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#005 - The Seven Deadly Leadership Sins: Gluttony
Episode 516th December 2020 • The Industry of Trust • Tiffany Lentz and Robert Greiner
00:00:00 00:35:37

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In today's episode Tiffany and Robert discuss the second Deadly Leadership Sin: Gluttony. Within an organization, Gluttony looks like feeling short changed.

Gluttony can sound like:

  • "If only I had more training" or
  • "If only I had more marketing support" or
  • "If only I had more resources"

Gluttony is the behavior of constantly taking without any clear articulation of how these resources will be used to win.

Luckily, there's a remedy for Gluttony and insatiable behaviors within an organization.

  • First, define very clear and agreed upon priorities. Before a team can start down a path, they should be really clear about what the business outcomes and priorities are.
  • Second, as a leader, ask "But what if it could...?" to engage in some blue sky thinking. "If I removed your obstacles, then what would happen?

Thanks for listening and reach out any time at hello@theindustryoftrust.com.

Transcripts

Robert Greiner 0:06

Hey, everyone, welcome back to The Industry of Trust podcast. Hey, Tiffany, how are you?

Tiffany Lenz 0:10

I'm very well, thanks. How are you?

Robert Greiner 0:12

Doing well. Just got back from a week off for Thanksgiving. So that was nice.

Tiffany Lenz 0:17

Yeah, same, very relaxing.

Robert Greiner 0:19

We talked about this before, but people just aren't really taking their time off right now. They're not taking their PTO. And I'm certainly guilty of that. So felt good to get some downtime, connect with the family, and just spend a couple days not thinking about work.

Tiffany Lenz 0:33

Mm hmm. Yeah,

it was a very family focused week for me as well spending extra time with especially because of COVID with just immediate family, which, in my cases, my parents who live down the street, and so getting to spend to some really quality kind of peaceful time with them was something I haven't always prioritized in past years.

Robert Greiner 0:52

Yeah, that's great. Good to hear. So we are at the beginning of our Seven Deadly leadership sins series. And today, we're going to cover gluttony, right?

Tiffany Lenz 1:03

Yes.

Perfect for coming right after Thanksgiving. Or maybe we should have done this one before Thanksgiving, but too late now.

Robert Greiner 1:08

Yeah, too late now.

That's definitely right. So what does gluttony look like from an organizational perspective?

Tiffany Lenz 1:16

So for me, when I'm continually with this series, using the lens of finding the signals in the noise, it's important to find ways that we can hear and see things and keep them really specific, so they're meaningful and changeable. For gluttony. I think of this as always feeling shortchanged. So we've all worked with people who their first second or third sentence out of their mouth when presented with a problem is, if only I had more budget, if only I had more resources, if only I had more training, if only I had more marketing support, if only I had x, or the flip of that would be they get all the X. For me, that is a sign of gluttony, it's a need to take and take or to just have a set of things that it's typically unclear how that leader will utilize what they're given. Because there's no give at all, it's, I must have 100%, of everything I asked for, or I'm just not able to go forward.

Robert Greiner 2:28

If you want that from me, you have to pay for it.

Tiffany Lenz 2:30

Exactly.

Robert Greiner 2:31

Comes out of your budget.

Tiffany Lenz 2:32

That's an excellent way of putting it, it's it can be budget, it can be time, it can express itself as well, I need all the other teams to be done. First, I need everyone else to get their ducks in a row first. And there's typically a lack of even specificity to the ask. It's a generalization, they get all of X or I need everyone to be done with everything before x. The generalizations for me are also a signal to listen for, because they're not specific enough to say, tell me what problem you're trying to solve. Maybe I have a resource, you can use one thing or another. But if you're not being specific about what you need, and exactly why you need it, and how it's going to lead to the outcome we need, it just feels like you're being frankly gluttonous to me.

Robert Greiner 3:20

That's so interesting. So

last episode, we talked about inflexibility. And now we're talking about this wanting of more. And it's interesting, because you said, it's a feeling of not having enough, they have all the budget, I need more budget. And also the behaviors are what you listen for is I can't move until x happens. I need this to happen. Before I can do that. These aren't related. But there's some nuance there really, in more and more. And it's really an insatiable appetite, right? Because if you give in that the answer here is not to give in. It's probably right to create some boundaries or to give feedback in this particular way. But you can't really just give the glutton what they want, because then they'll ask for more, and it's never enough. And that's just a really good way for nothing to move forward ever.

Tiffany Lenz 4:15

Correct. Correct. And I think that's why I err toward this, like kind of a sub signal there. That is, when these needs are so often expressed as victim thinking they have or they have a sense to them of this lack of specificity, a generalization that doesn't tell me what one would do to be effective if one had everything that was being asked,.

Robert Greiner 4:44

Why don't you expand on that a

little bit more. So there's, there's a, the difference between someone legitimately asking or saying, hey, there's a risk. If I don't get X, Y and Z, there's a very real chance the quality won't be there. Or We'll miss this customer deadline. A lot of times that can be a very valid and thoughtful thing that needs to be problem solved and overcome. Are you saying that, in this case, when it becomes gluttony when it becomes unhealthy and dysfunctional in an organization, it's when those comments are maybe a little too general, and you can't quite put your finger on what it is that they need, or what you could do to overcome that request or that complaint?

Tiffany Lenz 5:26

Yes, exactly. It's much more of a pattern of behavior and a pattern of communication, as well as a can't do attitude. So it is there's a there is a subtlety when someone has a real need. If asked if one were to apply five why's or do a little bit of say, even partner in the spirit of partnership, partnering, analytical thinking with them, help me help you solve your problem, you get nowhere, you actually pull continue to pull back layers of an onion and find that there's one excuse after another, and very little data to back up the ask. For instance, you have five people on your team, you're saying you can't get your work done? What would happen if I gave you six? What would you accomplish? What would happen if I gave you seven? In my experience, when I've both had peers with this kind of behavior, this gluttonous behavior pattern, or when I have managed people who exhibit this kind of behavior? The I believe you I'm suspending disbelief, I'm going I believe what you're asking for that sort of attitude and line of thinking that takes them down a path of please just explain to me how I can help you goes nowhere. Their sense of victim mentality, and always feeling shortchanged is a ruse. It's just a way of covering up their own inability to plan or be effective leaders or actually get things done.

Robert Greiner 6:54

Okay, that makes sense. And and I think the nuance there also, which can make sense is, I need this to get started, I can't move until I get this versus, I really need two more people for this to be successful. Or I see a risk here. And I need this investment or this tool, or this process to change or I need an exception here. In order to move this ball forward. It's almost like where in the chain are you focusing on if you're focusing on I can't move without this? That's really where you're in the risk zone, the gluttony risk zone, we'll call it. But if someone's really coming to you and saying that last mile, I need this to be successful, that's probably more of an indication that it's a legitimate ask.

Tiffany Lenz 7:41

Mm hmm, absolutely.

I think that anyone any leader has, they have needs, we all do. But we should be able to state our case, we should be able to legitimately say, I need x and with x, I will do y, I will show this output these results, this business value. If you can't explain that, then I'm going to challenge what your ask is all about. That your ask is more just it's a it's just a covering for a lack of effectiveness as a leader. And so I would call that gluttony in these examples.

Robert Greiner 8:20

So as we're recording these, I keep getting these flashbacks. And I remember a project I was on, and we were getting ready to do our version one release. And all of a sudden, this group comes in and says, hey, in order for you to do for us to sign off, you have to have this documentation. And basically this test, which was going to be it was a doable thing. On the surface, it would not have been an unreasonable step in a sequence of events, but it just was not ever part of the discussion. It wasn't part of the requirements. No one had ever talked about it before. It just comes out of the blue. So there was this feeling of hey, you're moving the goalposts. But it was couched in this. This is a reasonable industry standard thing, right? Netflix does it? Why can't we do it here? And it's like, well, that's never been the standard here. And then come to find out over time, it was like, Oh, no, I just said that, to create some problems for my counterpart. So I could get funding to hire these two more people, which I've been trying to get for two years. And this other guy, he got to hire two more people for something that doesn't even matter. And it was like literally, that level of discussion of I just threw this wrench in the works to make it impossible for you. So I could go and justify more funding later. And then Meanwhile, the customers suffer, the organization suffers. Everyone had the exact same company name in their email address. These are all people who are supposed to be part of the same team. And you got this mentality of really changing the goalposts and throwing in unnecessary obstacles so that they could get more. The only reason was so that they could go and justify getting more. Whether they thought it was better or not

Tiffany Lenz:

yeah, that's an excellent and, and also gross example. I've certainly experienced things like that too. Thank you for sharing that I do that.

Robert Greiner:

I'm gonna try some therapy after our discussions. I think I have PTSD here. I've totally forgotten about that. But there's especially when you're in the consulting realm, right? Like you get exposed to dysfunction at times where you're really, you're in the middle of these decades long feuds. But you've been there six months. And there's a lot of bitterness and dynamics that come into play at times. And that's all organizations, all countries like that. We're just we're humans. But it is funny to see the consistency with which these seven deadly leadership sins continue to manifest themselves.

Tiffany Lenz:

Yeah, wow, I hope there is some executive who listens to this and sees examples of that happening in their organization, because it's very real. And you could call it Oh, subversive, and nefarious and passive aggression. But it is often what you said it's a decades long feud. And people have often forgotten what they're fighting or why they're fighting. It's just that they constantly feel shortchanged. And rather than being results focused, output focused,

putting the good of the company first, they're still focused on this, they get all of x and I'm always left shortchanged, I actually think it's just a thought I just had, I think this is often why in large corporations, you see so much fluff, put into budgets, this exact time of year, because budgets are getting reviewed, and people know that whatever they put in is going to get cut by 20%. So they just play a game, rather than everyone being truthful and honest, and with the best intentions of the firm, holistically, in mind, they think of every other year, I've gotten so much cut, and I asked for 10 open wrecks, and I only get two. So I'm going this year, I'm going to ask for 20. Knowing that, then I'll get four. So there's like this constant sort of gluttony, a lack of self control.

Robert Greiner:

That's a prisoner's dilemma kind of situation too, you could really put yourself in a situation where you ask for precisely what you need. And then because you didn't play the game, because you didn't play to the curve, you now your whole program is at risk. So that's a scary thing. If your family's addiction to food, clothing, and shelter is relying on you delivering results, and that I could see how very well meaning executives, humans, managers, leaders come in and are forced into that mode of operation, because they're worried about just trying to do the right thing. They're trying to operate with the constraints that they haven.

Tiffany Lenz:

Yeah, that's it. And certainly, that's why all of these are presented as tongue in cheek because we're not talking about evil people here, we're talking about really good people who are really well intentioned, who have experienced and have gotten to positions of leadership for the right reasons. That's my belief. There are always bad ones out there. But they're in the minority. We're talking about good people who are walked tend to walk down slippery slopes without realizing what they're doing, hence, looking for the signals and the noise, trying to pick up these sorts of behaviors before they become so embedded in who you are, or who your organization is, or how you operate. It takes a little bit of courage for someone to step up and say, hey, I'm going to break this paradigm. Did you notice that every year we do this padding? Like if I were finance, I wouldn't believe us? What if we just didn't do it anymore? What if we all just agreed to not do it? What if we all just agreed to pool the resources we have and work together on collective goals and have clear priorities, as opposed to continuing to jump on this hamster wheel always feel shortchanged, then always have that short changed outcome as an excuse?

Robert Greiner:

That makes sense. So let's get practical. We can go back to my example from before and I'll try to add some details.

Tiffany Lenz:

Yeah.

Robert Greiner:

If that makes sense. So I'm just taking notes right now. All right. So let's say that we work at an organization that, okay, so let's make, let's give a sort of more concrete example. This is a sanitized example. So it's not what actually happened in the past, but it's based on real life events. And we can talk about how we might respond. So let's say we're leaders in an organization, and that organization makes toothpaste. And so our entire model is we manufacture toothpaste, and we sell it through our website to consumers. So it's completely drop shipped. And we have we have to comply with various state laws. So like California has a consumer Privacy Act. There are other states that do different things and we are under the gun to deliver this compliance set of functionality to our website, which is that our sole means of revenue. Okay, so we have a team, that's part of a larger program that's building this compliance functionality. We're going through this sort of go nogo checklist. And Shannon is the leader that's in charge of developing, her team is developing the consumer privacy functionality. James is in, let's say, information security, we're going to go nogo meeting, Jim says, Hey, we need this, this additional penetration test manual penetration test, and this other security scan that you didn't run. And it's last minute, and Shannon says, hey, that's not part of our standards, we've been releasing to production. For years, we've never done this. This is a key business focus functionality. And you're springing this on me last minute. And James says, Sorry, you're not getting my sign off. We cannot move forward until we have this stuff from you. How do you respond?

Tiffany Lenz:

So that one is could be legitimate? It could be a combination of, glut I just said glust, how about that? Less than gluttony. My set of questions for both first would be for James helped me understand why this is coming up now. And I want to hear really credible things. There was just a law passed, there was just a change that came from some, some organization inside or outside our firm that we had no control over. Because if there's that does happen, and he wouldn't have been able to know about it in advance. If it's anything other than that. It feels like delinquents on his part, and is some sort of a roadblock for some other reason. So I would, I'd want to be asking, I'd probably gravitate to five why's help me understand why you need this right. Now? Why is that? Why is that? Why did this not come up before? Now? Why is that? Why is that to try to understand the context? There should be legitimate reasons there if her accusation essentially is true.

Robert Greiner:

Okay. So if James says some comes back and says something like, competitor x over here, there was a data breach, they were not compliant with some security best practices. This is a typical security best practice. We sent out an email saying, as of December 1, we're implementing this standard, no exceptions. It's December 2, sorry, but you have to do it. That might be a little bit different than, hey, we have some security concerns. We bought this tool that we didn't talk to you about. And we are we're just making or pushing forward with it, because we're concerned that what you're building isn't secure.

Tiffany Lenz:

Yes, it is different. There's also an interesting kind of separate example, inside what you just said. If James had come back and said there was a security breach with competitor x, and we don't want that to happen to us, that is a deadly sin that we will get to a bit later. But there is something to designing your solutions in every possible way around your competitor versus around your customer. And one doesn't want to go too far down that path either of constantly being in response to competition, leads you down a path of taking your eye off of exactly what your customer needs. There's no possible way to leapfrog your competition if you're only looking at them. So they're just a potential break off of an example like that. But you're exactly right. There should be a reason beyond this is just my opinion, why one should stop everything and incorporate in a new requirement. Because what I my kind of meta response to that would be one, I want to know if this is a regular kind of interaction between these two. Is, is James always like this? Are there other ways to handle him? And then my second question or thought process would be, this sounds like a lack of prioritization. And for me, the the antidote to gluttony is if we were looking at this in a physical realm would be self control. So why is not self control around prioritization, clarity of what success looks like also an antidote here. I would say that being ruthless and rigorous about priorities will help keep us out of the gutter here that becomes gluttony.

Robert Greiner:

That's, I think, a great point. My initial feedback to James would be, hey, you knew this was coming. You knew this was important. We have this other compliance thing, this other business need functionality that has to get deployed. We have commitments, we have contractual obligations. Why are you springing this on us as if you're in a silo and nothing, that no one else will be impacted by these results, and so this is one of those situations. Yeah, I think the historical account that's so huge. Is James, the boy who cried wolf? Or is he the Zen monk that you're like, hey, James never freaks out, we better pay attention to him. So the context is definitely helpful there. And then yep, either way that the feedback is, Hey, this is going to impact everyone who wants to deploy into our system, you have to work with your peer group, and make sure that what you put in place can be accommodated. And people are generally accommodating when you come to them and say, hey, there's this thing coming up. I'm not crazy about it. I know it's going to impact you. How can we work together? When's a good time for us to put this policy in place? Would you have any big releases coming? And oh, yeah, we're getting ready for this thing for the Super Bowl, that's coming up. Okay, how about I do whatever I can to help make sure that this happens for the Super Bowl, the very next month, though, we're gonna have to be in compliance here. And I'll do whatever I can to help you. But this is when it's going to go live. And I think that's a much better compromise, for something that has to happen for two competing priorities to your point, that have to happen, which can be sequenced in a way where ultimately everyone can win, it might not be optimal for one party or the other. But over time, everybody gets what they need,

Tiffany Lenz:

Right. A third way to take one more step back with both parties, and almost facilitate a conversation there might be okay, let's not talk about my release. And let's not talk about your security needs. Let's take let's make let's generalize a little bit more and talk about the ultimate goal is releasing to this customer group. That's customer satisfaction, the ultimate goal for the firm is revenue based on x. How can we both get what we need? And keep that as our focus? James, what do I already have, as far as security that can work for you? What sort of tests have I already run? Can we look again, to see if there's a way that I can comply with your new requirements, and still keep a focus on the market, the revenue, the customer, the extra could be internal or external? That's, I would always try that as my third approach of taking a step back. Because there is so often a way around, there's 100 ways to skin a cat, we wouldn't have sayings like that, if it wasn't true. We just don't like to use them because they require compromise on both parties.

Robert Greiner:

Yeah, I've seen that before to where there was a fraud detection algorithm trying to be put into basically scan things that were potential risks. And it turns out that there's a function in the organization where someone actually manually looks at things. And so it's not maybe ideal for the long term. But you're certainly like you're in compliance through the whole of the organization. And so that's one situation where, yeah, maybe through a combination of other activities, you're close enough to get by, to feel good about the risk you're taking on, to buy you time to do the right thing.

Tiffany Lenz:

And in this scenario that you gave that really is what we're trying to do is stay on to a time commitment that was already made. And this should have been an easy kind of check the box experience and it wasn't. So how do we just get this isn't this is not a scalable, sustainable process, obviously. But it gets us to the ultimate goal.

Robert Greiner:

So let me push on one other thing you said which I like, which is make, essentially make the problem bigger. And that's such a good like me from a technical background, when you think about technical architecture, sometimes, if you make the problem larger, it helps solve multiple things. And so really, if you're Shannon, and James is being unreasonable, approaching the conversation, because if it's a peer, you may not have a lot of control, you may escalate to your both of your bosses, hey, I'm not your babysitter, you to figure it out. I've heard that a lot before as well. And so you could potentially if you're Shannon, an approach would be to make the problem bigger, and show how both of you can win if a certain set of conditions are made, which could ultimately lead to at least making a case based in logic and facts around hey, here's why I'm advocating for this position. I want to get you what you want. But I need two more months, but I promise I'll do it.

Tiffany Lenz:

Oh, yeah, there's a book called never split the difference, which is about negotiation. I think you and I have talked about that one before. Maybe not on this podcast, but just in discussion. And the crisis conflict negotiators he is writing this book and talking about how to get to a good place and he doesn't use expressions that we often use in business like Win Win, which I do that expression, but I understand why he doesn't use it. He's he in this example, he would say if Shannon were to come back to James and say I hear you. How do you expect me to do that? How would you like me to do that? How do you expect me in the context of this broader thinking of let's keep the broader commitments in mind, the company's revenue in mind the all of the various, the various pieces we already discussed, it brings him actually to the table to help solve the problem, as opposed to just her saying, here are the ways that I can create a win win, no, a win win would be they both have to come to the table with ideas to make it work, because they're both fully vested.

Robert Greiner:

Yeah, that's a good point. So Chris Voss, who wrote Never Split the Difference. And he also talks about the idea of labeling as a way to get someone to break someone's defensive barriers down, because they're usually feeling insecure or angry, or there's some kind of emotion behind that. And if Shannon, this is a great point that that you made, if Shannon goes to James, one on one, hey, James, you got really worked up in that meeting, you seem angry, like what's going on? She gives a label of an emotion she's seeing that that causes James to, well, yeah, I'm just I'm tired of getting in trouble on my performance reviews, I missed my last bonus, because I didn't check some box. And I was just like, you know what, forget it, I'm gonna make everybody do this. Because I'm tired of being the one getting the blame for taking on all this risk. That's something Shannon can work with. But it requires her, we talked about the prisoner's dilemma earlier, you have to take that first step, and really try to come in with an olive branch being part of the solution. So let me give one more example, which maybe I should have done first, but I just had that flashbacks that had to process. So thank you for that. So one, one main thing of gluttony is, hey, we can't get started. So we've heard this countless times, right, which is, my team doesn't have laptops, I can't get started. We don't have this specific license, we can't do anything. We don't have all the requirements we need. We can't get we can't do anything. Like, how do we take something like that? So we've been talking about, we're about ready to go to production, someone standing in our way and won't move because they're waiting on something there? Because they want more? The whole motivation is they want more they want more people, they want more resources. What about, Hey, I just can't start, unless I have this thing. What does that look like?

Tiffany Lenz:

So

that version of gluttony for me looks like a need for two things. One is very clear and agreed upon priorities before a team can start, they should really be clear about what the business outcomes are, what the priorities are. And there this is my I go back to ruthless and rigorous prioritization, there cannot be more than one priority number one, period. We have both been in situations where there is almost without boundaries and and culture or an and response that leads to a lack of understanding of what success is, period. That doesn't mean that all and cultures are wrong. You and I actually both live in one at our firm that is very successful, but it has different boundaries. And we can expound on that a little bit. If you think it would be helpful. In a project example, my first thought is, what are your clear and agreed upon priorities? If priority number one is blocked, it may legitimately be blocked? Great, that's fine. Let's move right on to number two, not emotionally attached to number one, let's just move right on to number two, until number one can be unblocked. My second thought is more of an approach to not unblocking, but moving on to priority number two, it would be but what if it could? I love that phrase, more than anything I think as a leader, this like freedom to solution. You can't get through that. Why can't you? But what if you could? What if I removed all of your obstacles? Let's just have a little bit of blue sky thinking. If I removed your obstacles, then what would happen? Because that line of thinking, we're not even addressing how we would remove obstacles. I just I know from experience, that line of thinking leads to again, this kind of meta more generalization that finds something that can be done. So always with the example of we don't have laptops, we don't have access. We don't have that, those things are real. But what can be done is early conversations around priorities, requirements, mock ups of screens, mock ups of requirements documents, what we might want to measure what sort of code coverage do we want to have? Let's go ahead and set other goals before we even get started if we can't actually put our fingers on a keyboard today.

Robert Greiner:

I like that a lot. And I think when it comes to the behavior of gluttony, wanting more, wanting more not being able to get enough, a lot of times that can that's based on an emotion of fear, which is man, I really don't, if I don't get it now, I'll never get it, I better wait until but dig my feet and dig my heels in until I get it. And what's funny is like, a lot of times, it's that the difference between static friction and kinetic friction where static friction is such a, it's so hard to overcome that little bit of push required to get something moving. And it turns out, nobody may know what the right answer is, you may have just as good of an idea. If you're building something, see what the smallest increment you can build is, and put that in front of other people to get feedback, because then you forced everyone to be very concrete about what they're telling you. So even if you're in a situation where you're waiting on something, and you're like, man, this isn't gonna be right, you could set expectations around, hey, we're just gonna try something, I know you're busy. What if we went, we have people waiting, let's go and let's build this out, let's mock this up. Let's put some wireframes together, let's build a version one, we may have to rewrite it later. But that's a better risk to take then, we're starting off the whole thing three months late, and then you've overcome static friction. And then all of a sudden, people are being very concrete about the feedback you're getting, because you're showing them something real. So actually, you have a lot of control over over that if you're in the position of if you're the one feeling like I can't get started until I have everything I need. And then just know like, that's probably fear based. And if you're seeing those behaviors in your organization, you should know as a leader that this person is afraid, they're probably afraid, you could assume some positive intent here, it's they're just trying to do what's right. I don't think I've ever met anyone really, who's like actively trying to sabotage like the organization, they may be doing underhanded things to help bolster their position, or like we talked about earlier to get more of something. But they're not trying to tank the whole ship. And a lot of times, people, they're just going home at night, wanting to have a job the next day. And so I think as a leader, if you can recognize, hey, this person may be may be operating from a point of fear, let me judge their intentions positively and go and try to address the fear of what's what could go wrong in a way to push things forward, I think could be a really healthy thing to do.

Tiffany Lenz:

From my psychology background, way back when I just from so much study about the motivation of human behavior. I am a firm believer in two key motivators for people. One is fear, and one is love. And love can love can translate into even a commitment that was made to something or a buy in to an approach where fear is exactly as you described it, it's a preservation, whether of self or other things that one holds dear. So I think you're spot on that. It's the antidote is still discipline, it's self control. Whether that be controlling one's fear, being aware of it, and controlling it, as a leader controlling the behaviors that you see around you that are likely to go out of control, or prioritizing better, or engaging people outside of what you thought the kickoff was going to look like. And the start of your project is going to look like self control is still the antidote for gluttony.

Robert Greiner:

Yes, self control. And then that subset of priority really speaks to me, because if everybody is speaking the same language around what is first, then if you have no excuse, after that, and even the fearful self preservation types, will probably fall in line. At a minimum, there's group consensus, you're getting direction from leadership, you're setting direction as a leader, that's really powerful, because then it's okay. Even if I march in this direction, and something goes wrong, I can't be blamed because I was like, You told me that. And maybe that's good enough for now, because it does get you past the sort of gluttonous behaviors. And maybe that it's just a priority discussion that's really interesting.

Tiffany Lenz:

And somewhat what we've both been talking about without addressing it. So I'll address it directly. We are talking about finding signals in the noise to see this dysfunction and removing some of the emotion, the emotionally charged actions out of these discussions, so that we can just have very simple, impersonal data discussions about priorities about outcomes. It's not my failure, your failures, someone else's to blame. Victim thinking, all of these are just related to emotions that are noise, and whatever we can do as leaders to remove that allows us to just have very simple unemotional data driven discussions.

Robert Greiner:

Yeah, definitely agree So if you're listening, you've gotten a bit of a insight into just a typical conversation that you or I might have. And one constraint from those kind of conversations is I think we both have a meeting to run to right now. So it was really great to catch up with you today. We've hit lust, we've hit gluttony. What's next?

Tiffany Lenz:

Greed.

Robert Greiner:

Greed

Tiffany Lenz:

This is a good one. You don't want to miss it.

Robert Greiner:

It'll be juicy.

Tiffany Lenz:

It will be.

Robert Greiner:

Well, it's great to talk to you today. Tiffany. I'll talk to you next week.

Tiffany Lenz:

Thanks, Robert.

Take care.

Robert Greiner:

Have a good one. Bye.

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