A conversation with Robin Anselmi, Chief Executive Officer at Conversant and Culture-Shifting Leader

“I think leadership is really the art of correction, not perfection. We are going to get it wrong. Right? The question is: ‘How do you recover in those moments? Can you recover with grace, with curiosity? ‘”-Robin Anselmi

Robin Anselmi is the Chief Executive Officer at Conversant, a consulting agency that specializes in having high-quality conversations with team organizations and ultimately sets them up for success to achieve their biggest goals. She believes in the power of a grounded, connected leader to set the standard in growing together. Robin continues her mission at Conversant to reinforce the importance of human connection within organizations and striving towards innovation. As she encourages leaders to personify staying present, Robin reminds us to create the culture and strategy that works best for our own organization. The foundation resides in the quality of your team’s honest, authentic conversations.  

In this episode of Control the Room, Robin and I discuss the impact of presence in leaders leading to team innovation, the ongoing balance in assumptions, the leader’s unique challenge of correction instead of perfection, and the magnitude of a connected leader in its organization. Listen in to hear how Robin reveals the importance of human connection leading to authentic conversations, and the significance of a leader listening while remaining grounded in presence.

Show Highlights

[0:55] Robin’s Start in Key Company Conversations 
[6:12] The Impact of Presence to Lead to Innovation
[12:47] The Assumptions Take 
[15:52] The Art of Correction, Not Perfection 
[18:24] The Importance of a Leader’s Non-Defensive Approach
[23:11] A Complex World Requires a Connected Leader
[24:27] A Conversation on the Workforce Future Forward & Robin’s Final Thoughts 

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Conversant
Love: The Next Leadership Skill

About the Guest

Robin Anselmi is the Chief Executive Officer at Conversant. Her passion centers in helping organizations and leaders navigate quality communication and conversation while uncovering collaborative solutions. Over a decade, she has worked with and coached a wide range of Fortune 1000 companies and Global Philanthropic organizations. While remaining grounded in human connection, she is out to change the world one impactful conversation at a time. Robin is continuously inspired through her work in financial services, where she discovered a client’s impactful results ties directly to the importance of remaining well connected in what matters most for an organization’s employees and customers. With her early career start in engineering and manufacturing, Robin quickly developed a love for design. From there, she realized her true appreciation for the design in human connection and conversation. Robin continues her mission at Conversant by empowering leaders and reminding them that conversation is the most powerful skill set a leader can truly have. 

About Voltage Control

Voltage Control is a change agency that helps enterprises sustain innovation and teams work better together with custom-designed meetings and workshops, both in-person and virtual. Our master facilitators offer trusted guidance and custom coaching to companies who want to transform ineffective meetings, reignite stalled projects, and cut through assumptions. Based in Austin, Voltage Control designs and leads public and private workshops that range from small meetings to large conference-style gatherings.

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Full Transcript

Douglas:

Welcome to The Control the Room Podcast, a series devoted to the exploration of meeting culture and uncovering cures for the common meeting. Some meetings have tight control and others are loose. To control the room means achieving outcomes while striking a balance between imposing and removing structure, asserting and distributing power, leaning in and leaning out, all in the service of having a truly magical meeting.

Douglas:

Today I’m with Robin Anselmi, chief executive officer at Conversant, where she brings together the power and joy of authentic human connection to organizations worldwide. Robin has worked extensively with clients in financial services, healthcare and technology. Welcome to the show, Robin.

Robin Anselmi:

Thanks, Douglas. It’s great to be here.

Douglas:

So let’s get started with a little backstory. I’m really curious how you got your start helping companies have better conversations.

Robin Anselmi:

Well, I actually started my career as an engineer, which is always so weird to people. So I was an engineer in manufacturing for about a decade, making optical fiber. And everybody always says, “Well, how did you get from that to this?” I took a stop through financial services as an analyst. And along the way, I started to see that I was really interested in the interactions between human beings. And what did that lead to? And how did that actually cause more joy and greater results in organizations? And actually, they’re all related because as an engineer, it was the design of equipment. And how did the equipment work? As an analyst, it was the design of processes. And how did the processes work?

Robin Anselmi:

And this work really is about the design of human connection because there is a design. There’s a design to conversations that turn out well, and there’s a design to conversations that don’t. And if you actually start to understand the design of what brings people together to actually produce more than you might imagine, you can create that magic, quote, unquote, regardless of the circumstances. So too often, I think people think, “Well, you’ve got to be that charismatic leader.” I don’t think that’s true. I think if you understand the design of it, you can actually cause those surprising results with people by bringing them together in a way that honors and taps into that power and joy that comes out when people get together to make a meaningful contribution together.

Douglas:

That’s really interesting. I often talk to people about this notion of systems theory, or thinking of the world or the work from the perspective of systems, so I really want to hear your perspective on that, considering that to me, that’s what you’re talking about when you talked about there’s a design of equipment, there’s a design of processes. And then there’s the design of these interactions or these connections. To me, it’s considering the systems and the implications to the whole and these kinds of things.

Robin Anselmi:

Well, totally, because if you think about it, each human being is a complex system unto itself. And now you’re going to put a whole bunch of us together in a conference room and ask us to do stuff together. Of course, there’s going to be complexity in that. And too often, we try to solve it like it’s a complicated problem, like there is a best practice out there. There’s not. Often, it’s sample size of one. Each interaction is its own unique one. And can you actually be present to what’s happening for the other person? Can you be present to what’s happening for you, and the strategy and the culture that you’re all operating inside of? And too often, we sort of lose sight of all that. We just want to go down the path of: What’s the best practice?

Robin Anselmi:

I’m not saying there’s not places for best practices. Absolutely, there are. But really, so much of human interaction is being present to the other and what’s actually happening right now in this moment, particularly in these days with things changing so rapidly.

Douglas:

You just hit on something that’s very near and dear to my heart, which is the dangers of importing best practices. And I’m sure this shows up in your work all the time. I know it does ours because people always want us to train them or show them something tactics that’ll get the job done. And at the end of the day, we definitely need to get the tactics because we need repeatable things that we can do and make progress. The danger though is people always want to look external and say, “Well, what the right way to do this?” And so often, we need to curate something. We need to look very closely at the dynamics and put in something that’s best suited.

Douglas:

It reminds me of the strategy doing work where their analogy is taking people in a river rafting, river rafting guides. And it’s like, “We certainly haven’t gone down this river. And the river’s … Well, maybe I have gone down this river, but it’s certainly not behaving exactly like it did yesterday. So I’m not telling you exactly how we’re going to do this, but you trust me because I’ve gone down a river before, or I’ve climbed a mountain before, and so I might be a little bit helpful.” But we’ve still got to respond to some emergent qualities and understand what’s happening, so I don’t know. I get excited whenever someone’s preaching the dangers of best practices.

Robin Anselmi:

Well, I think tips and tricks are only going to take you so far. Right? So I always say, “Do I have some tips and tricks? Sure.” We all have them. We all have a few. And holy moly, can they get you into a lot of trouble because you can sort of start to rely on them so heavily. And to your river rafting example, maybe the current’s going way faster today than it normally does, and so that tip and trick is just not actually going to work for you in this situation. It’s why I think the number one job of leaders is to be present, to be present to what’s happening, to be present for themselves. So notice how they’re feeling the moment because actually, our bodies are telling us things all the time, and we’re just trying to sort of ignore it. And are we actually present to the other person? And are we legitimizing their experience in the conversations that they’re having with us?

Douglas:

I love that you threw out the word presence because literally, the word that was going through my mind was complacency. And that’s what the best practices can make us complacent. Right? We expect them to work and our brains shut off. But if we’re present and we’re really paying attention, that’s also kind of core to a lot of the principles and facilitation, inquiry versus advocacy. Right? We can’t really be in inquiry mode unless we’re present, curious, and our brain is fully functioning. We can’t active listen unless we’re really tuned in. And so that was awesome because I was literally thinking the problem is complacency, and then you went straight into presence.

Robin Anselmi:

One of the things we say is that people fast pass match, so they fast pass match things that they know from what’s happened, which again, as human beings, we need that. If I have to stop every time to think about how a doorknob works, I would never get out of my house. Right? So I need to be able to fast pass match on how a doorknob works. The challenge is that we fast pass match with people. You’re different than you were a year ago, five years ago. Right? But yet, we often treat each other like we’re the exact same person. And there are new things that you care about. There are new things that you worry about. And that’s going to show up in the way that we work together.

Robin Anselmi:

And too often, we skip past that. And so even the tips and tricks of, well, I know how Douglas is going to respond to this, no, I don’t. I don’t know who Douglas is today. Can I actually be really, in the spirit of inquiry, be really curious about what’s on his mind today?

Douglas:

That is such a beautiful concept of just not trying to anticipate. One of the things that I see so often as one of the, I’d say main issues of meetings is that people spend so much time thinking about what they’re going to say, or preparing their response, or their amazing rebuttal, or contribution, and they miss all of that awesomeness that they could be picking up on in the middle there.

Robin Anselmi:

Well, because that’s not actually listening. That’s waiting, so that’s somebody waiting their turn, as opposed to really listening and being in the conversation, and trusting that when we get to the pause, I’ll have something worthwhile to contribute. And if I don’t, somebody else will, and we’ll be smarter. We really genuinely will be smarter together without being able to predict. I think too often, to your point on that, people are driving to an outcome, so they’re actually not present because they’re trying to get something to happen. I’m trying to get you to see the world the way I see the world, as opposed to finding a new world view together, new solutions.

Robin Anselmi:

I read this thing, this quote, just today about the innovation and collaboration actually require us to sort of get into the messiness with each other. That’s not exactly the quote, it’s paraphrasing. But it does require that because I have to let go to really innovate or to collaborate, I have to let go of all of the ways that I see the world, or at least hold them loosely, and see the way you see the world. Otherwise, we’re just going to keep coming up with the answers that I came up with yesterday. Okay, that’s not innovation. 

Douglas:

That’s right. I love to tell people, if we don’t get into that exploration zone, where we’re looking at the intersections where ideas collide and can create new emergent permutations, then we’re just going to have the ordinary solutions. And what we’re always striving for are the novel solutions. Everyone wants the novel solutions, but we won’t get there unless we allow that to happen.

Robin Anselmi:

Because it’s really uncomfortable. I think this is the thing that people want it to be rainbows and unicorns and fun and happy, happy, glitter, joy. Right? It’s actually not. It’s really, really uncomfortable because I have to actually be willing to say, “Wow, my way of doing this, or my way of seeing this, there might be a better way. There might be another alternative. The way I’ve been doing it might not be sufficient for the future.” Right? And so that’s actually really uncomfortable for folks because you have to let go of the known and be willing to go into a place of uncertainty, and also a willingness that, oh, maybe that thing that I thought was the bee’s knees just isn’t.

Douglas:

That brings up two thoughts. One is that can be really disorienting and difficult for a leader because especially if you’ve been relied on and looked upon and expected to have the vision, and then now we’re at a point where we’re having a conversation, and now someone’s pushing things a little bit in a direction that might conflict with parts of your vision. Is that something you need to hold steadfast to, so that we stay true to the vision? Or is that something we’ve got to let go of? And I think that is very difficult because sometimes you do need to stay the course because, no, that’s actually going to steer us away from our values, and that’s something we need to hold onto.

Douglas:

But I think that’s something that leaders should spend a lot of time meditating and thinking about, so when they’re confronted with that moment, they don’t just react, they know. If you’ve thought about it enough and you’ve really decided what’s germane to the success, then you’re prepared to hold steadfast versus actually let go of something.

Robin Anselmi:

One of the distinctions we make for people that I find is helpful is really pulling apart the difference between purpose, you might say vision. What’s the why, the outcomes? What do you want the what to be? And then the methods. Right? Often, leaders, we get really tied up around the methods. Can I be a little more agnostic about the how, provided that it’s moving in the direction of sort of purpose or vision, going to create the outcomes I’m looking for? I would add sort of values, sort of corporate values or ethics around that to sort of guide the decisions that we’re making. But can I free us to actually think about different ways of doing it? And you’re right. There’s such a challenge around the places where it pushes the boundary on the vision. Is it taking us off course, or is it taking us in a better course? And I think that’s the job of leadership on an ongoing basis.

Robin Anselmi:

And when I say leadership, I don’t mean in a single person. I mean from an organizational standpoint to be able to say, “Where do we want to go together? And how do you make decisions about changing course?” I don’t think there’s an easy answer to that one.

Douglas:

Absolutely not. But most fun work is not easy and requires some thought. And I think that’s actually why it’s going to be hard for computers to completely replace us.

Robin Anselmi:

I hope so, anyway.

Douglas:

So I’m going to come back to something you said earlier, which is fascinating, which is this notion that these, I think it also alludes to, or ties back to the thinking fast or thinking slow, and the system one, system two, around there’s some moments where we really need to rely on instincts and patterns and assumptions. And if we weren’t able to assume that the fellow drivers on the road were going to stop at the red light, it would be really strange, or would take a lot longer to get from point A to point B because we’d be very anxious going through every intersection. Right? But the trick is when, what’s the boundary around assumptions that are safe for us to carry, and which ones we need to kind of be a little more cognizant of.

Robin Anselmi:

It’s so interesting. I think for leaders, this is an ever evolving question about making their implicit thinking explicit to people as often as possible. Right? And so the rules of the road, there’s a lot that’s already been made explicit, and we all know that it was made explicit because we all have a license in our pocket that says we took that class, or we passed that test. But in organizational life, I think there are way fewer things that are actually quite that explicit, but I think we assume that it is. And so I think actually pausing to make sure that we’re on the same page is a worthy investment of time. Right? Because you’re going to have to have those conversations at some point.

Robin Anselmi:

Do you want to have them in the beginning, before things have gotten messy, and everyone’s off track and pissed off and annoyed at each other? Or do you want to have it later when sort of everything’s gone to hell in a hand basket? So you’re going to have to really get to the point of clarity and testing it. I think language is tricky because we live in language, we work in language, it’s how work gets done today is in sort of conversations. We say the conversations are the work, and people assume really quickly what each other means by certain words. Right now, strategy’s one of those words that drives me a little crazy because everybody will say, “Well, we need a strategy. Or are we aligned on the strategy?” But if you stop and ask five people what they mean by strategy, you will get 12 answers about what that actually means.

Robin Anselmi:

And so I think you’re right. I don’t think it’s a simple straightforward thing around here’s the things about you can assume to be true, and here’s the things you can’t. I think that’s a constant exploration between people. And adding to the mix that we’re now sort of hybrid, so we’ve got people in person and people virtual. Add into the mix multi generational workforces, where there’s different levels of assumptions around what work norms are. I think there’s just going to be a lot of places for us to keep being explicit about our thinking on things, and not assuming that they’re going to stop at the red light.

Douglas:

Yeah. The multi generational thing is a fascinating one because you’ve also got these elements of what’s acceptable from equity and from expectations around just language. I look at … This even comes up when we’re working with clients that may have younger workforce. And when I watch how sensitive they are to certain moves and certain language, and how vocal they are about it, it’s quite a bit different. And I see a lot of folks that have been in the workforce a bit longer, where norms were different, and even turns of phrase and business jargon, that now is offensive to a younger workforce, and especially when you’re looking at M&A where two cultures are just being forced together pretty quickly. That’s kind of tough to navigate, and definitely not easy because even when you’ve got folks that have the best of intentions, people can find actions very offensive.

Robin Anselmi:

I think leadership is really the art of correction, not perfection. We are going to get it wrong. Right? The question is: How do you recover in those moments? Can you recover with grace, with curiosity? Back to your point earlier, right? And it’s hard because if I say something that’s someone else finds offensive, I immediately get defensive about that, as opposed to: Can I just get curious about, oh, that’s interesting, can you say more about that? Can you say, “What am I not seeing in that, so that I can understand it better?” And I think that’s hard for leaders to do, and it’s such a critical skill to really understand another’s point of view and the way they see the world, and the way the world occurs to them. I’m never going to full understand what it’s like to be you, or you, me. But I can be curious about it and really see, okay, and apologize and do better.

Douglas:

I love that Maya Angelou quote, it’s like, “Do as good as you know. And when you know better, do better.”

Robin Anselmi:

Do better. That’s right. Know better, do better. That’s right.

Douglas:

And I love what you just said about this notion of not perfection.

Robin Anselmi:

But correction.

Douglas:

It’s about correction.

Robin Anselmi:

Yeah, correction.

Douglas:

I’m a big fan of the notion of continuous improvement.

Robin Anselmi:

That’s right.

Douglas:

Always being curious about how we can move toward a better.

Robin Anselmi:

A better.

Douglas:

And definitely, the curiosity piece. But I want to come back to something that you were saying about that as well, which is not being defensive. And that’s something I learned, because I had some moments just navigating a lot of this as a public figure and running public workshops, and being in front of folks, which had some moments that were surprising because I do my best to support people. And I’ve considered myself an ally. And it’s like, “Whoa. Right? I’m the target? How’s this?” And I quickly realized that’s the worst reaction that anyone could possibly have because what people don’t want to have is an ally trying to be a victim because me not being understood, my intentions being misinterpreted, pales in comparison to how they’ve been victimized. Right?

Douglas:

And so when you mention not being defensive, and also having that humility truly struck a chord is how important that is, and I learned the lesson personally. And then also, I think another little adjacent thing that might be fun to unpack with you is this notion earlier when you talked about the charismatic leader. And I would say charismatic leaders probably struggle with that the most because their identity is about being this charismatic, loved, worshiped individual. I men, worship might be a bit overkill, but you get the idea.

Robin Anselmi:

No, but hero, hero. They probably … The hero.

Douglas:

Yeah, the hero. Yeah. And so you compare that to leaders that are maybe entrepreneurial leaders, or facilitative leaders, or servant leaders. I think all of those have a little bit more humility in the mix. And it might be, if you’re following that path, it might be easier to respond and employ some of these skills.

Robin Anselmi:

Well, I want to comment on a couple of things you said. So number one, that defensiveness that you said, welcome to the human race because that’s actually just programmed into us. Right? So it’s not your own personal dysfunction. All of us when confronted have a natural reaction to defend ourselves. It’s actually just hardwired into the way that our brains work. Right? And so if you think about it from an evolution standpoint, it makes a lot of sense about why we would need to do that, to protect ourselves and keep ourselves safe, and that we can’t distinguish between physical threat and social threat, so that’s sort of the normal.

Robin Anselmi:

Goes back to my thing earlier about being present. Can I actually just be present to what’s happening? And that this thing that just got said didn’t actually harm me. Right? It might’ve harmed my ego, it might’ve hurt my feelings, but it didn’t actually harm me. Can I just take a breath and get connected to: Okay, what about that is upsetting to me? Because most of the time, it’s something as you said, in the scheme of things, probably not the right thing to be centered on, so that’s one, so welcome to the human race because we all are going to be defensive.

Robin Anselmi:

The distinction we make is between superior leadership and connected leadership. So superior leaders are the ones who think they have to have all the answers. Right? And there is a model for that. There are places actually where superior leadership is necessary. I kid a lot and say, “If the fire alarm goes off in an office building, I’d like there to be somebody who knows the way out of the building. And yes, I’m just going to follow them.” I don’t want to have to have a whole conversation about what’s the right way out of a fire. But in today’s world where things are moving so fast, we need more connected leaders because it’s really hard for a single person to see the whole view, to see the whole elephant. Back to systems, a single person really can’t understand all of the interactions and all of the interplay of what’s going to happen.

Robin Anselmi:

So leaders who are connected, connected to people, so connected and connecting people, connected and connecting to strategy and to culture and to current circumstances, are the ones who are going to be successful in these more complex systems because that superior leader, hero leader model, yes, quite charismatic. But that’s a hard row to hoe, to have all of those people who are going to be able to … You’re going to be able to know everything that they know and make the best decisions. I’m not sure that model is going to last much longer in most of our organizations. There’s just too much complexity.

Douglas:

The thing I think about is situation, time and place. To me, there’s situations where a hero leader might be needed, like the fire alarm example you were talking about. And I think those examples will still be there. In fact, someone was just talking with me about the vaccine rollout here in the US, how chain of command is kind of helpful when you’re trying to execute something very specific and with some rules. And we know what we want to do, and we figured it out, and we’re just going to go do it.

Douglas:

Now there might be moments within that, there might need to be some freedom, some flexibility for folks to flex and move around some of the things. But at some of the points, we’re going to need, and so it makes me think of the Cynefin Model, and how in a complex world, the superior leader’s going to be very ineffective. In a simple, obvious world, maybe we do need someone to step up and say, “Run this checklist.”

Robin Anselmi:

Totally.

Douglas:

And maybe in the complicated, maybe there’s something in between.

Robin Anselmi:

Totally. In the simple world, a superior leader is great. Right? Do this, here’s the answers. Goes back to your thing earlier about best practices. There are knowable answers and you can have somebody that knows them and just moves everybody in that direction, absolutely. Even in a complicated world. Right? There are lots of answers, having somebody that can sort of sort those and come up with smart answers, move us forward, great. I just think more and more, what we’re seeing in organizations is much more complexity, things that are much less predictable, much less likely to be known or knowable, that you’ve got to be willing to be in a place where the strategies are emergent. And to have strategies that are emergent, you have to be really listening to the people in the system, which I think to your point, is a whole lot harder for that hero leader to do.

Douglas:

So let’s talk about something that’s emerging right now, that companies are faced with. This is a complex issue that we’re having to solve for, and I think it might be kind of fun to unpack it from that perspective around: How can we best have these conversations? And what are some of the wrinkles that we’re going to need to consider? What makes it so complex? And that’s the back to the office, so one of the things that came up in the pre show chat was just around the gender equity issues that are going to unfold with kind of expecting employees to come back.

Robin Anselmi:

Well, I think going back to sort of complicated or simple models, the office as it stood before was a way of making sure people were doing their job, so there was a lot of sort of oversight, supervision. I think the last year has proven that we don’t need that to the same degree. And so I think it’s going to require organizations redefining the purpose of the office. So why? Why do we want people to gather? What’s the purpose of that? And I do think there are going to be some equity issues around that. I strongly believe that the organizations that are going to be the most successful going forward in hiring and retaining talent are going to have to have some sort of flexibility. They’re not going to be an all or neither. There’s going to be some sort of hybrid model, where there’s X number of days a week or something because you’ve got so much diversity in terms of what people want, in terms of being back in the office or not.

Robin Anselmi:

And there’s been some recent articles and reports that are guessing that there may be some gender equity issues about that, around who chooses to come back to office versus who doesn’t, and whether or not you’ll see that more women choose not to come back to the office. And what does that do? Do we suddenly recreate the boys’ clubs of days past? Well, I hope most of them are days past, of people in the office. And is there a different level of connection, or knowledge, or perceptions about people who are together in that space and opportunities for them? And what’s that going to do for folks who make different choices about where they’re going to be located?

Douglas:

Yeah. There’s quite a few layers there because there are folks that have now shifted their patterns, their needs, and demands from their family may have shifted. Also, there are people who have invested in home office setups. There are people that are still working on the kitchen counter. So I think we have to anticipate a diverse set of needs.

Robin Anselmi:

Well, you’re going to have people that are longing, can’t wait to get back to the office, are so tired of being, feeling isolated, or to your point, they don’t have the space that they’d love to have to work. You have others who hope to never go back to an office. Right? And so I think it’s going to be a challenge for organizations to legitimize both points of view to find answers because honestly, in the past, it was really easy to say, “Oh, you can’t do this job from home.”

Robin Anselmi:

Back to your tips and tricks, you could kind of rely on the, well, that’s just not how it’s done here. There are very few places where that’s not how it was done in the last year, year and a half. Right? And so it’s going to be a lot harder to just rely on that’s the policy, or that’s just the way we do it. You’re going to have a lot more people that are going to be challenging that. And so I think really looking at: What’s the vision for the space? What’s the organization’s values? How does space actually enhance the values? How is it a physical representation of the things that an organization says they care about? May require us to rethink how we’re using that space too.

Douglas:

Yeah. It’s not only individual contributors. Leaders, executives have now got a taste of what it’s like and what’s possible, so they can no longer deny or convince themselves that it doesn’t work because they’ve now seen it work, and they know it’s possible. And their behavior’s going to change. And I was talking to a senior executive from a very large financial institution just last week. And he was telling me how not having to commute essentially two and a half hours a day changed his life tremendously. He could decide whether he wanted to spend more time working, he could spend more time with the family. That was now discretionary time for him that he could use to improve his career, improve his family life. And I don’t think that’s going to be something he’s going to give up easily. And this is someone that has political power within the organization. It’s not just someone who’s just at the mercy of the whims of the deciders. So I think we’re going to see some really interesting models unfold as people start to wrangle some of these issues and lay out policies.

Douglas:

And it also comes down to how we support our people from a mental and social wellbeing. There’s a lot of trauma that people have experienced that they’re going to have to confront because we’re still in the mode of, we’re still in the fight. We’re not in recovery yet. And so as soon as things shift and we start to think about how we … What does post … I don’t even know if post pandemic even makes sense because I think it might be something, it might be a new way of life taking vaccines every quarter, or every other quarter, or something. But we’ll see how it all unfolds. But I do think that we might see a shift where people start to acknowledge that, oh, wow, I did go through something traumatic, and I need to work through this. And I think leaders are going to have to think about how to have those conversations.

Robin Anselmi:

Well, we were saying pre show about one of my colleagues, Kell Delaney, has said, “We are not the same people that we were in January of 2020.” None of us are. We all have different things that we think about and consider. We have different … Well, all of us have different habits, whether or not those are all good can be left to debate. But we do, we all have different ways of being in the world, and certainly different ways of working. And if we think we’re just flipping a switch to go back, or just take that forward, I think that’s short sighted. I don’t think that’s how it’s going to work out. And to your point, I think you’re going to have people at varying sort of stages in their thinking about how they want to work and what that’s going to look like.

Douglas:

This is something we also talked about a little earlier, this concept of leaders becoming leaders because they were really good at a thing. They were the best at the thing. And then they become leaders, they’re not necessarily trained in how to have good meetings. They’re not trained in how to have good conversations, don’t necessarily understand coaching models. Also, typically, they might have been a supervisor before they were even promoted into becoming an official leader. So there might’ve been kind of their job as a supervisor would’ve been more focused on the task. And now that they’re responsibilities have grown, and they’re expected to have these conversations, it can be pretty disorienting. And how do we begin to have performance conversations, conversations about wellbeing and equity?

Robin Anselmi:

Well, and I think from earlier, a lot of leaders sort of do come up in a superior leader mindset, like as a manager, I’m supposed to have the answers. The coaching models, all of them, really are based in: Well, what if I don’t have to have the answers? What if we have to have the answers? What would the answers look like if we crafted them together? And so I honestly think if managers could let go of just one thing, which is that they have to be the one that knows the answer, it would make all the difference. That if it really is, no, we get to work out the answers together as human beings, and really find ones that work, inside of constraints. All organizations are going to have some level of constraints. This isn’t anarchy where you get to do whatever the hell you want, and I get to do whatever the hell I want.

Robin Anselmi:

But if we have a shared purpose and we know what the outcomes are that we’re driving to, can we get creative about what would work for you and what would work for me? And I think if leaders could really let go of, it has to be my way, or I have to have the answer, we could all get smarter together about how to solve those problems.

Douglas:

That’s also very liberating as a leader.

Robin Anselmi:

It is.

Douglas:

It’s exhausting.

Robin Anselmi:

It’s exhausting to think I have to know everything.

Douglas:

And stressful to have all the answers.

Robin Anselmi:

That’s right. That’s right.

Douglas:

And most of the time, I don’t know, if your experience was anything like mine, it was super anxiety provoking too because I kind of felt like it was expected. It wasn’t like I wanted to do it. I felt like that’s what everyone was hoping, so that I would show up as the CTO and know all the CTO things.

Robin Anselmi:

Can you just fix this?

Douglas:

The minute … Yeah. Right. And the minute that I found the liberty in asking, “What do you think we should do?”

Robin Anselmi:

Shocking.

Douglas:

Right? An employee comes to you needing, wanting your advice, and just asking them, “What do you think we should do?” Because a lot of times they know what they would do in your absence. They’re maybe assuming that you want to be involved, or they’re afraid they’re going to get it wrong. Just turning it back on them and giving them the opportunity to just say it empowers them to go with their gut. And then next time, they might not even stop to answer you, so then that’s one less thing that you’re pulled out of or pulled into.

Robin Anselmi:

Absolutely. Whenever the stress gets high, I think as human beings, we tend to contract. So when stress goes up, we tend to sort of pull in closer. The reality is if you actually expand the conversations in those moments, so if under stress, we actually went to more people, asked somebody else for help, the vast majority of the time, we actually really will get smarter together because to your point, somebody else will see it different than I do. So I’m stuck in my own thinking as a leader. I’m worried, I have all this stress. I’m worried about getting it right. If I go and ask somebody else, they don’t have that same stress in that moment, so they might actually be a whole lot smarter than me about what could be possible.

Douglas:

I love that. It makes me think of this notion that I personally have always found. It’s often easier, especially if you’re in the moment of writer’s block, or you just kind of creative block, if you got inspiration flowing, it’s a lot easier to filter. I can say, “That doesn’t meet the values. That’s off vision.” And helping guide and direct things that are kind of coming at you, versus having to create it all. And so to your point, in that moment of tension, if the instinct is to clam up, then the only inspiration you got is what’s inside, versus opening it up and letting the stuff flow at you. And then you can kind of just filter and curate.

Robin Anselmi:

And find, back to the innovation conversation, find that new answer that you might not have ever dreamed of on your own.

Douglas:

Yeah, or even look. You can be looking out for interesting combinations. What if I put this and this together?

Robin Anselmi:

That’s exactly right. That’s exactly right.

Douglas:

That’s cool.

Robin Anselmi:

Yeah, really great.

Douglas:

Awesome. Well, I think that takes us to an interesting place to kind of hit the pause button on this conversation, and want to just give you an opportunity to leave our listeners with a final thought.

Robin Anselmi:

Yeah. For me, I think it really is that there is power and joy in human connection and that if we spend too much time at work in the bulk of our lives to not be able to tap into that joy, and that you can find it if you actually expand the conversations. And if you want to find out more or get some inspirations, if you go to conversant.com, you can subscribe to our newsletter. And we send out some monthly tips and information and videos, just to help inspire folks to find that power and joy in their work.

Douglas:

Excellent. Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Robin. This has been a pleasure chatting. And I hope people do check out Conversant, and looking forward to talking to you again sometime soon.

Robin Anselmi:

Thanks for having me, Douglas. This was super fun.

Douglas:

Thanks for joining me for another episode of Control the Room. Don’t forget to subscribe to receive updates when new episodes are released. If you want more, head over to our blog, where I post weekly articles and resources about working better together, voltagecontrol.com.