The Leadership Move You’re Avoiding

Ty: Knowledge is all great and good. Here's my question: when folks already know what to do, but they're still not doing it, what do we do then?

Drew: Oh, that question! I don't know. What do we do?

Ty: Well, I would say the primary distinction is that tips and tricks are not going to work when what's missing is not knowledge or skills, but it's awareness.

Drew: Hello, Renegade Marketers. If this is your first time listening, welcome. If you're a regular listener, welcome back. I'm really excited to share this conversation with Ty Hammond, a leadership coach who believes most leadership training starts in the wrong place when leaders already know what they should do, but still aren't doing it. Another tip or trick or framework probably won't help. The real work is in uncovering the assumptions and blind spots that are getting in the way. But before we get to Ty, a quick shout-out to our friends over at Demand Science. They were in the room when we recorded this conversation between Ty and myself, and were terrific contributors to the huddle that followed. Demand Science is on a mission to eliminate what they call the platform tax — all the money and time and talent marketing teams lose to underused tools — and you know which tools I'm talking about: broken integrations, questionable data, and the people required to hold the whole mess together. Their argument is refreshingly simple: stop paying for platforms and start paying for customers. All right, enough from me. Let's get to the good stuff. Here's my conversation with Ty.

Leadership — that's what we need to talk about all the time. Fortunately for you, I am here right now with Ty Hammond, a leadership coach and expert and genuine cool guy with the right sunglasses. Thank you, dude.

Ty: Yes. 

Drew: How about a couple leadership tips?

Ty: You know, that's the interesting thing. I think we've got too many of those things floating around. I don't do tips anymore.

Drew: Oh well, I guess that's the end of the video. Man, that's a bummer. I thought we were going to get some knowledge sharing going on here. No?

Ty: No, no. I mean, listen, knowledge is all great and good. Here's my question: when folks already know what to do, but they're still not doing it, what do we do then?

Drew: Oh, that question. I don't know. What do we do?

Ty: Well, I would say the primary distinction is that tips and tricks are not going to work when what's missing is not knowledge or skills, but it's awareness.

Drew: All right. So we're aware of the fact that we're not doing the thing that we know we should do, and so we're aware of it. Like, I know I should work out more, but I don't. So now what?

Ty: Well, so the primary thing is being able to identify what I call your blind spots, your assumptions, and your limits. Essentially, what those are, it's you. It's your own contribution to what you are experiencing. Here's the thing: any challenge or difficulty that you experience, well, every any experience that you have, you always have a contribution to. So, if you're not receiving the kind of experience that you want, if the intention that you have is not actually creating the impact that you want, it's likely that you're missing some very critical information. That information is not anything that somebody else can give you with a tip or a trick. It's something that's going on internally: your own thoughts, your own feelings, your own actions, your own beliefs, your own mindsets that you're totally unaware of — kind of like wearing these glasses, a red pair of glasses — but I don't have any idea that I'm wearing them. That's how blind spots and assumptions work.

Drew: Okay, so I'm still — you know me — I'm gonna try to get to something that someone could do about this, so help us now. I've got this thing, for example. Let's just say it's a random CMO, and they know that they have an employee that just is not right for marketing. Period. They, they know they have to deal with it, but they're not.

Ty: Okay. Well, here's what I would ask: can you, can you role-play for a second and, and what, and what that, what might be going through that executive's mind in that moment?

Drew: I can. So they've worked at the company for four years. They're very nice. They're liked by a lot of people, but they're not pulling their weight, and that's starting to frustrate the whole team too. Yeah. So we like this person, but they're not, they're delivering, and it's holding other people back.

Ty: Yep. Okay. And what is your concern about actually making a decision there?

Drew: Because I'm a nice person, and I don't want to make this decision and seem like the bad guy.

Ty: Okay. So that's a very wonderful example. For example, if I'm wearing glasses that say I am the nice guy, and me holding somebody accountable means that I'm not a nice guy — there's no tip or trick that you can give me. In other words, that's the red that I see, the glasses that I'm looking through that I'm unaware of. There's no way that any tip or trick that you're going to give me is going to help with that. So what helps with that? That's the question. Right. So you can tell me till you're blue in the face, "Hey Ty, this is a blue world, and in order to, you know, you need to hold somebody accountable," or right? But it's not going to work because I'm still seeing red. What's the only thing that's going to help me is being able to look at what I've been looking through. In other words, sure, there are particular beliefs, there are assumptions, there's things that I have that are preventing me that I'm unaware of that are keeping me from doing the thing that I know that I need to do, and until I actually become aware — not know what they are, but become aware that that assumption is present in the moment that it's happening — it's going to always determine my behavior. That means that I'm either not going to do the thing that I know that I need to do, or it's going to make doing the thing that I need to do really, really hard, because I'm trying to act in a blue world when all I see is red.

Drew: Now, did you wear these glasses? Did you bring these glasses today to know that you were going to be able to use that metaphor?

Ty: Obviously.

Drew: Obviously. Oh, I guess there it is.

Ty: I mean, did you bring that hat today just because you were going to use the metaphor of the huddle?

Drew: I might have. I might have. Funny how that works. All right, well, I'm going to wrap up this conversation by saying this: there are lots of challenges out there that CMOs have. One of the things they do when they come to a huddle is they voice these challenges, and by voicing these challenges, they're acknowledging it, sharing it. What's funny is when you say, "I'm having this problem," everybody leans in, because guess what, many of them are having it too. So, first step here, we're talking about making sure that you're seeing the things that are holding — the things that you know you need to do.

Ty: Let me, let me make a clear distinction here. Okay, we have a tendency — let me take these off for a second, because this is, this is a serious part of the conversation. Oh, okay,

Drew: okay. I'm, I'm getting nervous. Okay.

Ty: Really, what it comes down to is a relationship with difficulty, right? There's a real tendency that we as human beings have, which is any time that I feel difficulty, I imagine that there's a problem outside, that there's something for me to do about it or to fix it. Now, here's what I call two different types of challenges. Some challenges are tactical, right? And when a challenge is truly tactical, it does mean — these are, by the way, the tactical challenges in the world are the ones that we have organizations for, that our businesses are here, the problems that we're actually here to solve. That's what we get paid for, right? That's what those are. That's where we want to spend our time, is on those tactical challenges with real-world solutions, right? Adaptive challenges are totally different. An adaptive challenge is actually, it's about your relationship with difficulty and getting really clear on — hold on a second — is the challenge that I'm experiencing right now something that's actually due outside that I need to change, or is it actually more about my own relationship with difficulty? Obviously,

Drew: it's about me. Can we just be clear?

Ty: Right. So the challenge is, when I have an adaptive challenge, right, the, the purpose of an adaptive challenge is not to solve it. Actually, if we solve an adaptive challenge away, we're learning — we're losing the opportunity of what an adaptive challenge is actually here for, which is to grow you and your capacity to actually see, be with complexity, increased uncertainty, ambiguity, volatility — all of those things that we're talking about in the VUCA world. If you solve those problems away, all of your problems increase in complexity, but your capacity to be with them doesn't. And that is what we are doing collectively across the board in leadership development. I love it.

Drew: All right, we're going to wrap this up by saying I happen to be with Ty Hammond, leadership coach. We are in Silicon Valley for a huddle that's coming up in just a few minutes. If you're a B2B CMO who can share, care, and Drew with the best of them and wants to solve your adaptive challenges, do yourself a favor: check out cmohuddles.com. I'm Drew Neisser. That is your Wednesday wisdom. Peace out.

Show Credits

Renegade Marketers Unite is written and directed by Drew Neisser. Hey, that's me! This show is produced by Melissa Caffrey, Laura Parkyn, and Ishar Cuevas. The music is by the amazing Burns Twins and the intro Voice Over is Linda Cornelius. To find the transcripts of all episodes, suggest future guests, or learn more about B2B branding, CMO Huddles, or my CMO coaching service, check out renegade.com. I'm your host, Drew Neisser. And until next time, keep those Renegade thinking caps on and strong!