Are you a terrible leader - with Sondra Norris

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**Greg**: So, are things currently going wrong in your business but you can’t quite put your finger on what it is that’s going wrong? Well, have you ever considered, and you might not like hearing this, that it might be because of you as a leader? If you’re not inspiring your people as a leader of your business, then they’re not going to align around your values and drive your business forward. And that will filter out through your employees. And, of course, to your customers. So in this week’s podcast, we’re talking to Sondra Norris, and we’re examining leadership style. How do you really get people to be motivated to follow you as a leader? How do you get your values across to your people? This isn’t just some fluffy stuff we’re talking about here. This is some real-world impactful stuff that Sondra has applied to huge companies, including companies like EA Sports and things like that. So I think you’re going to find this really interesting. Let’s jump in.

**Greg**: Welcome to the podcast, everyone. Really looking forward to today’s episode. We’ve got a special guest with us today where we’re going to be talking about leadership. So really great to have you on, Sondra.

**Sondra**: Thanks so much, Greg. It’s great to be here. Yeah, excited.

**Greg**: Awesome stuff. Yeah. So, Sondra, we’re going to dive into lots about leadership, talking about alignment and getting the vision right and really trying to get people on board. And it’s such an important subject because in construction, you know, or any business really, construction business owners, they often start on the tools. They’re working for themselves, and then all of a sudden, they’re now a leader of a business, and they’ve got to bring people on board. And there’s a real transition of a change from being a tradesperson to actually being a leader of a business. So I think this podcast is going to be really interesting just to explore some of those nuances and how you overcome that as a leader. But maybe first of all, you can just introduce us a little bit about yourself, Sondra. You know, how have you got into this industry of leadership coaching?

**Sondra**: Yeah, certainly. So I did most of my developing into who I am at Electronic Arts, the video game company. And I was working with lots of game studio leadership teams where we were not only talking about, hey, how do you become a good leader, but also really getting into their business and looking at cash flow, looking at profitability, looking at, you know, capacity planning. They had a lot of inflow and outflow of their resources. So, as I was growing in that experience, I found a little secret sauce about how those leaders can keep their people going through what we call in the industry crunch time, which is often 110-hour weeks. People are sleeping under their desks. They are, you know, running to get to the release date on time. And we discovered that it was not just about having clear goals. It was about a lot more than that because how do you get people to really think more like an owner of the business? They’re never going to think fully like an owner because they’re not an owner, but how do you get them more deeply committed? So from there, I went and I have had really the privilege and the honor of working one on one and with executive teams in multi-billion dollar companies all around the world. And what I think that experience taught me—I’m just coming off of ten months working in Nigeria and I’m from California—and all the places I’ve gone to in the world, I think the biggest lesson I’ve learned is that people are people no matter where you are, who you are, or what business you’re in. We all have this common fabric, and that’s why this little secret sauce works so well. It’s not easy to do necessarily, but it’s mostly ourselves that hold us back from it. So, yeah, I’m doing this, you know, soup to nuts, 30 years. Really with impact and value the last 15.

**Greg**: Fantastic. So really interesting. A couple of things you said there. People necessarily are more than just aligning around goals. We need to have something else that really inspires our people because I think as a business owner, we do set goals that we think, right, I’m going to hit this turnover target this month, and we want this profit margin. But that might be great for the business owner, but that’s not necessarily inspiring for your team. So, let’s just talk through some of the consequences of not being a great leader and not having your team align around what you really want to do. What are some of the problems if you don’t get that bit right?

**Sondra**: You know, I mean, there’s the obvious things, right? You’re not going to hit your targets. Things are going to take too long. They’re going to cost more than they should. All the measurable stuff. That’s pretty easy to see. Like, I lost money this quarter. I lost a customer. I’m not getting new customers. But then there’s these other things that are happening when you think about yourself not in the leadership position but yourself as somebody working for a leader. If a leader makes a promise to you, whether it’s explicit or implicit, and something happens to make you say, huh, I’m not quite sure they’re delivering on that promise, all of a sudden you bring a different lens to your experience and you’re trying to prove yourself right. So you’re looking for any little thing that that leader’s doing to prove that they are a promise breaker, that they are not to be trusted. And because we’re human beings, we don’t keep that to ourselves. We share that with other people. So now you have more people looking for any instance. And this is the stuff that’s really insidious that you don’t know about because no employee is ever going to tell you this. That’s just their secret, and it’s them against you at that point. And so when they’re called upon in a hard situation or they have a hard customer, if they were aligned to you, they would deal with that hard customer in the way you want them to. But in that moment, they might just say, you know, he doesn’t keep his promises to us. So why should I keep my promise to him? I’m not going to work as hard. I’m not going to deal with that difficult situation. And those are the more insidious problems that you don’t really see and know about. So I think there’s a list of obvious problems and a list of not so obvious.

**Greg**: It’s so true. I’m just thinking back to an experience I had when I was growing a really large construction company. And I talk about this in my book that we grew too fast and we started having problems. And one thing we noticed immediately is I had two sales guys that were absolutely fantastic. They were crushing it, selling ice to Eskimos. It was absolutely brilliant. And then, all of a sudden, we started having some problems in the business that weren’t related to the sales, but we had problems elsewhere. And I’ll talk about that in the book with, you know, customers not being satisfied. We were growing too quick. We were losing quality control. And something we noticed was actually the sales team completely fell off a cliff. They stopped performing. We weren’t selling. And it happened month after month after month. Now at the time, and even now, I was thinking back and thinking, oh, actually, is that because of the economic climate? Are we hitting a bit of a recession? But now, you know, we’re talking about this, and I’ve had more time to reflect on it. I think that they weren’t aligned around me as a leader because I wasn’t performing at my best, and I wasn’t delivering on my promises to my customers, and maybe they’d lost a bit of faith. And what’s really interesting is that we noticed it as something measurable, which you just spoke about, something quite obvious that the sales weren’t coming in. But actually, there was an HR consultant that we brought in, and she said, I think there’s something else going on here. And we never actually did get to the bottom of it because the business completely imploded and that business failed. And I’ll talk about that in my book and how we have to spoil it again. Yeah. But it’s really interesting, isn’t it? How, you know, I think what you’ve just said there, I’ve actually experienced that, and now when I think back and you talk about that, I can completely relate to those instances.

**Sondra**: Yeah. And, you know, as leaders, what we tend to do is say, if we don’t get this ship righted, we’re going to lose to the competition. You’re going to lose your job. The business is going to fail. And these are things that we feel deeply as the leader of the business, the one responsible for the financial health. And we’re hoping that’s going to be the thing that is going to spark people to all of a sudden work harder. But that’s not how they hear that message. They say, that’s all your job. That’s not my job. My job is selling. My job is building. My job is sheetrocking. My job is, you know, electrical, whatever it is. You get me set up to do the job. I’ll do the job. But that’s your that’s your failure. That’s not mine. And you’re just asking me to work harder to save your butt. I don’t trust you. Why would I save your butt?

**Greg**: Yeah, really, really interesting. Yeah. So we know some of the problems if you’re not aligned around your manager or your leader. So let’s talk about how we solve that then. So how do we make that transition? What sort of things should a business owner,

a business leader really be looking out for and monitoring?

**Sondra**: You know, it’s it’s kind of counterintuitive. So what you’ll notice, like I said, you’re not going to hear people talking about this. This is the private water cooler talk that the employees have amongst themselves. So you’re not going to be signaled clearly to it. You’re going to have to be thinking from a different point of view, which is if performance is suffering, what am I doing or not doing that’s contributing to that? And you’ll go through all the tick boxes of have I set clear goals? Have I provided all the tools necessary? Have I put all the processes and systems in place? And if it’s still not working, then really it is something about either you the leader or your project managers or your managers or, you know, whatever levels of management or supervisors that you might have inside your company. There’s something happening there that’s on a human level. And so that’s the first thing is ask that question. What could I be doing that would be causing this resistance and hesitation for people to do their job the best way that they know how? And that’s an introspective thing, right? To say, you’re not always self-aware, right? So, Tasha Eurich did a great big study a few years back. And in her study, it was said that 95 percent of us will claim from the rooftops, I am self-aware. I know what I am about. But it is actually only 15 percent of us that are actually self-aware, meaning we know the effect of our intention. And we may intend to be inspiring and motivating and, you know, picking people up. But the effect might actually be the opposite of what we’re intending to do. And again, nobody’s going to tell you this.

**Greg**: Yeah, so that’s really interesting. Then, so let’s imagine the majority of people listening to this are not self-aware. They think they are, but they’re not. They’re the 85 percent that are not. What do they do about that? How can you be introspective and look at yourself or your team with glasses that are not shaded?

**Sondra**: Yeah, you know, so one of the things that leaders carry around and managers carry around with themselves is that they’re stoic, right? They feel like they have to know the answers that if something bad is happening, they have to pretend that they were expecting it or pretend that they know how it’s going to all turn out because they figure that if they look shaken, then that’s going to worry the people who are actually looking to them for leadership and a cue for how they should behave. And it’s actually the opposite. You should never hide that stuff. Because the business is going to change all the time and people can see and they know they know if we’re about to go through something they know that the working conditions are crap. They know these things. So it’s not a big surprise to them. So this is the first thing is be willing to be who you are and show your actual reactions to people and say, look, this does worry me. I’m scared right now. And I know that I can’t fix this by myself. And I need to have this team of people with me and on my side. So number one. Number two. Ask yourself some different questions. The self-awareness thing, you know, people talk about it all the time. Be authentic, be vulnerable, be self-aware. What does it really mean? You don’t have to do some deep therapy exercise, you know, and figure out who am I and what’s my trauma and how do I heal things and all of that stuff. You just ask yourself some questions that you probably don’t ask yourself very often. If there were three things I could tell a child about living a fulfilled life, what would those three things be? That’s an indicator of what you would like your life to be. And you became a leader not just to have a smashing successful business. Of course, that’s part of it. But a leader is somebody who says to themselves, I want to create a different kind of life for myself, not just financially, but what does that financial freedom mean? It means that I work hard, but I’m actually living easier because I’m not answering to anybody. I’m working hard, but I also have much better times with my family and friends. I’m working hard and I have all this money, but I’m actually more at peace than I ever was working for somebody else. That’s what that’s what leaders, that’s why people take on the leadership role in creating a company. And so you want to get to what are those underneath reasons. What are those underneath reasons of why you created this business? Because that’s what is going to build the trust. That’s what’s going to connect people to you as a person. Circumstances change. You should never be changing. So if you’re able to share with your people every so often, yeah, we’re in here, you’re a smash, make a ton of money. But I’m also going to do this in a way that every person gets respected as a human being, gets listened to as a human being, is allowed to make their own choices as much as they possibly can. That’s the kind of business I want to run. I don’t want you going home complaining about this place to your family. I don’t want you going home exhausted and punished. I want you going home feeling good about not just the thing you’re building, but the experience that you had building it with people around you. So we can get a lot more specific if you want.

**Greg**: Yeah, so that’s interesting because when we think about why someone starts a business, it’s very personal, isn’t it? So, you know, it’s not just about the money, but the things that that money can do for them and the freedom it gives them. But that’s all very me, me, me, isn’t it? So what we’re saying here, and just to explore this a little bit further, is that you’ve got to align those reasons for you with also empowering your team. So just talk through that. Like, why would the team not just think, well, it’s just about you? It’s got to do with me. It’s just about your freedom.

**Sondra**: And this is one of those key learnings that I’ve had the opportunity to learn just because I’ve worked with so many different people around the world, is that there is not a human being on the planet that says, I’d rather work and live with a bunch of liars that I can’t trust than people that I can trust. Nobody says that. Nobody would prefer that. Nobody would prefer to walk around feeling unsupported, unprotected, unbelonging. Every human being would prefer to be supported, protected, and belonging to a group that is committed to my well-being as much as committed to your well-being. So we all have this commonality. Now, that stuff often gets shoved to the side because we have quarterly results. We have profit and loss sheets. We have positive and negative cash flow in our face all the time, and that gets our attention. And so the leader’s job is to really say, let me get past that because if I can get people following me, the person, because I’m providing a place where eight, 10, 12 hours a day, they are supported, they’re protected, they’re in a place where they belong, they’re in a place where they trust the people around themselves and the leader, that’s a really killer place to work. You know, that’s a place where I feel great there. And if I can create that, that’s the environment that I’m looking for. I hope that answers the question.

**Greg**: Yeah, so we’re talking about a few different things here, aren’t we? So if we’re going to support our team, show that we protect our team, that moves away a little bit from what our vision is for the business and what we’re trying to create for ourselves. So how do we then translate that into how do we support our staff and show that they’re protected? What are some practical things that we can do to demonstrate that?

**Sondra**: Yeah, super, super practical. And I’ll try to be as industry relevant as I can here. So you have your KPIs, right? You have your safety things, your attrition things, your revenue goals that you’re trying to hit, your timing, budget, whatever, all those things that you’re trying to hit. And they’re not all easy to hit, right? Some of them become incredibly difficult. If you haven’t sold enough, if you’ve lost a customer, if somebody goes out sick, you know, there’s all these reasons that things can become hard. And a great example is a leader that I talked to who was in a startup, and he was in about his series C funding. So he was around 150 people at the time. Things were super crazy, and people were starting to feel like, I don’t feel like I belong here anymore. I feel like I’m just a number now. Nobody knows who I really am. I’m just another software engineer with the other 70 software engineers. And so I was working with him and said, you know what occurs to me as we’re talking is that you really care about the people that work here. Not only them, you care about their families, and you care about the impact that working here has much beyond the ripple effect, right? Just beyond once they sign off or leave for the day, you care about what happens to them as humans. And he said, I really do. And it’s killing me to see my survey numbers. And people are not satisfied with me as a CEO. People are feeling the way that they’re feeling. I don’t want that happening on my watch. That’s not the person that I want to be. And I said, well, tell me about why that’s so important to you. Why is that such a why is that affecting you so much? And he told me a story about a kid when he was

in grade school. A kid named Josiah who was dirty, unkempt, he never had food to eat. And so he was the victim of bullying and teasing and taunting and all of this stuff. And he always just sort of took it. And this CEO, he watched it happen, but he didn’t feel he could do anything about it because he didn’t want that turned on himself. And this was when they were in grade school. And he said, by the end of that year, the kid was disappearing into himself. It was to the point where they would bully him, and he didn’t even react. So they stopped bullying him because he was no fun to bully anymore. Then you didn’t see him again for a bunch of years until they were in high school. And in high school, a whole bunch of new kids come in, right? You have different schools combining to make up a high school. And so this poor kid became the victim again of taunting and bullying. And people recalled from five years before, like, hey, go get Josiah because he’s a great target. And he said that one day he was rushing to get to school, and he was stopped. With a bunch of other kids, the principal was there and stopped them outside and didn’t let them in. And they could still see him and everybody was stone silent and he didn’t know what was going on. Nobody was even asking. They were just sort of, you know, trying to look and see what was happening. And there was yellow police tape around one of the lunch tables that he had eaten at the day before. And there was a tarp over it. And Josiah had overdosed on heroin earlier. He got to school early that morning to do this on the table at school. And it was a tremendous, obviously a tremendously impactful thing for him. And what he said that did to him was it said, I don’t ever want someone to feel left behind. I don’t want I don’t want anyone ever in my world of people to feel that they’re not seen. They’re not heard. They’re not worth it. And that’s why this is killing me that people are feeling anything close to that. Under my watch. That’s my responsibility. I signed up to do this. I promised them things that we were going to be successful, but it was going to be cool to work here and all that. And it’s not and so he stood up at one of the next all hands meetings that they had. And I said, you’re going to have to tell that story. People are going to have to see you as that person. And he’s like, no way. I cannot let people see that I am a human being. I have to just stick this out and I got to show that I’m strong. And I said, try it. I will guarantee you that I have never in the hundreds of leaders and managers that I have coached, when they tell a story that is true from their past, nobody ever laughs at them, throws rocks at them, you know, doesn’t believe them. It is never that reaction. And he grudgingly did it at that meeting, and he got an outpouring, literally of love from the people in the feedback. He got private emails. He had people coming up to him, looking at him finally as a different person, as a person, not just the CEO. Now, sharing of yourself is the first thing. The second thing is that you have to prove it. So he couldn’t then, the next day, make a decision that violated everything that he just said. He couldn’t take an action that showed that that didn’t happen. Now, as it happens, about six months later, he really, the company was still in financial trouble. There was some external industry stuff that happened that impacted them. They lost one of their biggest customers. And he was in the position with the board where the board said, you’re going to have to lay some people off. And he said, I absolutely will not do that. There’s no way I’m going to do that. And they all thought he was crazy. And he said, there’s another way to do this. There’s got to be another way to do this. It’s not that bad. And so we got creative with what can we do to rearrange things so that we don’t have to do it. And we cut out as much stuff as we could. And we were honest with the people who were there to say, look, this is the level of the financial trouble that we’re in. And what he did by taking that action, it’s the same as a, you know, customer who has a bad experience and the supplier fixes it, right? Like, you’re a customer for life. These people were with him for life. Many of them followed him to the next things that he did because no matter what it does, what no matter what it was, as hard it was going to be, as terrible as it would be, they didn’t care because they honored and trusted and had faith in that human being. And that is really what’s the word, like builds and builds and builds, right? So now people are talking about how great he is. They’re not talking about wait for him to make a mistake. Now they’re talking about how can I do more for him and for us? How can I protect this very special place that we have here? If the business is struggling, I’m going to go figure out how to do it. I’m going to go figure out what I can do differently to help. And this also, by the way, filters out to your customers because when your customers interact with your employees and your employees are just selling by the way that they’re talking and they are working so hard, your customers are employees somewhere and they know that they would never work that hard if they were being treated badly. They would only work that hard if the situation was really great. So those customers are going to be more likely, even if they’re not conscious of that decision, it’s a little bit of a marketing mindset there. Even if they’re not conscious of that decision, they’re going to choose you even if you cost more because the experience of working with your people was awesome and amazing.

**Greg**: I love that. It’s a long-winded answer.

**Sondra**: It’s an amazing story.

**Greg**: I want to go and work for that guy now. He sounds absolutely awesome. It reminds me of a book I read a while back, Zappos. Just a great, great story about how he looked after his people, and that could right through to a huge success with his customers too. So I’m just thinking about this now if people are listening to this Zappos, they obviously resonate with that story, but he was able to link something quite significant in his life to he didn’t want to leave anyone behind. But it’s not that easy for all of us to be able to find that story, is it, and be able to make those links out. So how do we do that? How do we, you know, in practical ways, think rather than it just being about me, and I want freedom for me and my family, and I want to bring my kids up the right way and give them the best experience. And that’s why I’m creating that business. How does that then translate into what I want to do for my staff? How do we get the link?

**Sondra**: Yeah, so, you know, the first part is often the hardest work and and coming to, you know, if there were three things that I could say were most important to me, what are they? And then looking for those opportunities for proof points. Now, a lot of times those will come when things are hard. Hard being a very broad word. We have to work more right now because we’re rushed up against a deadline. We’re choosing to not take a customer on or to take a customer on that might be an unexpected kind of a customer. Why are you doing that? How is that in line with what you’re trying to do for your people? Now, you can do a lot of the things also that are kind of policies for your company, whether it’s a time off policy, it’s a sick policy that you have, it’s helping when a family member is ill and somebody has to go take care of your family member. That’s an easy thing to link to. And I want it made known that I have this policy especially because this is who I am as a person. It’s not just because every other company has a policy. I’m not just trying to compete with every other company that’s out there. It might be because you’re sticking with a supplier that’s more expensive. It could be any little event that’s happening. All you have to do is make the connection. Just make that make the statement of here’s what’s important to me. And this is why we’re doing it because it’s connected to this. Not only is it going to help us financially, but it’s also because it’s connected to this principle that I hold so dear to who I am and what I’m trying to create here with you. Does that help? Is that specific enough?

**Greg**: Yeah, makes complete sense. Yeah, get that completely. So let’s imagine now someone has done the deep work. They’ve worked out what they’re doing. They’ve linked it to their how they’re going to treat their employees. How do you then get that across to them? Is it that you have a big company meeting and say, right, this is all about, this is why I’m passionate about this business, and these are the steps I’m taking? Is that a good idea, or is it just good to roll things out slowly or for people just to work it out themselves? How do you get this across?

**Sondra**: I’m all for being direct. And I’m all for saying that, you know, at this company, here’s the things that we care about. I can’t make this world by myself. I need your help. I need your help to do this. And no one’s going to think you’re

insane for the things you’re asking for because you’re asking for things that all human beings want. Nobody wants to be in a place where people get left behind, right? Everyone wants to be in that kind of environment. So I do recommend. You could almost, you know, just have like a, let’s rip the bandaid off kind of a session and say, I want to acknowledge that things are not going the way that I want them to, expect them to, and I’m not happy with the way things are going here. And it’s happened under my watch. I’m not okay with that. Here’s what I’m aiming for. We’re not going to get there tomorrow. There’s a lot of things that we’re going to have to do, but here’s what I’m aiming for. And do that with a little bit of a plan so that you can say, you know, in 30 days, I’m going to fix the problem. And I’m going to come back, and I’m going to ask for the next problem to fix. And I’m going to fix that problem. So you have to, if you’re, especially if you’re in a place where you’re behind the eight ball, you really have to put some focused attention on it. And there’s lots of other cool things that I’ve seen people do in different environments. You know, they’ve had, they’ve had these words that are so important, no one left behind. It’ll become a phrase or the name of a conference room, or it will become, you know, artwork throughout the building rather than the artwork that says, do more, work harder, time is money, you know, all these typical productivity things that we would see hanging around. You can give people t-shirts about it, you know, whatever. But I say, sing it from the rooftops, and, you know, be able to have the courage to say, I’m always going to think about this and the business. They’re going to become how, they’re going to become one thing about how we are leading this business together.

**Greg**: Yeah, I love that. That’s really good. And it’s just sort of highlighting the importance of that company culture and and that filtering through to everyone. So, you know, in an ideal world, you’re starting a brand new business, and you get all this in place first, and then you start recruiting based on this company culture. But the reality is, let’s say you’ve had your aha moment, and you think, right, I’ve got to do this now. And you start putting this work in, and you’re the leader. But underneath you, you may have other leaders. You might have project managers that are looking after things. There’s going to be some people that maybe don’t quite buy into your vision, or that’s the difficulty, isn’t it? That you’ve got people that aren’t quite aligned. So I guess answering my own question here, but what do you recommend to do with that if you’ve got people that aren’t going along with you in your vision and they are leaders? Can they be trained? Is it that, you know, people can’t be trained in personality like that and they have to be let go? What’s your thoughts on that?

**Sondra**: I think so. I think there’s two things. Number one, talk to your project managers first and get them on board with you that this is what I’m going to do. And, you know, this is a new expectation for you. I don’t expect you to be able to do it right away because this took me a while. This took me a while to have the courage to stand up here and tell this story and lead in a completely different way and show up as a completely different person theoretically to all the people that were leading. So get them on board first. Second thing would be do your best to figure out who the sources of truth are in your employee population. So when I, as an employee, have a question, I typically don’t go to my manager. I go to the person that knows everything who is like the executive assistant who knows everything or, you know, the person who’s been here the longest. And so you want to find those people within the employee population and get them on board. Also, make them an insider to what it is that you’re trying to do. And even if they’re a negative person, bring them around and say, you’re super influential here. What you say, people believe. What you do, people copy. I need to get you on board with this. How can we do that? And then it is very hard once you have done those things that if you have managers also doing the same thing, sharing a little bit of themselves because they’re who the people interact with every day. The trust in you as a leader is important, but if you have a bad day, people are like, I guess maybe he had a bad day. I heard something about it. But usually, if your direct manager has a bad day, you feel it. You feel that because they are in a bad mood, they are barking orders or they withdraw or whatever. So get managers also doing the same thing. And it is very difficult then. Humans and groups. Their first priority is to survive as a member in that group. And so if everybody else is going along with the program, it’s pretty hard for one person to be a stickler. Now, if somebody is going to keep being a stickler, then you are going to make it some formal expectation that says, look, you’re continuing to piss off customers, you’re continuing to call in sick when you’re not sick, you’re taking advantage of a system. I understand you’re doing that for your own personal reasons. And if it continues for X amount of time, we’re going to have to have a different kind of conversation.

**Greg**: Just goes to, you know, straight kind of performance management.

**Sondra**: Really, really valuable.

**Greg**: So I guess thinking about when we’re hiring then and bringing new hires on, I presume that you would recommend having these sort of conversations in the hiring process too, just to make sure people are aligned.

**Sondra**: You know, for managers especially because managers typically are not trained in any way, shape, or form on what’s, you know, the best way. They just sort of develop their own way. Some of it works, some of it doesn’t work. When they land new, they just look around and see what’s everybody else doing. And depending on their need for power or whatever, they’ll exercise and flex what it is that they want to do, or they’ll sit back and watch. So for managers especially, the expectation that you’re joining a place where your role is critical, your role is critical to creating and supporting these words of this environment. This is an environment of no one left behind. And here’s how you’re expected to do that because it’s a promise we make to our employees. And so you can at least set the expectation really hard to interview for. Have you ever done that in the past? Because they probably haven’t at any other workplace, maybe in some personal situations. Maybe if they coached a youth sports team, that has come through, or maybe even in their family. But you can’t talk to them about that. So you’re going to talk to them about other professional experiences that they’ve had. But you can at least set that expectation and then put in place a way for them to be successful with it. So when they get onboarded, their manager is giving them the speech, the speech about Josiah. And that’s why this is so important to me. And here’s how I implement that. And so we’re going to work with you to train you on how to do this. And then employees, you know, you’re going to sell that this is a selling point. This is a differentiator for your organization. That you ultimately, you get to be who you are here. You don’t have to suit up and put on your mask and put in your eight and punch in and punch out and go home tired. You’re going to go home happy because you had consistently one of the most amazing work experiences ever with a bunch of people who are building something more than whatever it is. You’re building houses, buildings, stadiums.

**Greg**: Yeah. Fantastic. Really interesting, Sondra. And I think just the whole conversation around, you know, if you could do that, be that inspiring leader that then motivates everyone, and everyone’s coming in every day working in a company that they’re happy at, that they’re inspired to work at, and they’re driving around your vision and moving all towards the same goal. You know, what a beautiful environment and workplace to be in. And you just know that that’s going to have great success commercially in the market. So really interesting conversation. If anyone wanted to learn a little bit more about what you teach, Sondra, how would they be able to follow you or get hold of some of the resources that you have?

**Sondra**: Yeah, yeah. So we’ll send out a link because I think one of the hardest part is one of the questions that I ask and how do I think about myself and my own brain. It can really be confusing and messy to get to a conclusion. So this will be available for download, which is a list of, I don’t know, eight questions or something, and it kind of has a formula for how you talk about the things that you discover. And so if they go there, then they’ll be able to get in touch with me and we could talk about any other things that are interesting to you to help solve problems that you have at the leadership and management level. I would add, Greg, like, make no mistake, you can’t just do this stuff and then be a crappy business manager. You also have to have your business management stuff, your operational capabilities. You’ve got to have that sewn up too. This will only get you so far. If at the end of the day, nothing works. That would just be, you know, the snake oil salesman.

**Greg**: Yeah.

Get that completely. That’s awesome. So what we’re going to do for anyone listening is we’re going to put that link that Sondra’s mentioned there in the show notes. You know, make sure you go and download that. And yeah, that I think that’s going to be really useful for everyone to ask those questions about themselves and see where that leads. So once again, Sondra, thanks so much for coming on today. I really appreciate your time.

**Sondra**: Super. We catch up again soon. All the best.