The Remarkable Leadership Podcast

00:00:08:15 - 00:00:39:10
Kevin Eikenberry
Questions we ask them all day, but often. And how well do we ask them in our leadership role? How do you use questions to help you be a more effective coach? And if you had greater skills and confidence in asking questions, how would that change your results and outcomes as a leader? It's a great question, and these are questions that are that matter, and they're the kinds of questions we're going to explore during this episode.

00:00:39:10 - 00:01:16:21
Kevin Eikenberry
So 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, positive difference for their teams, organizations and the world. If you are listening to this show in the future, you could join us live, on your favorite social media channel. You can find out when those are happening and how you can get connected and therefore see this, see them, see them, slash hear them sooner and get the beautiful, wonderful ideas into your practice sooner.

00:01:16:23 - 00:01:45:12
Kevin Eikenberry
And you can do all that by joining our Facebook or LinkedIn groups. Just two of the platforms where you can watch, go to remarkable podcast.com/facebook or remarkable podcast.com/linkedin to be LinkedIn. And know what's going on. 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.

00:01:45:14 - 00:02:11:03
Kevin Eikenberry
In a world more complex and uncertain than ever, our leaders need a new perspective and a new set of tools to create the great results their organizations and teams need. And that's what flexible leadership provide you. Learn more and order your copy today at remarkable podcast.com/flexible. And after all of that, we've got the administration out of the way.

00:02:11:04 - 00:02:19:17
Kevin Eikenberry
Let me bring in my guest. It looks like we might have a technical challenge. Let me check on that really quickly.

00:02:19:19 - 00:02:36:22
Kevin Eikenberry
See if that works. And if it does, great. And if it doesn't, we'll move on. We're going to move on. So let me introduce my guest. His name is Dave Reynolds. Let me tell you a little bit about him. He is a serial entrepreneur who has launched and developed a variety of new products and services for nearly two decades.

00:02:37:00 - 00:03:09:15
Kevin Eikenberry
He is the founder and CEO of the ruminate Group, a growth consulting firm that helps clients think strategically, facilitate team growth, and navigate crucial conversations. With a background in sales leadership, performance management, and succession planning, Dave is passionate about growth, acceleration and how asking the right questions yields the best answers. He explores those passions in his new book, Radical Growth transform into an unstoppable leader through mastering the Art of questions.

00:03:09:17 - 00:03:20:15
Kevin Eikenberry
I mentioned he's in another country than me. He's in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada today. And so hey, welcome, Dave. So glad that you're here.

00:03:20:17 - 00:03:25:08
Dave Reynolds
Appreciate it. Thanks very much, Kevin, for having me. And fantastic introduction.

00:03:25:10 - 00:03:57:01
Kevin Eikenberry
Well, I took the one your mother gave me. So let's see what we've got. Someone here, this in Vienna, and we've got someone who's here in Houston. And we're glad that, that they and others are with us. So what I want to do, Dave, is sort of start out by making an assumption, and you can tell me if my assumption is correct, that when you were like, I don't know, eight years old, you probably weren't expecting to be, a person who's written books and that sort of thing.

00:03:57:02 - 00:04:07:23
Kevin Eikenberry
I don't know, maybe you thought you were going to be a hockey player, I don't know. But my question is like, tell us a little bit more about that journey. In short, that leads you to this place and the writing of this book.

00:04:08:01 - 00:04:28:18
Dave Reynolds
Yeah. It's funny, when I look back and where I would have been a, I think I always knew I was going to be a salesperson in some way. From persuasion to just being talkative, but never thought that, I would wind up here. And so anybody ever ask? It's kind of a serendipitous moment of how one area job moved to the next.

00:04:28:18 - 00:04:49:08
Dave Reynolds
So it's been really exciting. And navigating to entrepreneurship, from inventing new products to launching new products to getting into consultancy just by, you know, asking a lot of really intuitive questions to a friend of mine that led to, hey, why do you start consulting for me? And I said, yes, and I'll figure it out.

00:04:49:10 - 00:05:04:17
Kevin Eikenberry
So here you are. So why the book specifically? You and I were talking before the show started. Before we hit record. A little bit about what the book's doing for you since it came out, but, like, why? What led you to to decide to write the book?

00:05:04:19 - 00:05:26:02
Dave Reynolds
Yeah, well, two things. I think it was always on the bucket list, that I always just said, I really want to write a book. I was just always, in admiration of people that wrote. But the second part was with, we serve clients kind of all over the world, very industry agnostic. And we were going through the process of doing a lot of executive coaching for their teams, and they were just seeing so much growth.

00:05:26:04 - 00:05:46:23
Dave Reynolds
And the CEO said, cheese, if you could just package this in, you know, book our program. She said you could you could do really well with us. And so I didn't think about it until later that night, you know, always got the abundance mentality that said, yeah, we should share this. We should give this, even though a lot of people try and keep those tactics in.

00:05:47:01 - 00:06:00:22
Dave Reynolds
So we actually developed the actual training program, but we, we actually led with the book first. And, that's what got us here. So, the CEO, it was, an admiration and thankful that, they said, hey, you know, we should put this in a book.

00:06:01:00 - 00:06:28:01
Kevin Eikenberry
I love that. So in True Salesman, fashion, I suppose you have. You make a pretty big promise in the subtitle. You say, transform into an unstoppable, viable leader. So let's talk about that word unstoppable just for a minute, because it's a big promise. And I'm. And I'm confident that you use the word intentionally. So let's just talk about that a little bit.

00:06:28:05 - 00:06:35:16
Kevin Eikenberry
Why unstoppable. And, is it really true that if we master the art of questions, we can become unstoppable?

00:06:35:18 - 00:07:06:07
Dave Reynolds
Yeah. Amazing question. And I think that I actually never been asked that before, but the reason why we created that subtitle was that we, the leaders that we work with, that really start going through and seeing the value of asking questions, you really starts breaking through the limitations that a lot of people set for themselves, not just individually, but teams and organizations, because we start to think differently when we ask questions, we increase our level of ownership and our level of accountability, which overall, you know, increases our level of execution.

00:07:06:07 - 00:07:32:19
Dave Reynolds
And a common question I asked clients that I work with is that, hey, if you went back two years to where we started and you kind of saw yourself today, what would you say? And they're they're really kind of dumbfounded that they said, like, I just I wouldn't even know the person I am today. And I think that being a leader that masters there are two questions is you can create leaders that create leaders and and really can kind of change your future just by really grabbing that skill and mastering it.

00:07:32:21 - 00:07:54:15
Kevin Eikenberry
So one of the things that you talk about throughout the book, and it really is, I think, hinted at in everything you've said so far, is that you're a believer in creating a culture of coaching. And I said in the opening that you can't detach coaching from questions. So what do you mean when you say a coaching culture?

00:07:54:15 - 00:08:00:18
Kevin Eikenberry
How would I know? Why would I want it, and how would I know if I'm moving towards it?

00:08:00:20 - 00:08:27:07
Dave Reynolds
Yeah. And so we we are always an area where a lot of people want a strategy. They want the strategy that's going to work. And that could be a coaching methodology. But it's the idea that, you know, culture and strategy. And I think the old saying was that culture is strategy for breakfast. We really want to make sure our coaching culture isn't just about, you know, introducing, say, radical growth as a strategy is we want radical growth to be part of, you know, organization's culture.

00:08:27:07 - 00:08:50:07
Dave Reynolds
So they're sharing the terminology. They're owning implementation. And and coaching is being done everywhere in the organization. And you'll see in the book we talk about coaching up, coaching down and coaching across. Coaching shouldn't always have to be a leader to an employee. It should be peer to peer. You should feel comfortable to lead up. And that's when we really see organizations that embrace coaching culture.

00:08:50:07 - 00:09:06:15
Dave Reynolds
And that is an incredible thing because you don't feel like you need to lead. And and only one direction. It can be multi-dimensional. And that's where we see the biggest influence of our growth is when we see, you know, culture, coaching culture, take flourish.

00:09:06:17 - 00:09:29:13
Kevin Eikenberry
All right. So we want to create a coaching culture. And and we've said that questions are a big part of it. And so I want to talk about as we promised in the episode title, talk about the Art of questions. But before we get to the art, you say there's also a science to questions. So tell me about the science of questions before we dive into the art.

00:09:29:15 - 00:09:50:04
Dave Reynolds
Yeah, it was interesting when we were working with our publisher on this and we were kind of said, hey, you know, there's an art and science to it, you know, because you can see when you watch somebody ask a question, it looks like you couldn't replicate that same process. But the science side is we really go on the idea of when you're being asked a question versus being given direction.

00:09:50:06 - 00:10:12:22
Dave Reynolds
You know, there's a totally different a neurological response on how you actually own the response, because you have a sense of ownership over it. And that's like what we talk with storytelling and or coupling, like there is an actual relationship that you're creating by asking somebody a question versus telling them what they need to do. And this is really where we get more people involved in the commitment stage, because the answers are coming from them.

00:10:13:00 - 00:10:37:08
Dave Reynolds
So they have a sense of empowerment by providing those answers. And in a lot of cases, we all know great questions. You know, you have to ask multiple, so you can't live in a service all the after and get deeper and people get a stronger self-awareness over being asked deeper questions. So we get a lot of moments where they're having those realizations and you can actually see their body language change.

00:10:37:08 - 00:10:55:04
Dave Reynolds
When you can tell that they've had that dialog internally the whole time, and they'll say it. And our response right away is, is that the first time you said that out loud? And they're like, yeah. And when they vocalize it, it just changes the relationship. But the response.

00:10:55:06 - 00:11:11:10
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah, thoughts are fuzzy. Words bring clarity. We can talk. We can think about things a long time. But when we say them or write them, it changes everything. And I often say, Dave, that people don't argue with their own data. Right. So once people have said something, that's where that that's a big part of where that ownership piece comes into play.

00:11:11:10 - 00:11:36:10
Kevin Eikenberry
So I really appreciate that we started there. So and by the way, everybody, in case you're wondering, to think that this is an easy conversation for me to have when the guy who wrote the book about questions is here and I'm sure he's, he's mentally thinking about critiquing how well I'm doing it, asking questions. So I want to talk about barriers because like, so far everyone would say, yeah, questions are good.

00:11:36:12 - 00:12:00:18
Kevin Eikenberry
All good. It's like it's like in the US we'd say that's motherhood and apple pie like of course better questions. And yet there are barriers, especially as leaders. There are things that sort of keep us from doing it. And this to me is one of the most important conversations for us to have here. And I hope that everyone who's listening is, like, ready to take notes here, like from your perspective and in your experience, Dave, what are the barriers?

00:12:00:20 - 00:12:22:13
Dave Reynolds
Yeah. The immediate barrier that I would go to right away would be that more relationships have ended by what wasn't said. And what was that? So I'd say more people just avoid asking questions or having the conversation. That would be one of them. And the second one would be, and we've already mentioned is they ask questions and they accept surface level responses.

00:12:22:15 - 00:12:45:11
Dave Reynolds
You know, hey, how's your day going? Good. How are sales? Good. And we accept these surface level responses versus, excuse me. And you're asking amazing. You know what's good, you know, and session sales. And they're saying, oh, and you're asking what's your what's your goal for the month? And you're going a little bit deeper. So surface level for sure.

00:12:45:13 - 00:13:08:13
Dave Reynolds
Looking for a reframe question. So if somebody says, you know, I don't know. Sometimes people might ask if you did know, what would you say. And, and sometimes you just have to look at different, tactics like mirroring. And I would say the biggest barriers are people avoiding the conversations. I would say living at the surface level.

00:13:08:13 - 00:13:35:04
Dave Reynolds
And I'll probably another point is being proactive with your questions versus reactive. So a lot of times where somebody might ask a question or reactively, you might be actually stimulating an emotional response versus a logical response. So that would be really what I would say. Some of the biggest barriers are when because when you're asking proactive questions, you're invested in the conversation versus you're looking at checking a box in a reactive environment.

00:13:35:06 - 00:13:57:00
Kevin Eikenberry
One of the things that I find and so so speak to this if you want. One of the things that I find for leaders a lot of times is that they're, they're afraid of asking because they don't know how to respond to the answer or, they don't ask because they think they already know. Yeah. Comments about either one of those thoughts.

00:13:57:02 - 00:14:21:05
Dave Reynolds
Yeah. And I think like that's it's like, can I be a subject matter expert? Can I respond to that? So people will feel like they need to immediately respond and there's actually something really graceful about pausing and asking for a moment to think about that. And if anything, it actually, stimulates a deeper conversation. I really agree with you a lot on that is like having to feel like you.

00:14:21:05 - 00:14:47:10
Dave Reynolds
You need to know all the answers. Actually, if anything, when I enter an organization, the reason why we're industry agnostic is sometimes the less I know, the more I can help. And so what I mean by that is if I'm just curious, I don't I don't have to really be the technical expert, but I can actually pull more information out of the person I'm working with and get it into a better system just by being curious versus, hey, this is how I've done it, this is how you should do it.

00:14:47:12 - 00:14:50:21
Dave Reynolds
And that for me is a great approach.

00:14:50:23 - 00:15:12:00
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah, I really do love that a lot. I want you mentioned something in the book, and I think this gets at this point, it if we are if as we get better at asking questions, we can do what you suggest here. You suggest that we need to move from being transactional to being transformational. What do you mean?

00:15:12:00 - 00:15:13:19
Kevin Eikenberry
And what's the difference?

00:15:13:21 - 00:15:34:11
Dave Reynolds
Yeah, transactional. We see a lot of times, especially coaching in certain environments, they're they're kind of ad hoc. They're, they're doing because they have to do it, not because they want to do it. It might be a KPI or a metric that needs to be met to have coaching. Transformational is is going. I'm making an intentional, proactive investment in coaching that I remember.

00:15:34:11 - 00:16:03:17
Dave Reynolds
I've actually been in telecommunications. We had to coach a certain amount of time, but once I started shifting into seeing coaching as my competitive advantage for growth, I really started realizing, oh wow. And by having consistent coaching conversations, I'm actually creating more dynamic leaders, higher performing sales executors. And not only am I making them better, I'm actually teaching them a skill that that's transferable to their team members.

00:16:03:17 - 00:16:27:02
Dave Reynolds
So the transformation happens on also getting people outside of their comfort zone. But we're doing it in a way that they're really owning that process along the way. So that's that's really where we see a lot of transformation, is really about getting them into that growth mindset, but also pushing them outside of their comfort zone and, and where they're they're owning the next steps.

00:16:27:04 - 00:16:48:20
Kevin Eikenberry
I think it's interesting that the way you describe that, that shift for you was a transformation going from I have to coach to I get to coach or I want to coach or there's great value in me coaching and and anytime. And so that same transformation hopefully is occurring for all of you listening in terms of, it's okay for me to ask questions.

00:16:48:20 - 00:17:04:14
Kevin Eikenberry
I want to ask questions, I can ask better questions. And if I'm going to ask better questions, one of the things we need to know is what are the kinds of questions we can ask. So, we learned a little bit of this in school, but we've all slept since then. But you you take us a step further in that.

00:17:04:19 - 00:17:15:21
Kevin Eikenberry
So when you think about it today, for us in the workplace, as coaches, as, as as team members, what are the types of questions we should be considering?

00:17:15:23 - 00:17:39:12
Dave Reynolds
Yeah. So when we look at just your basic open ended questions, I think we're all anybody that's on this show is is listening. We're already already doing these open ended questions. We're asking big or broad questions. But what I'll I'll challenge everybody on around open ended questions is start with big and broad opening questions so you can ask an open ended question so people feel comfortable and they give momentum into asking questions.

00:17:39:12 - 00:18:05:16
Dave Reynolds
And they can be more specific with an open ended question to get more detail. I really feel that asking confirming questions is a really great strategy for two reasons. It shows your listening because as a confirming statement, you're having that say, you know, just to clarify what you just mentioned was and you'll go through the area of of just telling I heard what you said is, is that the most important next step that you're seeing?

00:18:05:18 - 00:18:23:09
Dave Reynolds
And then they're using that opportunity to kind of confirm that, those are really great. One that's had a big impact. We've worked with a couple big project management teams is actually leveraging mirroring questions. And we have an example of this in the book. And, I remember one of our clients is saying, you know, we're really stuck.

00:18:23:09 - 00:18:39:12
Dave Reynolds
You know, they're just not being not being helpful. And and I know they're off track, but they won't admit they're off track. And we went through this whole area where I said, okay, grab a timer. And here's a set of questions I ran through. And so when she did a project, they say, hey, can you give us an update on the project?

00:18:39:14 - 00:18:56:08
Dave Reynolds
And she says, yeah, projects go well. And the goal with Mary is always saying the last three words that the person said in a mirroring fashion. So she said the project's going well. Put on the timer, let the silence happen. 18 seconds went by, which probably felt like two days, and they.

00:18:56:08 - 00:19:03:04
Kevin Eikenberry
Said it felt like two days. I have stories I can tell you about that 100%. It felt like forever. Okay. But 18 seconds later, what happened?

00:19:03:04 - 00:19:24:20
Dave Reynolds
10s later they said, you know what? We've we've run into a couple roadblocks. And she said, okay, you've had a couple roadblocks again, hit the timer. So she said she went for 15 seconds and they came out with, we've got some, you know, issues of timing. You know, we don't we don't know why the budget's off course.

00:19:24:22 - 00:19:52:20
Dave Reynolds
And we're seeing these things. And she did still keep doing the mirroring activity until they got into a deeper conversation. She said the relationship was never the same after that. It was perfectly on point where they were engaged. They were part of the process because they were they were worried about putting these on the table. But when you give people space and timing to really respond, but you give them in an area where they really have to own the truth, that is where mirroring really, truly comes into practice.

00:19:52:20 - 00:19:59:07
Dave Reynolds
And, it's such an exciting activity, but extremely difficult to wait 18 seconds for somebody to respond.

00:19:59:09 - 00:20:33:20
Kevin Eikenberry
That's a long time. But here's the thing the longer you're waiting, the more you're especially if there's positional power, which you describe here. Right? The coach, the boss, the leader person. The longer we're waiting, the more we're showing them that it's okay, that we really do want to know that we're not just asking the questions on the checklist that we really want to know, and that space is giving that person time to to think that through, think it out, decide how they want to say it to your point earlier, and it can make all the difference.

00:20:33:20 - 00:20:53:04
Kevin Eikenberry
And that's, that's a that's a drastic length of time. Let me just tell all of you, it probably won't always take that long. But I love that strategy, that mirroring strategy. And you use something similar earlier in the conversation when you said, well, someone answered, I don't know. Well, if you did, no, what would you say?

00:20:53:04 - 00:21:18:01
Kevin Eikenberry
I thought that was a brilliant question, and I wanted to bring it back in case someone missed it before. It's a great question. If you did know, what would you say? Because that's that's setting the person up. To have enough confidence to say what they're probably thinking. Right. I just I just love that question. I want to make sure that everyone sort of had that locked in for themselves.

00:21:18:03 - 00:21:35:22
Dave Reynolds
So, life life hack heaven. I was driving the other day with my girlfriend and, we said, you know, how do you, where would you like to go eat? And, you know, and she said, doesn't matter to me. And then I said, well, if it did matter, where would you like to go? And she said right away the exact spot where she wanted to go.

00:21:35:22 - 00:21:40:02
Dave Reynolds
I was like, oh, this is working.

00:21:40:04 - 00:21:59:08
Kevin Eikenberry
You just so you just salvaged relationships right there, Dave. You didn't even know that you saw if you're watching everybody. I kind of went like this because every buddy that's in a long term relationship has had that conversation. I promise you that they have. And, what what a great what a great, great way to do that.

00:21:59:08 - 00:22:11:01
Kevin Eikenberry
By using Mary in questions, we talked about open ended questions, starting broad and getting more more specific. We talked about confirming questions or paraphrasing questions. We've talked about mirroring questions. Any other question types you want to talk about before we move on?

00:22:11:03 - 00:22:28:22
Dave Reynolds
Yeah, I would say to go back to the idea of surface level elements. I would go into more of the probing questions and I would say this is where leaders can probably strengthen the most is that, you know, just asking probing questions. And that doesn't mean asking the same question. It's a matter of looking at a sequence of questions.

00:22:28:22 - 00:22:47:07
Dave Reynolds
And I remember walking with the CEO by kind of one of the sales teams. And see, you kind of want to show me how to connect with everybody. And he talk to the sales manager. He said, oh, our sales. The sales manager said, oh, they're good. And I and I walk by and I could see us. I was close enough with them that I said, perfect, hey, sales are good.

00:22:47:07 - 00:23:03:16
Dave Reynolds
I said, how's your month gone? Pretty good too. So give me similar responses, like what was your goal for the month? And they shared their goal and they said, amazing. Like, where are you at month day? He shares it. And I said, okay, interesting. I said, are you on track to meet your goal? And he said, well, not really.

00:23:03:18 - 00:23:23:08
Dave Reynolds
And I said, okay, interesting. So sales are good. And we just kind of had a fun way of challenging each other. He said, these are some of the areas that we're we're stalling in. And it was interesting because you had to go 3 or 4 layers deeper, but it was interesting. I watched in the office next week, the CEO and he came out and said, hey, we're back on track.

00:23:23:12 - 00:23:42:10
Dave Reynolds
And so it was interesting by probing and caring and investing, we created a relationship with each other that he felt that he wanted to share. Having committed to making a change versus getting away with a surface level question and going back to not being on track.

00:23:42:12 - 00:23:59:21
Kevin Eikenberry
So that highlights two things. Everybody. Number one is it's something that we said before by asking the question, you get people out of their head and putting words to it, which changes their understanding as well as the commitment, as you said. But the other thing that questions do for us is they can be a way to build relationship.

00:23:59:21 - 00:24:23:02
Kevin Eikenberry
And if we as leaders want to be more effective as leaders, we want to have better relationship working relationship to other folks. Questions. One of the very best ways that we can do that. So, let's talk about follow up questions, right? Like or follow up in general. Let's spend a couple of minutes there before we sort of round into the final turn here.

00:24:23:04 - 00:24:44:23
Dave Reynolds
Yeah, I would say follow up systems and follow up questions are probably what has helped us drive the strong ROI for organizations and probably the stronger systems that we teach our teaching and coaching process is that every time that you're finishing, say, coaching or conversation, there should be a commitment to some form of action that comes from the progression or coaching.

00:24:45:01 - 00:25:06:23
Dave Reynolds
Now there's two scenarios that people are used to a coach that follows up and a coach that doesn't, coach that doesn't. Okay. Got away with it. Accountability drops. The coach that starts the next session by saying, you know, what actions do we commit to on our last session? And they talk through them. Amazing. Can you walk me through how that went or how did that go?

00:25:06:23 - 00:25:33:09
Dave Reynolds
And if you create that environment of accountability, that follow up system not only holds them accountable to being the best version of them, but they know somebody who's also invested in their success because they cared enough to follow up to make sure that they execute it. And that's not only created a great investment between the two of us or the group that we're coaching, where, they just feel like they they've got somebody in their corner.

00:25:33:11 - 00:25:40:17
Dave Reynolds
And a lot of people see accountability as punishment, accountability for us as motivation to go further.

00:25:40:18 - 00:26:07:19
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah. If I sometimes say some people think accountability is the longest four letter word in the English language, but it doesn't have to be, because really, what accountability ultimately is ownership, right? That's what I love that you tie tying that to motivation, I love that. So, one more work related question. And yeah, a lot of folks who are watching or listening are their leadership.

00:26:07:19 - 00:26:25:11
Kevin Eikenberry
Context is different than it was, say, five years ago, because either they have folks who are fully remote or they only see some of the time, so that means some of the time, all of these questions and these skills of asking questions and building a coaching culture are all happening at a distance. Do you have any specific advice?

00:26:25:11 - 00:26:33:16
Kevin Eikenberry
If there's anything change in our conversation, or would you put an addendum on anything we've talked about? When you're doing it at a distance?

00:26:33:18 - 00:27:00:12
Dave Reynolds
Yeah. And this actually happened when we saw a lot in the pandemic where people switched to being in that remote environment. I think you can still have a very candid, direct conversation in a remote environment. I think initially a lot of people coached in teams versus coached individually. And we really wanted to make sure that people got back to, you know, you can do remote team conversations, but you should always still commit to doing that 1 to 1 conversation.

00:27:00:14 - 00:27:20:03
Dave Reynolds
And we always go back to the care and candor side. Is that you? You might care, but you might not be candid. So you create distance. You know, you might be candid, but you may not care. And you create dysfunction. But if you have care and you're candid, you can create those transformative environments. So I would say that remote always makes me feel like they're connected to the team.

00:27:20:05 - 00:27:43:04
Dave Reynolds
You're connecting to their contribution, you're getting them to open up. Because especially people in remote environments, depending on what their role is, they can feel very siloed. They can feel very disconnected that that investment into that conversation can really pull them back together. We had multiple organizations that I was a tech company I would think of as seven different countries, and they just weren't used to managing people in a 1 to 1 environment.

00:27:43:04 - 00:27:56:08
Dave Reynolds
Even if there were short conversations. It's that small investment that adds up over time. And we always use this Stephen Covey, the emotional bank account, and that is huge because that just adds up over time.

00:27:56:10 - 00:28:06:06
Kevin Eikenberry
100%. I agree with you on percent. A couple things. Before we go, I'm going to shift gears. I want to ask you, Dave, what you do for fun.

00:28:06:08 - 00:28:13:23
Dave Reynolds
Fun. There is a lot we run a lot. I do triathlons, I do do our funds.

00:28:14:01 - 00:28:15:16
Kevin Eikenberry
Give me more than run.

00:28:15:18 - 00:28:16:23
Dave Reynolds
Yeah, a little bit.

00:28:17:01 - 00:28:19:04
Kevin Eikenberry
Swimming and bike making involved.

00:28:19:06 - 00:28:44:03
Dave Reynolds
Yeah. And I just got into a time trial bike this year, so it's a totally different, world. And having your kind of your hands out on the road. And I've kind of done Brazilian jiu jitsu for the last 12 years and got the chance to travel all over the world for Brazilian jiu jitsu. So I wouldn't say there's a sport I haven't tried, but that's usually what keeps me stimulated is, is that there's sports running triathlons through athletes and Brazilian jiu jitsu.

00:28:44:04 - 00:28:58:18
Kevin Eikenberry
So everybody Kevin is guilty of the stereotype. At the beginning. I said, the man's from Canada, so I used to I, I went to hockey, I just I messed up right from the start. So so Dave, what are you reading these days when you're not running or jiu jitsu? Doing.

00:28:58:19 - 00:29:17:15
Dave Reynolds
Yeah. You know what? I actually just went and got a couple of new books last night, and I was actually an avid reader. I've been waiting to get this book for a while, and it was, by Back to Your Time, Dan Martel and, big fan of his work. And really, as we're growing and scaling, we're trying to really put better systems in there.

00:29:17:17 - 00:29:33:15
Dave Reynolds
And, you know, the book is really just dedicated to putting better systems in place to grow and scale. And the other book that I picked up as well was the 8020 principle, which I think is, Richard Kosh. And we speak to this all the time, and I'm always looking for those extra little tips, tricks, quotes.

00:29:33:17 - 00:29:41:00
Dave Reynolds
So I'm really, really looking forward to diving that one. But I'm going to I'm going to go through that buy back good time first. Real big advocate of what Dan does.

00:29:41:02 - 00:29:58:02
Kevin Eikenberry
We'll have both of those in the show notes, along with, information about radical growth transform into an unstoppable leader through mastering the art of questions. As I hold this up, Dave, where else, do you want to point people, or how do you want people to if they want to connect with you, learn more about what you work, where you want them to go?

00:29:58:04 - 00:30:17:23
Dave Reynolds
Yeah. If you want to reach out to us on our website, ruminate group.com. We're very active on LinkedIn as well if you want to check us out there. And same thing for Instagram. But, yeah, we're excited to reach out and connect for everybody and, really appreciate the end of the show and, be able to promote what we've been up to and, love the questions.

00:30:17:23 - 00:30:20:13
Dave Reynolds
I'm always, always involved with the.

00:30:20:15 - 00:30:40:16
Kevin Eikenberry
Ruminate, the numeral eight group. So are you am I in eight group.com? For those of you that can't see it, it was on the screen. But if you want if you're listening, that didn't help you. So, before I say goodbye today, then before I say goodbye to you, I have the question for you that I ask you every single episode.

00:30:40:16 - 00:30:59:19
Kevin Eikenberry
And that is now what? What action will you take as a result? Like if you didn't write down 4 or 5 specific questions from Dave, you might want to replay this and do that. But whether it's that or whether it's something else that you took, what are the specific actions that you want to take as a result of being here?

00:30:59:19 - 00:31:20:07
Kevin Eikenberry
Because until you take action, this is not nearly as valuable as it could be. It's sitting here like like, soil unplanted. But once you plant the seeds and take the action, then a harvest can come your way. So, Dave, thank you so much for being here. We we had a fit and start. We were planning to do this.

00:31:20:09 - 00:31:25:10
Kevin Eikenberry
I don't know, six, eight weeks ago. And I'm glad that we finally got the chance to do it. Thanks for joining me.

00:31:25:12 - 00:31:28:10
Dave Reynolds
Thank you. Kevin, I really appreciate being on.

00:31:28:12 - 00:31:46:01
Kevin Eikenberry
So everybody, if you enjoyed this, make sure you come back. How do you do that? Make sure you're subscribed wherever you're watching or listening. And make sure you tell someone else to come listen to this or listen next week, because next week we'll be back with another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast.