The Remarkable Leadership Podcast

00:00:08:09 - 00:00:41:15
Kevin Eikenberry
Today we're talking about the psychology of leadership, of concepts that have gained steam like psychological safety and a growth mindset. But we're also talking about and in the trenches reality of leading for control and compliance or leading for commitment. We're talking about all this as a way to help us understand ourselves better and lead better. Welcome to another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast, where we are helping leaders like you grow personally and professionally to lead more effectively and make a bigger difference for their teams, organizations and the world.

00:00:41:17 - 00:01:02:21
Kevin Eikenberry
If you're listening to this podcast in the future, you could join us live on your favorite social channel. You can get all of access to those future episodes, links to when they're going to happen, the calendar, when they're going to happen, so that you can interact with us and and see this content sooner by joining your Facebook or LinkedIn groups.

00:01:02:21 - 00:01:25:21
Kevin Eikenberry
Just two of the social channels that we happen to operate these live casts on. You can go to our to join our Facebook group by going to remarkable podcast dot com slash Facebook or go to remarkable podcast dot com slash linked and get you all the details get you up to date and I hope that you'll do that and join the hundreds of people that are on those two groups.

00:01:25:23 - 00:01:50:17
Kevin Eikenberry
Today's episode is brought to you by our remarkable masterclasses pick from 13 important life and leadership skills to help you become more effective, productive and confident while overcoming some of the leader's toughest challenges. Learn more and sign up at Remarkable Masterclass dot com. Our guest today is Skip Bowman. You probably know that you've read something that told you that I'm going to bring him in and then I'm going to introduce him.

00:01:50:17 - 00:02:10:10
Kevin Eikenberry
There he is. Let me introduce Skip to you and we're going to dive in. Skip Bowman is an author, consultant, keynote speaker, focusing on how to transform organizations to the green economy with a growth mindset and psychological safety. He grew up in Perth, Australia, has spent most of the last 25 years working in Switzerland, England, France and Denmark.

00:02:10:12 - 00:02:42:21
Kevin Eikenberry
After studying finance in Australia, he obtained his M.A. in Psychology and Languages in Copenhagen. He also has a master's in organizational psychology and completed additional training in cross country music, cross-cultural management, group dynamics, Coaching and Cultural Change. His book, Safe to Great, which, if you're watching him holding up safe too Great. The New Psychology of Leadership outlines his new psychology for leadership and an integrated process for implementing a growth mindset based on psychological safety and organizations.

00:02:42:23 - 00:02:49:00
Kevin Eikenberry
And he is our guest, and I'm glad he's here. Skip, welcome.

00:02:49:02 - 00:02:57:04
Skip Bowman
Great to be here. Kevin. I'm glad to you're happy that I'm here. We had a couple of technical difficulties, but I'm so glad we sorted it out. Thank you so much for being here tonight.

00:02:57:04 - 00:03:17:21
Kevin Eikenberry
And we've got a couple of folks from my team who are here. I'm going to put their names on the screen, but if you're here live, please let us know. Say hello. And as we're going to long have you have a question to ask us. So so Skip, I want to dive in and I want to find out like sort of tell us about your journey.

00:03:17:21 - 00:03:33:13
Kevin Eikenberry
In short, really, how did you end up getting to this idea? And we'll talk more about what it means in a minute. How do you how did you get to this place called Safe to great. Like, tell us the jury that leads you from Perth to Europe to doing this kind of work.

00:03:33:15 - 00:03:35:22
Skip Bowman
Yes, in one minute or less.

00:03:36:00 - 00:03:37:06
Kevin Eikenberry
Exactly.

00:03:37:08 - 00:04:04:04
Skip Bowman
Yeah. I mean, Australian I love diving, underwater diving, that is as a young kid. And I became a diving instructor in the early, late eighties, early nineties and I discovered that being a great diver didn't mean anything if you're trying to teach people to dive. So I discovered that sort of being a great instructor was about making people feel confident and competent.

00:04:04:06 - 00:04:22:05
Skip Bowman
And to do that, it was fundamentally some sort of magical sort of connection that you create between people. And this is my first experience. When I grew up at school and university, I never really thought about it, but I suddenly got that job and I loved it. I love teaching and I love instructing. I suddenly realized that there was something special.

00:04:22:05 - 00:04:51:05
Skip Bowman
If you made that connection, you could do something great. If you didn't make that connection, it was really, really difficult. And it went on to later in life where I learned languages, learned Danish and French, moved to different cultures, studied psychology, etc. So many of those successes are to do with the relationships that we have. And that has really driven why I've got a book in which you've had very happy to see people appreciate that which is growth mindset from a relational perspective.

00:04:51:05 - 00:05:08:15
Skip Bowman
How do we help? How do we grow, but how do we help others grow? So it started off as diving, but it's led on to my whole professional career. 25 years in leadership and organizational development, and I've seen that so often ignored at your peril. And when it's there, we get this multiplier effect. When the relationship arrived, we can grow.

00:05:08:18 - 00:05:12:06
Skip Bowman
And so that's what the book is dedicated to.

00:05:12:08 - 00:05:36:16
Kevin Eikenberry
So and that's and a story everybody, when you get your copy, which I hope that you will do, there's a longer story about this connection to diving that Skip tells in the beginning of the book. I love that you start there those because the connection between being an instructor, a teacher, whatever word you want to use there, and being a leader, they're connected and they're connected.

00:05:36:18 - 00:05:56:08
Kevin Eikenberry
They're connected because as leaders we are coaches and we are often teaching people things for sure. But I think they're connected and I think that we are of similar mind here that they're connected in in deeper ways than that. Like some instructors say, we're going to lecture and it's pretty much one way and some leaders kind of do the same.

00:05:56:11 - 00:06:05:21
Kevin Eikenberry
And we're going to head to all of that in a second. But do you have anything else you want to say about the connection between leading and teaching? I'm just curious.

00:06:05:23 - 00:06:32:21
Skip Bowman
I think there's an emotional connection. I mean, you're standing on the edge of a boat and you've got all this dark water in front of you and you're about to roll into shark infested waters. There's a certain look you have in each other's eyes. There's a certain look grabbing onto each other's shoulders before you know it. And they're wonderful metaphors for what is called in another great book, which is called Care Today, that when we show that we care about somebody, it creates a foundation for doing something difficult.

00:06:32:21 - 00:06:52:04
Skip Bowman
Now, in that case, it was rolling off a boat into the water, but it could be at work trying something difficult, learning something new, taking a risk, all those kinds of things that if we know there's somebody behind us who's taking care of us, so who kind of, no matter what is going to continue to care and want us to learn and develop it, that that makes all the difference.

00:06:52:04 - 00:06:56:19
Skip Bowman
That's like that's the magic. That's the magic dust, right?

00:06:56:21 - 00:07:15:01
Kevin Eikenberry
So I hinted at it. If people are watching, they see it next to your name. Safe to great. What's the basis, what's underneath this this approach, this new psychology of leadership that we're going to talk about today that you call safe to great? What's the basis of that approach?

00:07:15:03 - 00:07:36:07
Skip Bowman
Well, essentially, if we want to put some theory on that idea about that connection, we're going to put psychological safety on it. That's the big term that I mean, Amundsen sort of helped start with. It's not the first pass, but certainly has made it extremely popular and super relevant. And so safety becomes a concept that can say, do something about this.

00:07:36:07 - 00:07:57:13
Skip Bowman
Once we create that, it's kind of like the foundation. And the reason is really simple is if you studied psychology of leadership and performance, what we know is that when people are operating what we might call an unsafe or a fear zone, they're not very successful. They might be able to do things that are quite dramatic and powerful, but it doesn't lead to real sort of growth and learning.

00:07:57:13 - 00:08:20:16
Skip Bowman
We tend to be using our survival instinct rather than using anything that's really clever, right? So unless we create that safety and to use lots of examples of people have done extraordinary things under great duress, now that could be, you know, in in accidents around aircraft or could be like even the terrible World Trade Tower events, these are similar events.

00:08:20:17 - 00:08:20:23
Skip Bowman
If we.

00:08:20:23 - 00:08:21:08
Kevin Eikenberry
Really.

00:08:21:08 - 00:08:47:18
Skip Bowman
Look into the detail, there are great stories about people, everyday people, but also leaders who step into extraordinary situations and create just enough level of safety that people are willing to do and to achieve extraordinary things. Because what happens is, instead of us being fearful, we have to step out of that and to be able to start thinking and using our resources, but most importantly, to collaborate.

00:08:47:19 - 00:09:06:14
Skip Bowman
That's where the gold is. You know, it's when we work together that amazing things happen, whether it's on a basketball team or whether it's in a fireman team or whatever, it's the same challenge. So it unlocks everything. If you look at a great book, is is about the culture, co-written by Dan Coyle, fabulous book, again, about the power.

00:09:06:14 - 00:09:25:14
Skip Bowman
When we belong to something, we have a common trajectory and we create safety within able to do magical things together. And his study of so many different high performance contexts shows that we always say, you need emotional intelligence. No, what we need is that sense of caring and that safety has to be in place when it's there.

00:09:25:16 - 00:09:48:03
Skip Bowman
We can really challenge hard. Now that's the logic of safe to go right now. Psychological safety by itself is not enough. We need something that stretches us right, both relationally and in terms of getting the job done the task and that's what Grossmont that's where Count Rex work, gives some insight into what that could look at. But that obviously that is a concept.

00:09:48:03 - 00:10:15:07
Skip Bowman
The counterweight developed in educational settings like learning at university. What I spent last seven years as being outside, how could we use our existing theory and empirical studies of of performance at work to be able to say something meaningful about what growth mindset really is in practice? So how do we create that stretch in terms of relationship, in terms of task, get these, you know, to lift this set not just above what we might call a comforts zone to lift us into a learning zone, but also lift us into a growth zone of some sort.

00:10:15:11 - 00:10:37:06
Skip Bowman
That's quite a remarkable thing. And great teams do it. You know, Dan Cole talks in the culture Code about the SEALs. They do. It doesn't great basketball teams do it. I think it's back to this idea that greatness is quite rare. There's a lot of ordinary is out there and there's an awful lot of crap, right. Not to mention some really toxic stuff as well.

00:10:37:06 - 00:10:57:12
Skip Bowman
But we're we're trying to be inspired by what really great teams and try to then break it down to a set of principles so you can sort of say we need more of this. But I think with the big difference in the my work is I also look at the dysfunctional stuff. We have to understand that part of the reason we don't succeed is there are things holding us back, right?

00:10:57:14 - 00:11:09:20
Skip Bowman
And that can be in us and it can be around us. And those things matter when we're starting to have that calculation about is there a growth mindset or not? So that's part of the learning that's put into that book.

00:11:09:22 - 00:11:31:23
Kevin Eikenberry
So in the book you just hinted a little bit scared when you said in the book, you call it the the bright side and the dark side. What's this? What this sits on? And this gets to, as I promised in the open, that we'd get a bit of an understanding about ourselves and how we can move forward. And so in the book you talk about Bright Side, Dark side.

00:11:32:01 - 00:11:58:05
Kevin Eikenberry
Today we're going to start with the dark side. So not just because I think it'll make more sense for our conversation, because one of the things that happens and and one of the things I loved about the book is that we use you and I use some very similar language when we when we work with leaders And you you you have a section about halfway through the book where you talk about the dark side.

00:11:58:07 - 00:12:33:07
Kevin Eikenberry
And one of the things you talk about is leading for control. And so we often talk about leading for compliance, but we're talking about exactly the same thing right? And so my question is, why do leaders, leaders lean into control? Like, why is that so prevalent and why? Because here's what I know and everyone and first of all, Skip, the people who are watching and listening are probably doing this less right where we're talking to people who are working hard to get better.

00:12:33:09 - 00:12:52:01
Kevin Eikenberry
And yet all of us have leaned here and all of us have had a leader that leaned here and said and we said, I don't want to do that necessarily. And yet we do. Why do we lean in to control what you're calling the dark side?

00:12:52:03 - 00:13:28:02
Skip Bowman
There's a there's an evolutionary factor, right? And we just wired for it and that's a pity. But it worked 40, 50,000 years ago. Our brain hasn't changed much since then. So in reality, most great leadership is overcoming natural instincts. And that's it. Because what worked to save you from the from the Sabertooth tiger isn't very effective to understand the complexities of a supply chain meltdown post-COVID.

00:13:28:04 - 00:13:53:10
Skip Bowman
There are two very, very different tasks and the kind of cognitive complexity, etc. that you need to solve the the latter is very, very different. So we have to sort of get over the fact that that instinctively we look up to control, particularly when faced by uncertainty and challenge. Right. We tend to say, let's find the hero, let's find as I say, I said elsewhere, let's find Bruce Willis.

00:13:53:10 - 00:14:23:06
Skip Bowman
Let's let's find his father. God is going to get us out of this stuff. Great respect to him is wonderful, I'm sure. But. But we want the hero, right? And that's how we approach this part of our evolutionary makeup. Now, we've got another factor, which is that in terms of the way organizations tend to make choices about who leads, who they choose for project leadership, who they choose for line leadership directors, etc., tends to be people exhibit behaviors that we call the alpha male position.

00:14:23:06 - 00:14:47:06
Skip Bowman
So charismatic, dominant, controlling, right? Because they seem like the right things. The hat that sets an enormous bias that we have in organizations. Because when you actually look and measure it, great leaders don't really look like that. So they're actually much more humble. They've got a determination, they've got other qualities. And and that's primarily to because, you know, I don't want somebody who can defend me against a saboteur.

00:14:47:06 - 00:15:10:00
Skip Bowman
Tiger actually trying to find somebody who can help me, you know, man is something like the inflation problem in North America or help us get off gas in in Europe, because that leads to the kind of conflicts we have today. So these are very complicated issues that require leaders of different with a different kind of greatness. And I think we often need to challenge it.

00:15:10:00 - 00:15:36:13
Skip Bowman
So there's the human bias, but there's an organizational bias towards what I call hippos, which I've got a badge wearing, you know, ladies that are controlling. So that'd be the main reason because we face uncertainty. We saw it recently, which is kind of amusing, you know, in the face of where we go with social media. Mark Zuckerberg and and Elon Musk, one to have a cage fight in Congress.

00:15:36:15 - 00:15:38:23
Kevin Eikenberry
Is going to happen. Now, I don't know like.

00:15:39:04 - 00:15:40:05
Skip Bowman
You hear the fantastic.

00:15:40:05 - 00:15:53:22
Kevin Eikenberry
Conversation on the 20th of November is not going to come this isn't going to come live on the podcast until the 24th of 2024 of January of 2024. So I don't know, but I haven't heard anything about it in a while. Is it off?

00:15:54:00 - 00:16:02:13
Skip Bowman
I don't know. But it's remarkable. It's because when when, when stock.

00:16:02:15 - 00:16:04:04
Kevin Eikenberry
So we like skip.

00:16:04:04 - 00:16:25:07
Skip Bowman
Addresses it's it's it's funny like that but that's a little bit how the world the world works in uncertainty and we're facing a lot of that right now. Right. It's you know if we're looking at the traditional understanding of business planning, the level of uncertainty means that most companies are not comfortable to plan longer than six months. Boy, boy, we've never seen anything like that.

00:16:25:07 - 00:16:48:01
Skip Bowman
Right. So that means that everyone is looking for something that looks more certain and the human characteristics we like to look for. And that's why the growth mindset principle in my book is fundamentally counterintuitive. It's in fact, you don't want Bruce Willis. You actually want somebody who looks quite different to that.

00:16:48:03 - 00:17:19:06
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah, because what happens is and is that because we're looking for that certainty, then we look to someone who seems certain. Yes. Which takes us back to where we just were. So what are the what are the costs to us as organizations if we lean into or promote or search for that person leading from the place of control there?

00:17:19:07 - 00:17:43:16
Skip Bowman
The primary one is that when will we sort of a face, a leader who is overly coercive and dominant, etc., We tend to adopt a coping strategy or a resisting strategy. Right now, coping strategy tends to look like this. My boss is really aggressive and dominant, and after me. So what I do, I'm going to be nice to her, I'm going to be friendly, I'm going to do what they say.

00:17:43:18 - 00:18:02:03
Skip Bowman
But in principle, when I face uncertainty, I'm going to wait and see. I'm going to follow the rules. I'm going to be really cautious here. Right. And what we know from research into that, that's a really bad position. Just about any kind of business I'll get back there is that there is a slightly different alternative that but so that we hope for that.

00:18:02:05 - 00:18:21:16
Skip Bowman
The second position which is which is worse from an effectiveness point of view, is we resist. In other words, we start to yeah, we start to complain and bitch and whine and defensiveness. Yeah, we do all those things to try to get away with it, you know, to try to resist that, that unfairness that comes with it in various different ways.

00:18:21:18 - 00:18:47:00
Skip Bowman
The research is really simple that in shops around America, right, if you measure the level of pilfering, in other words, losing stock, you then correlate it to the level of toxicity of the leader. How controlling are they? And there's a correlation. So what we realize is the majority of people who steal in shops are the staff themselves, because they're trying to right the balance of feeling unjustly treated and that really matters.

00:18:47:02 - 00:19:07:22
Skip Bowman
That's just an example of it. So and so if we want to collaborate, if one do high quality, we want to innovate. I need people to not be scared about my boss. I need to be focusing their attention on solving the task. So what happens is controlling leaders. Everyone's only worried about what the leaders thinking, not what the customer is thinking or what they're thinking together.

00:19:08:00 - 00:19:37:08
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah. And so the goal becomes satisfying the boss or keeping their being pain there as opposed to solving the real business problem or not really meeting the real opportunity. So I framed this conversation, skip around leaning towards control. So if we're not leaning that direction, what are we leaning toward? Like you, you've you've sort of helped us see that while it's natural and it's understandable, it's not very effective to always lean toward the control side.

00:19:37:13 - 00:19:41:05
Kevin Eikenberry
So what's the other alternative?

00:19:41:07 - 00:20:07:07
Skip Bowman
The alternative is what I call the commitment premium or the commitment method, right? And that's essentially based on a concept called autonomy, enhancing in the sense that we're trying to if I if I say to you, hey, what do you think, Kevin, as opposed to saying, Kevin, do this, what happens is I create the possibility of you saying, I like the bit where you ask me what I think.

00:20:07:09 - 00:20:31:13
Skip Bowman
And what we know from research is that that has a profound impact on on teams, on individual contributors, everything, because just small amounts of of, of autonomy, small amounts of choice means that I perform better. I think better. I relate to people better, I'm more resilient. I'm less likely to have stress. These things really matter. And they're relatively small choices.

00:20:31:13 - 00:20:59:19
Skip Bowman
But that small act of saying, What do you think, Kevin or Kevin, I see this really cool. Can we do more of it? Small change, but we're talking about a performance framing that's like 40 to 50%, right? It's it's really valuable. And that's the that's the thing which most people don't want to admit. I'm and if you look at the research done by loads and this is not research new it's been around for a really long time right This is not new right.

00:20:59:21 - 00:21:18:09
Skip Bowman
It's just become increasingly hard with the business models that we have today to be really effective with a control model. So commitments actually become increasingly necessary and increasingly important. But I'll as I'll get back to this, a small thing which I talk about in the book is our philosophy is we want to continue to manage 1 to 1 goals.

00:21:18:09 - 00:21:45:03
Skip Bowman
We want to manage individuals rather than thinking about how do we manage relationships between people. And that's that's a real shift in the safety model. And if you look again at the research, the latest that understand that for example, Pixar's you know at Catmull he understands his job is not is to lead the system he understands that really well and that's what turned around the fact that well created Pixar then turned around Walt Disney.

00:21:45:03 - 00:21:59:02
Skip Bowman
It's a fantastic story, but it's very clever stuff. He's not trying to lead it like a hero. He'd leads it in a fundamentally wrong way by creating a healthy system. Relationships that create the success that I get.

00:21:59:04 - 00:22:09:02
Kevin Eikenberry
Well, it's like, you know, you hire smart people, so then you need to unleash them. And if you bring in smart people, then why wouldn't you want to do that? Right? Ultimately, when it's all said and done.

00:22:09:04 - 00:22:15:12
Skip Bowman
Would you make them dumber with controlling leadership? That's the thing we know. So it's really curious. But anyway, good guy. I'm up for your question.

00:22:15:16 - 00:22:45:17
Kevin Eikenberry
No, no. So what's so people that are listening, watching are saying, I'm with you, Skip. I get it. I don't want I want to overcome nature and not necessarily from the place of control where where should people start? Like, obviously, we wanted to go buy a copy. Your book saved a great I'm talking to Skip Bowman, the author of Safe to Break the New Psychology of Leadership.

00:22:45:19 - 00:22:52:23
Kevin Eikenberry
But where do people start? Like, what should they do first.

00:22:53:01 - 00:23:13:19
Skip Bowman
As a who you are in the book, I'm going to talk about protected mindsets as being that, you know, we operate generally fairly protectively. Mindset was, you know, risk averse, fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of loss, etc.. Right? So we tend to be a bit more predicted and protective than you might think. Even bossy people are essentially being protective is bossy.

00:23:13:19 - 00:23:34:03
Skip Bowman
People are scared of relationship, so they're protecting something which is their independence. So yeah, it's it's similar and it makes you feel strong too. Certainly strong. All flash, safe, invulnerable, perhaps a word you could use it. So where do you start? The start is working out where you lie. And that's sort of in this world of fight flight phrase.

00:23:34:03 - 00:23:54:06
Skip Bowman
I use somebody who, when faces uncertainly protectively, you tend to take control. If that's your journey, then that the like life for that matter, in a fantastic way. Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Mr. Kirby will have said it's such a such an amazing book. I'm in this business for a long time. I still think that's a great book, and it was written a really long time ago.

00:23:54:06 - 00:24:17:09
Skip Bowman
But his point was, if you have an independent voice, which is somebody who does have fight, right, when you need to have a public victory, you've got to learn to work well with others. He's absolutely right. Okay. If you're if you're somebody who's struggling with assertiveness, tends to want to belong to the group, wants to value relationships and struggles to find their own voice, you need to have the product victory, as he would call it.

00:24:17:09 - 00:24:38:10
Skip Bowman
You've got to learn to be able to speak your mind, to hold accountable cycle. So you have to know that I have a third position which isn't really in in his stuff, which I call the Clam, which is a critical skeptical position. And in this position, we're actually have to do two things. One, you have to believe that you can set a positive goal and shape it.

00:24:38:12 - 00:25:01:08
Skip Bowman
And secondly, you have to stop me so bloody suspicious that everyone around you, because this is a very ineffective position to be in. Quite a lot of really clever people can be here. But once we know where you are, we can sort of start working out how do we bring together your ability to care and to date, in other words, to have that optimal combination of support and challenge in the way that you work together with others, the way you lead.

00:25:01:10 - 00:25:21:16
Skip Bowman
But it's not one size fits all. I challenged Adam Grant, who writes a lot on Instagram recently, etc., where he was saying, you know, we just need humility. I'm saying that's really good advice for somebody who's in hip hop, who's very controlling and dominant, but it's not good advice for somebody who's struggling with assertiveness.

00:25:21:18 - 00:25:44:00
Kevin Eikenberry
Right. That's not opposite ends of the spectrum. And so that's that really is great advice on one end. It's it's the opposite of what's needed on the other end, really. Yeah. I mean, we all need to be humble. Humble. But if humble, if you military becomes every strength, overdone is a weakness. Right. And so I think it's really a really excellent point.

00:25:44:02 - 00:26:14:19
Kevin Eikenberry
So in the world that we live today, you know, in a post COVID world where so many more people are working not in proximity as were before, I mean, that trend would have continued anyway. But we we matched the accelerator on that and didn't send everybody back in every in every organization. So my question is, how is all of this harder now?

00:26:14:19 - 00:26:35:12
Kevin Eikenberry
Like, what would you what would you say to those, like everything you said, apply so that people come together every day or whether they don't? But what would you say specifically to those who are leading at a distance that they might want to be aware of in relationship to safety? Great.

00:26:35:14 - 00:26:54:07
Skip Bowman
It depends on if you're if you're the leader at the distance, at the office or the leader the distance at home, I'd actually prefer you to be the one at home. The best thing about leadership is might the latest slightly weaker. That's always a good thing because the day at the office, you're going to be the king, Queen of all things.

00:26:54:09 - 00:26:57:06
Skip Bowman
And whether you like it or not.

00:26:57:07 - 00:26:59:23
Kevin Eikenberry
And even if you're not that you're perceived as so.

00:27:00:01 - 00:27:18:02
Skip Bowman
Of course this is it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's back to the the sort of survival evolutionary thinking that we have, you know, we so it's what they call the, the sales call and they call the authority boss. It's really and if the SEALs experience it, everyone does because they're the toughest people in the whole world. Right.

00:27:18:04 - 00:27:46:05
Skip Bowman
So it really matters. They're hybrid's a super curious thing. We're evolving to it this some technical issues. In other words, humans. Humans grow up with a certain distance between between between us, like only about a major in our intimate relationships. So working with cameras is really tricky, like, like you and I try to do here. So our ability to sort of on a what we call micro behavioral level to build trust is quite difficult.

00:27:46:07 - 00:28:05:07
Skip Bowman
Now there's also the time lag problem, that voice and sound a slightly lagged, which is good for us because we're not trained for that. A brain becomes tends to feel suspicious when we have a gap between sound of visions. So there's a lot of things at a macro level that are really tricky here. So the only way to solve that is, again, scope bold in, right?

00:28:05:10 - 00:28:24:15
Skip Bowman
If you're going to go bold on virtual leadership, one, you need a good camera, you need some good lighting. You look amazing, by the way. And that's really matters because I can build trust you because you're being vulnerable in the way you're lit. Because I can see you. I can. And I've got lots of leaders who seem to be doing the like the dark Lord out of Star Wars.

00:28:24:15 - 00:28:25:22
Skip Bowman
Right?

00:28:26:00 - 00:28:31:02
Kevin Eikenberry
It's got a hood on. Yeah. And witness witness protection, right?

00:28:31:04 - 00:28:33:08
Skip Bowman
Yeah.

00:28:33:09 - 00:28:58:02
Kevin Eikenberry
So I want to shift gears, Skip, before we got a couple of different kinds of questions. We've talked a lot about psychological safety to talk about about growth mindset. And so I'm curious, it's actually a question I ask all of my guests, but I think it maybe especially of interest, given what our conversation has been. What do you do for fun?

00:28:58:04 - 00:29:05:04
Skip Bowman
You're asking And also well, you're also asking an author has three children under the age of three and a half.

00:29:05:06 - 00:29:09:03
Kevin Eikenberry
So that's part of what you do, hopefully, at least part of it's fun, right? Yeah.

00:29:09:05 - 00:29:30:18
Skip Bowman
Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, this is, you know, personally speaking, I think one of my got I don't really have I have a hobby, which is like my wife and I bought an old French farm some three or four years ago. We're renovating it. So we've turned into placing a rent out. And that was just a project I mean, we love.

00:29:30:20 - 00:29:48:01
Skip Bowman
And he was like, is that a business? I don't know. I mean, I want to learn French again. I to I love old buildings. So there you go. So for me, you know, and of course, with the three small kids, you know, we're trying to build up a whole world around that. And and so I'm in dad mode.

00:29:48:01 - 00:30:12:08
Skip Bowman
And so that's pretty much what I what I spend and enjoy a lot. Because to me, spending time with the kids trying to trying to renovate learn French these are things that I for me challenges hobby I just you know I can't yeah I'm not very good on this so far I, I mean I'm I watch cricket because I really like that game but, but in principle I'll, I'll start thinking okay what could we renovate here.

00:30:12:08 - 00:30:29:17
Skip Bowman
So I have a life that is, is authorship and researching my next book etc. But otherwise I love I love projects. Learning French is one of them. Learning everything about, you know, old buildings and architecture. That's something I do. I just my brain just loves learning. I just love that I can't I can't resist it.

00:30:29:18 - 00:30:43:06
Kevin Eikenberry
So. So in all of that, you did you did sort of end with I love learning. So reading is one of the ways we learn. What's something skip, that you've read recently or maybe that you're reading right now?

00:30:43:08 - 00:31:02:08
Skip Bowman
I'd have to say a reread and then, you know, calls the Culture Code. I can really recommend that because these are great. The the funny thing is, is he actually refers to other researchers and writers, and I actually think he tells a story that sounds a bit you know, there's some really good authors that we're like, I need to be honest.

00:31:02:08 - 00:31:25:23
Skip Bowman
I think that quote Coyle tells the story about her research almost in a more, more intriguing way. I think it's a fantastic book. I would highly recommend it. I bought it from my wife who's just out of the new roles. And so you have to read this. This is such a good book. It's such a good, well told story and very solid research, and I can't recommend it higher than that best book I've written outright in a while.

00:31:26:01 - 00:31:39:11
Kevin Eikenberry
Daniel Coyle, The Culture Code and Skip Bowman. Safe to Great. The New Psychology of Leadership. So Skip, where do you want to point people? Where can they learn more about your work and that sort of thing?

00:31:39:13 - 00:31:48:09
Skip Bowman
I'm pretty lucky that Skip Bowman is a pretty unusual. You can you can get your Find Me or a previous vice admiral of the nuclear fleet in America.

00:31:48:11 - 00:31:50:18
Kevin Eikenberry
So it's not you know, it's not.

00:31:50:18 - 00:32:15:23
Skip Bowman
Like Virginia yeah it's a Skip Bowman safe to We're on a mission to make organization safer. Great work. There's lots of ways I got. Let's try to find people who want to read the book, get inspired, want to work with the teams using the book. We've got lots of resources on the skip dashboard at our website. So you there's lots of stuff we're giving away for free there if you get the book so that you can work with the teams on it.

00:32:15:23 - 00:32:39:00
Skip Bowman
I mean, this is a, an important idea. We've I think, you know, the next seven years we've got some big challenges with I am with the with the climate change issues whether you like them or not, some really big changes in our economies and how we make money and so on. So we're going to have to we're going to have to really work hard at being great leaders for these new times.

00:32:39:00 - 00:32:58:02
Skip Bowman
And leadership has changed, like you mentioning, it's digital and it's many other things. And I think I'm hoping the book starts to answer that question. What is the future of leadership? And so check it out and write to me if you got any questions. I do a lot of work on LinkedIn, so that's another place to see what I'm doing.

00:32:58:04 - 00:33:21:12
Kevin Eikenberry
Save numeral two great dot com or skip hyphen bowman dot com either one so you can get connected more, learn more and as Skip said, get a lot of the resources that his free resources he's been talking about. So before we finish the question that I like to ask all of you, every episode is simply this. Now what what action will you take as a result of our conversation?

00:33:21:12 - 00:33:43:17
Kevin Eikenberry
What insights did you get? But that's not really enough. It's not like I had an idea. It's like, What am I going to do? What action are you going to take first? What are you going to try? How are you going to think differently about growth mindset? And even though we've talked about growth mindset, we've talked about actions to take and not just a way to think.

00:33:43:17 - 00:34:08:02
Kevin Eikenberry
So how do you think what might you do to remove yourself or your team from the comfort zone to the learning zone to the growth zone? What have you learned today about how you can think and operate with psychological safety? More differently? Those are just a couple of things I wrote. The challenge for you is to take action on what you learned, because if you do and when you do, you'll get far better results.

00:34:08:02 - 00:34:18:15
Kevin Eikenberry
So, Skip, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for being in us to get the technology fixed. And it was a pleasure to have you. Thanks for being here.

00:34:18:17 - 00:34:22:03
Skip Bowman
Thanks. Thanks, Kevin. Really love the opportunity.

00:34:22:04 - 00:34:45:23
Kevin Eikenberry
And with that, everybody, that means this episode of the Remarkable Leadership podcast is over. If it's your first, there's plenty more to see or listen to by going to wherever you listen to your podcasts or the remarkable podcast sitcom to see any of the past 400 odd episodes. But you don't want do that. Just subscribe wherever it is you subscribe.

00:34:45:23 - 00:34:51:05
Kevin Eikenberry
Because next week we'll be back with another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast. We'll see you then.