Why Presence Might Be the Skill You’re Missing with Brad Farris | RR327

Janice Porter: 00:00:02

Brad, Hello everyone, and welcome to this

Janice Porter: 00:00:04

week's episode of relationships rule. Today's episode is all

Janice Porter: 00:00:09

about presence and why it might be the most overlooked

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leadership skill in business. My guest, Brad Ferris is a coach

Janice Porter: 00:00:16

and advisor to agency owners and C level leaders who want to grow

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their businesses and become the kind of leaders their team

Janice Porter: 00:00:24

actually wants to follow. Brad believes that slowing down isn't

Janice Porter: 00:00:29

the opposite of progress. It's actually the path to deeper

Janice Porter: 00:00:31

connection, clearer communication and stronger

Janice Porter: 00:00:34

relationships with clients and colleagues alike. If you've ever

Janice Porter: 00:00:38

felt like you're rushing through your work and missing the point

Janice Porter: 00:00:41

this conversation is for you. Welcome to the show, Brad.

Brad Farris: 00:00:46

Thanks so much. Yes, my pleasure.

Janice Porter: 00:00:49

It's it's kind of on topic with me in that i

Janice Porter: 00:00:53

There's a phrase that I use, and I may have shared with you when

Janice Porter: 00:00:57

we spoke the first time, where we I talk about slowing down

Janice Porter: 00:01:02

your outreach to speed up your outcome, and that's in my world,

Janice Porter: 00:01:09

that's about when I'm reaching out to people or teaching my

Janice Porter: 00:01:12

clients to reach out to people on LinkedIn, because we're not

Janice Porter: 00:01:16

about saying hi and then doing a pitch, Right? So the drive by in

Janice Porter: 00:01:22

a hurry, yeah, the drive by like that, yeah. Don't be in a hurry.

Janice Porter: 00:01:25

Just slow down and get to know someone. So um, how did first of

Janice Porter: 00:01:30

all, I'm gonna so, so you often say slowing down helps you go

Janice Porter: 00:01:34

faster. So what does that look like in a business contact? For

Janice Porter: 00:01:38

context for you,

Brad Farris: 00:01:40

when I'm talking to clients, I'm often hearing them

Brad Farris: 00:01:44

talk about processing 100 200 emails a day, and having back to

Brad Farris: 00:01:51

back zoom meetings all the way through a schedule. And

Brad Farris: 00:01:55

listening to that just kind of makes me cringe. And so I really

Brad Farris: 00:01:59

started digging in with clients about what's going on here. And

Brad Farris: 00:02:02

there are two trends that I saw, and that is, the more emails you

Brad Farris: 00:02:06

respond to, the more emails you get right like, if you if you're

Brad Farris: 00:02:10

constantly responding to emails, people are constantly responding

Brad Farris: 00:02:13

your emails, and so you're getting more emails. And so to

Brad Farris: 00:02:16

slow down, and when you're answering an email, to answer it

Brad Farris: 00:02:20

completely so many times, especially C level leaders, are

Brad Farris: 00:02:24

responding with very short answers to emails that are kind

Brad Farris: 00:02:28

of out of context and leave a lot of questions in the

Brad Farris: 00:02:31

receiver's mind. To slow down and give more context and answer

Brad Farris: 00:02:35

it more completely. Means that you have fewer follow up emails

Brad Farris: 00:02:39

to answer, and your team is actually able to move forward

Brad Farris: 00:02:43

more quickly. And so what you want is for them to keep going,

Brad Farris: 00:02:47

but your one word answer of yes or no leaves them with questions

Brad Farris: 00:02:51

that they still can't answer. And so by slowing down and

Brad Farris: 00:02:54

taking more time to answer, you complete things in one turn,

Brad Farris: 00:02:59

instead of having bounced back multiple times.

Janice Porter: 00:03:01

That's so funny, because I just had an an email

Janice Porter: 00:03:06

from somebody last night. I just want to find it was a past

Janice Porter: 00:03:10

client of mine, and she said, Hi, I I know we talked about

Janice Porter: 00:03:17

scheduling time with my team to discuss my LinkedIn page. Is

Janice Porter: 00:03:22

that offer still good? If so, can you let me know what works

Janice Porter: 00:03:25

for you? I don't know what, what exactly she wants. Does she want

Janice Porter: 00:03:28

me to train them? Does she want me to now? I have to ask her,

Janice Porter: 00:03:32

like, that's right, charging her for this. What did I say? So,

Janice Porter: 00:03:36

yeah, it's exactly what you said, and it will require her to

Janice Porter: 00:03:40

answer back, and so she wasn't as clear as maybe it would be,

Janice Porter: 00:03:45

would have been necessary. So, yeah, that's

Brad Farris: 00:03:48

it's delaying the process of her getting the

Brad Farris: 00:03:50

result that she's looking for, and it's another email in her

Brad Farris: 00:03:53

inbox. Exactly.

Janice Porter: 00:03:55

I know I'm the worst though. I mean, I have

Janice Porter: 00:03:57

this tan. I'm gonna tell you how many emails I don't delete

Janice Porter: 00:04:01

anything. It's brutal. My wife doesn't say, Oh, you're either

Janice Porter: 00:04:06

an email box zero person or you're the extreme opposite. I

Janice Porter: 00:04:11

don't, yeah, I could beat that. But anyway, it's not good. It's

Janice Porter: 00:04:17

good if you're searching for something, but not not anything

Janice Porter: 00:04:20

else. So I don't know what that's about, but anyway, so

Janice Porter: 00:04:24

let's, let's do your okay. So is that something that your clients

Janice Porter: 00:04:33

get right away, or do they you know, that's got to be a

Janice Porter: 00:04:37

learning curve for some people,

Brad Farris: 00:04:39

for sure, because at the beginning it looks like

Brad Farris: 00:04:42

you're going backwards. You're taking more time, right? Yes.

Brad Farris: 00:04:46

And the other thing that they tend to resist is on the meeting

Brad Farris: 00:04:48

side, I talk about being in fewer meetings, yeah, like if

Brad Farris: 00:04:53

you're in a meeting, knowing what it is that you're there to

Brad Farris: 00:04:55

do, do that and then get out. So if there's an hour long meeting.

Brad Farris: 00:05:00

It doesn't mean that you need to be there for an hour, or maybe

Brad Farris: 00:05:02

it does. It depends on what's happening in that meeting,

Brad Farris: 00:05:04

right? Right? To be intentional about being there for the thing

Brad Farris: 00:05:08

that you're there for, and when you're there, you're listening

Brad Farris: 00:05:12

fully. What's really interesting to me is that when we listen,

Brad Farris: 00:05:16

when we're fully present, it actually changes the thinking of

Brad Farris: 00:05:20

the person that we're in the meeting with. So if we're

Brad Farris: 00:05:23

distracted, if we're looking all over the place, the other person

Brad Farris: 00:05:27

is also distracted. They aren't giving us their best thinking.

Brad Farris: 00:05:31

When we're giving them our full attention, it requires them to

Brad Farris: 00:05:35

bring their best thinking. And so it's it's something where

Brad Farris: 00:05:39

they have to experience it a couple of times. I can convince

Brad Farris: 00:05:42

them to try it for a day, or try it for a certain meeting and see

Brad Farris: 00:05:46

what happens, but very quickly they see how their presence can

Brad Farris: 00:05:50

affect the team, and they get addicted to it.

Janice Porter: 00:05:54

Yeah, I would think that there's a fine line

Janice Porter: 00:05:58

though, between staying present in that short amount of time

Janice Porter: 00:06:03

that you're there and and worrying that you've got to be

Janice Porter: 00:06:06

on to the next call or the next thing, and not letting that show

Janice Porter: 00:06:10

through to the people in that meeting who've been waiting to

Janice Porter: 00:06:14

get you in that room for a while.

Brad Farris: 00:06:17

That's a really crucial thing that you're

Brad Farris: 00:06:18

pointing out there, is that if I'm thinking about the next

Brad Farris: 00:06:22

meeting or the last meeting, I'm not fully present here, right?

Brad Farris: 00:06:27

And in the year of our Lord 2025, there are a lot of naughty

Brad Farris: 00:06:32

problems that need our full attention, that need all of our

Brad Farris: 00:06:35

create creativity and problem solving genius. And so if we're

Brad Farris: 00:06:38

using some of our brain on that last meeting and another part on

Brad Farris: 00:06:42

the next meeting. We're not giving this the the brain power

Brad Farris: 00:06:46

that it needs, and so it's crucial that we don't book back

Brad Farris: 00:06:50

to back meetings, that there's always space in between our

Brad Farris: 00:06:53

meetings, so that we are not like, oh my gosh, I'm worried

Brad Farris: 00:06:56

I'm wearing late what's going on in that next meeting? Like all

Brad Farris: 00:06:59

of that is distraction from being here and solving the

Brad Farris: 00:07:03

problem that is here, right?

Janice Porter: 00:07:05

So you're actually teaching or training

Janice Porter: 00:07:08

people how to lower their blood pressure, right?

Brad Farris: 00:07:13

I have an exercise that I do where I help people to

Brad Farris: 00:07:16

realize what they're like on their best day versus what

Brad Farris: 00:07:20

they're like on their worst day. And then I ask them to track

Brad Farris: 00:07:24

days that are best days and days that are worst days, and they

Brad Farris: 00:07:28

always report back to me that their worst day behavior comes

Brad Farris: 00:07:31

out when they're booked back to back to back, because we don't

Brad Farris: 00:07:34

have time to process, we get all backed up, and so we can't

Brad Farris: 00:07:37

really be there at the end of the day. And so we feel like

Brad Farris: 00:07:41

we're efficient because we've stacked all these meetings up,

Brad Farris: 00:07:43

but we're not even showing up for the second half of them. And

Brad Farris: 00:07:46

so more efficient is to cut some of those out, put some space in

Brad Farris: 00:07:50

between, and be fully present in each one.

Janice Porter: 00:07:53

Yeah, that's brilliant. It seems simple, but

Janice Porter: 00:07:55

it's not for a lot of it's not. It absolutely is not. So let's

Janice Porter: 00:07:58

go back for a second and and and let me ask you, so my audience

Janice Porter: 00:08:03

gets a little idea of who you are. How, absolutely, how did

Janice Porter: 00:08:06

you become so passionate about helping people grow into better

Janice Porter: 00:08:10

leaders? And you know, where did this come in for you?

Brad Farris: 00:08:15

So this is kind of crazy. Janice, like I have

Brad Farris: 00:08:17

always been interested in leadership. I was the kid that,

Brad Farris: 00:08:20

you know, when we formed groups for a group, group project, I

Brad Farris: 00:08:23

was always leading the project, and it was frustrating to me

Brad Farris: 00:08:26

that people weren't following me. And so I wanted to learn

Brad Farris: 00:08:28

about leadership and why people follow certain leaders and what

Brad Farris: 00:08:31

works and what doesn't. And then I was fortunate enough that

Brad Farris: 00:08:35

early in my career, I had a general management role. And so

Brad Farris: 00:08:39

when I was in my early 30s, I was leading a $20 million

Brad Farris: 00:08:42

company, and then another one and and so I just was in these

Brad Farris: 00:08:46

positions where I experienced the power of good leadership and

Brad Farris: 00:08:50

the power of not great leadership. And so over time, it

Brad Farris: 00:08:54

just became something that I've studied more and more often.

Janice Porter: 00:08:57

So who would you say was your guru that you

Janice Porter: 00:09:00

studied as well as your experience.

Brad Farris: 00:09:04

So when I when I want to channel a really good

Brad Farris: 00:09:07

leader, I go back to a CEO that I worked for named Bob Baker.

Janice Porter: 00:09:12

Oh, okay, so yeah, that's yeah.

Brad Farris: 00:09:14

I mean, he was just, I have a hard time

Brad Farris: 00:09:19

explaining like there were just very subtle ways in which he

Brad Farris: 00:09:22

would move the pieces on the chessboard to get things done

Brad Farris: 00:09:26

and and so he's just been a terrific model in my

Janice Porter: 00:09:29

head. That's great, that's, that's, that's

Janice Porter: 00:09:32

more special than I was thinking of, like, Good to Great the, you

Janice Porter: 00:09:37

know, and

Brad Farris: 00:09:38

books I love Jim Collins. I mean, there's all of

Brad Farris: 00:09:40

the leadership literature is helpful. The gap, I feel like,

Brad Farris: 00:09:45

is, I work with a lot of smaller organizations, more like two to

Brad Farris: 00:09:49

$20 million and a lot of the leadership literature is written

Brad Farris: 00:09:53

toward, you know, 500 million, billion dollar companies. And so

Brad Farris: 00:09:58

there's a big gap there. I feel like. Book, in terms of So, did

Brad Farris: 00:10:01

you write a book? I have not yet. Okay, just,

Janice Porter: 00:10:04

there's your there's your market, right? Of

Janice Porter: 00:10:08

course. So can you okay? Why do you think leaders struggle to be

Janice Porter: 00:10:15

present, especially as their companies grow, like there is

Janice Porter: 00:10:19

that monkey on their back. I think all the time of gotta keep

Janice Porter: 00:10:23

moving. Gotta keep moving. So what would you say that, like

Janice Porter: 00:10:28

the three top things are that they struggle. Why they

Janice Porter: 00:10:31

struggle?

Brad Farris: 00:10:32

The startup phase, which is sort of getting to a

Brad Farris: 00:10:35

million or a million and a half dollars, teaches us some very

Brad Farris: 00:10:39

bad leadership lessons. In order to survive the startup phase

Brad Farris: 00:10:44

there is that I have to keep moving. I have to try all kinds

Brad Farris: 00:10:47

of things. I don't know what's going to work, so I'm throwing

Brad Farris: 00:10:49

everything against the wall to see what sticks. And in order

Brad Farris: 00:10:53

for that company to succeed at that level, the leader's own

Brad Farris: 00:10:57

energy and effort is really critical to moving things

Brad Farris: 00:11:00

forward. There just aren't enough people for the for the

Brad Farris: 00:11:03

leader not to be taking responsibility for things as

Brad Farris: 00:11:07

that business gets bigger when it gets to two and five and $10

Brad Farris: 00:11:10

million those lessons are actually holding us back. The

Brad Farris: 00:11:16

more time you as the leader are spending in the details,

Brad Farris: 00:11:20

delivering services to clients or planning things, then all of

Brad Farris: 00:11:24

that time is the time that nobody is doing the CEO job,

Brad Farris: 00:11:27

because you're the only one that can do that job, right? And so

Brad Farris: 00:11:31

letting go of those detailed things, letting go of the client

Brad Farris: 00:11:34

work, is critical to growing into that next phase. And so

Brad Farris: 00:11:39

letting go of the the hustle culture, the like pushing and

Brad Farris: 00:11:43

effort that that made you successful. It was critical in

Brad Farris: 00:11:47

that first part of the journey, but letting go of that is what

Brad Farris: 00:11:50

makes us successful in the second

Janice Porter: 00:11:52

part of the journey. So is that passing the

Janice Porter: 00:11:54

torch to people that you've hired, that you can trust

Janice Porter: 00:11:58

absolutely think the same way you do that, get it and

Janice Porter: 00:12:02

understand the business well enough. And I asked that because

Janice Porter: 00:12:07

so I have a daughter who is basically climbing that

Janice Porter: 00:12:11

corporate ladder, so to speak. And the the CEOs have said, we

Janice Porter: 00:12:19

need you to work with this coach, because we want you to

Janice Porter: 00:12:23

get to the next level as a leader. And I love that, that

Janice Porter: 00:12:27

they put that effort into her, but it made me see that you can

Janice Porter: 00:12:32

only do so much. You need to get to the next level. There's,

Janice Porter: 00:12:36

there's ways to do it, and there's, there's, yeah, so it's

Janice Porter: 00:12:39

different. You become a different type of leader.

Brad Farris: 00:12:42

There's there's actually an identity shift that

Brad Farris: 00:12:44

happens where, you know, in that startup phase, we go home at the

Brad Farris: 00:12:49

end of the day and we feel good because we got a bunch of things

Brad Farris: 00:12:51

off of our list, like we accomplished something. As the

Brad Farris: 00:12:55

business grows and gets into the growth phase, a good day is when

Brad Farris: 00:13:00

we've helped other people to get their work done. We've created

Brad Farris: 00:13:03

the systems and the and the limits and the and the processes

Brad Farris: 00:13:07

that are going to allow them to be successful. And so we might

Brad Farris: 00:13:10

not at the end of the day feel like we got anything done. I was

Brad Farris: 00:13:13

immediately all day, right? And so it's a change of identity,

Brad Farris: 00:13:18

from feeling like I am getting things done to I'm an enabler of

Brad Farris: 00:13:22

other people getting things done.

Janice Porter: 00:13:23

Yeah, that's a great analogy. Actually. That's

Janice Porter: 00:13:25

really good. And to be able to accept that and see that that is

Janice Porter: 00:13:29

exactly what you need to

Brad Farris: 00:13:30

be doing, that's right? That's the most valuable

Brad Farris: 00:13:32

thing you can be doing, right?

Janice Porter: 00:13:34

So can you share a moment put you on the spot,

Janice Porter: 00:13:38

but can you share a moment when presence made the difference in

Janice Porter: 00:13:41

one of your client relationships that someone shared with you

Janice Porter: 00:13:45

that comes to mind.

Brad Farris: 00:13:47

So earlier this week, I was working with a

Brad Farris: 00:13:52

client, and what's really essential is that she shifts her

Brad Farris: 00:13:59

energy from being the person that's kind of running the

Brad Farris: 00:14:02

business to there's a new segment of business that they

Brad Farris: 00:14:07

want to get into. And so she knows that she needs to block

Brad Farris: 00:14:11

time for this new business, which means taking time away

Brad Farris: 00:14:14

from the old business. And it scares her right to let go of

Brad Farris: 00:14:18

the thing that's actually making the money. And so we were

Brad Farris: 00:14:20

talking about that, and and as she was talking, I just

Brad Farris: 00:14:24

listened, and I didn't say anything. And so she talked to

Brad Farris: 00:14:28

the end of that kind of talk track, yeah, because I didn't

Brad Farris: 00:14:32

reply and just listened, she said, plus, I'm kind of afraid

Brad Farris: 00:14:36

I'm going to fail at this new thing, or if I'm really

Brad Farris: 00:14:39

successful, it's going to change who I am and like that. That was

Brad Farris: 00:14:44

really what was going on, right? That's the real reason that was

Brad Farris: 00:14:47

hard for her to make the shift, but I wouldn't have found that

Brad Farris: 00:14:50

out if I started just answering the questions that she was

Brad Farris: 00:14:53

asking. I waited to see what else was there and was

Brad Farris: 00:14:57

comfortable with the silence. It.

Janice Porter: 00:15:00

Kind of like I've heard often people, if they talk

Janice Porter: 00:15:02

long enough to answer their own questions. So it's exactly kind

Janice Porter: 00:15:07

of it that process, and then you can come back at Aha, you know,

Janice Porter: 00:15:11

like the light bulb moment and all and often, I guess people

Janice Porter: 00:15:16

will realize that once they've just said it,

Brad Farris: 00:15:18

they will, yeah, one of the things that I tell

Brad Farris: 00:15:21

the CEOs that I'm working with is you can be really effective

Brad Farris: 00:15:25

if you're really dumb. Yeah. Like if people come into your

Brad Farris: 00:15:30

office and say, Boss, what should we do about this? And you

Brad Farris: 00:15:32

say, I don't know. What do you think we should do? Yeah, and

Brad Farris: 00:15:35

just not answer anybody's questions. Pretty soon they stop

Brad Farris: 00:15:38

asking you questions. They just figure it out for themselves.

Janice Porter: 00:15:40

Yeah. Interesting. Okay, it's fun,

Janice Porter: 00:15:43

actually. So how does how would you say slowing down helps build

Janice Porter: 00:15:49

trust within an organization

Brad Farris: 00:15:54

when the CEO is constantly getting involved in

Brad Farris: 00:15:58

projects? So so we're going and doing the work on a particular

Brad Farris: 00:16:02

project, it communicates to the team that we don't trust them,

Brad Farris: 00:16:06

that we don't think that they can do it on their own. And the

Brad Farris: 00:16:09

result of that, over time is that they don't trust

Brad Farris: 00:16:12

themselves, right? And so they kind of do half hearted work

Brad Farris: 00:16:16

knowing that you're going to come in and fix it. So I hear

Brad Farris: 00:16:20

this all the time from from people who say, you know, my

Brad Farris: 00:16:22

team, they just don't get it. They never finish anything. It's

Brad Farris: 00:16:25

the quality is not what it is. And I say that's because you

Brad Farris: 00:16:28

keep fixing it for them. Why? Why would they right?

Janice Porter: 00:16:32

That's the same, that's kind of the same concept

Janice Porter: 00:16:36

with children.

Brad Farris: 00:16:37

Yes, very much, exactly. Yeah. There are a lot

Brad Farris: 00:16:40

of parenting lessons that work in leadership. Definitely.

Janice Porter: 00:16:45

Okay, so in your experience, what's the ripple

Janice Porter: 00:16:50

effect of having presence in meetings, and how does that

Janice Porter: 00:16:55

essentially change a company's culture?

Brad Farris: 00:16:57

Yeah, so when I'm being present in my meetings,

Brad Farris: 00:17:01

I'm communicating value to the people that I'm meeting with.

Brad Farris: 00:17:04

I'm giving them my full attention, and they know that my

Brad Farris: 00:17:07

time is valuable, right? And so the first thing that happens is

Brad Farris: 00:17:11

that they show up more prepared and more ready to talk. They if

Brad Farris: 00:17:16

I, if they know I'm paying attention, they need to show up

Brad Farris: 00:17:18

with their best work, and if I am paying attention, and they're

Brad Farris: 00:17:23

showing up with their best work, we're making more progress every

Brad Farris: 00:17:26

time we meet. So there's it's like we were talking about

Brad Farris: 00:17:29

email. There's fewer misunderstandings, there's fewer

Brad Farris: 00:17:32

questions coming back, and so that slowing down to be present

Brad Farris: 00:17:36

actually increases the pace that the organization is working at

Brad Farris: 00:17:41

now, the other thing is, you're teaching your organization that

Brad Farris: 00:17:45

this is how we do meetings, is that we pay attention, we don't

Brad Farris: 00:17:48

interrupt, and we're not multitasking, and so when they

Brad Farris: 00:17:52

start doing that, then that, then the ripple effect happens.

Brad Farris: 00:17:55

Now everybody is starting to be listened to and cared for and

Brad Farris: 00:17:59

dealt with honestly, and things are getting resolved in one

Brad Farris: 00:18:02

meeting, and the pace overall starts to pick up.

Janice Porter: 00:18:07

Do you? Can you think offhand of of any

Janice Porter: 00:18:11

companies that epitomize this type of good behavior? And you

Janice Porter: 00:18:20

know, like we hear about stories about big, you know, not

Janice Porter: 00:18:23

necessarily big, but companies where everything works, because

Janice Porter: 00:18:29

it starts at the top right.

Brad Farris: 00:18:32

So I don't have firsthand knowledge of this, but

Brad Farris: 00:18:36

the Amazon culture is a culture where people do a lot of written

Brad Farris: 00:18:41

reports, and so they'll show up to a meeting and they'll hand

Brad Farris: 00:18:44

out to everyone. It's like a six page report, and before anyone

Brad Farris: 00:18:47

can talk, everyone has to read the document. And that what

Brad Farris: 00:18:52

they're doing there is they're making sure that everybody is on

Brad Farris: 00:18:55

the same page, and the person that took the time to write that

Brad Farris: 00:18:58

document had to really think through what they were going to

Brad Farris: 00:19:01

say. So nothing is sort of half hearted. They've thought it

Brad Farris: 00:19:05

through to the point where they're willing to give this out

Brad Farris: 00:19:07

to everybody. And so it's an hour long meeting. They might

Brad Farris: 00:19:11

spend 20 minutes reading the document and then discussing it.

Brad Farris: 00:19:14

And so I think that's going in the right direction. It's taking

Brad Farris: 00:19:17

more time to both present and receive the information so that

Brad Farris: 00:19:22

we're elevating the level at which we're having

Brad Farris: 00:19:24

conversations.

Janice Porter: 00:19:26

So it was interesting that you chose

Janice Porter: 00:19:28

Amazon, because I've heard like, a lot of negative about their

Janice Porter: 00:19:33

customer relations and things like that. So yeah, yeah, I

Brad Farris: 00:19:37

think there's a big difference between the

Brad Farris: 00:19:39

executives, yeah, that operate on this written plan. The story

Brad Farris: 00:19:43

that I've heard is that they were doing a lot of PowerPoint

Brad Farris: 00:19:47

presentations, like a lot of companies, and the CEO, Jeff

Brad Farris: 00:19:51

Bezos, was like, this is wasting time. I don't want to do this

Brad Farris: 00:19:54

anymore. I never want to see another PowerPoint presentation.

Brad Farris: 00:19:57

And that's that's when they started doing these written

Brad Farris: 00:19:59

documents. And really changing the way that they thought

Brad Farris: 00:20:01

through their business.

Janice Porter: 00:20:02

What do you think about? This isn't on my list of

Janice Porter: 00:20:05

questions here, but what do you think about, I guess I'd call it

Janice Porter: 00:20:09

the huddle culture, where there are companies who have a huddle,

Janice Porter: 00:20:14

they start with a huddle, and everybody in those the different

Janice Porter: 00:20:18

departments, has gets to state something good, something bad,

Janice Porter: 00:20:22

whatever. You know what I'm talking about. What do you think

Janice Porter: 00:20:25

about that?

Brad Farris: 00:20:28

I think it can be done well and it can be done

Brad Farris: 00:20:31

poorly. In a company that has a fast moving business. It can be

Brad Farris: 00:20:36

helpful to have a place where everybody syncs up and so that

Brad Farris: 00:20:40

huddle, that morning huddle, is a place where we're setting

Brad Farris: 00:20:44

priorities for the day. We're updating people on news that's

Brad Farris: 00:20:48

coming out, changes things that are happening. So it can be a

Brad Farris: 00:20:51

way to have very efficient communication. On the other

Brad Farris: 00:20:57

hand, coming out of the developer culture, there's

Brad Farris: 00:20:59

there's this in the agile methodology, there's a daily

Brad Farris: 00:21:04

meetup, and that is more about revealing your roadblocks to

Brad Farris: 00:21:09

help unblock things that are stuck. But I feel like it can

Brad Farris: 00:21:13

often devolve into a status meeting, where people are just

Brad Farris: 00:21:16

updating everybody on what they're doing, which could

Brad Farris: 00:21:19

easily be an email, right? And so thinking about, what is it

Brad Farris: 00:21:22

that we're trying to accomplish in this huddle, and are we

Brad Farris: 00:21:24

accomplishing that? That's, I think, what's really important.

Janice Porter: 00:21:28

Yeah, good point. I see it as kind of a more raw

Janice Porter: 00:21:35

thing. It can be, for sure, yeah, so, because I'm all about

Janice Porter: 00:21:39

relationships, so, yeah, okay, so what are some daily practices

Janice Porter: 00:21:46

or reflection questions that help leaders stay grounded and

Janice Porter: 00:21:50

connected to their people?

Brad Farris: 00:21:54

So one question that I invite clients to think

Brad Farris: 00:21:56

about is at the end of each day to ask yourself, if I had this

Brad Farris: 00:22:00

day to lead live over again. What would I do differently? And

Brad Farris: 00:22:04

that's just a way to kind of review and notice, you know,

Brad Farris: 00:22:09

those back to back meetings. I was cranky again. I can't do

Brad Farris: 00:22:12

that anymore, right? And a lot of times, what I find is people

Brad Farris: 00:22:15

have to notice it, 456, 10 times before they're like, okay, okay,

Brad Farris: 00:22:20

I'm not gonna do this anymore, right? So that's one that I

Brad Farris: 00:22:23

think is helpful. Another one that I think is helpful is to

Brad Farris: 00:22:27

ask leaders, what do people experience in your presence, or

Brad Farris: 00:22:33

a different version of that is, after you leave the room, what's

Brad Farris: 00:22:37

the mood that you leave behind? Are people energized and excited

Brad Farris: 00:22:41

that you've been there. Do they feel dejected and discouraged?

Brad Farris: 00:22:45

How are people experiencing your presence, and how do you want

Brad Farris: 00:22:48

them to experience your presence,

Janice Porter: 00:22:50

right? Yeah. Do you find, again, not on my list.

Janice Porter: 00:22:55

Do you find any specific differences in how female

Janice Porter: 00:23:01

leaders versus male leaders take to this? I'm not trying to be

Janice Porter: 00:23:08

sexist.

Brad Farris: 00:23:08

I'm just No, no. I'm thinking about it honestly.

Brad Farris: 00:23:12

I don't I don't think there are hard and fast rules. What I will

Brad Farris: 00:23:17

say is slowing down, showing up to fewer meetings, writing fewer

Brad Farris: 00:23:23

emails. These are all attacks on our ego. They make us feel less

Brad Farris: 00:23:32

important, right? Going to meetings and sending lots of

Brad Farris: 00:23:36

emails feels important, and doing less of that feels less

Brad Farris: 00:23:39

important. Yes, okay, and so if ego is a big part of what's

Brad Farris: 00:23:43

driving the leader, I get a lot of resistance for this, and that

Brad Farris: 00:23:48

could be men or women that have that ego driven leadership, but

Brad Farris: 00:23:51

I think that's more the difference is how much, how much

Brad Farris: 00:23:54

is their their leadership driven by ego? Yeah, all of a sudden I

Brad Farris: 00:24:04

can't hear you. Are you on mute? No, you're not on mute.

Janice Porter: 00:24:07

I am on mute. Knocked it over. Sorry. So yeah,

Janice Porter: 00:24:14

there's a lot more spider legs to that, because as well,

Janice Porter: 00:24:17

because there are women who have more men underlings who might

Janice Porter: 00:24:23

see the Yeah, the difference and same, vice versa. So yeah, I

Janice Porter: 00:24:26

think that's kind of interesting, but a whole

Janice Porter: 00:24:28

different topic for sure. Okay, I'm going to come to something

Janice Porter: 00:24:32

completely sideways from what we were talking about, because I am

Janice Porter: 00:24:36

so thankful and blessed that you use grammar properly. You write

Janice Porter: 00:24:42

right, you write correct. Yes. Because anybody I ever hear who

Janice Porter: 00:24:47

says there are less people who do this, there are less people

Janice Porter: 00:24:51

who do that, I cringe, and it's just one of my pet peeves around

Janice Porter: 00:24:57

grammar, less or fewer, right? That's right, and

Brad Farris: 00:25:01

I thank my sophomore year English teacher

Brad Farris: 00:25:04

for growing that one into my head.

Janice Porter: 00:25:07

Thank you to that person. It's, it's, it's so

Janice Porter: 00:25:10

prevalent now, more than it ever was when you listen to the news

Janice Porter: 00:25:15

and you listen to people you know reporting things that I

Janice Porter: 00:25:20

begin to began to wonder, have they allowed it now? Like is it

Janice Porter: 00:25:24

a new grammar rule that says there are less people at this

Janice Porter: 00:25:28

event today than there no Right?

Brad Farris: 00:25:31

Right? No. AP style still has the other but it's

Brad Farris: 00:25:34

also interesting. Janice, I think that taking time to use

Brad Farris: 00:25:39

proper grammar, full sentences, capitalization in the right

Brad Farris: 00:25:42

place. This is part of me showing respect for the people

Brad Farris: 00:25:46

that I'm writing for, and to take the time to make my

Brad Farris: 00:25:50

conversation or my sentences shorter and more effective. Like

Brad Farris: 00:25:56

all of that is part of that slowing down to speed up. If I

Brad Farris: 00:25:58

can take time to do to improve my writing, it's going to

Brad Farris: 00:26:02

improve the impact that that writing has.

Janice Porter: 00:26:06

That's interesting. I like that. Okay,

Janice Porter: 00:26:10

okay. Do you have any pet peeves around grammar?

Brad Farris: 00:26:16

Well, I will say that my own, the pet peeve that

Brad Farris: 00:26:19

I violate most often is I use the word that way too often,

Brad Farris: 00:26:24

like if when I, when I go to review my writing, I'm almost

Brad Farris: 00:26:27

always taking that out all over the place, and way too many

Brad Farris: 00:26:32

gerunds, way, way too many ings. I can almost always rewrite

Brad Farris: 00:26:36

those to get rid of them.

Janice Porter: 00:26:39

I sometimes put I think they're what are they

Janice Porter: 00:26:43

called? Prepositions or interjections or something or an

Janice Porter: 00:26:46

adverb at the beginning, like just, or Yeah, so, or Yeah,

Janice Porter: 00:26:51

putting those things at the beginning that are not

Janice Porter: 00:26:53

necessary, things like that. But it's not just writing. It's

Janice Porter: 00:26:56

speaking. That's why I'm saying it right. It's speaking. And I'm

Janice Porter: 00:27:00

just a bit of a grammar now. I think I'm a grammar Nazi.

Janice Porter: 00:27:03

Actually, it's like, yeah. Anyway, I remember I had a

Janice Porter: 00:27:09

friend, a good friend once, who was an English teacher, and we,

Janice Porter: 00:27:15

we sat and talked about this for quite a while, and and how many

Janice Porter: 00:27:19

phrases, like few and many, fewer and and less, and other

Janice Porter: 00:27:27

ones like that, and we had a whole list of them. It was so

Janice Porter: 00:27:30

much fun at the time. Anyway. So on that note, let me ask you a

Janice Porter: 00:27:36

couple of off the cuff questions. So do you how do you

Janice Porter: 00:27:41

gather your information these days? Do you read like real

Janice Porter: 00:27:44

books? Do you listen? Do you watch? What do you do to gather

Janice Porter: 00:27:49

information?

Brad Farris: 00:27:50

I always have one or two books going like real,

Brad Farris: 00:27:53

real books, like the I read on the Kindle. Read on the Kindle

Brad Farris: 00:27:58

because I like the highlighting feature to explore my notes.

Brad Farris: 00:28:02

Okay, and I listen to a lot of podcasts. Podcasts are my in the

Brad Farris: 00:28:08

car, walking the dog, mowing the lawn. Kind of

Janice Porter: 00:28:11

thing. Do you listen to business ones or

Janice Porter: 00:28:14

entertainment ones?

Brad Farris: 00:28:16

I don't listen to very many entertainment I listen

Brad Farris: 00:28:19

to some coaching podcasts, some business podcasts. I have a

Brad Farris: 00:28:25

couple sales podcasts that I listen to because I just really

Brad Farris: 00:28:27

like the mindsets that they're teaching. So yeah, the host

Brad Farris: 00:28:31

grabs me. That's what gets me to watch.

Janice Porter: 00:28:34

Yeah, I actually dive diverged from my normal

Janice Porter: 00:28:40

last week and decided to listen to a true crime story podcast

Janice Porter: 00:28:46

just to see, I've listened to them before, but years ago, and

Janice Porter: 00:28:48

I was just like wanting to see how they did that particular

Janice Porter: 00:28:52

one. And it was kind of interesting. I think I wouldn't

Janice Porter: 00:28:55

go back to it because it wasn't grabbing me. But I finished the

Janice Porter: 00:28:58

story because I wanted to know if the guy was you're not

Janice Porter: 00:29:01

guilty, right? But anyway, so those are kind of fun once in a

Janice Porter: 00:29:04

while, and I just again, listen to the hosts to see how they act

Janice Porter: 00:29:11

on their on their on their podcast, interviewing people.

Janice Porter: 00:29:14

Because that's what I do mostly, is interview people, right? My

Janice Porter: 00:29:18

wife

Brad Farris: 00:29:18

really likes a podcast that's about wild animal

Brad Farris: 00:29:21

attacks.

Janice Porter: 00:29:22

Oh, my gosh,

Brad Farris: 00:29:24

yes, it's it's just three goofy guys. Two of them

Brad Farris: 00:29:27

are brothers. One of them's a wildlife biologist, and they

Brad Farris: 00:29:30

talk about how not to get attacked by animals.

Janice Porter: 00:29:33

Basically, that could be good. There were two

Janice Porter: 00:29:36

bears in the local park right near here. Wow, yep. They're

Janice Porter: 00:29:40

coming out of hibernation, or they got lost or something. No,

Janice Porter: 00:29:43

they would have been out of hibernation for a while, but,

Janice Porter: 00:29:46

yeah, babies that get lost, you know, coming down. So anyway,

Janice Porter: 00:29:51

and I'm going to ask you another question off the cuff here. So I

Janice Porter: 00:29:55

my favorite word is curiosity. I love that word, and I love being

Janice Porter: 00:29:59

curious. Curious. And I wonder, do you believe that curiosity is

Janice Porter: 00:30:06

innate or learned? That's part one. And part two is, what are

Janice Porter: 00:30:10

you most curious about yourself these days?

Brad Farris: 00:30:13

Those are good questions. I believe that

Brad Farris: 00:30:16

curiosity is one of the most powerful states that the human

Brad Farris: 00:30:19

mind can be in and so I guess I believe it can be learned,

Brad Farris: 00:30:22

because I think anybody can, can be in that place. Okay, you

Brad Farris: 00:30:26

don't have to be curious about, you know, quantum physics, but

Brad Farris: 00:30:30

we could be curious about what made Janice word that in that

Brad Farris: 00:30:34

particular way, right?

Janice Porter: 00:30:36

Okay, I get you. I get you when you're saying

Janice Porter: 00:30:38

that, because I'm that person, those details like I did about

Janice Porter: 00:30:42

the grammar, right, right? I know it's not everybody does

Janice Porter: 00:30:46

that, okay.

Brad Farris: 00:30:47

And what I'm curious about these days, I feel

Brad Farris: 00:30:52

like this is sort of a middle of the road answer, but I'm very

Brad Farris: 00:30:54

curious about artificial intelligence and what it is good

Brad Farris: 00:30:57

at and what it's not good at, and I've been using it in lots

Brad Farris: 00:31:01

of different areas, just to try to figure out, Is this helpful,

Brad Farris: 00:31:05

is this useful? Is this a waste of time? And so far, I've found

Brad Farris: 00:31:09

some things that it's all of those for. You know, I found

Brad Farris: 00:31:12

some things that it's useful for, and some things it's a

Brad Farris: 00:31:14

waste of time for, and some that I feel like if I got better at

Brad Farris: 00:31:18

it, it might be more useful. So that's that's something I've

Brad Farris: 00:31:20

been really curious

Janice Porter: 00:31:21

about lately. Yeah, me too. I've been using it

Janice Porter: 00:31:23

and I've actually been loving it. I feel like it's my

Janice Porter: 00:31:25

assistant now, yes, yeah, you know, but you have to be careful

Janice Porter: 00:31:29

for sure of what you're what you're doing with it. All right,

Janice Porter: 00:31:32

one last question for from your business perspective, I'm coming

Janice Porter: 00:31:37

back around for leaders listening who want to build

Janice Porter: 00:31:40

stronger relationships with their teams and their clients.

Janice Porter: 00:31:43

Where should they begin? But what is your best advice? I'll

Janice Porter: 00:31:47

open it up to that.

Brad Farris: 00:31:48

Okay, well, I'll answer the first one. First, I

Brad Farris: 00:31:51

think the place to begin is, is to stop interrupting, and

Brad Farris: 00:31:58

actually, just to make it a rule in your in your meetings, that

Brad Farris: 00:32:01

nobody interrupts, and each person can talk as long as they

Brad Farris: 00:32:05

need to talk. And there's two things that happens when, when

Brad Farris: 00:32:09

we institute that rule, one is the extroverts in the room,

Brad Farris: 00:32:14

their best ideas come at the end, like they have to talk in

Brad Farris: 00:32:18

order to think. And so if you let them keep talking, you'll

Brad Farris: 00:32:21

you'll find better ideas for them and for the introverts in

Brad Farris: 00:32:25

the room, when they know that they're going to have a chance

Brad Farris: 00:32:29

to talk, they're going to spend more time thinking to be ready

Brad Farris: 00:32:33

to talk when it's their turn. And they might not say a lot,

Brad Farris: 00:32:37

but what they say will be more impactful. And so that's where I

Brad Farris: 00:32:41

would start. I would start by by eliminating interrupting, which

Brad Farris: 00:32:44

is hard, which is super hard,

Janice Porter: 00:32:46

very hard for me, very hard. Okay, sometimes I get

Janice Porter: 00:32:50

excited by something that someone said and I want to react

Janice Porter: 00:32:52

to it right away, because I'll forget.

Brad Farris: 00:32:56

Write it down. Have a piece of paper. Write things

Brad Farris: 00:32:58

down.

Janice Porter: 00:32:58

Yeah, exactly. Okay. And your best piece of

Janice Porter: 00:33:02

advice, then I say that because I thought you were going to

Janice Porter: 00:33:08

answer both parts. You don't have

Brad Farris: 00:33:09

to. You're right. No, I'm glad that you prompted

Brad Farris: 00:33:11

me, though I think that the best advice that I would give is that

Brad Farris: 00:33:19

you can trust your people, like, if you did a good job hiring,

Brad Farris: 00:33:23

and if you're doing good job as a leader and a manager, they can

Brad Farris: 00:33:27

do the job and having more direct conversations with them.

Brad Farris: 00:33:32

When you're listening to them and you're telling them your

Brad Farris: 00:33:34

honest feedback, you're going to build trust between you so that

Brad Farris: 00:33:38

they're going to be able to do amazing things, things you never

Brad Farris: 00:33:41

thought they would be able to do.

Janice Porter: 00:33:43

Awesome. That's great. Well, thank you. Thank

Janice Porter: 00:33:46

you for being today. And how can my audience find you? I will put

Janice Porter: 00:33:49

it in the show notes. Of course, absolutely preference. You can

Brad Farris: 00:33:54

just go to my website, anchor advisors.com,

Brad Farris: 00:33:57

where you can learn all about me. And if you're interested

Brad Farris: 00:34:00

there, I have an assessment, and I'll send you the link so that

Brad Farris: 00:34:03

you can put in the show notes. But there's a self leadership

Brad Farris: 00:34:06

assessment there that helps you to evaluate what is the job that

Brad Farris: 00:34:11

you're doing, managing yourself before we can manage other

Brad Farris: 00:34:14

people. We need to learn to manage ourselves and a lot of

Brad Farris: 00:34:16

these things, like not interrupting, listening fully,

Brad Farris: 00:34:20

letting people talk a lot of that requires us to manage

Brad Farris: 00:34:23

ourselves at a higher level. So I think it's just anchor

Brad Farris: 00:34:26

advisors.com/self-leadership-assessment, but you can go there and or if

Brad Farris: 00:34:33

you just go to anchor advisors in the resources section, you

Brad Farris: 00:34:36

can see the assessments

Janice Porter: 00:34:37

well, your your banner on your LinkedIn profile,

Janice Porter: 00:34:40

I think, says it all breaking through the biggest bottleneck

Janice Porter: 00:34:43

to your business growth. You. That's right. I love that. It's

Janice Porter: 00:34:47

great. Well, thank you for being here. And I think to my

Janice Porter: 00:34:51

audience, I'd just like to say, just to wrap up that, Brad

Janice Porter: 00:34:54

reminds us that Leadership isn't about doing more, it's about

Janice Porter: 00:34:58

showing up better. And when we. Bring presence and intention to

Janice Porter: 00:35:01

our work. We create space for relationships to flourish. And

Janice Porter: 00:35:05

as we always say on this show, relationships rule. So if

Janice Porter: 00:35:08

today's conversation sparked something in you, share it with

Janice Porter: 00:35:11

a friend or a colleague and remember slowing down might just

Janice Porter: 00:35:15

be your next best

Brad Farris: 00:35:18

move. Awesome. Thank you, Janice, you're

Janice Porter: 00:35:21

very welcome. You find this oops, thank you for

Janice Porter: 00:35:26

okay. There I had to find my stop button. It disappeared. So

Janice Porter: 00:35:29

thank you, everybody. And lastly, remember to stay.