neater, but I don't wish it enough to actually like spend time doing it all the time. 
33:38: Yeah, no, it just is not important to me. 
33:41: Yeah. 
33:43: So I think being able to say this is not a like shameful, like personal, like fault of mine. 
33:57: Here, and then here's the other part of it. 
33:59: The other part of it is that you have free will. 
34:04: And so if that is important to me, like for instance, you know what, I have somebody come clean my house every week. 
34:11: Yeah, me too. 
34:13: Right, so it doesn't mean I am not destined to be a slob, right? 
34:19: But I can find other solutions. 
34:24: And I, here's the thing, it's hard to find a solution for something when you're steeped in shame, shame, right? 
34:35: And so disc, I will tell you. 
34:39: I can't tell you how many times I will say to somebody, you know what, I would expect that you would feel that way or do that, that, you know, because people with your style, like that's kind of what you do. 
34:51: So you use it to learn people. 
34:53: That's right. 
34:54: So if you can take the emotion out of it, and then you can be like, OK, so. 
35:02: Now you've got to get rid of that story about yourself. 
35:06: Now you can start to creatively problem solve, right? 
35:11: So that's a great way to use disc. 
35:13: That's great. 
35:14: And what about is the five behaviors? 
35:15: Is it the Patrick Lencioni? 
35:17: Oh, I love him. 
35:19: Love him so much. 
35:20: Yeah, I wasn't sure. 
35:20: I mean, I know the, I know the triangle and all of that, and his book and he worked with Wiley Publishing that owns the curriculum. 
35:30: , to create actually the curriculum, it's very interesting because I'm actually in the middle of a facilitation right now of 5 behaviors with a company. 
35:42: Cool. 
35:43: It is such a great tool. 
35:45: Like I actually did, I did a workshop yesterday and I was like, oh, this is a breakthrough. 
35:53: That must feel so amazing. 
35:54: I love Patrick Lencioni's stuff and we as the firm, we've all read it. 
35:59: It's a part of the onboarding, you know, like it's, it's one of those things that really I think sets the tone for the culture of the firm. 
36:07: how can leaders be more inclusive right now there's so many things around inclusivity, diversity, you know, all of that. 
36:16: what are you seeing out there? 
36:17: Are you feeling like there's this pullback, at least in, you know, some American businesses, or how are you? 
36:23: How are you coaching people around that nowadays? 
36:26: Yeah, it's hard. 
36:28: Oh, it is such a hard, it's hard, yeah, I think. 
36:33: I think it's important to separate. 
36:39: Kind of the DEI DNI, like whatever that sort of movement is from what your culture is in your own company, what your values are, and frankly, how you live those values, right? 
37:00: And one of the most important things. 
37:04: Is to be able, I think, to create a culture where you can talk about these things, right? 
37:12: So so much of, and we'll just relate it to the disc stuff, so much of using a tool like disk, which helps communication is that you can separate, let's have a discussion about the communication separate from whatever the issue. 
37:34: Is right. 
37:36: And here's a great, another kind of tip. 
37:40: So I think a really good way to talk about These issues in a company is to say, when this happened. 
37:54: My experience was, because here's the thing, I'm not saying. 
38:01: You were racist, or you excluded me or whatever it is. 
38:06: I'm just saying, here's, here's how I felt like this was my experience, right? 
38:11: And then it gives you the opportunity to say, oh my God, like that wasn't my intention at all. 
38:19: And that can open a dialogue. 
38:21: What I like to say is that Nobody can argue with your experience. 
38:27: You own that. 
38:28: That's true, right? 
38:29: So although I will tell you this is so funny, I use this on my husband. 
38:34: It wasn't about DNI, but it was about something else, right? 
38:37: And I said, well, you know, like when you did this, here was my experience, and you know what he said to me? 
38:41: He said, no. 
38:44: Typical. 
38:45: No. 
38:46: And I'm just like burst out laughing. 
38:47: I say no. 
38:49: Yeah, you can't say no. 
38:50: That is not my God, this conversation goes. 
38:54: I love that. 
38:55: I love that. 
38:57: one of my last questions for you, Kim, is around the hybrid workplace. 
39:00: We both have a remote team. 
39:02: We've got people all over. 
39:04: How Has leadership or how must leadership change and evolve because that's been a whole new, you know, piece of most people's workplaces, people at home, people in the office, people international. 
39:16: How does leadership work in that environment? 
39:20: Yeah it is a tough one. 
39:21: I have a client right now where they, it's very funny they have so you know they have Slack, they have email, they of course have you know the phone and so what's happening is it's chaos because if you don't if I slack you. 
39:46: , and you don't respond in 5 minutes, then I'm going to email you and I'm going to leave you a voice message and they're getting the same thing like 3 and over right over and over again, which is annoying. 
40:01: so I think it's creating tiered. 
40:08: Responses, right, it's creating rules around what communication looks like and you know what, although I know Gen Z's are gonna object sometimes it's about picking up the darn phone and having the conversation or getting on Zoom and or Teams or whatever it is that you use or Google Meet and having the conversation face to face. 
40:35: Versus trying to communicate through basically text messages. 
40:40: I agree. 
40:41: I completely agree, yeah, sometimes I'll tell my team like if you've had two emails with the client back and forth and there's some pick up the phone, don't go back and forth and continue that, you know there's a disconnect. 
40:54: Pick up the phone and let's clarify and I do that even with, you know, so you're right, we have Slack, which is great, but our goal is do not use email. 
41:02: Right, or to contact me internally and you only pick up the phone when you really need to clarify whatever. 
41:10: I think the other sort of golden rule here is assume good intentions, right? 
41:19: Remember that you go into every interaction with your own story, right? 
41:27: So there's a part of this. 
41:29: Listen, I am not for like. 
41:32: Dying on the sword, right, at all, but I think we so often don't acknowledge what our part of something is, you know, we had a big reaction to something that somebody said, OK. 
41:51: It's Them and it's you, right? 
41:56: And sometimes it's not them at all, and it's only you, right? 
42:00: And sometimes there's a, hey, listen, there's a better way to say that to me, right? 
42:06: So I think it's understanding you have a story, so do they, yeah, right? 
42:11: Oh, I love that. 
42:13: I love that. 
42:14: And so, you know, if you can take a breath and assume good intentions. 
42:22: You can respond more graciously and gracefully. 
42:29: . 
42:30: Oh, that's fabulous, Kim. 
42:32: I really, I really love all of this because this is the stuff that I'm like, gets me all jazzed up because it's all about learning to be better, to improve yourself. 
42:41: And one of our values at the firm is give each other and our clients the benefit of the doubt. 
42:46: And that is that piece around. 
42:48: Intention, like you have a difficult conversation with a client, you don't know what happened in their house that morning. 
42:53: You don't know their kids are sick, you don't know. 
42:55: So just assume it's not about you and that their intention is good and it's just a day, right? 
43:01: It's just a moment in time. 
43:03: And that helps. 
43:04: It helps all of us when we're all in that to be able to like, I'm going to give that person the benefit of the doubt. 
43:09: Yeah, I, I know that we need to wrap up here, but let me just give you one other really. 
43:14: Quick thing about that I think the other really important thing and this is really I think applicable around a lot of businesses is that it's really helpful when you are on boarding a new client working with a new vendor, whatever context it is working even let's say you're corporate and you're just working with a new group internally. 
43:40: Ask the question. 
43:42: There's a number of ways to ask the question, but let's say, you know, we're at the end of our engagement and we're looking back. 
43:50: And you're like, this is the most successful engagement, aside from like, right, you're doing immigration. 
43:56: OK, so aside from, you know, a positive outcome, right, which you can or cannot control, what would have to happen for you to think that this engagement was successful? 
44:09: Because then the person is telling you. 
44:13: This is what's important to me, right? 
44:15: And then either it's like, OK, let's put that in the notes to say like, that's like. 
44:22: You need to be responsive to this person or whatever it is, or you can say, I hear you. 
44:30: Let me tell you how we like, you can expectation set, right? 
44:34: Let me tell you, right? 
44:36: Like I understand that responsiveness is the most important thing to you. 
44:41: we will be responsive within these hours. 
44:44: So you need to know that if you're sending something outside of that. 
44:49: We, we will get to you, we will get to you first thing, right? 
44:53: I love that. 
44:54: Yeah, that's a really good tip, Kim. 
44:56: I mean, I'm thinking of what we do. 
44:57: I love that we have like a manual onboarding our clients, tells them everything about what we expect and what they can expect from me, but I think, and from the firm, but I love that. 
45:07: Putting it somewhere in our onboarding where it's like, what would make this engagement a successful experience for you? 
45:13: It's not necessarily the approval because you know we can do only so much, but the relationship and how it flows. 
45:20: That's a fabulous tip. 
45:22: Yeah, that good, you know, I like the word the. 
45:25: The what would make this a successful experience. 
45:28: That's a great way to word that. 
45:30: That's good. 
45:31: Yeah, I love that. 
45:32: Oh, so exciting. 
45:35: Kim, you rocked it. 
45:37: I just loved having you here. 
45:39: I just, I could talk to you for hours and hours and hours because this is the stuff that makes me feel good. 
45:43: And I think if you're coachable, this is the stuff. 
45:46: This is the stuff that feeds your soul when you feel like there's always more to learn. 
45:51: So I want to thank you so much for appearing on my. 
45:53: Podcast Kim Miller Hershon coaching and consulting. 
45:57: We'll be providing all your contacts in our show notes, and people can reach out to Kim directly. 
46:02: She does her work internationally because you don't need to be in California to work with her. 
46:09: And so if any of you are interested, please do reach out, and I really, really want to thank you for making time to spend with me and my listeners. 
46:17: Thanks so much. 
46:17: Thank you so much. 
46:18: This was so much fun. 
46:19: You rocked it.