Executive Podcast #305: Do You Practice Generous Inclusion?

Perry Holley:
Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership executive podcast, where our goal is to help you increase your reputation as a leader, increase your ability to influence others, and increase your ability to fully engage your team to deliver remarkable results. Hi, I’m Perry Holley, a Maxwell leadership facilitator and coach.

Chris Goede:
And I’m Chris Goede, executive vice president with Maxwell Leadership. Welcome and thank you for joining. As we get started today, if you have a question, a topic for us, or you want us to build something out and have a conversation about, man, something you’re struggling with in regards to leading yourself, leading teams, I want to encourage you. Go to maxwellleadership.com/podcast. Click on this podcast, you’ll be able to fill out a form, and we’ll make sure that we get in touch with you right away. Well, today’s topic is, do you practice generous inclusion?

Perry Holley:
Yes.

Chris Goede:
And I love this. And what I even love more about this is that we get the opportunity to share what we’re doing with our teams.

Perry Holley:
We are actually learning this right now.

Chris Goede:
And this is something we try to john and mark that, live out leadership. Are we really living this stuff out? And Perry and I try to do that. And so we’re right now going through with our team John’s brand new book, High Road Leadership, and we’re going chapter by chapter. We have a team meeting every Monday, and so one of us will take eight to ten minutes, and we’ll just give their takeaways of that particular chapter that week. Everybody else will kind of jump in and say, man, this really stuck out at me. You shared last week that made a lot of people gave take notes and impact on some of your takeaways. And so that is where this topic is coming from. It’s coming from chapter five of that book.

Chris Goede:
I’d encourage you to get the book. It is. It is an awesome book. And so that chapter is titled give more than you take, which allowed Perry to come up with, do you practice generous inclusion? Yeah.

Perry Holley:
And it’s a. I think the team, by the way, is really enjoying the study of the book. We kind of shifted from something else we did to kick off our meetings that didn’t give you a takeaway. It was interesting and it was fun, and it helped maybe more relationally, but this is also relational, is that we. You’re actually 100%. What did you take? I mean, you shared something last week you were very passionate about. Hey, this really hit me. And I said, well, now I know more about you.

Perry Holley:
So I think it’s a great way.

Chris Goede:
To do a meeting that is great. Yeah, I love that idea.

Perry Holley:
In chapter five, John says, and I’ll just read this, he said, you won’t give to someone who you don’t see as an individual person if you don’t see them as a person, as someone of value. So if you don’t see someone of value, you’re not going to give to them. This goes back to the need to value all people. If you want to be a high road leader, it requires being intentional. And this idea, we talk about inclusive leadership. We have a course on inclusive leadership, about how leaders can be more inclusive of their people, on their team to drive higher engagement and better results. But this, this idea of generous inclusion was something John picked up on from. I’ll let you tell more about that, about where, where he, where he got that.

Chris Goede:
Yeah. For him, kind of this term and where he wanted to really dive in on this chapter was that he said, it reminds that, you know, he often will say, and I. And this stands out to me because I’ve had the opportunity to work with John for a long time, and never from long time ago, years and years ago, would he say, you know, hey, Chris works for me. It’s always like, hey, we work together. Chris works with me. And so he continually looks for opportunities that he could give me and others the opportunity to grow, to develop, to rise, to be bigger and better things. And that is because we’re on this journey together. And so that’s a reminder for him to always think about that fact of where he’s including others.

Chris Goede:
And this is really where it’s coming from. And so I think if you’re any type of leader, you have a role in any type of leadership, you gotta carry that same responsibility where when people are under your leadership, there are some things that they will never get to experience unless it’s through your leadership. And you gotta wear that weight. You gotta think about that. And when you keep that top of mind, it’ll allow you to be generous in the way that you’re leading them.

Perry Holley:
John, he’s very open in the book that he got inspired by an author named Marilyn Gist in a book called the Extraordinary Power of Leader, humility. And we talk a lot about the power of humility and the importance of it, but Marilyn just suggests that leaders make people feel seen and valued by treating them as partners in the work. And I thought, this is so speaking into what we talk about, inclusive leader. And so she outlines an idea on generous inclusion and explains that inclusion means inviting people to be a part of the real action of what’s going on and talk about what this looks like. We’ll go through four or five ideas here, but I thought maybe I’d present, you know, one half of it about what it is to be a generous leader. And then I know I just found for myself it’s tempting. It’s tempting to do something quite opposite some of these things. Yeah, I do that.

Perry Holley:
It’s. Yeah. But when things get fast and furious and, you know, results are flying one way or another, I said it’s tempting to do something else. So I just thought the first thing that that was brought up was that generous inclusion. We need to encourage people to share ideas and feelings on the important issues that we’re dealing with. Do you invite people to share their ideas and feelings with important issues? Sounds pretty.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Perry Holley:
Do you do that?

Chris Goede:
Your standpoint, a phrase you guys have heard on here a lot from Paris. I got a point of view. Right. Well, by the way, so does everybody on your team. Everybody has a point of view. And so, as a leader, when we’re thinking about including the team, allowing them to be on that journey, not sitting on the sidelines, like, we have to allow time for people to share their ideas and their feelings on the certain issues, whether it’s about the organization or whether it’s specifically about the team, or maybe even their work environment. And so, you know, the limiting side of this.

Perry Holley:
What are you tempted?

Chris Goede:
Because, listen, there’s no doubt that if we’re not intentional, let’s go back to a leadership board here. The temptation happens often, and you just kind of default to that. I’ll give you example. I can be tempted to limit the participation to a very minor discussion and very routine matters. Where I went on this real quick was the minor discussions, because you know what? I’m like, I don’t have time for this. I gotta shorten this meeting. You don’t even like to come to meetings anyways. No.

Chris Goede:
If I keep them over, I’m in trouble and I start telling people, want to work, we’re gonna give you some of your time back. We can get some time. And you begin to tell yourself the story and you go, man, it’s really easy to do that versus to really open up and say, man, tell me where you’re at. Now. You got to create environment, all kinds of around that. But 100%, I can be tempted to go the other way.

Perry Holley:
So if you want to be a generously inclusive, you need to. And this is about your power dynamic. But notice when your power may cause others to defer to you unnecessarily and encourage them. You need to encourage them to contribute. So you need to notice. It’s the old power dynamic, is that people look at you and say, well, I would never. I’ll just shy away from saying anything. I’m going to defer to you.

Perry Holley:
You’re the boss. You know, more, you’ve been here longer, that sort of thing. And I thought, well, I want to be generously inclusive. I don’t want my title to get in the way of a great exchange of collaboration.

Chris Goede:
And your title will depend on your title. It’ll shut that. It’ll shut people down in a minute. But also, just remember your reputation. Sometimes your title, depending on your reputation, will walk in the room before you do, in the meeting before you do. So there’s lots of things that. That go into this, but here’s how you can overcome this, right? So how do you minimize this? And it is just, we all have a point of view, and we always want to share our ideas, especially as leaders. Right? We got.

Chris Goede:
We got these answers. You got to really, really, really make sure that you do not speak first, that you are listening first. And we’ve shared some little learned behaviors. You can put initials at the top of your paper and this and that.

Perry Holley:
W a I t. Why am I talking?

Chris Goede:
Yes. And you may have a good reason to answer that, but the rest of the team may not. And so you got to make sure that you minimize that and you model that, because you can be very tempted to. Perry’s point, the other side of this view is you can assume that there are others in the room that have nothing to offer or nothing to say, and that your idea, your solution, or your point of view is the only one that people need to hear that day. And that’s not the case.

Perry Holley:
And I’m just, you know, maybe we should say this at the top about what is inclusion or an inclusive leader, is that when people on the team, we said that, they. They feel welcome, they feel valued, they feel safe, they feel like they belong. And belonging is an innate human condition. We all want to feel like we belong, not trying to fit in. Meaning, be what you want me to be. I want to belong, that I can be who I am. And so by some of these things that we’re talking about is unleashing their ability to be who they are and that I’m not trying to squash you and think that you don’t have something to offer, that I want my power out of the way. I think it was John years ago, it’s a word picture I use often when I’m speaking is that.

Perry Holley:
And when I was an executive, when I entered the room, it seemed like it felt like there’s a box in the middle and I’m going to walk in and I step up and by default, everyone else steps back. And the metaphor that I try to use in our coaching with leaders is, why not try it the other way? When you walk in the room, step back and insist that others step up. And like you said, I definitely have a point of view. But I want to hear yours first. If I share mine first, yours starts to sound a lot like mine. So I want to hear what you think. I care what you think. I’m bringing you.

Perry Holley:
Like you said earlier, I’m bringing you into meaningful issues, not just non meaning. I need we’re looking at strategy. What do you think? How should we do this? Getting people to buy into that.

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Perry Holley:
Another component of this generous inclusion is to examine your attitude toward diversity of all kinds. And this to me, when we talk about inclusive leader, including people that are different from you, and how do you handle differences? It’s easy to get along with people that are like me because I like me. I like being around people like me. That’s the like me bias, and we all kind of can fall into that. A really inclusive leader and a generously inclusive leader examines attitudes towards people that are different from them. Could be different in ages, could be difference in nationalities, could be difference in backgrounds. Could be difference in ideas. Diversity comes in a lot of flavors.

Perry Holley:
And so how do you handle that?

Chris Goede:
For me, I think you got to go leading with questions. I always want to be very curious about the differences that are on my team. I want to have different perspectives. I want to understand where they coming from. Why do they think like that? There’s something that has been part of their development, that whatever it is, led them to that point of view. Well, unless I’m asking questions and really being curious about how they got there, then I’m not really respecting and. Or dealing with the differences. Um, and I’m not learning.

Chris Goede:
And. And for our, you know, for us to share with you today is we want you to be an avid learner. This is just part of that, to be able to do that, because the easy way out or the. The way you’re going to be tempted is. Is just the. Allow the biases to result in the excluding certain types of people and of differences on the team. And that 100% is not healthy for that team because you won’t have the proper conversations, the proper tension, all that proper thought process. And so we got to really fight ourselves against allowing that differences to be present.

Perry Holley:
Yeah, great word. Just being comfortable with difference, but valuing the difference.

Chris Goede:
Yeah, that’s great.

Perry Holley:
I remember when we first got into studying inclusive leadership to write the course saying that. And I had. I’ve been in organizations where I’ve taught diversity and inclusion and all these things and going. Never occurred to me that if you don’t value the diverse differences of people, they will not feel safe, they will not feel like they belong, they will not feel included. They will assimilate to be like you and you lose 100% of the diverse. The value of diversity that you had, diversity of thought, diversity of background. Wouldn’t you like to know what other thoughts are out there besides your own?

Chris Goede:
Yes.

Perry Holley:
Yeah. But you just squashed everybody by making them be like you because of your bias toward. I can’t. I can’t deal with your difference. Just line up and be like me.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Perry Holley:
No, it’s destroying. Another way to be generously inclusive is listening deeply when others present views that seem unfamiliar or uncomfortable. And this is a real challenge for a lot of leaders. When somebody says something that is uncomfortable for you to hear, especially if you’re the leader and a title leader, if you have any power dynamic we mentioned earlier, you start to push back on that. You don’t listen deeply. I’ve really tried to hone the skill of saying, hmm, tell me more. And that’s one of my go to statements. Tell me more.

Perry Holley:
And it helps me to process, but I also. I’m going to listen deeply. I hope deeply.

Chris Goede:
As a leader. One of the greatest compliments you can get is that anytime I feel like I’m talking to you, I feel like our conversation is the most important thing that’s happening right now. That’s hard to do. We got a lot of distractions, so we need to remove the distractions. Do I need to come into so and so’s office? Do I need to leave my phone in my office? Do I need to make sure that the phones are whatever it is? There are what I would call kind of learn behaviors and things you can do intentionally to help you listen a little better. We all need help at being able to listen at a deeper level. We all check out, right? We all go to a place really quick, and. And then we’re like, are they done yet? Like, can I start talking? Because that.

Chris Goede:
That’s what it is. We. The opposite of that. And how you can be tempted is. Is that, man, that’s. That’s Perry’s point of view. Um, I don’t really care about his opinion. I’m going to cut him off because I.

Chris Goede:
Whatever. And so you got to be able to do that. My. It’s funny. I’ll just share a personal story, even just last night from our recording, my wife, Sarah, who I’ve told you guys, is a strong leader. She called me out for cutting her off, and I was cutting her off because either I thought I knew where the story was going, I didn’t have time to listen to the rest of the story, or I didn’t really want to know her opinion of the story. Right. And so we had a nice, healthy conversation that allowed me to prepare to be here today.

Chris Goede:
But. So. But I wasn’t in. I wasn’t listening deeply. I. She definitely didn’t feel like she. And the conversation was the only thing going on. Well, by the way, your people, your team feel that, as well.

Chris Goede:
And in that example right there, it’s a. It’s a silly, personal example, but. But I wasn’t allowing her thought process to be included in where the conversation was going. And that’s what we’re trying to say. How do you get to a point where you’re listening to where Perry and I’m listening to him feels like, man, his point of view, his. His thought process, what he’s communicating. I’m actually including that in what I’m thinking and where we might go as a team. And so you could really get into that a little bit deeper.

Chris Goede:
I didn’t mean to share the story. Just came to my mind. I was like, well, let me just tell you, got in trouble last night. That often happens. I could come in here, every podcast there got in trouble.

Perry Holley:
I feel bad for you because you’re the only guy that’s ever happened to.

Chris Goede:
Yeah, that’s right. Yes. There are three of us in this room, and I promise you, we’re batting a thousand.

Perry Holley:
I thought I heard amen from the control panel over there. And he’s the youngest married of all.

Chris Goede:
That’s right. That’s right.

Perry Holley:
Anyway, I’ve been trying to catch myself on. Listen, when I saw listening deeply, I could not be accused of that very often, and I want to be accused of that more. And like you said, you can tell.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Perry Holley:
You can tell when people are not distracted and they’re into what you’re saying and they’re not trying to interrupt you, they’re letting you finish, and they want to hear what you think, and they’re actually. Tell me more. They’re. They’re. They’re interested in you, you know, you’re saying. So, yeah. The final idea of being generously inclusive. And I smile when I wrote this down, but it said, present an emotionally welcoming demeanor.

Perry Holley:
What in the heck does that even mean?

Chris Goede:
I need you to tell me first.

Perry Holley:
Emotionally welcoming demeanor. You know, I teach a lesson called mind your face. And it really, to me is when people. Well, what do you think? That’s where my brain went. Is that when you’re approaching people, do they, are you welcoming? You know, what are the emotions? Happiness. That’s right. You know, joy, encouragement. Are you presenting these types of things?

Chris Goede:
Yeah. Emotional intelligence. Right. Is a really big word, and you can break it down into all types of awareness. And one of them is no doubt about the fact of the social part of awareness. And when we think about that, it’s like, socially, how are we aware of what’s going on around us? And I go back to. And we’ve mentioned this before, your airport exercise. Right.

Chris Goede:
You intentionally present a emotionally welcoming demeanor to try to get people to engage. To engage. Right. Because. And so if we take that into our workplace, our teams, you got to make sure that if you want, you know, to include all people, all thoughts, you got to welcome it. You have to get to a point where you are putting off a welcoming spirit that people. Or that’s where I go.

Perry Holley:
Because I coach a guy, it’s been several months ago, but he said, I think my boss hates me. I go, why would your boss hate you? Well, he’s just always so. He’s so serious. And so I think he just looks angry. I go, what happened to coach his boss? And I couldn’t divulge confidence, but I said, how do you feel about your team? How’s that going? Oh, I just love my team. They’re all, great. I go, okay, we have a disconnect. And that’s why I say, mind your face, is that you can come across as being stern and demanding and harsh and cold.

Perry Holley:
Unless, and I’ve been told this, you’re a different person, Perry, when you smile. I am, 100%. And we all are.

Chris Goede:
We all are.

Perry Holley:
So smile more and be emotionally welcoming to people so that they know that, hey, I know we got a hard job. It’s a tough quarter. We’re behind on that. But I love you, and I need you, and I’m on your side. I’m for you and that type of thing.

Chris Goede:
Instead of continually acting like you’re busy or you’re just interested or you don’t want to interact with everybody else. Some of us, it’s easier than others. Introvert, you know, extrovert. And, you know, I was listening to a podcast this morning, and on my way in, and they were just talking about the fact that how we naturally go to one or the other, we need energy from the other. And. And so, man, just become aware of that and where you might need to pick up some energy in order to be welcoming. So, as we wrap up today, an interesting topic, right? An interesting title that you brought to us. I love this.

Chris Goede:
This generous inclusion based off of some content that got you thinking down, uh, the road on. On John’s high road leadership book. By the way, highly recommend that you pick up that book and then even whether it’s this podcast and some of these things that we talked about and challenge each other on your team, where you at, which way do you lean, or even the book study? Like, we are getting to Perry’s point, a lot out of it. I would encourage you use the podcast, use a book, start somewhere where you are including the team in those conversations, and then kind of go through this and look at it and say, hey, man, I don’t need to come in and tell people what. What really is going on here in the chapter. I don’t want to be the power dynamics and shut the room down. I do need to hear from them. Remember, as a leader, sometimes you need to be a really good facilitator, and that is bringing the best out of those that are around you.

Chris Goede:
And I think, really, what Perry’s walked us through here today is that the only way to do that is to be a generous includer of people, of thoughts, of conversations. And the more I process a lot while I am talking. This is a deep topic that, as leaders, we could really, really unpack. So I would encourage you go back, take notes, share this with your team, and if you’re up for it, maybe even ask your team where they feel you lean on one side or the other on some of these illustrations.

Perry Holley:
Good stuff. Well, I’ve never met a leader once it said, you, think I’m going to exclude my team today? No. We all want to be inclusive, but that’s hard enough. But being generously inclusive, that’s what got me going on that topic. So if you want more on this topic, you want the Learner guide, you can get that, as well as other information about our offerings or other podcasts that are available. You can do all that at maxwellleadership.com/podcast. You can also leave us a comment or a question. We love hearing from you, and we’re very grateful you join us today.

Perry Holley:
That’s all from the Maxwell Leadership executive podcast.

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