The Remarkable Leadership Podcast

00:00:08:06 - 00:00:41:13
Kevin Eikenberry
Empowerment. Micromanagement. Delegation. Decision making. Accountability. One or all of these words get talked about almost any time the topic of leadership comes up. And yet most of them are misunderstood or misapplied. We aim to change that on this very important and practical episode of the remarkable Leadership Podcast, where we are helping leaders grow personally and professionally to lead, more effectively and make a bigger positive difference for their teams, organizations and the world.

00:00:41:15 - 00:01:04:09
Kevin Eikenberry
If you are listening to this podcast, you could be with us live for future episodes on your favorite social platform to learn where they are and when they are, and how to get involved. You can just join our Facebook or LinkedIn groups. Go to remarkable podcast.com/facebook or remarkable podcast.com/linkedin to do exactly that. I hope you will do that.

00:01:04:09 - 00:01:28:15
Kevin Eikenberry
And today's episode is brought to you by my latest book, Flexible Leadership. Navigate uncertainty and lead with confidence. It's time to realize that styles can get in our way, and that following our strengths might not always be the best approach in a world that is more complex and uncertain than ever. Leaders need a new perspective and a new set of tools to create great results for their organizations and their team members.

00:01:28:17 - 00:01:57:18
Kevin Eikenberry
By being a flexible, able leader. And that's what this book provides you. Learn more and order your copy at remarkable podcast.com/flexible. And with that, I'm going to bring in my guest. You will see him now. I will introduce him and we will dive in. My guest today is Chris Siefert. He is a dynamic leader and founder of Enabling Empowerment, an initiative dedicated to transforming organizational leadership and enhancing team performance.

00:01:57:20 - 00:02:27:11
Kevin Eikenberry
With over 20 years of experience in manufacturing operations and strategic advising, his mission is to empower leaders to elevate their organizations and teams through innovative strategies and methodologies at enabling empowerment. Chris addresses the challenges of micro management by offering a comprehensive training and coaching program that guides leaders in creating environments where creativity and ownership can flourish. His approach emphasizes the importance of empowering decision makers at all levels.

00:02:27:13 - 00:02:45:02
Kevin Eikenberry
Promoting shared leadership. Fostering a culture of collaboration and ownership. He is also the ownership of a brand new book on those ideas and shares the title of his company. It is Enabling Empowerment. He is my guest. Chris, welcome. So glad to have you on the remarkable leadership Podcast.

00:02:45:03 - 00:02:47:20
Chris Seifert
Oh, thanks a lot for having me, Kevin. It's an honor.

00:02:47:22 - 00:03:09:11
Kevin Eikenberry
So, I learned before we started that you haven't done very many of these yet, so I'm excited. Right. So hopefully I won't ask anything. That's too challenging. And, hopefully your answers will feel fresh to all of us listening. And I promise you, everybody, if you haven't gotten your copy, we'll put the excuse me, we'll put the link in the show notes.

00:03:09:11 - 00:03:26:04
Kevin Eikenberry
But if you don't have your copy of Enabling Department, we'll tell you how to do that at the end. But be aware and ready for that. So let's start here. Why? Why this book? What's the journey that leads you to this place, and why this particular book?

00:03:26:06 - 00:03:56:15
Chris Seifert
Yeah, absolutely. So, so, you know, my career has spanned the, you know, over 25 years now and largely in three buckets. One, I spent about 20, sorry, about eight years on active duty in the US Navy, in the submarine force. And then I spent about six, seven years as a consultant, doing strategy operations, consulting with large, large oil and gas, chemical, high hazard industries.

00:03:56:15 - 00:04:27:07
Chris Seifert
And then, the rest of my career has been in operational leadership roles. I've been a plant manager of three different plants. I've been, I was a vice president of operations for a, large biomass manufacturer that, we grew very rapidly over a six year period. And over the course of my career there, there are two things that I have found that all the teams that I was leading struggled with, fundamentally, one of those was root cause analysis.

00:04:27:07 - 00:04:58:06
Chris Seifert
People just tend to not be very good at cause and effect thinking. Right. And and look, I just our brains as humans are wired to correlate not to right to find cause and effect. Similarly, the other thing we're not particularly good at is making decisions, especially in the face of uncertainty and risk. Right. And complexity. And I found that I found quite a few vendors that were very good at helping me over the years with the root cause analysis portion.

00:04:58:18 - 00:05:18:14
Chris Seifert
But on the decision making, I have it and very early on in my career, I had developed a, a training where, you know, that I used to teach my teams, you know, make them better decision makers, so that I could empower them and we can speak to that as a, the reason why, in a bit.

00:05:18:14 - 00:05:37:12
Chris Seifert
But I developed that training, and, you know, I just had seen that, you know, my teams needed it. I've other leaders I've, you know, that have worked for me and worked with, have leveraged it in their careers. And so I thought, you know, it made sense to, you know, how can we share this with as many people as possible?

00:05:37:14 - 00:06:00:10
Kevin Eikenberry
Awesome. So, you we've so far you really talked about decision making, where? It's been a long time there, of course, but the one of the big words in this title of the book, title of your company is the word empowerment. So I think it's probably useful, to get your definition of what you mean by empowerment as a framework, as a starting point for our conversation.

00:06:00:12 - 00:06:23:14
Chris Seifert
Sure. So when people feel like they have the ability to influence an outcome, they're empowered. Right? To me that that that's how I define it. Right? And there are people, believe not not just that they have the ability to influence the outcome, but they believe they have the ability. Right? So it's not enough for us as a leader to tell them, you know, they they have to actually believe that they can.

00:06:23:14 - 00:06:46:08
Chris Seifert
Right? And at the end of the day, how do people, right get that belief that it's by making decisions by by having the autonomy and the authority to make decisions over their work and feel like, hey, I made that decision. That decision had this impact, that right, influence the outcome. I'm actually contributing here. Right. Because you know what's interesting?

00:06:46:13 - 00:07:12:17
Chris Seifert
We see so much when people talk about creating an engaged workforce, right? I mean, all I see as well, it's about about, you know, do we have the right perks in the break room and, and work life balance? And are we talking to them nicely. You know, like really nicely. Right. And and are we are we giving them awards and recognition at the end of the day that does none of those things are what determines how much discretionary effort somebody gives at work.

00:07:12:19 - 00:07:23:15
Chris Seifert
Right. What determines your discretionary effort is do you believe in the in the vision of the organization? And do you believe that your efforts actually influence it make.

00:07:23:15 - 00:07:24:20
Kevin Eikenberry
Right. Absolutely.

00:07:24:22 - 00:08:00:01
Chris Seifert
And so so the the connection between decision making and that, empowerment is right. If I want more, authority and autonomy, I have to be good at making decisions. Right. And if I'm not good at making decisions, I should not get more autonomy. Right? I should get less, and I should have to be coached. And and so, you know, when and where where when I have struggled with organization teams in my past that where there were the opposite of an empowerment culture, they were, you know, I'll call it codependent, right?

00:08:00:12 - 00:08:17:18
Chris Seifert
In the best case, right. Micromanagement might be the evil word for it, where the leaders, you know, doing it on purpose will call codependency is the state where people have just said, you know, I don't want to make this decision, right. I want the leader to make the decision for me. I just I would rather just be told what to do.

00:08:17:19 - 00:08:26:14
Chris Seifert
Right. And, you know, so, so building up their skill sets in decision making, if you want to get out of that mode is just really critical.

00:08:26:16 - 00:08:46:06
Kevin Eikenberry
So if empowerment and I would agree with you, by the way, that it's that people feel they have could they can influence the outcome. Most every leader would say, well, I want my team to be empowered. Yeah. Like there are a few. They're not likely watching or listening to us, but there are a few that for whom that's not true.

00:08:46:08 - 00:08:46:20
Chris Seifert
100%.

00:08:46:20 - 00:09:07:22
Kevin Eikenberry
And yet there's still a disconnect, right? There's a disconnect between people professing that's what they want and being able to actually create the fact or the feeling of empowerment. Why is there this disconnect? Why is there a difference between what we would like to do and what we actually execute?

00:09:08:00 - 00:09:33:08
Chris Seifert
Yeah. Yeah, I, I mean, the the short answer is the capability of the people to do that. Right? I mean, you yes. You want to give them more authority and autonomy. But you have to believe that they are going to be able to make good decisions, right, with that autonomy and authority and to believe that they actually have to be able to.

00:09:33:08 - 00:09:35:02
Chris Seifert
Right? So, I mean, here.

00:09:35:04 - 00:09:44:22
Kevin Eikenberry
We can't just be I believe in you or I believe in your potential. Oh, that's an important piece. Yeah. They actually have to have the resources and the capability. Right. Yeah.

00:09:45:02 - 00:10:07:22
Chris Seifert
Yeah. Exactly. So so to your point, like so as I mentioned before, you know, if you, you, you look out there, the conventional wisdom is that most micro managers, right, are, are micro managers, because of some personality defect. Right. They're either narcissists, they're control freaks, they're whatever. Right. Like they they just want to be in control.

00:10:08:01 - 00:10:26:08
Chris Seifert
But to your point, I know very few leaders that that's really the truth. Right. Well, and if you just think from a practical standpoint, why would you want that? Like who wants to be called at 2:00 in the morning, you know, to make every decision? I mean, I my first plant, I managed to I my predecessor was very much a micromanager.

00:10:26:10 - 00:10:40:05
Chris Seifert
And you know, my wife literally asked me, Will you just go sleep on the if the phone is going to ring all night, we just sleep on the couch, right? Like this. We can't live like this, right? And I said, you know, hey, I'm trying to get out of it. But apparently that's how things are done here, right?

00:10:40:05 - 00:11:08:08
Chris Seifert
Like, apparently nobody can do anything without talking to me first. And I have to figure out why that is. And fix it. But my experience is where most leaders go wrong is that they just try to stop that without fixing the underlying capability gap. Right? So in other words, if I just told those guys, hey, stop calling me at 2:00 and I don't understand why I call me in the middle of the night, don't call me at 2:00 in the morning anymore.

00:11:08:08 - 00:11:14:04
Chris Seifert
Right. Well, what would have happened? Likely a bunch of really bad stuff was going to happen.

00:11:14:06 - 00:11:16:16
Kevin Eikenberry
Which was going to be that stuff, too, right?

00:11:16:18 - 00:11:34:05
Chris Seifert
Exactly. And then my boss would have been like, what the heck is going on, Chris? And guess what? We would have been right back to you're calling me for everything in the middle of the night, right? And so if I hadn't sat back and said, what? Why or why are we not confident in our decision making in the middle of the night, right.

00:11:34:05 - 00:11:52:10
Chris Seifert
What is happening? And how can I get us both? You confident in your ability to make the decision and my my confidence and your ability to make the decision? How can we get there as quickly as possible so that we don't have to do this anymore? Because it's not fun for me. And you know, and you don't like it either.

00:11:52:12 - 00:12:09:03
Kevin Eikenberry
You know, I love that you just said it. I want to underline it for people. If they missed it because they're on the treadmill or whatever. Your confidence and my confidence in you, if I'm the leader saying that, right? Yes. And and either one of those can be the problem, right?

00:12:09:03 - 00:12:09:20
Chris Seifert
Absolutely.

00:12:10:00 - 00:12:30:21
Kevin Eikenberry
And what you're suggesting is that if we give them as the leader, if we give them the capability. Yes, then their confidence in themselves will go up and then then we have what I call the confidence competence loop, like both feet on each other and we move up from there. So you talk about a different kind of loop.

00:12:31:05 - 00:12:48:21
Kevin Eikenberry
You call it the micromanagement doom loop, which you've just hinted at. But I'd like you to outline. I mean, like if we just spent our time here and people left understanding this, that would be worth everyone's time. We will do a little more than this, but let's talk about what you mean by the micromanagement doom loop.

00:12:48:23 - 00:13:11:18
Chris Seifert
Sure. Yeah. It's it's exactly kind of it's the scenario that I just described. Right. It's it's when and look again, I said, I've seen this happen many times. Both this has happened myself trying to get out of, you know, a organization where there this was the culture, right. It was wait for the, you know, plant manager, you know, everything was.

00:13:11:20 - 00:13:31:08
Chris Seifert
Hey, Chris, that something broke. What do you want me to do about it? Right? And then wait for me to tell him, you know, so, you know, the the, the challenge becomes when you're in that situation, you want to get out of that is you can't just you, you start saying, hey, listen, guys, stop calling me for all these things.

00:13:31:08 - 00:13:47:07
Chris Seifert
Stop making these decisions. Right? Or the typical, you know, let's have the town hall and we stand up in front of them in the town hall and tell them, I want to empower you. I want you to start making more of these decisions. But we haven't done anything to say. Well, what kind of decisions we asking them to make?

00:13:47:09 - 00:14:05:17
Chris Seifert
And are they are they capable to make these like, have they done this before. Do they know how to think through this problem? And how do they feel about having to do that. Right. And so if we don't train them first we just give them this new authority, then all of a sudden they start making a bunch of bad decisions.

00:14:06:21 - 00:14:24:22
Chris Seifert
You know, because I'm already in a position where as a leader, where I don't have really time to coach, you know, so they start making these bad decisions. I just override them because I don't have time to coach them. And now they're left feeling like, well, hey, you told me you wanted my input, but you just ignored it, and.

00:14:24:22 - 00:14:25:20
Chris Seifert
Right, right.

00:14:25:21 - 00:14:34:04
Kevin Eikenberry
Not really empowered after all. And they're right. Me doing it. So they retreat and. And that forces you to make those decisions.

00:14:34:04 - 00:14:57:06
Chris Seifert
Yeah, exactly. And that's why. So what I say to people and again, this is like, this is why one of the reasons so passionate about this is look, I got labeled a micromanager and I couldn't be the farthest further from the truth that that's what I want to be. Right? But I've had people on the outside in looking at me at times and label me as that and saying, you don't understand, the situation I'm in right now, I'm having to do this.

00:14:57:06 - 00:15:17:00
Chris Seifert
I have to do this. If I don't do this, this team is going to fail. This plant won't even be here. There won't be a plant here. Right there won't be a business here anymore. Right. So I've got to make these decisions for now because they were making such bad decisions. But I got to figure out a way to get out of this situation because, otherwise I have no life.

00:15:17:00 - 00:15:40:23
Chris Seifert
Right? And so, Yeah. So that's we're trying to, to disrupt this loop and saying we have to it's not about the intentions of the leader. It's about building the capabilities of the people. But the problem is usually the leader doesn't have the capacity to build the capabilities on their own. Right. They because they're already micromanaging, right? They're already having to make all the decisions.

00:15:40:23 - 00:15:49:03
Chris Seifert
So so we have to have a way to teach them. And it's scalable. That can solve the capacity problem to.

00:15:49:05 - 00:16:12:19
Kevin Eikenberry
It's like, I live near Carmel, Indiana, which has the most roundabouts, per capita in the country, maybe the most period, but the most per capita in the country. It's like getting on the roundabout and not knowing when to exit, not knowing when to roll off. Right. If we're in that loop, I want to I want to empower them.

00:16:12:19 - 00:16:23:15
Kevin Eikenberry
I want to enable them. But I don't have time to do that because I got to keep I got to keep making the decision. And I'm in that loop and I'm going around in the circle, and I don't know when to get off, and I'm in the wrong lane, and I can't get into the lane to get off.

00:16:23:21 - 00:16:30:13
Kevin Eikenberry
And and I'm in this. You call it a loop. I almost call it a downward spiral. And it gets worse.

00:16:30:13 - 00:16:31:01
Chris Seifert
Yeah.

00:16:31:03 - 00:16:49:02
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah, it definitely can get worse. Now, you said something early in this that I think is really interesting, and I think it's one of the other places that leaders get stuck. And that is. And you said it almost offhandedly as you kept going, you said, what are the decisions that I do? I want to empower them to make.

00:16:49:08 - 00:17:09:20
Kevin Eikenberry
Right. And so a lot of times we once we say, well, we're you're empowered, which I would say fully for you if you haven't enabled them, etc. but, you have to you can't just make that blanket statement. You have to give them what the guardrails are. What what are the boundaries. Yeah. What decisions am I empowering you to make?

00:17:09:22 - 00:17:26:01
Kevin Eikenberry
And when would I want you to call me? At two in the morning. Right. So me talk about that. And because I find that that's another place leaders get stuck in, the execution is they're not really clear about which ones. They they do want to empower people on which ones they don't.

00:17:26:06 - 00:17:48:11
Chris Seifert
Yeah. Well yeah. It looks and I again talk about this in the book actually like I think it's in the very last chapter, I term this decision rights. Right. So, so talking about first framing it as we should view people's, authority to make decisions as a, as, as like, almost like property rights. It's something they earn, right?

00:17:48:11 - 00:18:10:20
Chris Seifert
Like, the more you make good decisions, the more authority to make decisions you should get. Right. And one of the biggest mistakes I see organizations making is that they they basically peanut butter spread decision rights across the organization. So everybody at the same level or position has the same decision rights. Right. So, you know, a plant manager might have $5000 or $10,000.

00:18:10:22 - 00:18:30:10
Chris Seifert
You know, they can spend. Right. And everybody. Yeah. And everybody has the same decision authority right. Or procurement agent or whatever. Right. Same cash you know, decision. Right. But the problem is what that was really telling me is I know the only thing I know for sure is there's a bunch of people in that organization that have the authority to spend money.

00:18:30:10 - 00:18:52:10
Chris Seifert
They probably shouldn't. And there's a bunch of people that have less authority than they probably should. Right. Because they're probably, you know, they're probably either better than making decisions than that or worse. So instead of making it the same, you know, like, you know, change it, right? The more a person has continue to make good decisions, they should get more decision rights.

00:18:52:20 - 00:19:10:09
Chris Seifert
So if I, you know, if I'm calling you up to make a, you know, request to spend $10,000 three times in a row and you're like, boy, you know, the way you explain that request to me was great, you know? Absolutely. I mean, if you've said yes three times in a row, maybe my right should be 20,000 now, right?

00:19:10:11 - 00:19:26:08
Chris Seifert
But if you said no to me three times in a row because the ideas were ridiculous, maybe you should be saying, you know, maybe you should be calling me to make $5,000 decisions, right? I mean, if this is your idea for ten, maybe we need to talk about five, right? So, you know, so first off, very, right.

00:19:26:16 - 00:19:47:12
Chris Seifert
And then but second of all, think about for each role, to your point, what are the critical decisions where we're making. Right? So, you know, look, a lot of my experience manufacturing environment, so obviously cash expenditures is one thing. But you know, what's our, you know, production schedule, right. Maybe maybe some operations, supervisors, you know, they've been running the production for for ten years.

00:19:47:17 - 00:20:02:18
Chris Seifert
And, you know, maybe they don't need to call me to make a change to the production schedule because they know what they're doing. But I got a new guy who's been here two months, or I've been in the role two months. Maybe if he's going to make a change, it's going to, you know, affect the schedule more than an hour.

00:20:02:18 - 00:20:23:20
Chris Seifert
He needs to call me. Right. And, you know, if after three times he's called me and requested permission to change the schedule, I didn't have to correct him. Now, maybe it's three hours, right? And six hours and and continue to change it. But, you know, I, I actually included those in employees, individual roles, responsibilities, expectations. And then we called it decision rights.

00:20:23:21 - 00:20:42:16
Chris Seifert
And we varied them by person. And we you know, every time we would sit down, you know, a couple times a year to review your roles and responsibilities, we also reviewed your decision rights and said, how should we change those? Right. Do we do we feel confident? Should we make them bigger or we're not feeling good? And maybe they're less they aren't.

00:20:42:16 - 00:21:02:22
Kevin Eikenberry
One of the responsibilities is just to describe. It's just specifically describing. One of the things that, tell me what you say about this, but one of my observations is when that's clear, it also, they're using the example of the person who's been a supervisor for a couple of months, and you give them the ability to make a change to the schedule up that up to one hour.

00:21:03:02 - 00:21:24:23
Kevin Eikenberry
And then, you give they make some good decisions and you've talked those things through and you move to three hours. That's incredibly valuable to them. And for them, I mean, it's the aspirational go, hey, I can get this to six or I can get this to nine, or I can get this to a day or whatever. Can be extremely pardon the word empowering, right?

00:21:25:03 - 00:21:28:10
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah. And energizing. So, hey.

00:21:28:12 - 00:21:49:15
Chris Seifert
Look, I can tell you that 1,000% the day that the, you know, regional director of operations told me, you know, Chris, you know, you know, your decision made. You don't need to call me for these decisions anymore. Your decision rights are not there. 50,000, not 10,000. Right. Like that felt better to me than any plaque I got at some award thing.

00:21:49:15 - 00:22:01:04
Chris Seifert
Right? Like I mean, you know, that was that was this person telling me, hey, look, my I'm giving you my authority because I trust you as much as I trust myself at this point. Right. And that means a lot.

00:22:01:09 - 00:22:28:14
Kevin Eikenberry
So, so the the bulk of the book beyond sort of this level setting and the big ideas that we've talked about, the bulk of the book, and I believe the bulk of your work, based on what you and I talked about before we went live, it is about, enabling people, giving them a framework, a decision making framework to help them make those decisions, enabling them to do a good job of making decisions to improve their ability, etc., etc..

00:22:28:14 - 00:22:47:10
Kevin Eikenberry
Now we don't have time to go into all that, and that's one of the reasons why people need to buy a copy of Chris's book Enabling Empowerment. There are several steps there. Some of them are not going to really surprise people. I mean, obviously we could go into depth on any of them, but the last one is the one that I want you to talk about.

00:22:47:12 - 00:23:12:08
Kevin Eikenberry
So like it says things like, you know, defining the objectives, creative range of alternatives. What are the drivers like? Some of that stuff. Super important. Lots of lots of great ideas you give us to, to make that more granular. But the last thing that you say that I think is really important and it's show your work. What do you mean by show your work?

00:23:12:10 - 00:23:13:11
Chris Seifert
Yeah, yeah.

00:23:13:12 - 00:23:14:10
Kevin Eikenberry


00:23:14:12 - 00:23:38:02
Chris Seifert
Just document your decision making process, is the biggest part. The one of the, so in, in my book. Right. One of the things I spent a lot of time talking about are the decision traps that, influence all of our thinking. Right back at the beginning of this, I open this up by saying we aren't very good as humans at making decisions and uncertain and complex environments.

00:23:38:02 - 00:24:03:17
Chris Seifert
Right. And that's not just a throwaway statement. That's a scientific fact. Right? Our brains are not wired for that. And and we but but it is a skill that we can develop if we are intentional about it. Right. And so, one of decision traps we're susceptible to is hindsight bias, which is that we tend to believe that it was possible to know more than we could of at the time we made a decision.

00:24:03:19 - 00:24:26:04
Chris Seifert
And, so it's just really important when you're making the decision that you're in today's world of uncertainty and complexity, we're going to have to make assumptions. Right. And so if we write those down, when we make them, then later in the future we can go back and go, why did I make that assumption? And how can I maybe make a better assumption the next time?

00:24:26:06 - 00:24:52:21
Chris Seifert
Right. So we can learn from those, and also not unfairly judge. Right? I because one of the biggest mistakes leaders make is, you know, judging a decision based on an outcome, right? Which, you know, and I'll say that people will. Yeah. We should. Right. Okay. So, you know, if I walk into a casino and I throw you know, $1,000 on the black on the roulette table and I win, did I make a good decision?

00:24:52:23 - 00:25:09:06
Chris Seifert
I mean, no, I had a good outcome, right? Right. You know. Oh, no, the other one I say to people all the time, I mean, if I go out to the bar on Friday night and I get loaded and I drive drunk on the way home, and I end up home safe and didn't have to pay for cab fare and have my car parked somewhere overnight.

00:25:09:06 - 00:25:31:05
Chris Seifert
Then I make a good decision. Absolutely not. That's a terrible decision. Right? So you can't judge a decision based on its outcomes. You have to judge a decision based on the information that was available at the time and what the person did with it. So show your work so that in the future, when you want to go back and evaluate your decision, you, you've, you know, you've.

00:25:31:10 - 00:25:42:09
Kevin Eikenberry
You've here's how we got there. Context matters here, right? Here's how we got there. And then where, where, where did we fall there and what would we do differently?

00:25:42:11 - 00:25:54:11
Chris Seifert
And then. Yeah, then we can then we can move away from, you know, blame, shame and train. Right. And, you know, as a strategy to let's learn like, let's learn why that decision turned out differently than we expected it would.

00:25:54:13 - 00:26:14:05
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah, absolutely. So there's another one of those decision traps I thought, I'm glad you mentioned, because there's one other one that I thought we'd talk about briefly before we start to wrap up. And it's the curse of knowledge, which applies to all of us as humans, but it certainly applies as leaders, because a lot of times, as leaders, we think we're supposed to have the knowledge, right?

00:26:14:07 - 00:26:21:00
Kevin Eikenberry
Or we got promoted because we had the knowledge. So what do you mean? By the curse of knowledge?

00:26:21:02 - 00:26:46:11
Chris Seifert
Yeah, the curse of knowledge just means that, once we as people know something, it's impossible for us to remember what it was like to not know that. Right. And, it's just so hard because, you know, the greatest example of the frustration of it is, is, I think, right when you're doing, like, playing charades or something with a group of people, right?

00:26:46:13 - 00:27:07:06
Chris Seifert
Once you've seen the thing, the answer, like, you know why the person acting, it's like so obvious to you why they're acting out what they're acting and you can't understand why everybody else can't see it because it's so frickin obvious. Right. And where even once you, you know, you were looking at what somebody is trying to do, and then you find the answer, you're like, well, duh, that was obvious.

00:27:07:06 - 00:27:42:20
Chris Seifert
But because once you've once you have that knowledge, you can't unknow it. And so, I just you know what? I, I think it's so important in terms of decision making is especially when you have other people in, you know, involved in decision, you you can't make assumptions that they know what you know. Right? Like you have to you have to, like especially wise Leader once told me, you know, that he too he his way he works is to he believes to reasonable people would given the same set of facts will generally come to the same conclusion.

00:27:42:22 - 00:27:52:08
Chris Seifert
And so when two people aren't coming to the same conclusion, you know, that means we don't have the same facts. So let's figure out what we what we don't have on the table.

00:27:52:10 - 00:28:01:16
Kevin Eikenberry
I'm not sure I completely agree with the first statement, but I believe but I do agree that asking that question will help us make sure that we are on that same playing field. Yeah.

00:28:01:18 - 00:28:03:16
Chris Seifert
Well, I said two reasonable people.

00:28:03:16 - 00:28:06:06
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah, I got I got you I got.

00:28:06:09 - 00:28:20:21
Chris Seifert
No, no. His caveat to that statement was at the end of the day, I'm the boss, so I'm the reasonable one. So if we can't, we can't get all the same facts on the table here. Then at some point, my my conclusion will be you're the unreasonable one, but.

00:28:20:23 - 00:28:30:00
Kevin Eikenberry
Gotcha. So is there anything Chris, that I didn't ask, that you thought I would or wished I would have asked?

00:28:30:14 - 00:28:33:15
Chris Seifert
No, man. No. It's been a great conversation.

00:28:33:17 - 00:28:49:12
Kevin Eikenberry
All right, well, then that's cool. I mean, all that means is that you didn't think of one in the moment, because there's probably plenty. But let's, let's move into the final piece of our conversation. I've got a couple of questions I ask everybody. First one is, what do you do for fun?

00:28:49:20 - 00:29:13:01
Chris Seifert
Well, for fun, I'm, I do a lot of fishing. Mostly bass, freshwater fishing. I'm also a volunteer firefighter here, and, I'm I'm in a kind of a blend. I'm in northern White County. It's a little bit blended rural. So we're fairly dependent on volunteer firefighters up here still. So, that that's, takes up a good bit of time, but it's, fun and rewarding.

00:29:13:01 - 00:29:24:13
Kevin Eikenberry
So, glad to know that that you didn't get the call during this the last Thursday. That's right. And so the the only thing you knew, I was going to ask you for sure, is what are you reading these days, Chris?

00:29:24:15 - 00:29:48:16
Chris Seifert
Yeah. Well, the, one of the I'm reading right now book, mind where? By Richard Nesbit. It's a book similar, a lot of similar stuff that's in enabling empowerment about decision traps a lot along the same lines of, a book I reference in In Enabling Empowerment, which is, thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.

00:29:48:17 - 00:30:09:15
Chris Seifert
I'm just I'm, I'm fascinated with the kind of the way the brain works. Right. And realizing, all the influences on your thinking that are going on right from your environment, your contact list. And so, yeah, I can can't get enough of, like, just different perspectives on, you know, what can be influencing the way we think.

00:30:09:17 - 00:30:25:09
Kevin Eikenberry
We'll have links to both of those in the show notes, as well as a link to enabling empowerment. Chris's book with the subtitle A Leadership Playbook for Ending Micromanagement and Empowering Decision Makers. Chris, where do you want to point people? Where can they learn more about your work? Where do you want to point them related to the book?

00:30:25:09 - 00:30:28:12
Kevin Eikenberry
Anything at all? Where do you want people to go?

00:30:28:14 - 00:30:51:21
Chris Seifert
Yeah, absolutely. So, on the website, Enabling empowerment.com, you'll find link to the book, which is available on Amazon. But also there's a lot of, templates that are referenced in the book. So I reference like, you know, hey, if you don't have a financial model that you use to evaluate, you know, capital decisions or.

00:30:51:21 - 00:31:09:07
Chris Seifert
Right, I there's a link to you can, you know, download one that you can feel free to plagiarize or templates for planning things out, or just tip sheets for how to better frame problems. There's a lot of resources available there, as well as recorded trainings and things to do. So that'd be the place to go.

00:31:09:09 - 00:31:25:09
Kevin Eikenberry
Enabling empowerment.com. So the question now I have for all of you, I'm done asking Chris questions of Chris, but I have a question for all the rest of you. If you've been here before, you know what it is. Here it is now what what action are you going to take as a result of being here? Because what's the point, right?

00:31:25:14 - 00:31:47:09
Kevin Eikenberry
If we don't take some action, it might have been interesting. But it's not valuable until we take action. So whether it's now, you have a new way to think about what empowerment means and how you would share that with your team. Or maybe you need to think about how would I go about enabling my team? Or maybe you need to think about how do you get out of blame, shame, and train?

00:31:47:16 - 00:32:02:03
Kevin Eikenberry
Maybe you want to think about decision rights. I don't know, those are just a few of the things that I wrote down everybody. And but the most important thing that you can do as a result of being here is to take some action as a result. And I hope that you will do that. Chris, thanks so much for being here.

00:32:02:03 - 00:32:06:05
Kevin Eikenberry
It was a pleasure to have you. And I'm so glad we had the chance to chat.

00:32:06:07 - 00:32:08:11
Chris Seifert
Absolutely. Thanks, Kevin.

00:32:08:13 - 00:32:26:06
Kevin Eikenberry
With that, everybody, I have just one more thing for you and that is if you enjoyed the show, make sure you are subscribed so you don't miss any episodes in the future. Wherever you're watching listening to this podcast, make sure you subscribed. If you have the chance to invite someone else to join us next time, do that.

00:32:26:10 - 00:32:42:11
Kevin Eikenberry
You want to point people to this episode? Of course. Do that if you have. If you have the chance to give us a like or a rating, we'd love that as well. But most of all, just make sure you come back next week for another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast. We'll see you then.