How do we lead conversations that engage people and create change?

All change starts with a leader who can engage their team. True leaders open conversations that engage their teams. Leaders through their example create the organisational culture.

They create the context and set the frame that work is done within.

In today's podcast episode I spoke to Rachel Gooen about her work.

Rachel coaches individual leaders in her Engaged Leader programme. She also facilitates conversations throughout organisations.

Our culture is built on the Greek model, one of adversity that if you

challenge and you fight ideas out the best one will live, but I think

we've come to a stage where it's not about being gladiatorial anymore.

We have to look at the real problem is a lack of acceptance.

We need to move instead of being adversarial to work

from a basis of acceptance.

I agree with you a hundred percent.

And I've been thinking about that a lot.

My facilitation style comes out of learning acceptance and commitment

training and the organizational development arm of pro social.

That's the group format of acceptance and commitment training.

That was, developed by Paul Atkins and a lot of that is about acceptance in

how can we be with challenging feelings, challenging thoughts, and then notice.

I can tolerate these and be with them because we all have a goal together.

We have a goal to accomplish a mission, we have a goal to change

something or impact something.

Can we together see what behaviors are causing us to not achieve that

goal, where they come from, and then make group choices to say, I can

tolerate a little bit of discomfort.

Or maybe not total agreement in honor of moving towards

this bigger mission or goal.

There has to be an element of willingness.

I think about how do we build that willingness as facilitators?

How do we create the space?

I also, have found, and I don't know if you found this.

I think this is part of that mediation component, that

skill that you have learned.

It's sometimes about the how.

People are arguing about, how do we get it done?

How do we get it To happen and I think that's this Greek system

that you're talking about.

I have the right way instead of can we have the right way?

We're not as communal as I believe other, I'm not really sure totally how other

cultures are fully communal because I'm in all honesty, versed in very few cultures.

But we're not as communal as thinking altruistically, like if we all go

for what the group wants, we will have our needs met as well, which

is what pro social facilitation and organizational development is built upon.

It's built upon the evolutionary biology that if we work towards what the

species need or what the group needs we do get our individual needs met.

But that acceptance is huge.

I've heard of acceptance and commitment, but can you

just break that down and just give us a quick summary of that?

Yeah.

Acceptance and commitment training is a personal approach.

a third wave cognitive behavioral therapy that has you begin to notice that you are

always present, you are always here, and there are parts of you that can witness

other things going on inside of you.

So the goal is to develop psychological flexibility so that you can become

more dialectical inside so that you can say, Yes, this is occurring

and this is occurring and that's occurring in me at the same time.

I might have challenges that come up in my life And sometimes,

we get taken up in them.

So if you have a relationship that goes in a negative direction, right?

We easily can start to say I'm not worthy.

I'm not lovable.

I'm pick bad people.

But we try to train people to say there's a part of me that feels this

way, or I'm noticing that right now, this relationship didn't work out,

and I'm still all these other things.

This person did find attractive you also look at what makes your life meaningful

and you look at valued behaviors.

So not Family values or religious values, but I really value being kind

or I really value having integrity.

I really value living in a adventurous lifestyle so that as you go along, you're

looking through the lens of life towards honesty or integrity or adventure.

So when choices come up for you, you can say, here's a challenging situation.

How will I address this in the most honest way that I can?

And sometimes it's can I be honest with myself?

And that's the challenge.

That's the direction you're moving in.

Sometimes it's, I'm going to be honest with this individual or I'm going to

sit back and see it in an honest manner.

Now that grew into an organizational development model called Pro

Social and Pro Social is based off of Ellen Ohlstrom's work.

She got a Pulitzer Prize in economics, and she looked at how do

groups protect or use the commons?

Common grazing areas, common water rights and what are the stages that

the group has to go through or what are the rules that the group has to have

or qualities and it's multiple groups.

So she studied an area where people were using general

lands for grazing and saw, wow.

They really can do this well, and she discovered eight principles and then David

Wilson, who's an evolutionary biologist, worked with her to make those principles

a little bit more understandable and generalize able, can't say that word and

I'll tell you what those principles are.

And then Paul Atkins said those are great, but now we have to actually

put behavioral rules in place.

Components so people could actually do them and learn how to do them.

And that is The realm that we work in.

So they're very basic and simple, right?

i'm not denigrating anybody's hard work, but this is us as humans

Sometimes it's right there in front of us, but it's really hard to do.

So groups need shared purpose and identity and really have real conversations

about what is it that we have in common and that we're doing together.

And how do we hold to that so that we don't start to splinter off and come back

to have fast and fair conflict resolution.

To be able to have equitable benefits so that everybody in the group feels

that there's fairness across who puts the efforts in and and even if somebody

puts more effort in and someone puts less efforts in, as long as the benefits

that they receive are equal, that's okay.

There's an agreement on help, what are helpful behaviors.

for the group and what are unhelpful behaviors.

Both are recognized.

So helpful behaviors are not just praised, but they're models

and mentored and unhelpful behaviors aren't just sanctioned.

You have a discussion about it and talk about why did that happen?

So you just don't get thrown out of the group.

You say, hey, what was going on for you and try to help somebody

begin to have helpful behaviors.

But also we all know hey, that's not a great behavior for the group.

And then there's also the ability for you to feel like you're a tight component of a

group so that you can interact with other groups well and you know how to do that,

the ability so that you can self govern.

And then the other one that's really important that and I would love

to hear what your perspective is on this and the team's works that

you do, but it's about transparency and being able to be transparent so

that we can see What is happening?

Why is it happening?

And they call it monitoring of behaviors and actions.

But really, it's about transparency and not monitoring like a negative way.

But transparency so that we can understand.

Also how do we really understand clear decision making?

Groups have really believed consensus Is the way or consent is the way and

sometimes not everybody wants that.

Not all human people like that.

Sometimes people like somebody makes a decision for me and I get to do it.

And so this is where that complexity lies right of do we like decisions made

and who wants to be a part of it and who wants to understand why it's made.

How do you get your voice in there?

So having those eight elements being really clearly defined and talked about

is, as I said, sometimes they seem very simple, but they're very hard to do.

And when you have a group that's been established for a long time

then it has to do, how do you bring people into that culture?

And with what they're bringing into the culture.

And this is where that complexity that started our conversation happens, right?

If generations are changing, how do we bring their needs and wants and

viewpoints into a team, into the culture, so that it feels like a good

fit or that they're being seen or heard?

Their needs are met that it's an adaptable organization, but a lot

about willingness and about acceptance.

Not like I accept it and take it, but I know that I need that.

I'm going to have some discomfort here as well as comfort.

And sometimes you just have to ride that out.

Yeah.

That's quite a similar.

basis to my model which is basically that relationships have a purpose.

And the purpose that they have defines the context of the relationship.

It's getting to that core of it.

For me, the core of it is people are naturally bad at conflict.

They're naturally afraid, naturally stresses them.

If you can change the context so that they can cope with the conflict,

then that develops the relationship because normally relationships lose

connection at the point of conflict.

That's where they splinter their purpose.

It's about being able to share a purpose is about a higher level

of communication, which depends on an honesty and a transparency.

When you don't have the transparency, it's normally because someone has a

separate agenda who doesn't want to share their purpose transparently.

When you don't share transparently, what we don't know creates rumors

and gossip and that's where you get division and in the same way,

having clear decision making.

I don't think people necessarily need the decision to go their

way, but they need to feel that there was a logic and a fairness.

I find fairness really interesting because it's probably one of

the deepest human assumptions.

It's where so much conflict comes from because people feel something

isn't fair and yet life isn't fair.

You only have to look at life.

Some child is born now in Africa in poverty, maybe with AIDS in

some conditions that they're going to really struggle for life.

Someone else is born with a silver spoon in the perfect environment.

So nothing in life in nature is fair.

And I often ask where does that belief in fairness come from?

I

think it's a great question.

I do.

I think it's a great question.

I, sometimes wonder if it comes from a biological drive as a species to,

to want to be comfortable, to want to write the situation that they're in.

But I very much have an ecological framework the way that I view life.

I seem to always go back to what's the purpose?

As a species and as an animal.

Oh, that's not fair.

I didn't get that.

If I had that, then I'd survive more or I'd feel more comfortable.

In compaction focused therapy, they talk about three different zones.

There's the soothe zone, the drive zone, and then the threat zone.

And we're really always wanting to be in the soothe zone.

But most of the time we're bouncing back and forth between

the threat zone and the drive zone.

The drive zone is when we're functioning really well, like

we're just living and doing things.

I guess I always resort to that's not fair is I didn't get that and if I had

that would make me feel better and I'd survive more or I'd feel more soothed.

But you're absolutely correct.

It is always about fairness.

I'm curious.

I want to go with you mind going back to talking about the context.

You had said that if you can change the context, is it of the relationship

or of the conflict that so could you talk about that component?

Because I'm very

At the core of relationships is conflict.

They break down when we're not speaking.

And I think is biologically or at least socially evolved in us

that difference equals danger.

Because if you look back like evolution takes 200, 000 years to change anything.

So back then different meant a different tribe or it meant a different species.

Both were life threatening.

So I think when we have a difference over what strategy we're going to

use or what our priorities are in the next quarter, the biology that's

linked with that is the same as there's a tribe coming to invade us.

There's a saber toothed tiger that's coming in.

So immediately in our makeup of the brain.

It's conflict.

And that conflict is life or death but conflict now isn't life or death,

conflict is just a misunderstanding, it's working on different assumptions

that we're unconscious of, really.

We've talked about the cultural context of huge problems in

nations, huge problems in society.

And within all that people are every day going to work and trying to make their

organizations function as effectively and to do the best that they can.

And that's your work isn't it, helping people work within organizations.

So can you give us a an insight into what you actually do?

Sure.

From the bigger picture, I work on culture because I do believe that if

we have a culture that people feel comfortable in, that individuals

thrive and the mission thrives.

I mostly work with mission driven organizations.

That could be nonprofit organizations businesses that are mission driven,

not necessarily financially driven, but more mission driven and then

government agencies, whether that's state, local, or federal agencies.

And I work on three different levels cause this is how I see culture.

Culture is comprised of the individuals that are in there.

So I do coaching with individuals and to me, we have this term leadership, but I

really call it peopleship because anyone in an organization can be a leader.

I don't see it just as a title.

So peopleship, then there's the team that's, that you're working with in

larger places, we have multiple teams.

But so I do work with teams to help them communicate better to help them

be effective in what they're doing.

Sometimes that's a strategy element.

Sometimes it's communication.

Sometimes it's learning about each other so that they can function well.

And then there's the larger organization, which in nonprofits is made up of a

staff and a board, and I consider the staff and the board, the organization,

and so like to work with both of them at the same time to create this culture.

Often I see groups that will do the board will determine the

culture and do strategic planning.

And then there's the staff that just doesn't fit in with that.

So I really want to work with the whole entire group.

So with the individuals, I have individual programming where I do executive

coaching and leadership development.

I run a course called the engaged leader series.

Then I have teamwork where I do a program called engaged communication

called epic teams, which is basically building engaged teams that are based

on their engagement level purpose.

What's their impact?

And then how do they communicate that back to each other?

And now to the larger group in larger organizations, I do staff

and board retreats, strategic planning, things of that nature.

And I do a lot of coalition work, which is multiple players from

different organization types whether it's nonprofits, community groups.

agencies, federal, state, or local agencies, and they're coming together

around an issue, whether it is.

I've done a lot of work with migratory songbird coalitions in the past few

years, to substance use coalitions local land trust coalitions where

they're trying to save public lands food coalitions where they're looking

at farm to table or local agriculture.

Those are more straight facilitation that I bring in design of the process so that

kind of going back to what you and I've been talking about so that relationships,

which I agree are primary, we're building good relationships and that's what

that engagement component is to me that word of, can we engage with each other?

Can we make a commitment to each other to let us take that moment

to get to really know each other?

And to build trust, to build understanding with each other, and that for them

from there, we do the discussions that they want, but I'm always basing it

on everything that we've been talking about, relationship building, safety,

understanding, the mitigation component, how can we learn to make decisions.

Do you ever use the gradients of agreement, Rob?

It's called the gradients of agreement.

It's a neat tool that I use a lot with coalitions in particular.

Where basically you learn that you don't have to 100 percent

fully agree with something.

You can have small gradients agreements to the point where no, I just can't

work with you like to a veto, but it's on a scale of zero to 10.

That is what I do.

And I do think at the heart of it all, it is that what we've been talking

about, can we shift to a new way of being where we can see that we are

one and we need, we are different and have diversity and yet can benefit

from learning how to have diversity.

relationships where conflict is not seen as a negative or something to

be afraid of, but as a growth point and to learn from, and that we can

still be friends after conflict.

So what I see in larger organizations, it's about

facilitation and conversation.

and getting people talking so that they can find points of agreement

and gradients of agreement so they can move forward to make a decision.

Okay.

So there was something I got sidetracked and, but I wanted to

bring up because you talked about it.

And I think it's relevant to that talking about the larger organizations.

Is you talked about the commons.

I think it was.

When you were talking about the eight laws from pro social facilitation.

I often come back to the tragedy of the commons.

Are you familiar with the tragedy of the commons?

A hundred percent.

Often what we're dealing with is the problem of human frailty is that

People won't live up to what they say.

People will be selfish.

People will look out for their own interests.

And where everything breaks down is where people don't keep their word,

where people aren't transparent, they aren't honest because they

think they're going to gain more.

And I guess that's the premise of the pro social facilitation is you can gain more.

Like I always think, how ridiculously expensive war is.

Yeah I believe that, you definitely picked up on what pro social

is the basis of it is, which is what David Sloan Wilson in his evolutionary,

perspective he's a professor at SUNY Binghamton, and that is his specialty.

What he studies is, and has proven, is that altruistic groups can

have selfish individuals in it.

And still be okay.

But a selfish individual cannot really rule a bunch of altruistic people,

it just doesn't happen because of who they are, their narcissism, their need.

Pro social also is very much based on self determination theory,

which is People want to belong.

They want to feel competent and they want to be valued.

They want to be valued and seen right there.

There's these three components and teams or leaders can

Really take advantage of that.

I think this is that component of pro social facilitation where acceptance

and commitment training comes in to play because and it's why I say I work with the

individual, the team and the organization, because we have to teach people, both.

Something that goes against the way that we're raised goes against the

way that our human mind is built.

And you talked about that, right?

You talked about that part of us that is always trying to

survive and feels threatened.

So we go through a training process where we help people begin to go against the

negativity bias and start to say yes, I can see that negative thing happened.

And can I also see the 80 percent of the good that's going on?

Or can I see the other components?

How we do this in organizations is to begin to slow down and to break down.

Really, it's a cultural shift in organizations where the

person is at work, right?

It used to be there's the work and then there's your personal life.

We bring ourselves to work and this is what Brene Brown talks about.

This is what, Sheryl Sandberg talks about leaning in.

We can go on and on of lots of different people who've started

to say We bring our whole selves.

Patrick Lencioni talks about it in the Five Behaviors of a Dysfunctional Team.

So what pro social does and in this process is we first start

with the individual to say can you begin to start noticing?

And then can we begin to speak up to step in and I talk a lot about intention.

People don't see your intentions, they see your behaviors and

intention is I'm going to be scared.

I'm going to be a little vulnerable.

I talk about a different kind of vulnerability than Brene Brown does.

I talk about vulnerability within.

You're going to be vulnerable to yourself and you're going to try to push

yourself and feel that uncomfortableness.

If I say in this meeting, my idea, or that right now, this isn't

feeling incredibly comfortable in here is why I'm exposing myself.

I'm doing that.

Potentially setting up a conflict, but I'm also building a relationship.

I'm letting people know who I am.

And if we don't do that, then we do get these individuals say,

like they don't necessarily always have the best relational skills.

And I think this is a little bit why organizations blow up

because we need this balance.

We need someone who knows how to do that.

And that's why I talk about peopleship and not leadership because it's

every single one of us in the group.

I just worked with a group going on for 35 years, and they have had a lot

of transition in the past four years.

The only way I basically said that you're gonna get through this, is for

each and every one of you to step up and to step out in intention to say,

this is how I'm going to help you.

This is how we are going to do this together.

This is the culture that I want.

And that's the culture they named what they want.

And it is a culture of relationship and support and what it looks like.

A lot of the times, the problem of societies is that we have a

minority and it's a small minority.

So when you look at, there's certain people that, just aren't capable of

being pro social, just aren't capable of being healthy members of society.

When you look at 1 percent of the population are psychopaths,

2 percent are sociopathic, and 4 7 percent are narcissistic.

And these are people that are broken and unable to maintain

and sustain relationships.

We've had a history where those people have over indexed.

When you look at when we've been a conquering society, we wanted

Psychopaths, we wanted, those people that were so driven for glory, that so

driven for attention and needing to be adulated, they have been, they've over

indexed in leadership, in politics.

So we have a culture that's been damaged because of that.

Often the problem Of working in groups is that we have good people, but they

don't know how to navigate around that because good people treat everyone.

Bad people treat people badly and so there's an unfairness

in the way that they work.

A lot of organizations and a lot of things that we put in place don't work when

they meet that, because the, those people won't be transparent because they don't

want everyone to see the machinations that are going on underneath the surface.

And so I think what you're doing is teaching people how to

navigate Around those people.

So those people aren't the ones dictating because often the unfairness of the

group means that those people get to dictate and they know how to manipulate.

A lot of the problems currently in that we can't have an honest conversation because

you'll get cancelled and that way silences people from having that conversation.

What we need in organizations and in society is to have that conversation.

So yeah that's my read on what you're doing.

Oh, Rob, I really love how you say and it's true that these

individuals who don't necessarily follow the social norms or have good

in their well that have the social skills that the rest of us see as good.

They don't.

I agree with you.

And it's interesting because it's like they don't see the bounds.

They see ways around things.

They don't even see the normal rules of what Feels right or wrong.

And it's very true.

That people who feel sensitivity to others.

Don't want to be seen also as rude by putting that person in their

quote unquote place and most likely it's because that person is very

unmanageable in the conversation.

They will go in lots of different ways that feels harsh, that feels painful,

and really, it is a challenging thing and that's why, I don't know if you get this,

there's always the request Of how do I deal with difficult conversations or how

do we, how do you pull someone in that's unruly or that won't, that keeps going.

I get that request as a facilitator often.

It also comes in like the Dunning Kruger principle and imposter

syndrome where people the people who know the least will shout the most.

I think also Rob, that has to do with what we were,

started this conversation.

About I think where my mind has been really digesting into the

different levels of culture.

I think people in organizations feel like that, they've had

leader after leader and broken promise after broken promise.

And that is the context in which we're operating in.

I think in organizations that we see it in how resistant people are to new changes.

There's constantly some new change.

And people are like, Oh, I've heard it all before and I don't want to change.

And so that's the context that all that leaders are operating within.

So I'm interested in how do you help leaders navigate into that?

Is it for new leaders or is it existing leaders?

It is for new leaders, existing leaders.

People that want to become a leader many of the people take it who are the way that

I define leader is that you're out there helping to organize a group of people.

So sometimes there's individuals who are running a program that are going

out into the community speaking.

So anyone who's taking action on something.

working to gather people to have an impact and to move.

The majority of people that take it, I noticed were people that are in middle

management that are not necessarily the executive director or the top

leader, but I do have, seems like there's always two or three in a cohort.

I try to keep the cohorts small and run them often so that we really can

have good intimate conversations.

I do a lot of skill building.

What are the skills that you focus mostly?

The skills that we focus on are really about how to have conversations

that are meaningful and that are deep or that deal with the Conflictual

area that you're talking about.

I use a lot of Adam Grant's work and Adam Grant talks about

different kinds of conflict and there's task conflict, relationship

conflicts and values conflicts.

We learn how to bring the conversations at work away from a relationship

conflict to a task conflict, so that people, instead of saying, you did this

to me, or you did not do X, Y, and Z.

It's more about, we're looking to get this product or this Message out

and I noticed that we're having some challenges meeting those deadlines.

Let's sit down and talk about what do we need to do in our team or in

our organization to make sure we have everything set up to move that forward.

Rather than you're not meeting your deadline, what's happening with you.

You're taking too much time off.

And really bringing it up to this higher level of kind of what

you talked about that context.

How can we look at the context and say, Hey, what's happening here?

And a lot of that is really training on how do we have these conversations?

How do we look at as an individual every day?

We have our emotion, we have our logic, and how can we put those

together to use the wise mind?

Where I can balance my emotional response of, Oh my God, if we don't get that done,

the board is going to come down on me.

Or if we don't get that done, we're not going to get this money.

And if we don't get that done, then here are all the other problems.

That's the emotion that can come up or the frustration.

Why does this person always have to blah, blah, blah.

So can I notice that emotion and why I'm getting that emotion?

What's the value?

What was it?

What's the meaning?

What is not happening that I feel needs to happen?

And what's that reflection on me if it doesn't happen or that team?

And then the logic component, which is often we say you just have

to do it this way, which doesn't give that person agency right?

We want to mentor individuals to grow.

It doesn't give that person agency to grow.

So can we put those two together and speak from the wise mind, which is about putting

in the values of here's the importance.

Can I hear from you?

What's happening?

Can we look at the context and fix the context?

Because sometimes the person needs training or more support or the

freedom to say I needed help.

So we learn skills like that.

In this and talk about as a group, some of the challenges and scenarios that come up.

And so every week we focus on something different, whether it's first

identifying what kind of leader are you?

What comes up for you that has given you in your life strength to be this

individual or what barriers have come up?

What are your values like?

How do you want to behaviorally lead?

What do you want to lead with?

And values are always shifting and changing.

And so we I talk about that and teach people how we play with those.

We look at the role of emotional intelligence, the role of mindset, and

how mindset is very important for you internally to set that with your group.

We look at the art of mentoring, and what is mentoring nowadays.

How can you be a mentor?

And we also create a map of your engaged leader style.

And you start with what's your driving purpose in the center?

And then begin to look at a variety of different components.

What is your best self?

We all have our yin yang, our light dark, and what is our dark side telling

us what's our light side telling us?

So really creating a whole person perspective as a leader with the goal

of also creating a culture that reflects the organization that you're in.

It's interesting when I ask people why do you want to take this?

I like to learn how to start non judgmental conversations.

I want to gain confidence in my communication skills to guide my team.

This one is interesting.

I want to learn how to be comfortable with taking credit for what I

do or say and that one, I think, speaks to what you're talking.

You mentioned before the imposter syndrome.

There's so many people that are underselling themselves.

Yes.

So there's people that are coming and saying, I want to learn how to navigate

communication and relationships.

They want to be on a team, like a Ted lasso team.

I love Ted Lasso as a person that works on teams and training.

There's just so many components of that that are really helpful to seeing models

of how people can learn to get through difficulty and stay together with a

shared purpose and shared identity.

They have it easy.

Football is life, so they have a lot of confines that help build teams, right?

They have a uniform.

They have a game that they get to play.

They each know their roles clearly.

They have a communication.

It's just interesting.

I think sports teams sometimes can have an easier time than our organizational teams.

It's interesting because have a football group.

Thomas is working in Saudi Arabia now, so he hasn't been

able to join us for a while.

But Thomas and Tony were football coaches.

So they've grown up footballers and then football coaches.

But it's interesting that they're, Talking about the same things.

I know soccer isn't huge in the States, but the best manager Pep Guardiola he

said it like it's 90 percent of his work is relationships is the human element.

And it's still the same same issue.

I haven't seen a lot of Ted Lasso.

I've watched a couple of episodes.

Yeah lot of people have spoken about The lessons and it's basically he's

a nice person and he bumbles along, but then he makes it work what

he does.

And I've thought about this a lot, especially, when we go into teams, there's

so many different kinds of formations and different ways to pull a team together.

I think this is what I've thought about with sports teams.

So they have the skill.

They know what their roles are.

They know have clear rules.

They have their shared purpose on what he does is he rallies them around

the idea of believing in themselves, believing that they can do it.

And that is another way to organize and create a shared purpose.

Our shared purpose is to believe in ourselves and to believe that we can

be a winning team, which is different than if you're working for a group

that is working for climate change or migratory bird coalitions, or,

substance use prevention or domestic violence, or a bit, I mostly work in.

I call it healthy people, healthy planets, because, I work in those realms.

And that's different because you're usually fighting towards

something to fix something.

And no one focuses the way that he did on the believe.

And when they start to believe in themselves and believe in

each other, they are successful.

And he is a master at Being humble.

I don't know if you ever watched it is it's called The Last

Dance and it's Michael Jordan.

Yeah.

I haven't seen it.

There are parts of it and components of it that Phil Jackson,

the coach, I think I got his name correctly when he became coach, what

he started to do with the team and how he started building the relationships.

He's actually from Montana, which I didn't know.

There's a part where he talks about learning from the Native Americans in the

influence that he had from them helped him think about how to build this team.

Of course, Michael Jordan is a huge influence on what he did.

Now I'm just going to give you another my, like

my poster boy for a unifier.

My soccer team is Liverpool.

And they were like the best when I was growing up.

And then we've had 30 years of being a poor team.

Being an also ran.

Not having the money, not having the big players and all of that kind of thing.

And this coach came in nine years ago.

He's just left last season.

And Jurgen Klopp.

And he came in and he said, my job is to turn you from doubters to believers.

Basically what he did and there was the humility because there was another

coach that he'd won the European cup and he came into this team and he

said, in his first press conference, he said, I am not one out of any.

I am the special one.

And he did well and then, but he only lasted like two or three years at every

club and every club he's been sacked at.

He creates such animosity and he leaves them like in a state of disarray.

Whereas Jurgen Klopp came in and his first thing, he said, I am the normal one.

I am not the special one.

I am just one.

He said, it doesn't matter what you say about me now is what

you say about me when I leave.

The players didn't believe, the players didn't think they were good enough to play

for the reputation that Liverpool had.

They didn't have confidence in themselves.

He came in and they thought, Oh, this is it.

We're going to get rid of us and find better players.

He said no, I want you.

And he built the players.

He made the players better.

And he made everyone in the back room work together.

One of the things that led to their success was in their transfers

in bringing in new players.

The previous manager was like I bring in who I want and they were fighting and they

were bringing in halfway people that waste their money, whereas they now brought

in the best players, they made them better and he brought the fans together.

So they all came as one.

And that's what turned them in.

Okay.

So for someone who's looking being a leader what would they be like?

What would they expect?

And how might they find out more about your course?

Like I said as far as an individual who wants to be a part of

the engaged leader series is really someone who has willingness to go to

places that might be a little hard.

Who really wants to learn the skills, not just read about things.

You get paired up with another individual in the group and you

practice in between each meeting.

You're someone who wants to grow, wants to strive.

They can learn about and sign up by going to rachelgooen.Com and you click

on engaged leaders and on there, there's an application and it says apply.

And the only reason I have you apply is because I want to, there are questions

that I have so that you can make sure this is the right time for you to take this.

That you have the amount of time to make the commitment and also to see

what is it that you're looking to grow?

I put different cohorts together so that they can be matched appropriately.

And it's really, I've had people in it from Italy, like across the world.

And that's also a nice richness of diverse organizations, diverse places

that people live and it just seems to be a real growth experience for everyone.

Six weeks long 90 minute sessions.

And then you also get one on one coaching with me.

And in between I'm also available.

I've had people write to me and say, I just had this

interaction with a supervisee.

I'm not quite sure how to handle it.

And then I'll just, hop on a call and we'll discuss it and pull on

skills that we're learning in class to help you navigate that situation.

And so that's a nice thing too.

It's like for six weeks, I'm there for you.

Once people have been through it, what typically is the result

that they get the outcome for them?

Yeah, the result and the outcome.

They said, yeah, I have these right here.

Actually, they said that they learned how to be more resilient.

They learned how to build a work atmosphere that's based on trust.

They learned how to give really good feedback and develop growth mindsets

in their team, how to avoid burnout.

They have learned how just a lot about themselves as a

leader and their work style.

To

be more confident.

Yeah, they learned confidence, they learned how to, as I said before, how

to really raise the level of conversation so that it was more about tasks.

And not like a person to person negative conversation and

that really helped Transform.

Okay team was working.

It sounds great.

Okay, so i'll put the links in for that but thank you for this.

Thank you rob.

It's so wonderful.