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Hello, my friend, and welcome to another exciting episode of Negotiate Anything.
Thanks for joining us today.
With over 10 million downloads and listeners from more than 180 different countries, it's dedicated listeners just like you who have made Negotiate Anything the number one negotiation podcast in the world.
I'm your host, Kwame Christian.
I'm a business lawyer, mediator, author, and the proud CEO of the American Negotiation Institute.
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And now, without further ado, let's jump into the interview.
Anna, thanks for joining us today.
Oh, it's my pleasure to be here with you, Kwame.
Yeah, it's our pleasure to have you, my friend.
So, how would you get us started by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do?
Yeah, perfect. So, I am the CEO of Transformational Leadership, Inc.
It's an organization that is a leadership development company that I started about 10 years ago.
And my work is really to help the world have more transformational leaders, so we can all be deeply connected to ourselves, to the people around us, and do our best work.
And that's really, you know, that's kind of really my intention for the work that I do.
And then part of that, I was in corporate America at sea level roles for 20 years.
And so, I was with Procter & Gamble and Novartis, and I also serve on the board of a publicly -traded company.
Fantastic, well, great.
And, you know, I appreciate your humility here, but you are a two -time author.
Can you tell the audience about that too?
Yeah, yeah, so I'm the author of my latest book is called Wired for Disruption.
And it's about the five shifts in agility we all need to make in order to thrive in times of disruption, not just survive, but thrive in times of disruption.
And my prior book is called Wired for Authenticity, and it's about the seven practices of authentic leaders.
And I think both of those, boy, with this pandemic, both of those are topics that are so needed in today's world.
Absolutely, and so since Wired for Disruption is the book that was most recently published, let's focus the conversation more so on that.
But I know that the authentic aspect of leadership will inevitably come up throughout this conversation.
And so, when you think about the skills that are needed in leadership today that are unique when compared to the past, what are the things that come to mind for you?
Yeah, so I think, look, the way in which we lead needs to change because the world we are leading in has changed so dramatically.
And what that requires is for each of us to rethink our assumptions of what it means to be a leader.
Historically, people higher up in the hierarchy or people who have people reporting to them are usually the ones that we think of as leaders.
But in my view, in today's world, we need every single person to think of themselves as being a leader.
So that's the first distinction that I will draw, Kwame, because so many of our hidden assumptions are people who manage people are leaders or people who are higher up at the hierarchy of leaders.
And I would say we need every single human being to believe that they are leaders because the first and foremost task, particularly in times of disruption that we need is to lead ourselves.
And so I'll stop there and see if you want, if you want to talk a little bit about that or if you want me to keep going.
Yeah, we need to talk about that.
I think that's really powerful, really important.
And so let's dig deeper into this idea of everybody in an organization being a leader.
Let's say that's a new concept for some people.
Some people might be afraid of that because it might seem chaotic.
Other people might be afraid of that because it might mean that they might see it as a threat to their own leadership or their own control.
And so let's dig a little bit deeper into what you mean by that and the possible benefits.
Hmm, great, great. So in the book, Wired for Disruption, I talk about the five shifts in agility we need to make.
And the first and probably the most central shift is what I call neuroemotional agility.
And it's our ability to manage our own being, our own mind -body state when we're faced with disruption.
As you know, these last couple of years, we're all in various forms faced with disruption, whether it's changes in our job situations, changes in personal health, loved ones, the changes that are happening for them.
What happens in the human body is that whenever we're faced with change that is not anticipated, or we get into a situation where we don't feel like we have control, our mind -body states go into a state of threat.
And when we go into that state of threat, we can't think clearly, we feel burnout, we try to control our other's behaviors, we get into really difficult emotions, right?
So regardless of what disruption that we're faced with, our first and most important responsibility is the responsibility to manage ourselves and our inner state of being, because all of our behavior comes from our inner state of being.
And in this instance, the point around neuroemotional agility I'm talking about is to take ourselves from a state of threat to a state of calm and trust.
Because we know that teams that have trust are actually nine times more agile and able to respond to disruption than teams that aren't.
We also know that leaders who are in these calmer and more trusting states can create psychological safety so that we can have the kinds of difficult conversations that need to be had, because there is so much change that our environment is asking of us.
We need to reimagine what a brighter future can look like.
And so I think that's probably the most important piece that I would say is the job of a leader is to start to manage their own state of being.
Yeah, I really like what you said about getting to a place of calm and a place of trust.
And when you think about trust, I think it becomes easier for us to trust ourselves when we have taken the time to become calmer in the middle of all of these disruptions that we're experiencing.
And so it's not just trusting each other, but also trusting ourselves, trusting our mental state and also our skillset that we have what it takes to be successful, even though things might be changing rapidly around us.
Yeah, and I think, so the rapid change around us, the fact that the future is less predictable than we had experienced in the past, this requires us to learn from and get more perspectives, right, than what we knew before.
When the future is really predictable, right, and then you really just need to read a manual and follow the manual, and the future now is less predictable, right?
So hybrid work is coming around.
And who knows what the perfect hybrid work situation is going to be for any given organization or team.
And that's where when we find ourselves centered and we want to create psychological safety and trust for people, then we can feel like we can be open to other people's opinions.
I want to actually share some fantastic research.
I'm an executive coach, and I work with C -level leaders across Fortune 500 companies.
And one of the things that has been probably the most asked for, needed resource, from many of the people that I coach, many of the senior leaders is, how do I get my people to change?
Because I need to get them to be more agile in this situation.
And a lot of times I find that they're either fearful or stuck or frozen or burnt out.
And what we're all kind of collectively recognizing is not only are we these people who show up to work, we're also human beings.
And as human beings, we're fragile, right?
Our emotional states are fragile because of everything that we've encountered.
And so as leaders, one of this fascinating piece of research is actually from a gentleman by the name of Dr.
Richard Bojaxes. He's written a fantastic book called Helping People Change.
He is a 30 -year researcher in neuroscience, and his research shows that our brains operate in either what he calls the analytic neural network, which is a much more task -focused network in our brain, or in a empathic neural network, which is a part of our brain that is much more focused in relationships.
It's focused on a place where we are much more feeling the emotions of ourselves and others in a positive way.
And so what his research has shown through lots of fMRI studies and brain scans is these two networks actually operate in a seesaw.
So you're either in the problem -solving analytic network of your brain, or in the empathic neural network of your brain.
And guess where most of us, particularly when we're confronted with problems, we're mostly in our analytic neural network.
We're trying to solve a problem, we're trying to complete a task, we're feeling stressed out, we're trying to focus on something that is very task -oriented.
His research has shown that the best way for us to help people change is actually in this other network, is when we can get ourselves into the empathic neural network, when we can slow ourselves down enough to really connect, to really listen deeply to others, because that's when they feel safe enough.
And that's my job, obviously, right?
As a coach, and I think more and more deep listening is what is one of the skills that is gonna be required of leaders.
So part of this neuro -emotional agility that I talk about is not just moving ourselves from one state to the other, but as we move ourselves, because we have mirror neurons as human beings in our brains, these mirror neurons are basically where we mimic each other's behavior, as a leader shifts themselves
from one state to the other to a much more empathic state where they're listening deeply and truly curious about other people's perspectives, it allows the other people and their nervous systems to calm down so they can feel safer, so they can express themselves more fully, and we can get the best ideas
from teams and people.
Okay, this is great, and for the listeners, you already know this, I'm a psychology nerd, so I love everything that you're saying.
And now here's the thing, so what you're saying makes complete sense, it's backed by research, and I can hear some leaders listening to this podcast saying, oh, this is so annoying because it sounds like Anna is telling me I'm gonna need to take more time, and time is exactly what I don't have.
So for those really busy leaders who just felt a wave of anxiety as you describe what is required of them to be effective in this situation, how can you help them to overcome that belief that investing in time isn't worth the effort?
Hello, my friends. Before we get back to today's episode, I wanna ask you a question.
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Yeah, that is such a great question.
Obviously Kwame, you know your readers, listeners who hear, and I also, look, I am a former recovering corporate executive.
Not so recovering, I guess.
So I get it, right?
I spent 20 years and it's, you know, you show up and it's the task list, right?
Here's my list of 20 things I gotta get done today and going from one meeting to another without having the ability to take a breath.
So I get it. I get that there's a ton of pressure to perform and there's a ton of pressure to adjust our plans to a future that we don't know is what's gonna happen.
And that creates, to your point Kwame, a lot of anxiety.
And what I recommend to my executive coaching clients is when you feel that anxiety or that pressure.
And this is actually from my first book, Wired For Authenticity.
When you feel that pressure and anxiety, you're actually in this other part of your brain where you're not able to be the most creative, where you're not able to be the most collaborative because you're operating in a fear or threat state.
And that's the time to actually do what feels counterintuitive in terms of, you know, you wanna run faster and there is no amount of running faster, believe me, from personal experience.
There's no amount of running faster that will get you there.
And what a wise person once told me is actually that's the time to slow down, to just breathe, to get yourself into a different mind -body state.
I'm a huge fan of mindfulness.
I actually have a course on LinkedIn Learning that's been taken by over half a million people, which is called Mindfulness Practices at Work.
And it's about being able to breathe and get yourself out of that state of anxiety because nothing good happens from a state of anxiety, you know, as leaders, right?
We know that that stuff is infectious, right?
So now you have an entire team that is anxious and no good work is getting done.
So if your end goal is results, and you know that you're the mindset shift we know that we need to make particularly in times of disruption is that we get our results, not through our individual work, but through the work of a lot of people because the problems that we're trying to solve, Kwame Nao,
are unique, whether it's trying to figure out how am I going to deal with this pandemic?
No one individual institution, company, country is going to solve it.
I need to really connect with lots of different perspectives and collaborate with a lot more people.
Climate change is another collective problem that we're all trying to figure out how to solve, and no individual, one individual is gonna do it on their own.
And so this requires us to become masters.
Whether we're actually leading people in the sense of I have a large organization, this is a time where we, it's a brilliant time when individual leaders, individual contributors can have an enormous impact because of their desire to be purpose -driven and have an impact, right?
And be able to manage and have these skills of collaborating.
Yeah, absolutely. And one of the things that I loved that you said was that nothing good comes from that place of anxiety.
And it's so right. And I think what we have to do is take some time to separate, do some introspection and separate our emotional thoughts from our strategic thoughts, right?
And so we might think we're thinking strategically when it's really us responding to our emotions.
So for example, for me as a busy professional, I might say, I don't have time.
I don't have time for this.
I empathize. No, that doesn't help the bottom line.
I'm gonna drive forward.
People need to get things done, right?
So I could say that that might sound in my mind like it makes sense that it's a strategic decision, but really what is it?
It's fear, it's anxiety.
I don't wanna take that time.
I feel uncomfortable with it because if I take some time and actually think about what is happening as I'm shifting my mindset to that more empathetic perspective is that this is an investment in time, an investment in the relationship because if I take the time now and help the person through this struggle,
then they're gonna be more effective which saves me more time down the road.
And so really my drive, constant drive to get things done and push people to get things done, really that's me responding inappropriately to my emotional state.
Beautifully said. Thank you.
I tell you, I love it when we start talking about the psychology.
Here, Kwame, what am I doing here?
This is great, this is great.
When you think about again, we talked about some of the unique challenges of this time.
What are some skills that are new that maybe might not have been as necessary in the past that are now becoming more and more necessary as we progress in this modern workplace?
Yeah. So let me just kind of cover, there are five shifts in agility and I wanna talk about some of the skills.
So the five shifts are neuroemotional agility, learning agility, which is the ability to learn, to unlearn and to relearn.
And this unlearning is what's really critical because our mind has a whole set of assumptions that we carry around in thought balloons above our heads that just frame the way that we look at the world.
And those assumptions, kind of they're our biases, right?
But they impact our being and our behavior.
And so this unlearning piece becomes really important.
The third is trust agility, the fourth is stakeholder agility and that's ability to sort of bring together ecosystems of people and collaborate to solve really meaningful problems.
And then the fifth is growth agility.
How do we get people to grow ourselves and the people around us so that we can truly be equipped with the right tools and skills to thrive, not just survive, but to thrive in a world that will continue to be disruptive, right?
So even after the pandemic is done, all the changes, whether it's climate, whether it's digital technology, whether it's the way that we as leaders want to work, all that's gonna continue to change.
And so how do we prepare ourselves and the people that we are serving around us to be able to thrive?
So that's one thing.
And then in the book, I talk about 15 accelerators of agility.
And one of the accelerators, which I think is probably one of the most powerful accelerators of agility is the ability to listen.
And what I will, I'll share with you a framework that has sort of four levels of listening.
The first level of listening is, and it's from the Presencing Institute, so I didn't create it.
The first level of listening is basically what we call hearing, right?
So we can be having a conversation and I'm sort of just waiting for you to stop talking so I can really say what I wanna say.
And that is normally like the way most of us have the habit of listening.
We kind of listen, we sort of hear what people are saying.
We kind of listen for the bottom line, right?
Particularly for busy executives or like, get to the point already so I can tell you what I want you to do.
That's listening at level one.
And it's like, I'm basically listening to confirm what I already know.
The second is listening at level two is about actually you're listening for new information.
So you might be telling me something Kwame and I'm like, oh yeah, okay, I didn't know about that fact or data.
So I'm listening to learn something new and that's just a different level of listening.
The third level of listening is, is what I would say is listening to feel.
And listening to feel is now you're not just listening from your ears, you're listening from your entire body and you're falling into a place where you're not just listening to the story that the individual is telling you but you're listening to the storyteller.
What's their state of being?
Are they in a state of fear?
Are they in a state of ease?
What are their real concerns?
What is it that they're not saying that's actually happening for them?
And so it's a listening to understand, a listening to empathize because we know that people's behaviors come from their state of being.
It's you're just listening in a very accepting and welcoming way because you wanting to help this person feel comfortable to share what's really happening for them.
And that's palpable.
When we listen from that place, it creates a very safe space for that other person to feel that can be completely authentic and it gives you access to so much more information, right?
If you're trying to influence them, it gives you access to so much more information about what are their real barriers?
Wow, they're in a state of fear about this.
That's where they're coming from.
And so skills in listening is what is so, so important as we lead in today's times because people are burnt out and we want to bring that level of compassion and empathy so that we can all create an environment of much greater safety where people can be much more creative and bring forth their ideas.
Even if they're dissenting ideas that we can all learn more from each other and build bridges of understanding, which I know is really important to you, Kwame too, Absolutely.
in the work that you're doing.
Yeah, no, this is really great.
And I see one of the challenges that comes up quite frequently in the workplace now when it comes to listening is that we're communicating with each other in so many different ways.
So we have email, we have Slack, for example, we have Microsoft Teams, video call, phone call, some people are in person, some people aren't, all of these things, text messages, everything.
And so when it comes to listening in this hybrid workplace, what would you say is one thing that people could do to listen more effectively?
Yeah, what I would say is rule of thumb.
If something is complex, if there is a complex decision to be made, or if you sense that there are complex emotions that are present, what I would say is first and foremost, try to see if you can connect live with the individual as opposed to...
By live, I mean, even what we're doing now is we're communicating with each other live, not sort of like, let me send you an email, or let me send you a text about this.
Because when you're communicating live with somebody, you're able to get access to more information about their emotional state, right?
What's happening for this other individual?
Because we don't even know what people's context is.
We don't really, really know what their context is.
And the ability to show up with great compassion for somebody's context and trying to understand what's behind some of their behaviors is so powerful.
So I would say that's the first piece.
The second piece is any team meeting that you have, and this is so simple, right?
Any team meeting you have, instead of just jumping directly into the content of that team meeting, take some time to take the pulse of the room, right?
So I might start a meeting and say, let's just go around the room and take a deep breath together.
This is my mindfulness work, right?
So let's just all come and be present to what's happening.
Right now, in, you know, how are we entering this room?
And somebody might say, hmm, well I've had a really frazzled morning.
And, you know, here's where I am right now.
And my state of mind and body is that I'm feeling quite frazzled right now.
And it's like, it's okay.
Thank you for sharing that.
That's welcome here as well.
And as you welcome, you know, whatever is present in the room and people have a chance to share what's their context.
Where are they coming from?
The room settles down.
People feel more connected to one another because guess what?
You've just shifted everybody to a more empathic way of being with one another.
And that completely unlocks curiosity and creativity and safety for people and agility.
Love it. Oh, that's so good.
That is so good. And I know we're coming up on time here, but before you go, can you remind the listeners again about your book and your company and how they can get in touch with you?
Yeah, so Kwame, thank you for that.
My book is called Wired for Disruption.
I'll show it here. It's got an elephant with zebra stripes on it.
And it says that, you know, we can learn new things.
And in fact, that our bodies are actually wired to learn new things.
There's actually a lot of research that suggests that when we get into these empathic states of being, it's actually good for the wellbeing of us as human beings.
Our nervous system relaxes.
And so, Wired for Disruption is the latest book.
Wired for Authenticity is my prior book.
And yeah, you can get a hold of me through LinkedIn.
Please follow me. I also have a podcast.
So the podcast is called the Transformational Leadership Podcast with Hannah Anam.
And I interview a lot of these experts, right?
These neuroscience folks.
I interview them. So you can feel free to look up the interview with Dr.
Richard Boyatsas and his research on neuroscience.
And yeah, I look forward to staying connected with whoever would like to connect with me.
Fantastic. Hannah, really appreciate it.
Thanks for sharing with us today.
Thank you, Kwame. It was a pleasure being with you.
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