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Highlights

• [01:08] - From poor Generation Zero immigrant to Dr. Jim Kanichirayil.
• [06:45] - The life experiences that informed his current leadership style.
• [11:25] - Decision making = What’s right for the customer, company, and your ethics.
• [17:03] - How he got the doctor's title in front of his name.
• [20:32] - Becoming an expert in sales, leadership, talent strategy, and diversity.
• [27:23] - Why you need to be more in the background as a sales leader.
• [33:36] - Having the mindset of a three-year-old and why it’s so powerful.

In this episode of the Transformed Sales Podcast, I interviewed Dr. Jim Kanichirayil, talent strategy transformation evangelist at Circa and host of The Cascading Leadership Podcast. Jim helps leaders, people, and organizations drive transformations by helping them build elite diverse teams. He also makes sure that their talent strategy doesnt get left behind. Dr. Jim tells us what modern sales leaders can do to attract, retain and develop more talent and how a shift in mindset has to happen for that to be achievable. 

We talked a lot about empowering your sales team and the different ways to do it, why sales should be a solutions engine and not just a product source, and how sales leaders can expand their capabilities. Jim will also share the kind of conversations leaders should have with their teams to create more commitment and engagement. Tune for that and so much more in all things sales success.

Quotes

“Your actual production and your performance as an organization is going to be related to the diversity within the organization” - Jim Kanichirayil

“More diverse organizations have better business outcomes than non-diverse organizations” - Jim Kanichirayil

“If you do what’s right for the customer, what’s right for the company, what’s right from an ethics perspective, everything else falls in line” - Jim Kanichirayil

“A modern seller is a problem solver” - Jim Kanichirayil

“If you as a seller orient yourself outward to how you can help your broader customer base solve the problems that they have and be obsessed about the problem, that’s actually going to advance everything that you want without you actually overtly advocating for those things” - Jim Kanichirayil

“You should be hiring with the mindset of hiring a replacement” - Jim Kanichirayil

“Never be afraid of people that are better than you because that’s the only way that you’re actually gonna get better” - Jim Kanichirayil

“Don’t be afraid of being wrong because that’s actually where your leaps of innovation happen versus just getting the right answer” - Jim Kanichirayil

Learn More About Jim Kanichirayil in the Links Below:

• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/drjimk
• Website - https://circaworks.com/
• Jim’s Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cascading-leadership-the-show/id1609547560

Connect with Wesleyne Greer:

• Wesleyne’s Website - https://transformedsales.com/
• Wesleyne on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/wesleynegreer/
• Wesleyne on Facebook - https://web.facebook.com/wesleynegreer
• Wesleyne on Twitter - https://twitter.com/wesleynegreer
• Email Her at wesleyne@transformedsales.com

Hello, and welcome to another episode of

the transform sales Podcast. Today I am in great company, I

have Dr. Jim can eat Reaugh. How are you, Dr. Jim?

I'm fantastic. He nailed my pronunciation of

the last name. So very few people get that right. So I'm

happy to be here. And we're starting off the show on a

really strong footing there.

Yay, it is because my name is so hard to

say. And so when somebody asks me, how do you pronounce it, I

really try to lean into it. So I try to save people's names right

when I can. So let me tell you guys a little bit more about Dr.

Jim. He's a researcher, writer, and podcaster. If you have not

listened to his podcast yet, you should definitely do it. But he

helps leaders, people and organizations drive

transformations by helping them build elite diverse teams, he

also makes sure that talent and your talent strategy doesn't get

left behind. I love that talent in your talent strategy not

getting left behind. That's awesome. So tell us how did Dr.

Jim start his career to become this amazing person who is so

focused on diversity in teams in sales in everything, tell us

about that journey.

I don't know about how amazing all that is.

It's kind of like the ultimate nerd story. So I mean, I think

in broad strokes, if we're talking about how I got to where

I'm at right now and where I'm heading, I'm a generation zero

immigrant. And I've referenced this in sort of the earliest

episodes of my podcast that I host with myself and Lawrence

Brown is that we were so poor, I'm originally from India, we

were so poor, that the trigger that flipped us coming to the US

was me basically melting down in the middle of a grocery store,

because we couldn't afford an apple. So I had seen an apple

for the first time wanted it, couldn't afford it, and my mom,

you know, decided at that point, I gotta get a better life for my

kids. And that started the process of coming to the US. So

how that ties into kind of where I'm at, I've always had this

sort of grinder hungry personality or aspect about

myself, because of where I came from. And you know, in terms of

how I got to where I'm at right now, I've always been a super

nerd, like, there are so many different things that interests

me. And I'd like to go deep in those areas. But in general, the

world is just interesting to me. So I like to have at least a

baseline level of knowledge across any number of things. And

one of the things that I noticed as I was early in my career and

then progressing through is that organizations and companies are

always looking at, we got to get more people, we got to keep the

funnel going in terms of pipeline, but the area that

always gets forgotten is internally, you're always

obsessed about bringing people in, but what are you doing to

keep the people that you have and oftentimes, the culture

within organizations isn't set up in a way where you can have

those sorts of conversations and talk about what's your vision

for yourself, Where do you want to go that sort of stuff. And

that actually informed a lot of my my research in areas of

interest. And that really is where I became passionate about

retention, turnover, development, di issues, all of

these sorts of things. It took time, as I got further and

further involved. And that's kind of how I got here. I've

been fortunate in that I've always been able to tie these

nerd areas into what I do. I mean, I have that long as title

that you just read. But you know, essentially, I'm in sales.

So I've worked very deliberately, in integrating my

talent, strategy passions into the roles that I've had, I've

had talent, adjacent roles and technology, talent, adjacent

roles and staffing. You know, I'm in a SAS technology

organization right now that is focused on driving diversity in

the workplace. So it's kind of like a process that led to kind

of where I'm at, and who knows where it's going to go, because

I'm going to keep grinding in these areas. And who knows where

that will take me in the long run. So hopefully, that helps

give you a little bit of a little bit of background

that gave me a whole lot. So you talked about

being a generation zero immigrant help enlighten us on

what it means to be a generation zero immigrant and what those

early years were like for you acclimating into the US,

I think what's interesting about fitting in, in

that immigrant journey, is that I had the benefit when I was in

India, that English is the national language along with

Hindi and a couple of other things that is going to be based

on what region you came up in. So I already knew English and I

was speaking English fluently when I came over here, but you

know, the adjustment period was pretty interesting. I had an

advantage where I could communicate with an English

accent. So like a British speakers accent at the time, so

I came over when I was seven, but I'd never seen like one of

the interesting stories about my first experiences here. When we

came over one of the stops that we had, before we switch to a

different plane to come to Chicago was in New York, and it

was in LaGuardia. And at the time, they didn't have the

terminal, they had those little trucks with stairs. And here I

am, as a seven year old kid, never seen snow before we came

over in December. So I'm thinking that when these stair

things came up to the door, I was racing to the front to be

the first off, and I look. And the first thing that I see is a

layer of white stuff that's this high. And I'm thinking America

is freaking great, because there's sugar everywhere. So I

grabbed a handful of it. Before my dad could, like grabbed my

hand and stuck it in my mouth. And I was disappointed in terms

of, well, this isn't sugar, it's cold. But that was one of my

first memories in coming over to the states, the adjustment

period as an immigrant was made easier because of my ability to

communicate. But there are a lot of cultural differences and

things like that. And this was, you know, in an era where

immigrants were probably even more, I don't want to say

frowned upon, but there was more animosity to an immigrant

community at that time there there is now but I think beyond

that, you know, where I lived, it was the Chicago suburbs. So

we lived in Oak Park, and then we lived in Evanston. So all of

these areas were fairly cosmopolitan. So it was an

easier transition, I think it would have been a lot more

difficult. If I was in middle of nowhere, I don't know, Idaho, or

something, no offense to anybody that lives in Idaho, but I think

that would have been a little bit tougher to make that

transition. So as

a child, as a person new to this country, I

really love what you said you'd like to sugar, and I can

absolutely see how as a child never seen snow, how you would

think about that. One thing that I know is so true is that the

experiences that we have in our childhood, they impact the way

that we lead. So which of those early experiences do you see

helping you become and have developed your leadership style,

so I can't really point to anything from my

childhood, that informed how I lead, I think there's a couple

of things that later on in life in high school and in college

that, you know, provided sort of the baseline, I always have this

entrepreneurial component to my DNA, like I've been working

since I was 13. So I was bussing tables at 13. And doing that

sort of stuff. So I've been in foodservice and all that sort of

stuff. And just generally being understanding or at least trying

to be understanding has always been part of my effort. I mean,

you learn a lot in terms of how crappy people can be when you're

bussing tables or waiting on him, because that has a wide

range of behaviors that you can encounter. So that informs you

to a certain level of well, you know, this happened, I don't

want to be feeling this way. So I'm going to be very deliberate

in making sure that I try not to make others feel that way. So

those are all like little experiences. But I've always had

this entrepreneurial bent, I ran a painting business. When I was

in college, my parents, my dad bought a gas station. That's

like a rite of passage for every Indian immigrant family, even

though he was a social worker, my mom was a nurse, apparently,

they had time on their hands. And he decided buying a gas

station was a good idea. It wasn't. So I ran that for a

while. So all of those things built that need to build things

and like iterate and continuously improve within a

framework. But I think the big thing that shaped a lot of my

leadership philosophy, it actually happened when I worked

for Lawrence, lb my co host, Lawrence Brown at enterprise,

the company that picks you up. And when I was interviewing for

a management trainee role. This was years ago, one of the first

things that he said at the time, we were there was the reason why

I like enterprise. And for those that aren't going to see the

video, I'm pointing at my hand, and I'm a brown person. And lb

says What I like most about working at enterprise is that

this stuff doesn't wash off. So you're evaluated based on the

merits of your production and your results versus any other

factor. And that was an interesting sort of mindset that

I adopted throughout my life. And when I've built teams

throughout my career, I've always been intentional about

building teams around me that are representative of the

communities that we serve. And oh, by the way, I've been really

lucky in having some phenomenal teams who were just ridiculously

elite in any number of different industries. Is there a causal

relationship? I don't know. But you know, I've had great people

on my team, and I was intentional and making sure that

they look the part of the communities I serve. So there's

a lot of research that backs that up, in fact that your

actual production and your performance as an organization

is going to be related to the diversity within the

organization. So more diverse organizations have better

business outcomes than non diverse organizations. But you

know, it's funny how a little comment like this stuff doesn't

wash off kind of plays into sort of a bigger role. Overall

employees strategy over the course of a, you know, half a

lifetime or whatever the the actual number of years are,

you mentioned that, hey, I don't know what in

my childhood impacted the way I lead, but just so everyone

knows, since I have children, I believe that you are my child

until you graduate from college. So anything up to 21 ounces

childhood for me. And so when you talk about really helping

your parents run a gas station and saying, Yeah, that was not a

good investment, and really understanding at an early age,

how to think about business and how to think about investments

and how to serve people. And then going into this enterprise

sales trainee role, probably about 25% of the people I

interviewed on this podcast have gone through that program. And

so I do think that what they give you in that program,

although a lot of people don't stay with enterprise, they

really give you a lot of bones and teach you how to sell teach

you how to lead and those that want to take that and move to

another level with it. They've gone on to do really amazing

things.

Yeah. And you know what, that's a phenomenal

point that you bring out Wesleyan is the foundation that

it gives you because when we're thinking about decisioning

processes, you know, here I am never having worked in a

corporate environment. I mean, I've run small businesses and

all that sort of stuff. And I asked the question at some point

in training, like, how are we supposed to figure out what we

do. And I think this is a comment that lb gave me you have

three rules that you need to abide by, when you're making

decisions, if it's good for the customer, if it's good for the

company, and it's ethical, you have free rein to do and make

whatever decision you need to make in the moment. And if you

can answer yes to all three of those, you're not going to get a

fight from me in terms of, you know, why did you do that? Now

we might explore like, what other options would have been

available, but like that is the mindset that I've carried from

that point forward is I want my people or people that are on the

team to always operate in that framework, because I think it's

hugely empowering. And then from a leadership perspective, it

takes a lot of the granular, like the granular decision

making off of your plate, like you're focused more on the

important things, which is helping your people become more

productive and effective, versus answering every little situation

that comes up, you're giving them a decision making process

or framework that anybody can operate with. And I think that's

hugely empowering from a team effectiveness perspective. So

you're right enterprise does leave a great foundation, I

would be remiss if I didn't say there are some things about that

culture, or their training that didn't serve me well. And here's

what I mean. I mean, this is not going to be like super

controversial or anything like that. But it's an organization

that has an upper out mentality, meaning you need to either be

moving up in the organization, or you're moving out. And I

think I really connected with that, because I'm naturally

impatient. So of course, I'm going to want to progress my

career as fast as possible. But there's an element that you

learn later on in life, about building the discipline for

methodical, precise execution in detail orientation that you

don't get in that upper out. World. So I think one of the

things that probably didn't serve me well is that earlier in

my career, I probably made decisions too fast on moving out

of an organization where I probably would have been better

served and having those open conversations with my leadership

team and saying, Hey, this is what I liked. This is what I

don't like, how do we make this work where I'm playing in my

wheelhouse within the organization versus let me go

find what else is out there. And then just repeating the cycle

over and over again, where instead of being disciplined,

and introspective and having the courage to have those

conversations, you just keep introducing yourself into the

same culture and you don't really like get the staying

power and the benefits of staying power. So there's that

aspect of it too. Sorry for the monologue.

That's absolutely. Okay. So going back

to one of the first things that you said, I just wanted to make

sure I heard it right. You said that what's most important in

decision making is what's right for the customer. What's right

for the company and your ethics. You didn't say anything about

making money about being what is good for you, as a salesperson

make the boss look good, right? Talk to us about that a little

bit more.

I think if you do those first three things,

right. And I would argue two out of the three are critical. One

is do what's right for the customer. That doesn't mean the

customer is always right. So I want to be clear there, do

what's right for the customer and be ethical. If you do both

of those things. Everything else will fall in line. I think where

sales professionals get this stuff backwards is that in

everything that the broader world of sales does, and this is

why people recoil whenever they have a salesperson interact with

them is it's all focused about me. It's all focused about our

product. It's all focused about what we want and what's in

According to me, nobody really cares. Nobody cares about you.

Nobody cares about your company. Nobody cares about what's

important to you. People are operating in the world from a

position of, I need to advance my own initiatives. So if you as

a seller, and a modern seller as a problem solver, if you really

orient yourself outward to how can you help your broader

customer base, solve the problems that they have, and be

obsessed about the problem that's actually going to advance

everything that you want without you actually overtly advocating

for those things? So there's a reason why I mentioned those

three things. Because if you do those three things, do what's

right for the customer, do what's right for the company, do

what's right, from an ethics perspective, everything else

falls in line. And you know, the fourth thing that I would add,

and this is not something that came from enterprise, if you're

a seller, you need to be oriented in a way where you're

giving two or three times more to the world around you than

what you ask. And that informs how we do follow ups that

informs how how we engage in conversation that informs us on

every interaction that we have, and people are going to get

that, oh, this person is different. Andy, Paul always

talks about how do you rise above the sea of sameness. And

that's how you rise above the sea of sameness. And if you

think about it, how low of a bar has sales set, when being

generous in a general sense, is like the aspirational goal,

right. But that's the thing. It's amazing to me,

I think the really amazing part about how we

both met is we were just following each other enjoying

each other's posts. Because we hold a lot of the same

philosophies. We're not trying to tell each other anything,

right? We're trying to learn from each other. Because another

key thing that you didn't mention about top salespeople

leaders that want to develop is that they always are trying to

figure out how can I get a little bit better? What can I

learn today? What's the one thing that I can tweak? And how

can I really take this to the next level? So you talked about

all of this amazing things that you did in your early life and

early career. I'm curious about these two letters that you have

in front of Jim, tell us about that. How did that come to be?

So this is going to circle back to the

generation zero immigrant story. So, you know, I'm not saying

this to be offensive to anybody, but just about every Indian

mother dreams of their children becoming doctors, I can't stand

the sight of blood. So there was no way that I was going to be a

doctor. But I wanted to make sure that my mom would have

something to brag about. So eventually, I decided, well, I

got to do something to get this doctor title in front of my

name. So I went and completed my doctoral research. It was

probably like, six, seven years ago at this point, but it was in

talent strategy. And actually, the research is essentially on

why people join and leave organizations. So again, it was

part of you know, it was employee retention and turnover

within the staffing industry context. And even at that time,

this was several years ago, when when I started that process, I

was always thinking about how can I add value to my hiring

managers that I'm trying to build relationships with? And

while everybody else in staffing is basically smiling and

dialing, trying to pick up the phone and saying, Hey, what

roles do you have open that we can help you fill? My approach

is how do I build this was even before brand identity or any of

that branding stuff was even on my radar? My thought process

was? How do I approach these conversations from a peer

position at a minimum? But ideally, how do I approach these

conversations with hiring managers from a position of

authority from the perspective of helping them solve their

talent strategy, and that was just one piece of it. And it was

an intentional piece, it was an expensive, intentional piece,

but you got to invest in yourself to build that sort of

credibility. And this was just one piece of that exercise. I

want to help organizations. This was 10 years ago that I'm

thinking about this stuff, maybe 15. I want to help organizations

solve their talent challenges. So how do I do that and approach

it from both a tactical and strategic perspective, which has

massive value implications for the person that I'm dealing

with. And that's how I ended up you know, finishing out the

degree

with a good son, I am actually a first generation

American. My parents are originally from Jamaica, and in

our culture, it's like, you're gonna be a doctor, you're gonna

be a lawyer, you're gonna be an engineer, you got to get some

kind of advanced degree. And so I majored in chemistry. I'm a

chemist, and I was like, Yeah, but this is this is going to be

it. I did Dibble and dabble in graduate school bits and pieces

here and there. But I was like, Yeah, this is not it. And then

when I was like, Oh, I'm wanting to sales. They're like you're

doing what? Sales? No, no, no, no, no, you can't you can't do

that. That is not an honorable, that's not what you do. You're

gonna set your own business. But what Okay, what do you actually

selling? I was like, What do you mean, this is a service like it

was a foreign concept to them. So I do understand the different

ways that parents like immigrant parents, they think and it's

because of the hard upbringing there they always had to work so

hard for everything, and so they want their children to be safe.

it up in the best path. And the second part of what you said is,

it really gave me goosebumps and listening to Yes, I wanted to

satisfy what my parents wanted for me. But I also was very

intentional about what I wanted this degree to do for me. And

the fact that you are currently working in a place where you can

use all of that, and you bring all of that to work, I think is

the full circle of really connecting, hey, this is what my

parents wanted. For me, this is what I desired to do. This is

what I enjoyed doing, because I can listen to you talk about

things in terms of talent, strategy and diversity all day

long, because you have so much depth behind you,

me. So I have to be honest about all of that.

And I think that depth has developed from all of these

conversations that I have with people all over the place. Like

I'm not really like, this is not all stuff that I've thought up.

This is me constantly asking questions to the point of being

annoying to a lot of people about how do you do this? How do

you do that? Why is that important? And that's actually

going back to something that you mentioned earlier, like my side

of the story of how you and I connected comes routed from one

question, what do I need to be doing to connect with more

people and have more real conversations? So I asked that

question to a whole bunch of people. And Leslie Vaness was

one of the people that we connected with. And we know

Leslie, and she gave me like a list of people that I need to

talk to. So you were on that list. And I think you were like

the second person that I mentioned, it was in no

particular order. But I was like, Okay, well, I gotta get

around these people and find out what they're doing. And that was

like, I'm constantly looking at how can I get, you know, there's

somebody in my network, named Adi. And his tagline is, my goal

is to be 1% Better than I was yesterday. And that's really my

mindset forever. And when we're thinking about the

intentionality, and all these different areas that I can talk

about, it's a function of just having these conversations with

everybody in my network, I'm always looking for different

ways to kind of understand, you know, there's a great big world

that we're in, and all the interesting things that happen,

and some of that stuff just gets stuck in your head and like

rewires sort of your perspective. And I think the

longer that you can stay in that mode, where you're acting like a

three year old and asking questions about everything, the

more agile you become, regardless of age, in how you

can pick up all sorts of different things. And that for

me, it's pretty selfish, because I don't ever want to be in a

spot where the world is an interesting or people aren't

interesting, because I think it's infinitely interesting. And

people are infinitely interesting. And there's nothing

better than finding out their story like, how did you get from

where you are, to where you where you are now? Or how did

you come from where you were to where you are? Now, that's a

great story. And there's so much you can learn from like those

sorts of conversations.

And so even though I tried to give you some

accolades and praise, you put them down, and you said, yeah,

yeah, but it's really not about me, it's about all these amazing

people I've surrounding myself with and how they're helping me

grow and develop. And I do think as a leader, that is one of the

best things that we can do is really not talk about how

amazing we are or how great we are all the amazing accolades

and things that we have. But when we talk about the journey,

we talk about the people who help them get to where we are.

And we talk about how we want to pour back and pull those who are

coming behind us up. So in your current position, you have a

team of dynamic people share with us one of the challenges

that you have had with leading your team in current days.

So I'll kind of frame it in this respect. So

I want to latch on to something that you just mentioned about,

you know, hey, pushing off some of the things that you were

trying to say. And here are the influences behind it. You know,

the reason why I'm like that, I'll blame Lawrence brown again,

because one of the things that he said from a hiring philosophy

perspective was when I'm hiring and developing people, my

mindset is I want to hire and develop my replacement. And that

was a formative thought process as a professional. That's the

mindset that I have when it comes to hiring and development.

And I think, generally speaking, if you're Brown of any variety,

you have some level of impostor syndrome that exists where

you're like, I'm not sure if I'm good enough at this, that or the

other thing. So there's a bit of that that plays in it. But to

answer your question about my team, are the team that we have

at circa these are phenomenal people. And it's like

supercharged, based off of the mission that we have as an

organization, like how many tech companies are out there that are

high growth that are leading with a diversity first mission

and go to market with like a ridiculous manifesto. Like you

should read that thing. It's crazy. I'd like did a video on

it. So if you have high caliber people that are aligned with a

mission and purpose versus As just high caliber people that

are in pursuit of money, there's a different element to it. I

think when you're asking the question about what is the

challenge in tapping into that, I think one of the areas that

gets me heartburn is that I have this team of people that are

around me who I think are supremely talented, but getting

them to see themselves through my eyes is the challenge.

Because the stuff that I do, like I think anybody can do it.

I think anybody can launch a podcast or do a LinkedIn live

show or write, like, you have so much information that's out

there that you could spin this up over a weekend, like I

launched talent strategy 60, over a weekend, because I saw an

opportunity to help the talent strategy community level up

using community intelligence when we're in the middle of or

approaching an economic downturn. So what happens in

that community, when budgets get slashed, you lose people, you

lose resources, you're told to do more with less. And now we

actually have the capability of leveraging all of these great

practitioners around the country to share their best practices

and help actual talent leaders actually do more with less. So I

think all of this stuff anybody can do, but it's getting people

to believe in themselves, that they can do it. That's really

like where my you know, revs are focused, like I spend a lot of

reps and trying to get people to see themselves the way that I

see them. Because I think once you unlock that, it's limitless

on where you can go to the point, like my first

conversations were about, what's your view for yourself? What's

your vision for yourself, what's the better life that you're

seeking in this job and in all of your future jobs, because if

you lock into that, you're going to have that perpetual

accelerator that you can always push, and you don't need

external factors to do it. So it's tapping into that. That's

tricky. And especially as the new person that comes into an

organization and, and I'm a lot, my manager says I like to boil

the ocean at ease. He's freaking right, I think you can take 100

things all at once. And you and I have talked offline about that

sort of stuff, I don't have the wiring in my head that says,

this thing is impossible. I think anything is possible, you

just have to figure out how to make it possible. So rant over,

over. It's really a skill to be able to

look at someone and really see in them what they can't see in

themselves, and helping them to tap into it. Right? Because it's

it's one thing to say I see that you're going to be this top

salesperson or I see that you're one day going to replace me, but

it's more so the challenge that a lot of leaders have or don't

even know where to start is giving them that roadmap, like

how do I get from just being ordinary to extraordinary,

that's my new phrase, I think that's what I'm going to be

going into 2023 into how do we move from being ordinary to

extraordinary? What are the things that I need to do? What's

the roadmap that I need to get there and really, as leader,

that is our responsibility. I talk about sales malpractice, I

talk about leadership malpractice, and it is

leadership malpractice to see a person struggling or to see

somebody with untapped potential and do nothing about it. So as

leaders, that is our responsibility, it is our

responsibility to have our team shine brighter than we do.

Because it's not about us, we must minimize ourselves, and we

must elevate the team. Because once your team succeeds, then

you succeed. And as a leader, if you don't have that as the

forefront in your mind of your strategy, then at some point,

you're gonna stumble and you're gonna fall

No, I have no argument with that. And I think

that's probably one of the gaps that I have as a leader is that

I've always been a lead from the front person. And I think in the

in the role that I'm in right now, one of the biggest things

that I've had to adjust or at least get better at is building

the operational discipline, and being more in the background,

and the jury's still out on whether I'll ever build that

operational metrics focus to the level that I needed to be. I

think I'm competent. But you know, you have to look at what

are the things that give you energy? And what are the things

that take energy away from you. And when I think about what

gives me energy, it's being client facing and really in a

team selling environment being client facing where I can

actually influence the sale by instant messaging, instant

messaging off the side, while a rep is actually going through

the selling process where I can influence is auditing phone

calls and emails to make sure that they're buyer centric and

stuff like that. That's where I have fun. I have a ton of fun

prospecting. I don't know if I'll ever fall in love with the

operation side of it, but I don't need to like my leadership

style is rooted firmly in identify what you're strongest

at and play to that strength versus focusing on building up

your weaknesses be on the level that gets you to competence, I

think you just need to be competent in the areas that

you're weak. I think the expectation that you'd be

excellent at all things is kind of backwards.

Absolutely. As a business owner, as a division

leader, as a business unit leader, whatever you are, I do

think, and I agree with this 100% wholeheartedly, you should

know how to do everything within your organization. But you don't

have to know how to do it well, but you need to understand it at

a baseline level so that you can see if the ship is going off

track. So if we are running, who knows reports in our CRM, you

should know how to run a report, you don't need to know how to

build the report, but you need to know if the data that you're

getting doesn't make sense. So you can go back to the person

building the report to say, hey, can we make some tweaks here?

What inputs did you use, because I'm not getting the right

output. And as a leader, so many times we think we got to touch

everything, we got to do everything. But that is not your

job. Your job is to be the visionary, your job is to be the

coach, your job is to be the strategic thinker to lead the

organization to lead your team and you let them execute.

Because if you touch everything, then what you're doing is you're

not developing a bench. There's no bench, all the knowledge is

in your brain. And no one else knows how to do anything else.

Yeah, again, no argument there. I think when

I look at myself, the gap that I have, in terms of leadership

style is that there's a lot of stuff that I do instinctively

that it's difficult for me to break it down into step by step

process. So I've inserted myself alongside my team generally, to

show them like, here's what I do, ask me questions about it.

And then we can map it out together for me to like, there's

so many things that I don't even pay attention to that just run

on autopilot or instinct, it's hard for me to break it down

into a process. So that's been the other area where I've been

aware of it. And I'm trying to work that back. But honestly,

like, I love being in the game man. The same man, but I love

being in the game, dude. So it's like, it's tough to just like

back out and not be client facing I swear, I think if I was

just pushing metrics, or doing that sort of stuff for all day

long, I would drive myself insane. That is not fun for me.

No, so but that's a different story.

That's all different podcast a little

different episode. One tip that I can give you and I give this

to my clients often is that in order to build this bench, or to

extract the things from your brain, like you have to become

evergreen, I've literally been recording every single meeting

that I've had for two years. Why? I don't know, I'm just

recording it. And now I have a library of like, I don't know,

way too many things like probably 500 videos, and they're

all named right in the description, I say what we've

talked about, so I can share that with someone, right? When

they come onto the team. I'm like, okay, so you need to do

this kind of coaching, you need to work with this, or with a

team, it's there. Because one of the challenges that I have is

you asked me what I do. And I'm like, I don't know, like, give

me a scenario, right? Tell me what's happening. And then I'll

respond. And so it's hard for us, because we've been doing

this for so long. And there's so many things in our brain, that

it's hard to dump that information out. And even like

sales leaders, I had one that I was working with recently, and

they're like, Well, we're gonna have an in person, and

everybody's not gonna be there. I was like, throw on teams, and

record yourself, literally just do it. It doesn't matter if

you're in the room, they have the little owl thing that hears

everybody when they talk, so just do it. And that's how you

start developing all your knowledge, your database, this

encyclopedia of Dr. Jim. So Dr. Jim, you have had a very, very

fulfilling life, el very amazing career, can you share one thing

that has impacted the way that you lead?

I mean, aside from the things that Lawrence

has mentioned, that I referenced earlier in the show, like this

stuff doesn't wash it off, you should be hiring with the

mindset of hiring or replacement. Because if you want

to actually grow in your career, that's the mentality that you

should have. Never be afraid of people that are better than you

because that's the only way that you're actually going to get

better. So there's like stuff that we recapped earlier in the

show. But I think the one thing that I don't know where it came

from, but I think the longer that you can operate in the

world with the mindset of a three year old. Why is this the

way it is? Why does it have to be the way it is? What could be

done differently? All of these questions, if you can walk into

just about every interaction with that mindset of

asymmetrical thinking, the better off you're going to be.

And here's why that's important. We spend all of our younger life

in school in secondary education, higher education, and

we're being drilled into us that the object of the exercise is to

find the right answer. And that teaches us to be timid. And I

think that is a fundamental failure of the education system.

So instead of thinking about an obsession Thinking about getting

the right answer we should be thinking about and obsessing

about how can we break stuff, because if we break stuff we

actually learned the most from that experience. And we can

actually be more mentally agile in how we go about the world. So

always be curious. Don't be afraid to break stuff. Don't be

afraid of being wrong, because that's actually where your leaps

of innovation happen versus just getting the right answer.

Getting the right answer teaches you to play it safe. And there's

nothing more boring in life than having played it safe. Don't

play it safe. Thank you for attending my TED talk.

I love. So be curious, right? Ask questions

when I am mentoring, usually young sellers. And typically

it's women, because women as salespeople tend to have, you

know, apprehensions if you will. And I tell them, that thing that

people told you was so annoying, when you were growing up when

you were in school, and all your other jobs is what's going to

make you really amazing in sales. And for me, it's the

curiosity, I would ask why all the time. Like, that's why I

couldn't work in the lab anymore. Because I was like, why

am I doing this test? Why do you need this new material? We're

like, what, sweetie, can you just be quiet and do the things.

So that curiosity is what helps us continue to grow and develop

as individual contributors, as leaders as business owners

having curiosity and knowing that it is absolutely okay to

fail, right? Failure is not bad. It teaches you something and

teaches you had to tweak and change, and then move forward.

So Dr. Jim, I know that you have an amazing podcast, and there

are many things that you're doing out there in the world,

tell us what is the one best way for people to get in contact

with

you, if you're looking for one best way,

LinkedIn is the way to go. So obviously, if you're connected

with West lien and not connected with me ask for an intro. But

you can find me all over LinkedIn, I post daily, there's

a bunch of content that I push out. So that's the easiest way

to connect with me. And the fastest way to connect, it's my

most active channel.

Awesome. And tell us a little bit about your

podcast and what it's called. Sure.

So Lawrence, and I, Lawrence Brown, and I run

the cascading leadership podcast, that particular podcast

is in season two. So we're not when we grow up, we want to be

like Wesleyne. So we're not quite there yet. But the podcast

features senior leaders, women, immigrants, people of color, who

have risen to senior leadership, and the intent of the show is to

share all of their learnings so that you can leverage it as a

cliff notes if you're an emerging professional to advance

your career further, faster. So that's cascading leadership. And

then I also recently launched talent strategy 60, which I

referenced earlier in the show. So it's a LinkedIn live show

focused on any and all areas of talent strategy, and helping the

talent strategy community gather best practices, so that they can

advance their internal initiatives faster than what

might be available due to resource constraints.

Amazing. So you, you don't just have one job or

two jobs, like a typical immigrant, you have many, many

jobs. And this is just candy. Still,

you laugh about the typical immigrant

comment. I hear it all the time. I mean, like, I have a pretty

diverse network with a lot of immigrants. And I don't know, a

single one that has less than, like five jobs. I know,

I know. And I'm first generation American, and

it's still ingrained in my brain. And even my kids are

like, yeah, when I grew up, I'm gonna have this business and

that business and do this and that. So there's nothing wrong

with being ambitious. Dr. Jim, this has been an amazing,

amazing conversation you have thoroughly enriched our lives

and help us to transform our sales. So I thank you for your

time, your talent, your energy, and most of all the knowledge

that you gave us today.

No, it was, it was a great fun conversation,

but it's not the first time that you and I have chatted, so I'm

not surprised that it was fun. But thanks for having me on, and

I appreciate the opportunity. Wesleyne

Thanks so much again, and that was another

episode of the transform sales podcast. Remember each and every

day strive to be one person better and transform your sales.