Time for Success Podcast → on Systemic Change for Stronger Businesses and Communities

[Music] welcome to the top of success podcast I’m your host Matt Barbie and this is the show where we dig into what does it take to create the kind of business that gives you the the life that you dreamed of so that you can do more things with the people that you love and you have the money to to be able to pay for doing those things that you love to do with the people that you love and uh there’s there’s some key print behind that and you know you have to one of those things is you have to have the right people in place and you have to really be able to to engage them and equip them Empower them and that’s why I have our guest this week on with us Judy Ryan of Life work systems hey Judy how you doing hey Matt I’m real happy to be here well we’re happy to have you here we wouldn’t have it any other way we uh have a special treat in store because one of the things that I think is going on right now is a lot of people are happy there’s not you know good diversity and inclusion I think in in many communities in many organizations or people are trying to do this systematic change but they don’t really know how they’re trying to get people to to feel I mean just just more more cared for more cared about I think in general right there’s these power differentials that are just rampant right now and and people are saying it’s it’s time for change right yeah that’s the good news is people really are tired of what’s going on and they want a change and they’re really smart enough to know that they need a systems change which is really excellent the problem is I don’t hear a lot of people really understanding what kind of system change needs to occur and I understand why that’s happening because there’s really not a lot of system developers out there so even though we can recognize when something is broken we may not know at what you know at what degree at which to fix what’s broken broken so I’m excited though that people are really ready to drop some of the systems that are causing so many problems and so many um inequities yeah yeah yeah I think it’s uh it’s definitely time and I I I’m really excited to really dig into that into this uh into this podcast so well let let the audience know a little bit more about your background and what life work systems is about before we dig into all that just so they kind of know where where you’re coming from where from from when Youk okay yeah I I’ll try not to get too analytical about it but I’m much of a nerd so I might but you’ll have to pull me in Rain me in um but I actually for the common folk Judy justk common folk so I actually kind of fell in love with a psychology model several decades ago and and that’s what we use right now it’s based on the work of Alfred Adler and I’ve always been excited about it I’ve always felt it it was ahead of its time and so I started to work with that model work with it with regards to the public work with it with regards to education and government and corporate and all kinds of different Industries and um I knew how powerful it was early on and continue to know how powerful it is so I’m uh formed a company in 2002 called life work systems and I’m the CEO of that company and our mission is to create a world in which all people love their lives so when you opened this podcast about being with the people you love and making the money you love and having the life you love I mean it’s very aligned because you know even as a business owner sometimes business owners might think well why do I care if my people love their life or not I just care about our business you know but when people love their lives they’re extraordinary in the way that they produce and create and innovate and solve I mean it’s really hand inand with profitability and performance you know absolutely uh love your life and help each other to do that and so um so what I love about what I do is that I can see it relieves a lot of suffering and right now we certainly have a lot of suffer suffering so absolutely um my biggest challenge at this time in our history is where do we enter The Fray because there’s so much going on uh but I absolutely feel like I have some system information that could really be helpful at this time for even just the general community so well great great thanks for sharing that I think you hit on really really big uh pain points there and I think it’s uh it’s it’s time that we dig in so I know at Lan Lan psychology okay so tell us a little bit more about that like what what is that what does that mean is was it something to do like power or something yes it has it definitely has to do with power but more importantly it has to do with what conditions cause us to either have um like an activated inferiority complex which is we’ve heard that term but most people don’t know that Alfred actually coined that phrase so what it means is and bne brown talks about that today she talks about it in terms of Shame you know and how um our country needs to get a handle on what’s causing so much shame and even bne Brown who’s very popular and worldwide gets asked to speak but people will qualify her and say you know but don’t talk about any of that shame stuff because it’s a little dark it’s it makes us all a little uncomfortable right and um her statement is the same as my statement until we deal with that we can’t really move forward as a community so um Adler was all about how do you create conditions and conversations where people go the opposite direction of inferiority because when we go into inferiority feelings we actually start to set ourselves up for uninterrupted struggles and those struggles can be turned inward like depression and anxiety and obesity and addiction and all of those kinds of struggles but they can also be the ones that we see everywhere right now you know I’m right you’re wrong um I win you lose the corruption all of the isms come from inferiority complex it’s just to me it’s so like clear and obvious but to many people they get really caught up in the surface like I was mentioning to you Matt that a friend of mine who has done some training for me and was a former mayor said to me you need to get in there and fix the police departments and while they’re kind of a part of the symptoms showing up there’s there’s deeper roots that involve a lot more that has to do with us as a larger community and so when if I were to go in and help right now with what’s going on around Race For example and um abuse of power I would be taking a whole subset of stakeholders within a community because what’s occurring is a group dynamic and it needs to change as a group dynamic so uh so Adler was really about putting those conditions in place where people will feel a healthy sense of belonging and significance with each other on a regular basis and that’s the only real remedy to um being um you know where we’re creative instead of destructive with each other yeah yeah you know that that’s interesting but you know I I think for a lot of folks sometimes I can kind of feel like this this mushy gushy type stuff like okay this is all a bunch of like psycho Babble yeah let’s all go sing Kumbaya right right yeah where’s the fire where’s the circle let’s hold hands yeah so how does this really play out first of all the the the in inferiority complexes how how does that even happen in society in a community well this is probably for some people the most unpopular thing they want to hear but I believe it actually those systems that cause inferiority complex are uh they’re they begin in childhood and they also prop as we go into adulthood and by that I mean the control models that we use to raise good citizens from children to adulthood and those uh are control models like using threats and power over Dynamics with people do it R else do it or else she’ll get written up do what or else she’ll get spanked whatever it is and it’s playing out in all kinds of places right now uh even within uh when families are kept home right now because of the pandemic there’s all of this um you know abuse going on homes it’s all increasing right now so that use that misuse of power starts in our families it it’s showing up in our schools it’s not only in using autocratic power over Dynamics but it’s also in using incentives and rewards which do not sound very like a wrong thing right right right but um and it’s also in the judgments that we bestow on one another that seem sort of benign like oh I’m so proud of you or go make me proud or the ones that are like man I’m so disappointed in you um those are and then there’s a fourth control that most people don’t recognize either and it’s when we pamper and spoil people and and I don’t mean um when we’re in a workplace and we give somebody uh you know ping pong table I’m not talking about that I’m talking about any time where we’re doing for someone what they’re capable of doing for themselves and we’re you know we’re helicopter hovering and we’re telling them how to do it and and we’re overom ating for them as if we have no faith in them and that creates a real serious weakness in people I was just recently with a client who had about 25 employees and I showed them these four control models and I said which one is your boss mostly using and they all said pampering and spoiling he constantly nags and reminds and tells us everything over and over again you know and that’s actually very very neglectful of their of their empowerment go ahead so so is that like micro management is what you’re talking about there it’s micro micromanagement it’s also enablement it’s overcompensating I mean a really bad case of this is the parents of this you know the celebrity parents that paid for their kids uh to to get their scores changed to get into IV schools that’s definitely enabling and and you really think those kids are going to turn out ethical and highly responsible when that happens yeah I mean it just sends all kinds of crazy signals not only to everyone but to those students those children so that’s going on more than we know and so uh probably the only one we think of as a real control model is the autocratic but these other three which look more Sublime those are really powerfully harmful as well yeah so uh most people are like well if you don’t have those you’re really suggesting something permissive and wishy-washy and kumage and we’re not okay so so what is it like what what’s what are we what are we proposing to take its place well first of all when we do the control models we’re always holding negative beliefs about people limiting negative beliefs when we’re using autocratic Behavior or practices we’re holding them as though I can’t really trust you you need to be policed which is probably driving some leaders crazy right now when the people are working from home they that style right um then there’s when you’re giving incentives and reward and dangling carrots your real belief about people are you’re kind of selfish and lazy unless I’m the one that takes responsibility for your motivation okay when we’re doing judgment we’re saying I know best you’re inferior to me and I’m going to bestow these judgments from above so I’ve already got you in a downward position you know as far as hierarchy and then when we’re pampering and spoiling we’re really holding a belief about people like you really can’t without me yeah so um so a responsibility based model is the replacement and in that model you always hold on to the certainty that people are great or they desperately want to be great and if they’re not acting great it’s because the conditions that they’ve been immersed in are triggering that inferiority complex and need to be um replaced which is very very powerful in itself so the fact that we have 71% disengagement even before we had all these recent problems tells me that the control models have already been suppressing engagement well uh let’s let’s Circle back to this so SE 71% disengagement what do you mean by that according to the Gallup organization every year they come out with how many people in the United States Workforce are fully engaged which means they come with their aame and they give full effort and they’re always you know contributing as much as they can like you and me Matt right right aame absolutely game and they’re about 29% of the population but the other 71% has over 50% who are called disengaged and they’re not they’re not terribly disengaged but they’re disengaged like a student who does c minus work yeah I’m gonna do what I can to not get fired and I’m gonna be semi reliable but don’t ask me to go above and beyond because you’re not going to get that from me right so we kind of get a resentful compliance from the C minus people like on Monday they’re the ones going oh man it’s Monday I got to go to work they’re not going oh my God I can’t get wait to get to work I got this new idea um wait wait a second that’s like everybody that’s like everybody on Facebook though like you know there’s always I know it’s at least 55% so yeah you’re gonna hear from them you’re gonna hear from them and then there’s the real troublemakers they’re the ones that uh comprise about 16% and they are um called actively disengaged so they’re the ones that might come to work late all the time or they’re they’re come drunk or high or they come they and they text on their phone all day or they’re constantly gossiping they’re constantly sabotaging and they’re actually found to cost about $16,000 per person wow so every 100 people that a company has if that number is is in place if they really have that much disengage active disengagement it costs over 250,000 for every 100 people wow and then um and then the people that are doing the C minus work they’re not really costing company but they’re not gaining uh what the 29% gain the fully engaged people on average bring in about $32,000 of additional revenue for the companies so if uh if you have a workplace that’s either Common Place typical or even worse a lot of those fully engaged people are at risk to leave because they don’t want to be around that energy you know and that’s over over $900,000 that they’re bringing in so between the ones that are costing you and the ones that are you know saving you you could be in a world of trouble if you don’t clean that up absolutely yeah the way that I’ve kind of explained it to people in the past is that if you imagine all your people condensed into a boat uh you know there’s like 10 people in the boat you’ve got two or three people who might actually actively be rowing the boat you’ve got like maybe four or five people who are just kind of sitting there watching the site some people are kind of being encouraging of the people who are rowing some people are kind of in them oh come on man like you’re working too hard relax you know live life YOLO and then you’ve got uh like a couple people in the back who are who are actively trying to sink your boat sink your ship they’re like punching holes in it they’re like trying to toss other people off the side you know yes saying you know this is a terrible Mutiny Mutiny so d i you know I remember you telling me that once before and I wish I could hold that in my memory it’s such a good image yeah yeah I mean even the ones that are sitting there not rowing that’s so aggravating when you’re the one rowing and so yeah absolutely what I mean when when when you’re an actively engaged person and and you’re really working hard and you’re innovating and to see people who are just kind of mailing it in I mean you know I I tell people there’s a difference between people who are working on Mission with you versus working in your mission you know they just happen to be in there kind of doing enough to not get in trouble yes making sure they get that paycheck you you know unfortunately I talk with a lot of small business owners who still have that old model where they should just they should just do their job and they’ll get a paycheck well they they probably will but that’s the thing you’re you’re missing out on I believe the figures are somewhere between like 20 and 40% of of potential productivity if they’re just doing enough to get their paycheck well you know what as much as that’s exciting to a business owner what I think is even more exciting is to see fully in you know charged up in a live team of people that get along which is not very common so when you see it it’s kind of shocking um uh I think I mentioned recently I have a client that’s working on uh on the-fly solutions for covid because they’re in it healthc care and I’m hearing about how they’re just kicking it over and over again because they have um they’ve paid their dues to know how to get along and how to communicate how to work through challenges and how to have really high trust and how to jump in and lead or follow as they need to and once you have that you never want to go back from that I I think most people just need to see more of that so they go I want what they have like Sally hair that s right right I’ll have what he’s drinking right please yeah yeah so yeah it’s not too hard to uh to drink the Kool-Aid whenever you know you guys are having fun right you know so yes unfortunately go kind of going back to where we see this uh I think in in our communities because I mean it is it is a uh a very timely subject and and I think that it’s worth talking about I mean first of all I think we can both agree I mean I think it’s it’s fair putting it out there that black lives of course matter absolutely and and at the same time we we believe that there’s there’s great cops there’s great leaderships that are out there who who really do care yes and then those people who are kind of in the middle um who who they they kind of care but they’re I mean they’re probably disengaged on on on both sides and then there’s people who are adamantly opposed to either side as well and and again trying to sync the ship of of whichever movement you’re talking about um but I think that kind of goes back to what you’re saying in terms of you know these there’s these these senses of like power differentials and and um and and unfortunately it seems that that maybe there are people who are in positions of power that um they try to enforce that power a little too much well here’s the thing we’re all taught power over and power under and both of those are harmful belief systems so um so and also when you were just saying you know you got this group and you got this group and then these people are standing back one of the reasons that’s happening that kind of um operating in silos in a way and that’s the reason I I wouldn’t want to just come and work strictly on one group because um when you do that what you’re usually doing is is there’s some level of finger pointing it doesn’t mean that there’s not real guilt happening or real crime happening or real misbehavior happening it’s just that when you um start to change a whole community’s way of operating then it’s really more about what system if it was put in place would fix these problems not who to blame and why is this happening that’s really a distraction for us um yes we know it’s real and we know some reasons why it’s happening but it’s more helpful to go what how would we change the system so this wouldn’t continue yeah you know I I see a lot of people get very very stuck in the way they think it has to be like right now and and I I found when I’ve worked with people who are kind of diametrically opposed who who are kind of on either sides of the fence we make best progress when we can kind of first figure out what what the commonalities are what that common vision is and and once we get that kind common vision of like we’re really where are we trying to go what what do we really ultimately want in in that Community or organization once we see that that a lot of those are are pretty similar we can kind of work backwards from there okay so what what other things can we agree on and start there to kind of start the healing process in instead of of just where it ends up stopping and and why we think we’re all different and and all that and I actually think that’s what Adler does so well he helps us understand what causes a human being to function highly or not function highly and then how do you train a whole group of people to understand those mindsets and those practices all at the same time so like when we work in a company and we work uh with a group of people it’s never just the senior leaders that we work with right it’s always the CEO to the Frontline staff it’s always in when in our work in school reform it was always parents teachers administrators and students and a community board or a community team from the neighborhood and that what was so P what’s powerful about that is everybody’s um choosing a different system than the existing Control Systems everybody’s understanding common language common tools common ways of creating um empowered lovable connected experiences for each other and that becomes this amazing experience like I’ll I’ll just tell you one quick story on that in the school reform projects we were working in the most atrisk most discouraged neighborhoods to help more high school kids stay in school and graduate because in the cities St Louis the schools were really dropping like flies the high school students you know and they wanted to improve that situation so we worked with the all of those stakeholders within that in the schools and I remember going to a family meeting where one of the the student’s parent was a single parent mom was going to our parent training the student was learning the skills and language and tools in the classroom the teachers were learning those same skills and I went and sat in on one of their family meetings which I also could go in and sit on their classroom meetings you know which is really fun and this particular student was kind of a really cool guy in school and see he always acted a little too cool for our stuff you know right right um so his his instructor was a little worried about him but I said well I’m gonna go see what he does when he’s at home you know and I went and sat in on a family meeting and he was so incredibly getting what we were teaching because at one point w they were uh they were talking about some things in the family and he said you know what you’re gossiping about her and he’s gossiping about me to you why don’t we put a mind Trust in place we need to do that which is a tool to stop gossip and so and then a little later he goes you know what I think we really need to do some healthy venting hair so he knew that tool and then later he knew a tool called appreciative inquiry where he says oh this would be a great place for this appreciative inquiry question so when it was done I I said to his instructor I called her up and I said you don’t have to worry about him he may be acting too cool for this but he’s getting it and not only does he understand it he knows when and how to apply it and I know that will carry forward for him in you know in his future and his everything so um that’s where I think real systemic change happens because you get to the entire root of the problem right right interesting so I think I think we need to try to make this uh a little bit more concrete for folks you know because again this is this is does directly affect profitability a lot of people think in an organization so if you’re a business owner this this affects your pro your profitability people not being able to communicate people getting stuck in I mean even defensiveness is is a result of these power differentials somebody somebody kind of feels that that somebody’s gaining power over them or or they feel like their their power is threatened and so even if there’s like a snarky defensive type comment it really is rooted in some of these issues um absolutely and then it starts to take on its own life you know so when we don’t know how to avoid it eliminate it uh work in such a way that we don’t even start it um it just starts to morph and I think that’s why over time people just get more and more discouraged and leave even if they leave emotionally right so let’s say let’s say I’m I’m I’m a business owner maybe we can kind of create some sort of example here so let’s say I’m a business owner and um you know I see two of my employees uh are are kind of arguing one is uh is is maybe let’s say a manager and they’re kind of really on top of the employee they’re they’re just really making snarky comments come on like you can’t do better than that you can do better than that I know you can do better than that what’s wrong with you like what what do I do as a business owner to to try to turn the situation like that around well what’s interesting about that example is I remember I was you know we are often brought in when people are having problems so this happened to be a company where the CIO was a brand new CIO it was a woman and she had two mid-level managers that were at each other they were in a a just a kind of a disgruntled way with each other and what happened is their team started aligning against each other as well so she was kind of freaked out because she thought I could lose my job if I don’t get this worked out because it’s really mushrooming out and so she um she brought us in she brought me in to work with them and I just applied our tools right away with them and um literally within one session I think they had a clear idea about what was really going on and how they had misconstrued certain things and how to have a really fruitful uh conversation and next steps and um so then they had us come back and do their Retreat and we did a lot of very interactive things around problems that were going on in that whole set of community it was about 60 people and and then they said oh my gosh what else have you got but the important point of this is that those two managers about a year later uh the one manager told me I would take a bullet for him now like he’s one of my best friends so it it’s just one of those things that they couldn’t get out of their own way they didn’t have common understanding they didn’t have common tools they didn’t know what facets of trust had been broken they didn’t know how to repair them and now I have video clips of some of them saying Oh my gosh now that I understand how to ID identify where the trust got broken in any relationship I don’t have to just say oh I just will never get along with that person because I know how to fix just about every relationship I have okay so you’ve mentioned a mind trust you talked about the trust being broken how does trust come into play in in repairing the the the power dynamics and and the the hurt that it causes the problems that it cause caus well part of part of it is just first and foremost making trustworthiness the most important priority in a responsibility based culture so when we build a new model if you picture a house and the foundation is the most important part of that house it’s trustworthiness so Matt if you and I had let’s say we had something unresolved between us I would be I would be looking at gosh here are the eight behaviors that build trust between me and Matt if I’m not feeling like we’re at a 10 with each other doesn’t mean we even have to be best friends although I know you really like being best friends with me but oh sometimes sometimes a having a t with a coworker doesn’t mean you’re best friends it just means you don’t have any unresolved issues because I think people confuse that like you think you have to be best friends with everybody no so let’s say we if we had an issue I’d be looking at these eight behaviors and their um behaviors like honesty and straightforwardness and respect and recognition and disclosure and seeking excellence and following through on commitments and you know and all of those kinds of behaviors I would be going where am I letting Matt down on those and where is he letting me down so maybe I’m uh treating you as though you’re sort of um less worthy than you actually are and maybe I’m not respecting you maybe I’m aggravated so I’ve stopped respecting you and I see that and maybe I go oh you know what Matt probably doesn’t even know we’re not at a 10 because I haven’t even revealed anything to him so I’m not being very disclosing so maybe I see those two things but then I realize gosh when I look at Matt with regard to these eight things what I’m really upset with him about is he promised he would do X Y and Z and he didn’t follow through on that commitment and so once I’ve identified those broken parts I can say I’m just going to take one to start with and I’m going to use some of our tools and go and do a repair job on that one one time and maybe it moves us from a seven to an eight and then it moves us you know and and as soon as I’ve engaged you in that process you might be working just as hard as I am to restore those things because we already even have a common priority to make trust between us super important and we have the means to getting there so half the time it’s just we don’t even know what’s broken we have no idea how to talk about it we’re afraid it’s going to blow up in our face or that we’re going to end up fired or that you know or that it’s going to somehow get real embarrassing yeah all of that keeps us from even knowing how to deal with it yeah okay so so what does this look like let’s say yeah you and me are at it and I’m I’m very very upset and my natural reaction is to to say you know what Judy you need to quit picking up or you you need to quit slacking okay you know I do all the work around here and I’m tired of you slacking I’m I’m I’m just I’m tired of it okay just start doing your job okay because because it’s not fair to the rest of the team what is maybe a better way go well first of all hopefully after you’ve gone through the training you’d be going oh my gosh I’m using that control model of uh best bestowing my criticism and disapproval right like in some Essence you’re saying I’m I’m disappointed in you shape up I’m I’m better than you I know B you’re acting like an idiot right right so you would you would have some awareness there would also be ground rules because the likelihood is high that when you’re aggravated with somebody you’re gonna go and talk to a cooworker oh my God that Judy Ryan she’s doing X Y and Z you know so what happens in these organizations is we don’t have understanding and we don’t even have ground rules yeah like I remember one time this one guy said oh all you have to do to have a good culture is be transparent I go are you kidding me you could be you could cause a blood bath being transparent if you don’t have any guidelines you know and I actually wrote an article called when when transparency becomes a blood bath because the reality is you have to have some ground rules that everybody has come to understand and learn and it’s almost even okay if people are messing up right in left as long as they’re willing to get on track with learning how to do it differently you know then they start to over time go oh my gosh I can see how much it hurts that I come at somebody with this control method or this control method and yeah more we’re more willing to go okay even if I don’t can’t think of what to do I’m gonna go talk to my mentor because everybody has a mentor okay so if uh so if I’m in that situation and and I’m better equipped so I think we talk about tools we don’t always really think about tools as the the words that we use or even the way that we use those words um how we we use inflection and whatnot but when we but those are tools just the same so I think for somebody to to kind of wrap their head around when you’re talking about these tools it’s kind of like the difference between uh saying you know I I hate you you suck at your job versus you know I I’ve kind of noticed uh that um some of these things weren’t getting done at the end of the day and I’m just wondering you know how how can I help you like what what are some of the obstacles maybe there’s maybe we can brainstorm together and figure out well and it and it could be that you actually offer support rather than criticism but sometimes it’s actually just asking for what you want okay so or expressing a frustration in a way where you are not intending to hurt somebody and you use a method so that you won’t okay this is a kind of funny story so there’s a tool called the frustration tool it’s just one of and by the way I just that’s probably what everybody needs everybody needs the frustration tool right now 2020 also Wan I also wna say that sometimes Concepts themselves are tools like we have this one concept around uh listening for language that’s what’s called other directed versus language that’s truly accountable so if I say U Matt will you go and do X Y and Z and you say well I’ll try I would say Matt that’s not the language of self-directed that’s the language of you know no commitment right I I I would say that Yoda says exactly do or do not right right so there is no try yeah well there’s a whole lot of things around those things but just just that awareness can go you know what that feels like you’re coming from this place where there’s some kind of barrier or small thought going on what do you think you know and you have awareness around even just the concept becomes a tool but the frustration tool um let’s say you were my brother in my household when I was you know a little kid CU my kids knew these tools brother from another mother I let’s say you always leave the toilet paper roll empty right the so um so the frustration tool has three parts the first part is I don’t like it when and you state the behavior you don’t say I don’t like it when you’re a selfish jerk because you leave the toilet paper roll empty you say I don’t like it when you leave the toilet paper roll empty now this is the most important step and it’s the the deeper desire that I have because I want us to be a family that has each other’s back I want to feel like we’re watching out for each other and I also want to feel really confident that I’m not going to be trapped in the bathroom without what I need so I’m being very open about my desires for myself and you and I and then I’ll say so Matt what I want from you and I’m very it’s using the words what I want is I want you to replace the toilet paper whenever it’s the last piece are you willing so you and you not only state the behavior you want you ask for the commitment I had a um a secretary I may have told you this story she was a very timid person one of these people that really loves Harmony relationships are everything to her you know high priority to be fair and inspirational and everything she was kind of terrified when there was a frustration but when she learned this tool she said you know I think this would really help me because I wouldn’t be so worried I was going to wreck somebody’s day or hurt somebody or end up it blowing up in my face but she had a senior manager an executive actually who she work work for a parttime and he was not involved in our project and um he would make meetings with her and then he would cancel them without telling her and he did this pretty regularly he was kind of a managed by intimidation sort of person so he he would do those things almost like it was his privilege to do that right and so she went and practiced the tool hey I don’t like it when you uh cancel meetings and you don’t let me know because I want lots of mutual respect and really strong teamwork with you and I want to feel peaceful about knowing where I’m going when we’re supposed to have a connect you know get together or whatever so what I want is for you to text me email me or call me when you change a schedule between us are you willing so that’s what she did she practiced it and she went and did it this is his response who the hell do you think you are I pay your paycheck lady you don’t pay my paycheck how dare you that’s truly what he did wow and this very timid person so she calls me up and she tells me and I go are you still shaking and she goes yeah and I go okay so remember you’re only responsible for your own yard so we have this saying you only mind your own yard I said how did you do in your own yard because your own yard was to go and do this frustration tool from a place of your intention and your respect for both yourself and for him so how did you do she goes well honestly when I just think about that I’m very proud of myself and I said heck yeah I said don’t go into his yard it’s none of your business what he’s doing in his yard so you can focus there and discourage yourself or you can focus here that you did something that felt really important for you to do and so about six months later she calls me and she says you know what he’s never done that to me again and not only that he’s coming around here going now what is this stuff you guys are doing over here and and she kind of plays it down you know she’s like oh we’re just doing this life work stuff and he’ll say well I’ve got a lot of Gossip over in my area and she’ll say well yeah we used to have a lot of that too or I have people that are really being ugly and uh you know um irresponsible and she’s like yeah we used to have a lot of that too and and um because she just doesn’t want to you know try to convince him or anything she just wanted him to know part of the reason he was doing that because he not only came to her he came to her boss and said what is this stuff you guys are doing over here because people were leaving his department and going over to this department and like oh my God this is like night and day over here and I think he was picking up on that and even though the day that she did this he was not happy with her for how dare she treat him like she deserves equal respect you know and and do it in such a way I can’t fire her but you know um but on some level it worked because she even told me he’d never done it to her again and you know you never know that a person will change their behavior you still feel different when you’ve changed yours abut even if that other person doesn’t change but in this case he actually did change yeah yeah well that’s a great story and I think it speaks to maybe even even though it’s tough and sometimes the moment doesn’t always turn out the the way that we want it sometimes we still have those impacts and and and maybe because we take responsibility of of our own of our own actions and what we can do to actually I mean be the change right not to beich with it no it’s so true but it’s true very true yeah and you know even if I hadn’t been the person that she came back and reported to that’s what their mentors are in the workplace so a big part of what we do is ongoing mentoring is provided to everybody so when you have a situation like that and you can come back and a mentor could say what I said hey how did you do in your yard you know that that’s a way that everybody helps each other yeah yeah well so with the the systems that that we currently have in place we’re talking about systematic change within our organizations within our communities and the systems currently really breed a lot of uh a lot of that that power differential um I mean just in terms of how we’re raised um what we’re taught depending on on our family about you know who’s better than the other person and and and money and or or maybe it’s a race thing and and I know sometimes you know unfortunately it’s a it’s a it’s a sad thing to hear but it is a reality that in certain uh groups they they do have to you know they feel like they they I shouldn’t say they have to but they feel like they have to like warn their kids even about the the disparities and whatnot so that that learning of those disparities you know can continue um in in the differences and and what are some steps that that we can take as individuals today to try to be that change to try to help start moving forward this idea of the systematic change and kind of getting from a place of the power differentials and getting to a place where we we take responsibility for our own yard M and and and and at least try to make our our yard and what we can control and what we can do to be the the the best representation of of love and unity uh that it can be you know there’s so many ways you know that are important but I would say that my most important starting place with people is to first know and understand what they don’t know that they don’t know so when you even talk about this happening in homes I could give you 30 examples or more of ways that we uh misuse and abuse power with children even in the normal families right some of them are way worse um and so part of it is that we have to be willing to look at our belief systems and consider that they’re outdated and that there’s something better so we call that spitting in the soup of those sacred cows those sacred cows people get defensive about well I was spanked it didn’t hurt me and you know and we don’t realize that those are the seeds of callousness those are the seeds of believing that’s the only way to solve a problem or to change behavior I’m just using that as a really rough example but what what we do before we do any Tool uh application with people is we help them to start dismantling and really being so disgusted with the soup of those control models we call it spitting in the soup because once you are really willing to say okay that is not a good thing to keep picking backup now you’re really ready to create a completely different system but what we do instead is we put tools on top of that control system and then we wonder why they don’t work I mean you remember I’ll just tell you the tiny part again because I know you’ve heard this of the uh eighth grade student who came in and said I’m being bullied by a teacher because we adopted a new tool called the peace pledge where we’re supposed to put our hands on our hearts and say I pledge to use my words and actions for peace Only The Home Room teacher said if you don’t do it you’re going to get a detention you know I mean that’s really craziness right yeah I’m gonna teach you how to be peaceful by hitting you overhead with a hammer and threatening you right so um you know that’s why we really work on um put down the control models and then you will learn these tools in a way that’ll really be helpful um so there’s just a lot to it about it first and foremost is mindset change yeah I think what you say you’re saying about you don’t know what you don’t know is is extremely impactful if you take a second and and apply it to introspection and say you know what there might be some things that you don’t even realize about yourself and your own biases that might be affecting how you’re coming across I know I’ve had many many moments in my life where I I had to take a step back and go you know what that I I don’t think that that was received the way that it was intended to be or you know maybe maybe I I was you know caught up in a in a you know frustrated moment or something like that and and maybe it was not uh sent the way that really I I wanted to you know to send that message you know so well you know I don’t think um I don’t think most like I’ve done this work for years and I’m always still learning so it it really is about um being willing to question your beliefs even at all like what what’s really interesting is one of my favorite quotes is on change blindness and it was by Samuel arbisman and he said we have a problem with change blindness it’s kind of twofold he goes it’s not that we’re not even getting exposed to things sometimes we’re really getting exposed to new systems and things but we don’t want to go out of our way to have change yeah and and then the other part of it that I think’s even more important is that we don’t want to consider that our ideas are outdated and I think it’s almost as if we are so identified with our ideas that we feel like we’re going to lose ourselves if we consider upgrading them like you and I none of us would be uncomfortable or afraid to upgrade a phone generally you know I mean once in a while there are people that still have a flip phone right most of us we look forward to the upgrade because it usually has something way better about it right and we’re not ashamed of the old phone we’re just excited for the new phone but when it comes to emotional intelligence and human behavior people act as if that’s my sacred cow it should never change I’ve been the right I’ve been in the right if I admit that it’s outdated then it makes me irrelevant and that’s just crazy thinking right there well I I can understand it though we we’re we’re really taught that beliefs often don’t don’t change and that you should be rooted in in your beliefs and and a lot of people are are scared to to take the the time or or take the risk of challenging those beliefs of understanding why you believe that way and even saying you know maybe there’s maybe there’s a better way out there and yeah well it is our our biggest um enemy is our our pain threshold like when you really think about it we’ve got 71% disengagement before we even had a pandemic so how tolerant we are of how crappy it is right you know like we really somebody somebody said something one time about substituting crappy with I don’t forget the other word but we are we’re so conditioned to accept things in a in a less than an ideal or excellent way and you know once we have the good we don’t want to go back to the ways that we have absolutely absolutely well I think it I think it’s definitely time that uh well it’s maybe even timely I should say that people are really starting to to question that but you know I encourage everybody on all sides to to try to to look at their own biases and just encourage everybody to take a second to look at their own yard you know I’m looking at that every day and I’m and I’m always trying to better understand how to support everybody and uh as much as I can you know not saying that I’m perfect head it by any means as much as you I think that’s a good idea to look at our own yards I don’t even know that we can look at our own yards uh without without kindness unless we make this an initial question what system would help me manage my yard better um because it’s really we’re we’re so bad about either blaming others or blaming ourselves where what we really should be doing is going I wonder what system would help fix this you know yeah um that’s a much more holistic and moving in the you know encouragement and yes and I’m going to make my yard priority but I want to know how to do that yard better because that’s also you know yeah well I guess yeah even asking like what kind of yard do you want to have really right and and what kind of yard do I have right now I have to take a step back and look at it you know sometimes it’s hard to see that the the forest through the trees if they as they say it’s sometimes it’s really hard to take that step back but you know ask people around you like you know if if if I’m if I’m preaching more unity and love am I am I showing it am I displaying it or my actions driving that forward you know it’s well and I also think what’s going to help larger and bigger amounts of people change is to see more and more success stories you know like we uh we saw an adarian approach used in a prison system in Florida and the normal amount of repeat reincarceration which is called recidivism is ironically about the same number that we have for our disengagement in workplace it’s around 70% yeah and in a prison where they used this mindset and this set of schools the recidivism went down to 4% and that’s what we’re seeing similar kind of outstanding results in our workplaces that we’re working in but until there’s enough of us seeing those like just like that that executive was like what are you guys doing over here right until people realize it really can be different they’re GNA sit back and go it’s as good as it gets yeah yeah and did I hear you right you say that it the the recidivism so people going back to prison went from 7 % down down to 4% 4% and we even have a paper on it because my daughter wrote a paper about it in college because she and I were both going through Edan edian training programs at the time yeah that’s pretty outstanding and part of it is that I mean even when you think about it like think about a person who we would never think of relating to like let’s say there’s a gang member and part of being in a gang means they have to go and shoot somebody as their initiate you know the initiation right and maybe the only place that they ever beli they could feel empowered lovable connected and contributing was in that game and and they believe that was the only place they’ll override their conscience and fear of imprisonment to get those needs met those are the exact same needs you and I have we just have a bigger idea of how we could get those met right we take that desate desperate path but we’re really no different than they are and that’s hard for people to sometimes yeah I mean sometimes people I mean a lot of people get in that most I would say probably most people who are in that situation feel like that’s their only path and and they don’t have any other options well and then and then they’re treated like Monsters and then they believe they’re monsters and then they will continue to act like a monster because it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy but absolutely when those people went in and worked with them they they said look take yourself out of the Monster Box we’re not going to put you in the Monster Box you are no different than I am let’s look at how you can get these needs needs met a different way that’s that’s amazing that’s amazing well I really appreciate your time uh here on the show today we’ll have to we’ll have to Circle back around and and dig into this even more um you know this is I think something that’s really relevant to pretty much everybody everybody’s experien this everybody’s dealt with it to some degree certainly some far more than others absolutely right so again I really appreciate it and um yes it’s time for Success we we partner with Judy and with the life work systems but if anybody’s got any specific questions um that they want to reach out to you and ask you what what’s a good way to reach out to you well would encourage people to go to our website we’ve got tons of information and videos and webinars and you know I have over 180 published articles we have industry articles in our article section that are written by Forbes and Inc and all of that but also they can uh find our phone number our email address all that so it’s life work systems life and work or singular systemsis plural.com and so that’s the that’s my email address if somebody wants to write Judy at life work systems or go into our website you know I would love to talk to people that are listening to this you cannot overc communicate with me so don’t hold back um just a regular person that loves what I do and I’d be really delighted to talk with anybody awesome thank you so much and again this is your host Matt Barbie and if you really want a business where you love going into work every day and you want your people to feel like they love going into work every day and you have the life that you want plus you’re empowering your people to have the lives that you want I mean if all that sounds awesome please reach out to us 314 441 5423 thank you

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