Building Human Connections

Building a Coaching Culture - #114: Building Human Connections === J.R. Flatter [00:00:47]: Hey. Welcome back, everybody. Jrflatter here again, my good buddy, Lucas. Hello. How you doing? Lucas Flatter [00:00:53]: Pretty good. J.R. Flatter [00:00:54]: So I wanted to jump into this human to human relationship discussion from leadership perspective, from coaching perspective, coach to leader, coach to other human beings. One of the elements that we talk about a lot in our coaching is the technical cognitive and emotional intelligence continuum. Just to revisit for a minute. Early on in life, in our careers, we're most interested in how well do we know how to do something technically. So you're a computer scientist. I would imagine your degree from RIT taught you the fundamentals of computer science where I don't even know what that those two words mean, but you should. And that's the fundamental knowledge, abilities, and experiences that you need to have to function as a computer scientist. The cognitive aspects of it, and you learn some of this in your in your bachelor's degree and you learn some of this in your early career is how to engage your brain and make decisions amongst multiple courses of action. J.R. Flatter [00:02:02]: How to collect data, conduct analysis with that data, make the decision, and then go execute that decision. That's largely a cognitive function. So techno and cognitive go pretty much hand in hand. Still relatively early in your career, relatively linear. You know, there's well defined rules of how one does that well. But then you get into this sphere of emotional intelligence. And for me, emotional intelligence is all about your willingness and ability to build and sustain relationships with other human beings. And I don't know whether I just taught a class on intergenerational leadership 1 week ago today, actually. J.R. Flatter [00:02:47]: And so it's at the forefront of my mind, a lot of the intergeneration friction is a function of where they're at in life as much as it is a generational thing. And so some of the things that frustrated me when you were growing up as a millennial that has much to do with where I was in life and where you were in life is the fact that you were born in 1992 and were part of the millennial generation. But now that you're in your thirties, and I in my 30 well, I wasn't even 30 when you were born, but you came to know me when I was in my thirties. You're who I was in many ways those couple of decades ago. And now Declan is you, your son. And so you're seeing a lot of the frustrations I saw and all of the joys too. Let's not focus entirely on frustrations. The joys of being a parent are far outweigh the frustrations for me anyway. J.R. Flatter [00:03:53]: So what are your initial opening thoughts on this human to human connection idea? Lucas Flatter [00:03:57]: Yeah. I mean, I like starting with that TCE continuum alignment. I think maybe at the beginning of your career, you have these cognitive ideas like, oh, you know what? I would have done x, y, or z if I was in charge. You know, those happen all the time. And maybe after a couple of years of experience, you have more data that says, oh, if I would have done that, would it have worked out? In some cases, yes. In some cases, no. So I think the idea that it kind of evolves, you know, from the technical to the emotional plays out in my experience. And then I almost think, like, the emotional side, your ability to bring people together, build a team, you know, do something that you can accomplish individually. Lucas Flatter [00:04:51]: It doesn't necessarily get talked about or praised that much with American culture. It's like that individual accomplished x, y, or z. But if you read the biography, you read about the teamwork and all all the people involved. J.R. Flatter [00:05:06]: Yeah. That's a bit of a paradox. We praise the self made person and criticize the person born with a silver spoon or an overnight success. None of those 3 are are true. They're all mythical ideals. So I don't know if it's a function of my age and now watching you and Declan and all the other grandbabies and children, or if it really is that we're the in the 25th year of 21st century, and the world has changed. But the reality is irrespective of its source, or maybe not completely irrespective, that what for years and probably a century was called soft skills are now absolutely essential. I'll put my professor on for a second and talk about the beginning of work study. J.R. Flatter [00:06:06]: We didn't ever study work until the 9 early 1900. Man named Taylor is probably the most famous work study scientist. And what he was measuring was literally how much a man could shovel in a day, how much a man could dig in a day, and methods of improving the technical skill of shoveling. And I'm being extreme to make a point. It was much broader than that. There was a study in the 19 thirties trying to increase productivity at General Electric. And they thought about, did workers prefer to be in a well lit work environment or a duller work environment? And so they were brightening the room, dimming the room. And they found out the productivity increased no matter whether it was bright or dark. J.R. Flatter [00:07:08]: And it was ultimately realized they were working harder because someone was paying attention to them. And so as far back as to the 19 thirties, we started to realize, you know, it's just not a machine, it's a human being. There's a human being holding that shovel and when they go home at night, somebody loves them. Somebody's happy to see them. They come running to the door to embrace them. But yet here, nearly a 100 years later, so we're well into the twenties of the new century and the new millennia, we're still struggling with this ideal on both sides of the table. Leadership and employee. Where are those boundaries? And what's appropriate? What are the expectations? Lucas Flatter [00:08:01]: Yeah. I mean, I think part of it, this, like, idea of, like, oh, we're working with other humans. Let's get to know, you know, what makes them tick. It's kind of talking about motivation, different ways to motivate people. And we've talked in the past about how it might traditionally be, here's your compensation package and and there's the motivation that you need. But it seems to be that that's not sufficient, like, of a conversation, at least. That's not the be all, end all. And people wanna, you know, know about what it's like, what's the experience, what else am I getting out of this, or, you know, what pitfalls might I need to avoid in this organization? Things like that. J.R. Flatter [00:08:52]: No. You're you're spot on. I learned very early on in the life of our company. There's 3 kinds of rewards I can give someone. Incremental, which is a cost of living raise, multiplicative, which is a bonus or a promotion, and exponential, which is equity, ownership. None of them sustain. I don't care how big of a bonus you get. The half life of a bonus is days at most. J.R. Flatter [00:09:30]: A month if you're lucky. A promotion, same. You probably 6 months. You're really happy you got the promotion, and then you get into a routine again. If you are an owner of a company or you receive equity as a leader in the company, that's a short lived thank you very much. Because you're in a place in life where you have tons of choices. And any of those and I I don't mean to appear cynical at all because I I tend to be a very optimistic person. But we're all human beings, and we all have the same brains that that think and act the same way. J.R. Flatter [00:10:07]: You need something else. Even in the 1900, in the early 1900, or let's go back even further, the birth of the industrial revolution in in 17 fifties, depending on where you were in the world, cottage industries that moved to the large factories where you might live in a town where the company owned the store, the company owned the laundromat, the company owned everything. And so every dollar you were getting, you're probably giving right back. You needed something more than that wage to give you joy in your life. And almost exclusively that joy was found outside of work. And now here well into the 21st century, the global labor market is demanding that we provide that as part of the work experience. And in a virtual world, with the kind of mobility that a workforce has, you better be thinking about, am I providing an atmosphere? And I'm hesitating to use the word culture because I hammer on that drum a lot. I probably will before we're done here. J.R. Flatter [00:11:20]: If you're not providing an atmosphere where you're recognizing and appreciating each employee as a human being, you're gonna find yourself in the dustbin of history. What are your thoughts? You hire a lot of Gen z's. Lucas Flatter [00:11:34]: Yeah. I mean, I was thinking about this the other day in the context of, like, when you're an adult and you're eating well or eating, you know, healthy food, exercising, you're kind of saying that, like, this is rewarding to me. I'm choosing this. It's not just rewarding by default because, you know, there's some pain involved or, you know, it doesn't taste as good as cheese, you know, vegetable. But I think, like, that deliberate choice gives things like that more meaning. So I'm I wonder what your thoughts are on that. Is that something that you can build in an organization? J.R. Flatter [00:12:17]: Define that for me again, please. Lucas Flatter [00:12:19]: Like the providing kind of choice on, you know, this is what might motivate you versus another person providing different options for that. J.R. Flatter [00:12:30]: I think that's part of it. And this is one of the reason we talk about technical, cognitive, and emotional alignment. Some of the biggest mistakes I've made in hiring or promoting is promoting someone out of where they desired to be or where they found their their joy. It's a reality of the workforce. There's 8,100,000,000 of us on the planet that a lot of us wanna be the best technician for our entire life. We have other priorities in our life beyond our career. We may not want to be a supervisor of other human beings. And as your employer, I have to recognize that, encourage that, and show appreciation for that. J.R. Flatter [00:13:17]: So, yeah, there is some measurement in our minds as we think about hiring and we think about promoting, think about moving you into a different role, might be a lateral, but in a different vertical of the business. Is that something you wanna do? So it's it's become part of our dialogue and I think a necessary dialogue beyond the paternalistic view of it's good for the company. Is it good for the person? So I think, you know, for the first for the last century, I should say, people deferred joy or fulfillment even, purpose until they retired. Because the 20th century work model was get educated or get skilled, work, and then retire. The 21st century work model out of necessity and desire is learn, work, learn, work, learn, work. Industries are changing so fast. Technologies are changing so fast That a Gen z entering the workforce, looking ahead 30 years or even 5 years, recognizing the technologies they're using and the processes they're using and the products they're developing may not even be there in 5 years. So are we as employers making a human to human connection with them saying, you know, as the world changes, we're gonna help you change along with it. J.R. Flatter [00:14:52]: Keep advancing your skills. You hear the word upskilling a lot, making sure that there are no versions anymore. So I was gonna say, if you came in knowing 2.03.0 comes in, But, really, systems are updated every day behind the scenes. And so are we keeping pace with those changes both as an employee and an employer? But even beyond that, am I doing that because I'm interested in you as a human being, not as an asset? Right? We hear this word human capital. And human capital is an abstract. The person standing in front of you is a human being. So you shouldn't be thinking or talking about human capital when a human being is in front of you. And it's an abstraction that we send statistics in to department of labor to report on our employee pool. J.R. Flatter [00:15:50]: Who's there? What are their ages? What are those their ethnicities and and all of those other demographic markers that we've created, that's human capital, but the person in front of you is a human being. And are you recognizing and appreciating that? They're gonna frustrate you. I make the joke all the time that my children mock me, and now my grandchildren are starting to mock me. I love that because they're comfortable enough around me that they could feel they could be a human being and not fill a role of child and grandchild. Our employees tend to do the same thing, and I love that equally as well. The students that I educate very quickly, and I tell them one of my measures of whether the cohort is growing well is how easily they can be comfortable around me. And we teach and and believe that you become comfortable and build that trust and safety because you are being a human being. You are showing vulnerability. J.R. Flatter [00:16:52]: You're recognizing the blurred lines between personal and professional achievement. You're encouraging personal achievement. Realizing that personal achievement is gonna give time and space for professional achievement. Professional achievements often necessary to create personal achievement. Anyone who listens to our podcast or goes to any of our programs knows what my 3 life goals were for the 1st 30 years of my adult life. Raise the 4 of you as a family, Get you educated, however you chose, and build some financial freedom. None of those say I wanted to be a doctor. I wanted to be a coach. J.R. Flatter [00:17:38]: I wanted to be a CEO. They're all personal. I wanted to be financially stable, not living paycheck to paycheck so that I could pay more attention to my children and grandchildren. Not that I wanted a big bank account or I wanted a big title. Lucas Flatter [00:17:55]: Going back to, like, the parent child relationship, there's a knowledge gap there. There's an experience gap. And so you can't necessarily use your language to so there's the whole, like, explain it like I'm 5 concept, like, get down to my level and and try to translate this concept in terms that I understand. I think we've been saying, like, this person, this human capital, it's a human being. There's a challenge probably and explain it like I'm a human, you know, not looking at sales forecast or so, yeah, I guess, what are some ways that we can do that? Like, oh, I wanna translate my, you know, long term company goals to something that makes sense on a lower level. J.R. Flatter [00:18:48]: Yeah. What a beautiful question and observation. Talk to me like I'm a human. Write that down before you forget it. Every time we get together, I learn something from you. And like any good coach, you've caused me to pause and think. Some very technical and cognitive things are coming to mind, but I know there's a much bigger answer. Technically, communicate, communicate, communicate until you get tired of your hearing yourself say it. J.R. Flatter [00:19:14]: And I borrow that directly from John Kotter in his book, Leading Change, Kotter with a k. And so, you know, the the speech by Henry Ford or, the CEO of Ford coming off the stage and saying, yeah, I I given that speech 3,000 times. That's communication. Secondly is demonstration. So what is the movie where the guy has the red stapler? Lucas Flatter [00:19:40]: Oh, Office Space. J.R. Flatter [00:19:42]: I'm a people person. You know, you can't just communicate you're a people person. You better demonstrate that you're a people person. So demonstrate to your team, to your family, to your church, to your soccer club, that you do desire to have a human to human connection with them. And there's myriad ways to demonstrate having conversations with them as if they were a human. I'm at the site you forever now on that. Oh, no. Not that I have to. J.R. Flatter [00:20:15]: I get to. But otherwise too. So, you know, being interested in more than just their productivity. And I'm being genuinely interested, and I think that's the big piece. One of the characteristics you and I talk about when we teach leadership is humility. And I could say all day long that I feel like a tremendously best man, blessed to have the family and have the team that I have to be able to deliver this coaching education and coaching that we do. But saying it's not enough, you better be out demonstrating. And in your own heart and in your own mind, as you lay your head on your pillow, asking yourself, is this genuine or am I going through the motions? Until you yourself can consider it genuine, everyone is gonna see right through you. J.R. Flatter [00:21:13]: And they're gonna be whispering in the in the hallways about what a fake you are and how disingenuous you are. And I define culture as the story the world's telling about you, the story the world's telling about Flatter, the story the world is telling about our family. And what is being whispered about you in the hallways? Is this a good place to work? Are they gonna take care of you? Do they are they genuinely interested in your well-being? Yeah. So that's a gigantic question that you've just asked, and one that's gonna take a lifetime for all of us to formulate and communicate and demonstrate. Lucas Flatter [00:21:58]: I'm curious. You had mentioned earlier, like, this trend that seems to be happening where the expectation is that, you know, some of the meaning in my life is going to come where I'm employed by that organization. And I think it some, I don't know, scholars or just pop culture, just people that are commenting, they sometimes talk about this, like, third space outside of work and and your house that maybe used to be the YMCA or the church or whatever public space. And it does seem like like how that when it that's shrinking, it is kinda being put on the workplace. Do you think that's a positive change, or what do you believe about that? J.R. Flatter [00:22:50]: Yeah. And that's another beautiful question. I'm just looking at a slide here. One of the things we talked about is look 30 years into the future and and figure out how you're gonna get there. And we would call those lifetime goals. But while you're on that journey, make sure you're finding joy on the journey. And the the thing I consider harmful about that idea of putting that burden on the workplace, And it isn't just me, the employer, or anyone else who hires people, but it's a burden on the individual too. That they're expected to find their joy in their workplace. J.R. Flatter [00:23:31]: Well, with 8,100,000,000 of us on the earth, the math doesn't add up. And it's just one of the realities of life that you might not find your joy at work. You know, you play guitar. You you're a cartoonist. You're a father and a husband. And I suspect some of that is seeking your joy outside of the workplace. Additional joy. 1 of the mentors and coaches in our world lived a third of her life in the hospitality industry. J.R. Flatter [00:24:06]: And now she's turned around as a coach to leaders in the hospitality industry. And when I met her, she was promoted into a role where she had thousands of housekeepers that reported to her, and it was her responsibility to develop them. And I know they're finding joy at work, but it's amongst each other. It isn't the tasks that they're performing. Because I'll guarantee you, the person who follows me after I leave a hotel has their work cut out for them. But the interactions they have human to human are creating joy in that profession. And that profession is gonna be there as long as we have a hospitality industry. It might be migratory, and some number of those housekeepers might become that leader and coach that is part of our team. J.R. Flatter [00:25:03]: But the percentages are not there of how many of them will be able to migrate, will choose to migrate. And so they need a place to find their joy or create their joy, discover their joy. And it might be guitar playing. It might be cartooning. It might be art. It might be what it was for me, and that was my family. Raising my family, and now my grandchildren participating in their growth, being a mentor and a coach and a coach educator where I find my joy. That's part of my blessing is that I get to find joy in my work, and I consider you know, that makes me more humble about how blessed I am to be in this. J.R. Flatter [00:25:49]: I know it's a bit of a rambling answer. I think each of us has mobility if we choose, irrespective of our starting line. Some of us start farther behind than others. But that's not something to be ashamed of or condescend. If you are further ahead in life than your peers at certain stages of your life, that's a blessing. And it isn't something to be shunned, to be appreciated. But regardless of where you started, you can break out and and find joy in your life. And it's almost certainly gonna be in a human to human relationship, whether it's at work, whether it's singing to your son, or drawing cartoons for me. J.R. Flatter [00:26:38]: I have a brand new one on my desk here Lucas Flatter [00:26:40]: that I have to frame and hang. Yeah. And I think you mentioned the word joy maybe 20 times, and I think, you know, you no. But you think about, like, what are we talking about when we're saying, like, what else is there besides compensation? And we're really talking about joy and love and meaning, and it doesn't necessarily help to shy away from those things, you know, like it we need to confront them if that's if that's what, you know, humans are looking for. And and I you know, we're I'm an experienced human. So I would say that I do look for joy and meaning. And, I think, yeah, it's just a really interesting mindset to have in this kind of employer employee relationship can become sterile and calm? J.R. Flatter [00:27:37]: Yeah. I'll give you an example from my own life. So I sit here in the headquarters. At any given time, there's probably a dozen people running around here. Sometimes more, sometimes less. And I'm always hearing conversations in the kitchen and food on the kitchen table that people brought in and laughter. And someone who's focused on the technical and cognitive might go, does anyone ever work around here? Right? Because all I ever hear is people talking to the hallways. But the reality of a workplace is you do most of your work in 20% of your time, and the rest is administrata and what I would call filling the white noise. J.R. Flatter [00:28:23]: So more and more we're recognizing as we get deeper into the 21st century that those conversations in the hallway and those relationships that they're building are more important than if they were sitting at their desk cranking out yet another spreadsheet for whomever might choose to read it. So, yeah, you have to support and encourage those interactions. Couple of the highlights of our year are our summer picnic and our winter holiday. I know all of us in the leadership team look forward to those occasions where we actually get to be in the same room or in non work clothes, ugly sweaters in the winter, and shorts and Hawaiian shirts in the summer. What's your closing thoughts as we head out the door? Lucas Flatter [00:29:12]: Yeah. I mean, I guess that idea of genuine connection, I I think just I would encourage people to if they don't know the people they work with, whether it's remote or in person, just try to, you know, bridge that gap if you can. And it's been rewarding. I I know that you have rewarding relationships in your work. So, yeah, I would encourage everybody to do so. J.R. Flatter [00:29:37]: Yeah. You've reminded me of one of my favorite questions, and that is, why are drivers so rude on the highway? And the the root cause of that is, well, a, they feel comfortable in their security of their cage that they're driving down the road. But more importantly, they don't know who you are, and they don't care who you are. You're just another car in the way inhibiting their freedom. And the people in your workplaces are exactly the same. If you don't know who they are and you're not interested in them as a human being, they're not gonna do anything that they don't have to do. And I don't want that to sound cynical again, but they're gonna be heads down worried about their personal and professional achievement. Once you make that human to human relationship, you don't get flipped off. J.R. Flatter [00:30:29]: You don't get cut off. So, yeah, absolutely encourage you. Make it part of your style. Make it part of your culture that you know each other. Then there's appropriate level of love that you can create and sustain in a workplace. It's not the same love that you and I have, father and son or husband and wife, me and the chairwoman, but it's an appropriate love that we have for our coworkers coworkers and and their families and and their goals and objectives. Alright, my friend. We'll see you soon. J.R. Flatter [00:31:05]: That concludes this episode of building a coaching culture. I truly hope that this episode was helpful to you. If it was, be sure to follow us wherever you listen to podcasts. Maybe stop and give us a rating or a review and share this podcast with someone who might find it helpful as well. Thanks again, and we'll see you next time.