The Remarkable Leadership Podcast

00:00:08:08 - 00:00:41:09
Kevin Eikenberry
Relationships. They are critical to our success and satisfaction in any part of our life. Few will disagree with this fact, yet we don't always know what to do or practice what we know. Today, we're talking about investing in our relationships as a way to grow our business, our careers, our teams, and our lives. Welcome to another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast, where we are helping leaders grow personally and professionally to lead more effectively and make a bigger difference for their teams, organizations and the world.

00:00:41:11 - 00:01:09:20
Kevin Eikenberry
If you are listening to this podcast, you could be live for future episodes on your favorite social media platform. You can get all of those future live episode dates and info about those, and lots more by joining our Facebook or LinkedIn pages. Easiest way to do that is just go to remarkable podcast.com/facebook or a remarkable podcast.com/linkedin and get all of the details.

00:01:09:22 - 00:01:31:17
Kevin Eikenberry
Today's episode is brought to you by my upcoming book, the second edition of The Long Distance Leader Revised Rules for Remarkable Remote and Hybrid Leadership. If you lead a team that is distributed in any way, this book will give you new skills, insights, and the confidence to lead more effectively in this new world of work. Learn more and preorder your copy or order your copy, depending on when you're listening.

00:01:31:19 - 00:02:07:06
Kevin Eikenberry
Today at Remarkable Podcast eCommerce l d l. And with that, I'm going to bring in my guest. Here he is. His smiling face is right there. His name is. And now he is. let me tell you about Mo. He helps complex organizations grow by scaling business development skills across their organizations and creating a growth oriented culture. He is the author of The Snowball System, the host of the video podcast Real Relationships, Real Revenue, and the founder of the Banal Idea group, big B.I.G.

00:02:07:08 - 00:02:32:11
Kevin Eikenberry
who has trained tens of thousands of seller experts, over 400 clients all over the world. His newest book is titled Gift to Grow, and that will be the focus of our conversation today. Because clients have used Mo and his teams grow big training to give their experts a system for growth that creates raving fans, gives comprehensive business development framework and is, dare he say it says, fun to use.

00:02:32:13 - 00:02:51:22
Kevin Eikenberry
he started his career as an expert himself, passing all of the actuarial exams to earn their highest designation. A fellow of the Society of Actuaries, I believe the first on the show to have such a designation. Today, he gets most excited working with big clients that usually fall into two groups professional service firms and service based companies.

00:02:51:23 - 00:03:11:22
Kevin Eikenberry
He lives in Atlanta with his wife of nearly 30 years, their two daughters. When they're not in college, which I'm guessing right now they are in college. and their miniature donkey, Louis Hamilton. We could probably do the entire show on the miniature donkey storyline, but we're not. welcome, Mo. Glad to have you.

00:03:12:00 - 00:03:21:22
Mo Bunnell
Hey. Thanks, Kevin. I'm excited. I'm excited to talk about leadership today and how to use relationships to broaden your reach and be able to make, positive change in the world.

00:03:22:00 - 00:03:39:01
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah, I'm guessing that some people who are listening, especially if you've been with us for a while, you're you're listening to that open and you're saying, well, that sounds like that doesn't mean it's not necessarily 100% sound like leadership. Kevin. Sounds like this is a sales book, which I don't think you've ever used the word sales in the book that I noticed.

00:03:39:03 - 00:03:56:04
Kevin Eikenberry
I'm pretty confident that's on purpose. but let's just talk about the journey. You go from being an actuary, a distinguished actuary, to doing the work you do today. Tell us a little bit about that at a very high level. Like, how do you end up here?

00:03:56:06 - 00:04:20:09
Mo Bunnell
Yeah. Got it. Well, Kevin, I think a lot of people use the phrase, it's not what you know, but who you know, and I just completely disagree. It's what you know and who you know. And how deep is your ability to add value in both domains, your expertise and your relationships? And I had taken all those exams to become a fellow Society of Actuaries 24 back in the day in the 80s and 90s.

00:04:20:11 - 00:04:24:03
Mo Bunnell
Pass rate is a third. So two thirds of the people are failing.

00:04:24:05 - 00:04:26:17
Kevin Eikenberry
And each one of the 24. Yeah.

00:04:26:19 - 00:04:34:15
Mo Bunnell
Oh was horrendous. It was so hard. made it easier since then, these young actuaries. It's it's a walk in the park. Whoa whoa whoa.

00:04:34:17 - 00:04:39:05
Kevin Eikenberry
It sounds like you and I are. Oh, that's all that sounds like. That's right.

00:04:39:07 - 00:05:00:23
Mo Bunnell
Well, wait a second. I feel like I am, in a good way, but. Yeah, once I pass those exams, the consulting firm, I was out. They actually transitioned me to a relationship management role where I led some of our biggest client relationships and I went to my boss. When I made that transition, I literally moved from a deep technical practice area, health care consulting.

00:05:00:23 - 00:05:18:06
Mo Bunnell
And that was a my an inch wide, a mile deep in that doing actual work. Largely, I moved to this role where I was an inch deep in a mile wide, having to interface with people 30 years older than me. And, I had to learn relationships since all I knew was how to study well.

00:05:18:06 - 00:05:30:22
Kevin Eikenberry
And his advice to you was pretty brief. As I recall. That's right. Looking for a playbook? Right. You were looking for. You were looking for, like, okay, how do I figure this out? And you got, like, six words, if I remember right?

00:05:31:00 - 00:05:42:16
Mo Bunnell
That's exactly right. I was in that office my first day, had literally moved floors, offices, gotten rid of all my projects, and I went in early that day. I was ready to go. We had orchestrated the move for about a.

00:05:42:16 - 00:05:43:22
Kevin Eikenberry
Year.

00:05:44:00 - 00:06:02:03
Mo Bunnell
But I clearly hadn't done my due diligence. Kevin, I, asked my boss for the manual on relationship development. I was used to studying. I was used to people giving me a big, you know, tome of information. I would memorize it, hopefully pass the exam. And, yeah, he laughed a little bit and he said, there's no manually, no treat the client right.

00:06:02:05 - 00:06:04:07
Mo Bunnell
That was the that was my training.

00:06:04:09 - 00:06:09:22
Kevin Eikenberry
okay. I said six words. It was like I knew it was about the client and being right, but I couldn't remember exactly. So maybe you put.

00:06:09:22 - 00:06:11:17
Mo Bunnell
Young Man at the end of it or something. Okay.

00:06:11:21 - 00:06:36:05
Kevin Eikenberry
So go. So, so, so obviously you went into a relationship role in that or in that organization. So and I, you know, I opened with sort of a profoundly true statement that, the better our relationships, the better our lives is fundamentally what I said. but why? Why is that where you've gone with your work in terms of this book?

00:06:36:05 - 00:06:48:21
Kevin Eikenberry
Like, let's just talk about, from your perspective, why relationships, whether it's as a, you know, sales professional or whether it's as, a leader or whatever, like, why is it so very important?

00:06:48:23 - 00:07:04:16
Mo Bunnell
Yeah. And I just want to put a pin in something you just said, like, while our book is mostly written from somebody who develops a book of business, and that's the language you use because that's most of our clients, the same skills are true for any leader. And I think that's why I'm excited about widening the aperture with you today.

00:07:04:18 - 00:07:20:14
Kevin Eikenberry
Well, the reason I wrote, I didn't see that you wouldn't be here. I mean, just to be. Yeah, exactly. When I looked at the book and, and and we had a conversation that I know your I know your publisher and so that made me look a little quick, a little quicker, a little closer. But ultimately, I had to see that this.

00:07:20:14 - 00:07:32:16
Kevin Eikenberry
I just see how this book can work with this audience and be really, really valuable to them, which it is, and help people get past that sort of, building a book of business kind of thing.

00:07:32:18 - 00:07:55:06
Mo Bunnell
You got it. It's a more broadly, it's about making a proactive, positive change on the world. So what, what what's interesting to me and I, we've gotten to work with, I don't know, 6 or 800 organizations trained over 50,000 people easily. And what we find is that almost in almost every single organization, there are lots of different mechanisms to teach expertise.

00:07:55:08 - 00:08:24:09
Mo Bunnell
The the what you know part, the doing the work part, if you will. Once the yes is already made, once the approval is already there, once the project is greenlit, well, just doing the work itself gets you better at doing the work. Mentorships, working with your boss, cross-functional teams, certifications, trainings, all that kind of stuff. But there's hardly any advice out there on how to deepen relationships in a way and orchestrate a decision making process where everybody wins at every turn.

00:08:24:10 - 00:08:48:19
Mo Bunnell
So that you actually can get the. Yes. So if somebody is, whether they're a, a partner in a law firm or they're a CIO inside of a large organization, they're doing the same thing. They've got one foot in a deep expertise, and they've got lots of mechanisms to get better at that. But they've also got one foot in relationship development, in a way that they're going to be able to get the yes for the next thing that they want to impact.

00:08:49:00 - 00:09:02:21
Mo Bunnell
So they want to go from being an order taker to a driver of positive change. In either scenario, everybody that's a leaders in that business. And why we wrote give to grow is to teach those relationship skills so that you can make the change that you want.

00:09:02:23 - 00:09:16:02
Kevin Eikenberry
In the book, you talk about that is doing the work versus winning the work. And obviously you you've widened it out a little bit because this isn't just about winning the next deal or whatever or whatever. But when you look at this, there's a couple pages, everybody in the book that looked kind of like this.

00:09:16:04 - 00:09:18:05
Mo Bunnell
Yeah, I was reading that. The same exact.

00:09:18:05 - 00:09:27:12
Kevin Eikenberry
Picture that you got. I've still got the I've got the advanced readers, I think. So you got a hardcover? Yes. I do not. Yeah, yeah. and yet anyway. so. But anyway,

00:09:27:14 - 00:09:32:00
Mo Bunnell
I know I was given. I think I can get you one signed.

00:09:32:02 - 00:09:50:19
Kevin Eikenberry
so, like, here's the thing. I was struck by that. I mean, the way you just talked about it, I thought was was really helpful is that if you were to read these things, these these these pairs of things. Right. when we're doing the work, communication is predictable and comfortable. When we're winning the work. Right. We would now say leading the work.

00:09:51:00 - 00:10:14:23
Kevin Eikenberry
Communication is fluid and uncomfortable, like you could read almost every one of those and say you could replace winning the work with leading the work, and they'd all match. And, and so I love I love that as an idea. the, the biggest idea of the book, you know, it's in the title give to grow and some people might be familiar with the idea or the work of reciprocity.

00:10:15:01 - 00:10:31:07
Kevin Eikenberry
And so how does this connect? Does it in what way? How would you, for people that know that framework. Right. For Mr. Houdini, probably most of us, what would be the connection between the premise of give to grow and the idea of the principle of reciprocity?

00:10:31:09 - 00:10:51:09
Mo Bunnell
Yeah, I have a real strong opinion on this. So here's a here's a strong take. Kevin. There's lots of things that are influential. Charlie and I found six that are the most influential. And everybody social proof. We want to do what other people do scarcity. We want more of what there's less of authority. We we trust people especially that are in authority figures, especially in times of stress and other things.

00:10:51:11 - 00:11:11:00
Mo Bunnell
But it's difficult when you're trying to drive proactive change to lead with anything except reciprocity. So if I start with authority, I'm the expert. Believe me, we need to do X well immediately. A decision makers like, whoa, I don't like you're pushing that on me. I don't know. It creates a fight or flight mechanism. Scarcity. Hey there's only one left.

00:11:11:00 - 00:11:14:12
Mo Bunnell
Do you want it? Well, maybe. But what is it? What are we talking about?

00:11:14:14 - 00:11:16:08
Kevin Eikenberry
And the one that's nuts.

00:11:16:08 - 00:11:37:16
Mo Bunnell
Yeah, it is it. Yeah. Are you telling the truth? Yeah. So these other things are tough to lead with. I believe reciprocity or giving first is the master key to every lever of influence. Because we can always start with a gift. We can always start with a half hour workshop talking about, how we might start the new IT strategy with the rest of the leadership team.

00:11:37:18 - 00:11:55:01
Mo Bunnell
We can always start with a project plan to tell people how something can be done. We can always start with an introduction to another expert that knows about this topic, and can educate the team on how we might want to use generative AI to to take the business to the next level. Whatever it is, generosity is always a great starting point.

00:11:55:01 - 00:12:18:17
Mo Bunnell
It's hardly ever not a great starting point. And then once you've actually given a gift of your expertise and time, the reason I call it a master key is because now you've got an authentic way to do all those other things of influence you can. You've bought time effectively to stumble into common realities, which we found is the number one correlation to likability, one of the one of the key factors of influence.

00:12:18:22 - 00:12:21:13
Mo Bunnell
We can naturally talked about how we go ahead.

00:12:21:13 - 00:12:24:01
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah, I said relatedness finding that connection for sure.

00:12:24:01 - 00:12:47:12
Mo Bunnell
Relatedness. Yeah. Like because because because now that now we're on the same team as once we're doing something together and we're going to find those things to relate to. Exactly. authority, we can naturally just talk about how we've done this kind of thing before in a way that's normal and not weird and cheesy and pushy. So anyway, we could go through all the other five drivers, but reciprocity is the one that always works to start with.

00:12:47:12 - 00:12:51:00
Mo Bunnell
And the best part about it is it feels great.

00:12:51:02 - 00:13:20:21
Kevin Eikenberry
It does for everybody really, because we all like to receive a gift. So we're talking about some gifts and a little bit here. but you, you spend some time in the book, which I really appreciate as, as a writer and as a, a student of the learning process with, with some lies we tell ourselves, with some things that we've all said to ourselves, some of us maybe hear more of some of them than others, and we don't have time to unpack them all.

00:13:20:23 - 00:13:38:12
Kevin Eikenberry
But I would really be curious for you to let's just pick on a couple and maybe we can talk about them like we tell these lies to ourselves. And then maybe let's take it from the perspective of, okay, I'm the leader, and I know that that's the lie. My my team members telling, how can I help them? How can I coax them through that a little bit?

00:13:38:17 - 00:13:55:01
Kevin Eikenberry
So I let you pick there are five and then we'll talk together a little about the leadership side of that. But just like all of us are in this boat together, whether it's about relationships or anything else. Right. And these lies apply to more than just building relationships. So pick a couple and let's just talk about it for a minute.

00:13:55:03 - 00:14:10:19
Mo Bunnell
Yeah, let's do it. And for context, you know, my publisher, Todd, he does one book a year. So we've spent a massive amount of time together to, to bring this book to market, give, to grow. And at one point, about a year ago, Kevin, he asked me, he's like, hey, Mo, you've told me about all these great success stories your clients have.

00:14:10:19 - 00:14:30:06
Mo Bunnell
You know, people that have driven all this positive change, build a big book of business or open up a new market, whatever it is. And he said, well, what gets in people's way? And I'm like, I Kevin it like jarred me. I looked at him and I said, I'm I'm actually not 100% sure I can guess. So we went back in in dozens and dozens of workshops.

00:14:30:08 - 00:14:53:04
Mo Bunnell
We asked people to think of a time when you wanted to reach out to somebody, but you didn't. Everybody's got it in their head. Then we said, okay, tell us exactly what you were thinking. And we cataloged hundreds and hundreds of verbatim until there weren't any more. We didn't know if there would be three roadblocks. 27 it turns out there's five, and there's five things that everybody puts walls up in their own way.

00:14:53:06 - 00:15:16:13
Mo Bunnell
Limiting beliefs. If you want to say that lies we tell ourselves is what we called it, and we don't even know these are lies until you read it in the book. And so there's five, like you said, the the two, I'll let you choose because I think you know your audience super well, but two that are, that are typically later in somebody career after they've blasted through the first three lies because they sort of go and they do go in order.

00:15:16:15 - 00:15:28:07
Mo Bunnell
The two that I think we might dig into one is I'm too busy. That's a big one. And the other ones, I'm going to look bad or what's underneath I'm going to look bad is fear of rejection. What do you think would be best?

00:15:28:07 - 00:15:46:01
Kevin Eikenberry
Well, you know, first of all, it's it's like we know each other because I say that busy is the most dangerous four letter word in the English language. Even though my grandmother would not have agreed with that. I promise you, she would have had other four letter words higher than the word busy. but I can tell you, I believe it is the most dangerous one.

00:15:46:03 - 00:16:03:16
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah. because we all have exactly the same amount of time. And the other thing with the word busy is the it becomes self explanatory and it allows, you know, if I say to, you will know I've been really busy and you're going to say, oh yeah, me too. And so we get like a, we get a boost from the other person.

00:16:03:16 - 00:16:11:19
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah. What are we saying. And it's not serving us or no really. So let's just talk about that one because let's I think it is a lie.

00:16:11:21 - 00:16:30:05
Mo Bunnell
It's a total lie. So here's what the best do. you saw in the book how we talk about top performers and have they rise above these lies and orchestrate wonderful by and processes and things. The I'm too busy trap will hit anybody and it comes and goes and ebbs and flows. So we've got to be ready for it any time.

00:16:30:07 - 00:16:53:09
Mo Bunnell
so the the trick around this is not thinking of it's not a trick, but the solve is not thinking of driving change or doing the work. Winning the work, not just doing, you know, delivering on the project or getting the next, next. Yes. If people think of that like an old school scale or a teeter totter where if I'm doing if I'm doing work, I cannot drive the next project or the yes to the leadership team, to the next project.

00:16:53:11 - 00:17:19:19
Mo Bunnell
If we think of it as either or, we are sunk before we start. So we actually want to think of doing the work we've gotten the s on and getting the next. Yes, we need to think of those as integrated. So real simple way to think about this is some research you saw in the book that came out of Cornell University a couple years ago, and it found a face to face ask is 34 times more likely to get asked than an email ask, not 34% 34 times.

00:17:19:19 - 00:17:42:16
Mo Bunnell
It was the difference between two out of 100 chance of a yes and 68. Yeah. So little 32nd asks while we're busy doing the work are really powerful. So let's say we're the CIO. We're giving an update on the huge, transformation we're doing in it to the CEO, and we're giving them an update. Well, we should we've that's doing the work, if you will, air quotes we should weave in and ask for the next step.

00:17:42:18 - 00:18:04:09
Mo Bunnell
Hey, as we're winding this down, this transformation is going to be done with about three months. Thanks for saying this is the the smoothest IT transformation we've ever had. CEO, I got to tell you, I've got some ideas about what we might want to tackle over the next three years. I build a draft strategy. Could we just could we just sit down for 30 minutes in your office sometime over the next couple of weeks and start thinking towards next year and the year after that?

00:18:04:14 - 00:18:22:05
Mo Bunnell
I think it'd be really helpful to get your input. Well, that takes like 30s to get out. You're gonna get a yes. You're you're getting integrated. Yeah. Now you're sitting down with them talking about next year's yeses you had to get. And, but what most people do is they feel like, well, I'm not allowed to ask for the next thing until I'm done with the current thing.

00:18:22:11 - 00:18:29:07
Mo Bunnell
Well, if you wait three months now, you've got to email the CEO. How long is it going to take to get the meeting? You're just that's the either or mindset.

00:18:29:07 - 00:18:51:09
Kevin Eikenberry
And it's not even just that momentum that comes because we're just now we're having a conversation. We're just having exactly. And it's the natural next thing. And it's much more likely for them to say yes. It's much less likely for them to get stuck in the busy trap because we're in this conversation. But if I get a blind email from you as the CEO, later, then I have to think about the email I'm going to sign.

00:18:51:10 - 00:18:57:06
Kevin Eikenberry
I look at the calendar, but if it's just in a conversation, it's just going to be, yeah, let's get it on the calendar.

00:18:57:08 - 00:19:12:15
Mo Bunnell
Yeah. Stop by my ear on the way out. Yeah. Let's set it up. That's really important to me. Done. Momentum I'm taking it one of the biggest things in the book, Kevin, I think you saw this is like figuring out ways to keep momentum going around positive change. And that's just like a little tip that can work.

00:19:12:16 - 00:19:28:10
Kevin Eikenberry
I think that it's such an approach that the whole idea of momentum is so important. If you're thinking about so like if you are a sales professional, like you can think about that, like I need to be doing that, but I love Mo. The example you just gave is a person who is a sales professional. but they don't have that moniker.

00:19:28:10 - 00:19:47:10
Kevin Eikenberry
Right there in the their, in the IT organization. They're, they're a project manager or whatever. And, and we're all still in that same mode. And, and we know that if one thing starts to end in the next one comes, and we're waiting for one to end, then we have these big lulls, and that doesn't serve us, doesn't serve anybody.

00:19:47:12 - 00:20:10:14
Kevin Eikenberry
right. I want us to get into the four gifts, which, yeah, to me is a super cool part of the book. And you frame it about what what we have to do, like, again, any relationship, what we have to do and what the other person receives. So this book is give to get. I want to talk about what frame them as the gifts.

00:20:10:16 - 00:20:28:19
Kevin Eikenberry
And so I'll just put one on the screen and say it for those who are watching or listening later, and then just talk about that one a little bit. So these are four gifts that we can give to someone else in our life, in any part of our life. and I'll just, I'll let you take a minute or so on each one as we go.

00:20:28:19 - 00:20:35:06
Kevin Eikenberry
Okay. First one is the gift, and I did it in the order there in the book. So, Yeah, the gift of attention.

00:20:35:08 - 00:20:53:13
Mo Bunnell
You got it. And just for context, the way these fit in is once we remove the lies, we get ourselves out of the way. Now, we can provide gifts to people to orchestrate a wonderful buying process. We're hanging this off the idea that everybody hates to be sold to, but they love to buy. So we could say everybody hates to be sold to, but we love to buy in.

00:20:53:19 - 00:21:13:04
Mo Bunnell
If we're if our internal in a big organization, the first gift we can give somebody is the gift of attention. the the what we hang off of that gift we're giving them is what we can focus on, is focus on engagement in so many, so many different, meetings, people are focused on themselves, not the engagement of others.

00:21:13:04 - 00:21:33:17
Mo Bunnell
We're not giving them the gift of attention. Here's the 25 page PowerPoint I have orchestrated logically, perfectly with the date and everything to try to drive to a yes, but that's me shouting at people. That's what it feels like. We want to flip that script, and we want to give people the gift of attention. If there's anything that's meaningful to people, it's to be seen.

00:21:33:19 - 00:22:00:12
Mo Bunnell
It's to be heard. So instead of talk coming in with that 25 page PowerPoint, maybe we can frame up the meeting as a discussion. Maybe we can ask some questions, maybe we can provide one page that has the most important piece of data that we want to center the conversation around, and we pass that out. And as we as we focus on if we if we can have a camera on the on the edge of the room watching and watching a conversation happen, we want to see leaning in.

00:22:00:12 - 00:22:20:16
Mo Bunnell
We want to see people not on their phones. We want them asking questions. We want them talking as much as we talk. And if we can orchestrate that by focusing on engagement, giving, the giving, the gift of attention, that's when we're starting to move forward about hearing their priorities and their words. And then we can hang the things that we'd like to do underneath that.

00:22:20:18 - 00:22:28:07
Kevin Eikenberry
Using their words. Because which leads us to them feeling like they've received the gift of understanding.

00:22:28:09 - 00:22:53:02
Mo Bunnell
You're really good. You've done this before, like maybe 450 times day. yeah. The gift of understanding the idea here is, we call this fall in love with their problem. So as they're talking, we're we're driving engagement, not a filibuster from us, but we're actually driving a real conversation. Our second gift is the gift of understanding. How can we ask?

00:22:53:02 - 00:23:16:00
Mo Bunnell
Amazing questions to solicit the ideas that they've got in their head? Again, two P's here, their priorities and their words. And if we can do that now, we're going to be able to start to use that information to, to to make some recommendations that will get to a moment and take some next steps. The most important idea I can give here that's really, really practical.

00:23:16:02 - 00:23:35:11
Mo Bunnell
People have said they really love the practical tips in the book is when you're asking questions, talking to the audience, then you want to do so in a way that Doctor Diana Tamir found super beneficial, which is when you ask a question that makes it clear to the other person you want something only they know their personal perspective.

00:23:35:13 - 00:23:50:17
Mo Bunnell
That's when the pleasure center of the human mind lights up. Same area of the brain that lights up when we're drinking Red bull, or having a great dessert. The pleasure Center rules the roost, especially for short term time periods. So if we can ask a question like Kevin, you've.

00:23:50:19 - 00:23:51:21
Kevin Eikenberry
You've interviewed four.

00:23:51:21 - 00:24:03:02
Mo Bunnell
Hundred and 50 people in the show. I'm your 451st, if you've noticed, just from your perspective, one important trend that's emerging in leadership, what would you say it is?

00:24:03:04 - 00:24:20:07
Kevin Eikenberry
Well, so this is not the way this is supposed to go. Now I'm just, I think I think that I think that one of the things that's, that's continuing to change, I don't, I don't really think it's more important than it ever was. I just think that we are figuring out how important it is, and that is that leadership isn't about us.

00:24:20:11 - 00:24:42:17
Kevin Eikenberry
It's about other oh, yeah, that, you know, things that we didn't talk about 25 years ago in in leadership conversations, we couldn't, couldn't said on a podcast because they didn't exist. But we didn't talk about being genuine. We didn't talk about being transparent. We didn't talk about some of those things which are things that we are doing, but we're doing them in the context of what the other it's it's relationship building.

00:24:42:17 - 00:24:46:17
Kevin Eikenberry
Ultimately, with those that we are leading.

00:24:46:19 - 00:25:01:01
Mo Bunnell
Wow. So you're seeing more authenticity, transparency, vulnerability in the appropriate way. As time has gone on, people are looking for more meaning than just getting things done, maybe 100%.

00:25:01:01 - 00:25:28:23
Kevin Eikenberry
And and well, here's how I would say it. I would say the leaders that are getting the best results are moving in that direction. And I think that our world and our workforce, so here's why I, I don't think it's really different, because I think if you had a leader when if we had a leader and we're ish the same age, I'm guessing, that if we had a leader early in our career, if they if they were those things, we wanted that.

00:25:29:03 - 00:25:46:21
Kevin Eikenberry
It's just that then people didn't think that was really possible. It was like an outlier. And now it's more and more expect. Yeah. So if we can really do it, the leaders that are really doing those things, are really at a, if you want to call it this, a competitive advantage.

00:25:46:23 - 00:26:06:13
Mo Bunnell
Yeah. Well that's good. That's really good. And then that how you just describe that gives people the things to focus on so that they can get that competitive advantage and get the results they want. So brilliant. Well, just to put a bow and all that, that was an example of a question that you could ask somebody that could get their personal perspective.

00:26:06:14 - 00:26:09:16
Mo Bunnell
Kevin, how did that feel answering that question?

00:26:09:18 - 00:26:31:08
Kevin Eikenberry
Well, I you know, obviously I teased you by saying that I'm supposed to be the one asking the questions. You know, that is good, right? Yeah. Because it because it we we all of us love to to share what we know and share what we believe. And so often and maybe even a little more so in a remote workplace, people aren't getting that chance to do it.

00:26:31:10 - 00:26:49:17
Kevin Eikenberry
And if we take it back to the building your business part of this conversation, a lot of times, the person that you're wanting to help, help isn't getting the chance to say those things either. And the men that you you move into that mode with them, you start to build a relationship with them that they may not really be finding anywhere else.

00:26:49:17 - 00:26:59:17
Kevin Eikenberry
This idea of being the trusted advisor starts to really begin to happen. And it starts with attention. Understand? Which leads to the third gifts.

00:26:59:19 - 00:27:21:10
Mo Bunnell
Yeah, wisdom. I love this one. so the thing we say that we can focus on to get the give the gift of wisdom, is to give them the experience of working with you. So let's say that we've asked great, great, great. We had engagement and great conversation right there. As we as we were in that last one.

00:27:21:12 - 00:27:49:21
Mo Bunnell
And so let's say that you've had, somebody had a great 45 minute with a leadership team on a particular aspect that we've learned their priorities and their words. We've we can suggest some type of next step. By far the best thing we can give at this point is wisdom. We're an expert. We know what's needed. We've seen this movie before where a where a couple clicks down the path and then everybody else is by far the best move at that exact point is, would it be helpful if I did blank.

00:27:49:23 - 00:28:08:11
Mo Bunnell
And that's a what that does is it? It talks about a give to get different than our title, the book give to grow a give to get as opposed to where give to grows like a mindset or a mantra. A give to get is a specific offer of help. It's almost like a very small project on it. No charge, but it gets things started back to the idea of momentum.

00:28:08:13 - 00:28:23:19
Mo Bunnell
If if we're trying to drive positive change at the very beginning, there is no momentum. So we've got to start with reciprocity. We have to have that master key we talked about before and say, would it be helpful if I did blank? Maybe I'm going to do an analysis and come back to the senior leadership team and say what it means.

00:28:24:00 - 00:28:38:10
Mo Bunnell
Maybe I'm going to bring in an expert. Maybe we do a half day brainstorming on a topic. Maybe we build out a project plan. There's a lot of give to gets we can put at the end of the sentence. Would it be helpful if I or would it be helpful if we blank? But we want to have some type of roll up your sleeves.

00:28:38:12 - 00:28:47:15
Mo Bunnell
We're now co-creating something together. That's what takes something from no momentum to tons of momentum. That's going to let us capitalize on that.

00:28:47:17 - 00:29:04:02
Kevin Eikenberry
I love that which which really points to the last of the four gifts, so that the gift of attention, the gift of understanding, the gift of wisdom. And we can't really get to this, this one without the first two. Yeah. And then you've now it really hinted at the fourth one, the gifts, the gifts of clarity and progress.

00:29:04:04 - 00:29:22:11
Mo Bunnell
Yeah. So let's say let's let's pull this thread through around somebody that's a CIO. And they're really trying to drive change in an organization by getting organization to, to, to budget and get excited about a pretty large technology upgrade. Maybe we're integrating systems or something like that. So at this point, let's say that we we got some momentum.

00:29:22:11 - 00:29:40:01
Mo Bunnell
We did a half day workshop on getting the needs of the business and aligning that with it, and we did a big analysis at the end of that little workshop with the senior leadership team. We've got to give a recommendation. So many people fail to do this because they feel like it's air quotes, salesy or pushy or something like that.

00:29:40:03 - 00:30:00:14
Mo Bunnell
But we're not allowing we're not giving the gift of clarity and progress. People are busy. They got seven other meetings to run. To this day. They got 103 emails. We want to just end every meeting with a recommendation. Well, gosh, based on what we talked about, I'd suggest we do blank, blank, give that recommendation and that what we're going to do is going to steer the momentum.

00:30:00:14 - 00:30:04:12
Mo Bunnell
We've we've gotten to the place that we want everybody to get to.

00:30:04:14 - 00:30:28:14
Kevin Eikenberry
Which will be a win for everybody, as you've just described. And that's and that's how we get out of. Well, that's going to seem salesy, right? Because we're creating a we're creating a win for everyone and that's all. Yes. We're after here. Right. So, you say something in the book multiple times and it's a, it's a profound truth in the places that you use in the book, but just in general in life.

00:30:28:14 - 00:30:39:20
Kevin Eikenberry
And here it is. I'll let you take the conversation in here however you want. But the phrase that you wrote multiple times is, it's always your move. Yeah. Or it's all. It's always our move, right?

00:30:39:22 - 00:30:42:22
Mo Bunnell
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. We're almost there. What do you.

00:30:42:22 - 00:30:45:04
Kevin Eikenberry
Mean? Say a little bit more about that?

00:30:45:06 - 00:31:05:04
Mo Bunnell
Well, psychologically, there's a there's a great study by Roy Baumeister that found that bad is stronger than good. We are heart beat bad events. That bad feedback you got ten years ago. You still remember, but you don't remember the nine amazing piece of feedback you got since then. Every year, you know bad hits us harder. We remember it more deeply, things like that.

00:31:05:04 - 00:31:23:13
Mo Bunnell
So our brain is wired to avoid bad things. So, if we made a suggestion to somebody on email and they didn't reply back, we can like, oh gosh, should I, should I send another thing to them or not? It's easy to not always take the initiative and have agency. So the phrase in the book, it's always your move.

00:31:23:13 - 00:31:45:06
Mo Bunnell
And then when we put it many times right behind that and it's always a time to be helpful, it's always a chance to be helpful if we think of that way, if it's always our move and it's always a chance to be helpful, we don't blow in the winds of whatever email we got or whatever the stock market does that, or whatever budgets look like tomorrow or the fact that Sue canceled on us a meeting for a week from Tuesday.

00:31:45:06 - 00:31:55:10
Mo Bunnell
We really want to. You just always get back up, and you always make a move, and you always respond with generosity. And it's the people that do that that just accomplish more.

00:31:55:12 - 00:32:16:02
Kevin Eikenberry
And I know you can you can cite 100 examples. I know I can I know my team can as well. You've sent the message, you've left the voicemail. And it seems like, okay, we're there's nothing more risk. And then you send one more and they say, I'm so glad you reached out. This is exactly. You've been on my mind.

00:32:16:07 - 00:32:32:20
Kevin Eikenberry
I've been thinking about this. Can you do it like there's something about that continual focus on the other person that is nearly irresistible and again, for mutual benefit. Right at the end of.

00:32:32:20 - 00:32:51:05
Mo Bunnell
The day, you nailed it. You nailed it. There was somebody in our class one time. Quick story here. Kevin is, he was looking up at the ceiling and we were talking about this exact concept, and it was like, what? What? What are you thinking right now? Like, you had this big imaginary thought bubble over his shoulders. And he said, I've been thinking of outreach.

00:32:51:07 - 00:33:11:21
Mo Bunnell
Like I'm playing tennis. Like I love playing tennis. I play it all the time. I'm, you know, he's really like, he's really good tennis player. And he said, I've been thinking, but like, I can only send something back to them after they hit it back to me. And he's like, now when I think it's always my move and always a chance to be helpful, you guys, he said, I need to be thinking of it like I'm practicing my serve.

00:33:11:23 - 00:33:24:16
Mo Bunnell
I'm just going to keep serving up value to them and over time, you know, I'm going to deepen that relationship. And he went on to be he was already successful, but he took his career to a totally next level when he thought that way.

00:33:24:18 - 00:33:46:13
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah, I love that. And I forgot this story. You noticed me starting not as soon as you started tell it. so is there, but we've talked about a lot. There's a lot more that I know that we could talk about. There's a lot more in this book, and we've been talking with more. But now the author of the great new book Give to Grow, is there is there any other is there like one one thing I didn't ask or one thing you really like to talk about?

00:33:46:13 - 00:33:49:11
Kevin Eikenberry
Before we start to wrap up?

00:33:49:12 - 00:34:07:08
Mo Bunnell
Yeah. Let me give you one more thought. One of the things that people ask me a lot is how do I how do I keep climbing up? How do I keep rising up to another sort of rung of impact? If I can? And the metaphor we use here is a ladder. Time is the ladder. We've all got the same amount of time.

00:34:07:08 - 00:34:26:14
Mo Bunnell
Like you mentioned before, there's no there's no excuse of I'm too busy anymore. What the best do is they're always thinking, how can I elevate my impact? There's a ton of research I'll skip over for time reasons, but that show that we are wired to add things to our life, not to subtract. So we need a trigger to subtract.

00:34:26:14 - 00:34:41:17
Mo Bunnell
We need a reason. We need a reminder. We you know, how many meetings have leaders on the podcast had? the show hadn't last year that said, hey, what things are we not going to do? Like, you probably had a thousand meetings on the new initiative of the campaign, but you never have a meeting on what you're not going to do.

00:34:41:19 - 00:35:00:01
Mo Bunnell
So you actually need to have that. So super practical things that people one thing people can do to rise to another level is put a half hour on your calendar. Once a quarter. We found that's the perfect time period. And in that little half hour meeting, you just take a look at all this. You look at your calendar over the last quarter's weeks.

00:35:00:01 - 00:35:18:09
Mo Bunnell
So you look back over 12, 13 weeks and you say, well, how can I go find 50 hours? Where are there 50 hours of things I said yes to that made sense years ago or a quarter before or whatever they made sense to do last quarter, but they don't make sense to do in the future meetings. I'm redundant on that.

00:35:18:09 - 00:35:35:10
Mo Bunnell
My team could handle, initiatives I did that just didn't turn out a conference. I went to the you know, I don't know why I go to that every year now that I think about it. But if we go and find 50 hours once a quarter, that's about 10% of our time, and then we're able we are able to reallocate that to higher value activities.

00:35:35:15 - 00:35:55:17
Mo Bunnell
Back to the metaphor. To close it out, the only way we can climb up to the next rung of impact is if we take our foot off the bottom rung that's holding us back, and we find that find 50 hours, find 10% of your time, quarter after quarter after quarter, you know how compound interest works 10% four times a year really compounds quickly.

00:35:55:19 - 00:36:09:04
Mo Bunnell
And those those folks are the ones that are really rising up to impact the world in a great way, are the ones that are finding a way to subtract things so they can trust themselves and have a higher level impact on new things.

00:36:09:06 - 00:36:23:00
Kevin Eikenberry
So I a just a couple more questions before we finish. And I always love to ask people this because I'm curious. And if I'm curious, chances are so are I. Everyone who's listening. So like what do you do Mo for fun?

00:36:23:02 - 00:36:42:13
Mo Bunnell
Oh man, I love working out. I love playing ultimate Frisbee. you know, there's old people leagues now for ultimate frisbee. So I fly around the world and play in global tournaments and, played in worlds a couple times. That's fun. And then when I play locally, of course, I'm playing against 20 year olds. So I try not to pull my calf, but I just love it.

00:36:42:13 - 00:36:46:18
Mo Bunnell
I love chasing that Frisbee like I'm a dog. You go so fun.

00:36:46:20 - 00:36:53:00
Kevin Eikenberry
So first time I've had the the Society of Registered. Whatever the words are.

00:36:53:02 - 00:36:54:16
Mo Bunnell
Actuaries, actuaries.

00:36:54:18 - 00:37:12:23
Kevin Eikenberry
And ultimate frisbee, I got them both. And you got the miniature donkey. When I first read it, I thought I said miniature monkey. I had to read it again, like, oh, miniature. Okay. so that'd be very unique. Seriously. And I'm glad I read it a second time, because otherwise I might have, like said, the wrong. And that would have been a little bit embarrassing.

00:37:13:01 - 00:37:24:18
Kevin Eikenberry
so what? what are you cracked me up? Well, I'm. I'm gonna leave the donkey alone. I'm sorry. Really? Alone. tell me what you're reading these days.

00:37:24:20 - 00:37:43:14
Mo Bunnell
Well, I'm rereading something. You know, my nephew of a nephew I'm very close with. He's just an amazing young man. And he's really. He's making his shift, actually, from very deep technical expertise to also sort of the relationship skills. He's really good at it, and we work out a lot. he's about to have his, first son in about a month with he and his wife.

00:37:43:16 - 00:38:04:07
Mo Bunnell
So I report a book called Secrets of Happy Families. It's fantastic. It's an evidence based, science based approach on what happy families do. And I'd read it long ago when my girls were younger. Well, now they're quite a bit older now, but I'm actually in the process of rereading it because I'm giving it to my nephew, Spencer, which is really fun, but it's so darn good.

00:38:04:07 - 00:38:06:04
Mo Bunnell
I'm reading it again. Fantastic.

00:38:06:04 - 00:38:24:01
Kevin Eikenberry
Read The Secrets of Happy Families that, along with most book give to get and, we'll we'll both be in. We'll probably put, Cialdini in there as well. Things that we've talked about here will be in the show notes. You can go get links to all those. But where do you want to point us, Moe? I know you've got some cool stuff.

00:38:24:01 - 00:38:30:16
Kevin Eikenberry
People can get along with the book. Yeah. What do you want to point people? what do you want to tell them before we start to close up?

00:38:30:17 - 00:38:37:23
Mo Bunnell
Well, Kevin, you you can imagine the pressure an author and our whole team feels around giving things away. When you write a book called Give to Grow.

00:38:38:01 - 00:38:40:07
Kevin Eikenberry
Wrap, we want to have something.

00:38:40:09 - 00:38:41:01
Mo Bunnell
We probably ought.

00:38:41:01 - 00:38:42:22
Kevin Eikenberry
To have something good, and we do.

00:38:43:00 - 00:39:03:20
Mo Bunnell
So we developed a whole training course like dozens of downloads with screen savers reminders. we've got a list of 50 plus best go to questions we've ever found that that work, like you and I talked about, we've got a team launch guide. and then then many videos for me that actually teach all the relevant content in Give to Grow.

00:39:03:20 - 00:39:19:21
Mo Bunnell
It's 100% free, and we've even designed it so that it's better if you have the book Give to grow, but it actually works. Even if you don't, people can get it right away. They can buy gift to grow the book right away, and they can get the free course at Gift to Grow I info.info give to grow.info.

00:39:19:23 - 00:39:43:04
Kevin Eikenberry
Give to grow that info. If you're watching it's on the screen. If not it's easy to remember give to grow.info and go to wherever you find books and get your copy of Give to Grow. Invest in relationships to build your business and your career. And hopefully one of my goals today was that you would see as a listener that there was value here, even if when you if you saw this book in the bookstore, you might think, oh, that's not for me, but I hope you now see.

00:39:43:04 - 00:40:01:12
Kevin Eikenberry
Hey, yes, this is for me, as a leader, as a human, as a parent, as a sales professional, building your book of business, building your career, building your business. So, now I've got a question for all of you that are here. It's the question I ask you all every single week, and it is simply this.

00:40:01:14 - 00:40:22:17
Kevin Eikenberry
But what are you going to do now? Now, what is the question? What are you going to do with what you just got? What action will you take? you wrote some things down. I'm confident. Or even if you're on your treadmill or riding or riding a bike or whatever you made some mental notes, and that's useful. But more useful is what action will you take as a result of this conversation?

00:40:22:17 - 00:40:40:07
Kevin Eikenberry
Maybe you felt a little bit, you felt like I really needed to hear about this gift of attention thing, and I'm not doing a very good job of that with someone in my life. Maybe that's where you need to go, maybe feel a little bit convicted. Right? And if that's the case, then that's where you would go first.

00:40:40:13 - 00:40:55:10
Kevin Eikenberry
Like, I'm not going to tell you what the three things you ought to do as a result of this are, but I'm going to encourage you to find those for yourself. And if you do that, this will be more than a podcast. This will be a way to help change your life. And that's my hope for you as we do this every week.

00:40:55:11 - 00:41:00:11
Kevin Eikenberry
Mo, thank you so much for being here. A pleasure to have you such a good time. I enjoy it very much.

00:41:00:12 - 00:41:22:14
Mo Bunnell
Yeah. Kevin, I want to have you over on our show it re relationships, real revenue, our podcast. Because like I think your leadership I just think your way of thinking about things would be really interesting that that how you played out, how, the trends you've seen over the last couple decades, there's our topic right there, and we could talk about your new book that you're revising and updating on how to have distributed leadership in a distributed way.

00:41:22:14 - 00:41:27:21
Mo Bunnell
I think our, our audience would love that. So anyway, let's set that up. I've really enjoyed today.

00:41:27:23 - 00:41:44:15
Kevin Eikenberry
We'll do that. And, everybody, let me tell you this, if you enjoyed this, tell someone to come. Listen. And if you enjoyed this and it's your first time here, make sure you subscribe wherever you're watching these so you can come back next week. Because next week, we'll be back again with another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast.

00:41:44:20 - 00:41:45:09
Kevin Eikenberry
Thanks, everybody.