Are you a champion of change? Oh, I’m sure your organizations is trying to transform its culture to be more inclusive and sensitive to diversity, but how’s that going for you? Lifetime achievement award recipient, co-author of four books Fred Miller sits down with Rob and talks about his book, Change Champions, for a powerful and motivational conversation about becoming the leader you are meant to be!
Originally Published: February 13, 2023
Episode Notes
In this Pocket Sized Pep Talk, you’ll learn:
- About the book, Change Champions – and its focus.
- What makes this book and Fred’s ideas different than other approaches?
- Examples of the impact of using Change Champions.
- Approaches to getting buy-in from Senior Leader about implementing Change Champions and some of the most important things that they have to be willing to do.
- How this book found Fred and his co-authors, Judith Katz and Monica Biggs.
- Two lessons learned somewhere in your journey that had the biggest impact on your career or life?”
- Two people who have been the most influential to Fred in his journey.
- Tell us about the Kaleel Jamison Consulting Group, How it started? What is the primary work? Who have you worked with?
Rob Jolles (00:00):
Are you a champion of change? Oh, I’m sure your organization’s trying to transform its culture to be more inclusive and sensitive to diversity. But how’s that going for you? Let’s have ourselves a pocket sized pep talk and pull up a chair because we’re going to be talking with an author who is a true pioneer in diversity,
Intro (00:21):
A pocket size pep talk, the podcast that can help energize your business and your life with a quick inspiring message. Now here’s your host, Rob Jolles.
Rob Jolles (00:34):
Today’s guest, Fred Miller was the OD Network’s youngest Lifetime Achievement Award recipient and received the forum on Workplace Inclusion’s Wind of Change award. Co-author of four books and numerous articles. He’s a past member of the board of directors of A T D OD network and Ben and Jerry’s Homemade Inc. He currently serves on the board of day in Zimmerman. Now I’ve seen him in a few author retreats and although he tried to get away, I finally pinned him down for an interview. So welcome to the show Fred. It’s good to finally be able to chat with you.
Fred Miller (01:07):
Thank you Rob. I’m really glad to be here and I’ve appreciated all of our conversations and all of our laughing together.
Rob Jolles (01:13):
<laugh> good and we do and have had some good laughs together. Okay, so let’s mix it up a little, but with you, I’ve got tutored directions I want to go into start with the book, but then I want to just talk about you, Fred Miller. So let’s jump into champions of our Change Champions and titles to me are very revealing. So the Change Champions, just tell me what that title and what that book’s focused on.
Fred Miller (01:40):
And it really is a book about dialog od, which is a concept that is being talked about a lot these days. Jarvis Bush and Barb Marek are leading that charge and brought up the concept and it’s really about how do we make our cultures change and how do we make ’em faster? How do we make it more inclusive? How do we make sure we’re getting all the voices in the room and how do we make sure that we have the organization moving in a direction that’s going to work for the people as well as working for the organization.
Rob Jolles (02:10):
Got it, got it. And there are plenty of books out there and there are other difference approaches and things like that. As a sales trainer, I get this question all the time. Well you’ve got it. This process. What makes your process different or how have you tweaked it? So what makes this different from some of the other approaches that are out there?
Fred Miller (02:31):
Well, historically change has happened top down in organizations. The leaders get together, they go in a conference room, go in a retreat, come back, have this brilliant idea and try to implement the organization and then the rest of the work is trying to get buy-in. But also they don’t see it all anymore. Maybe in the old days, many years ago, leaders had a good view of everything that was going on, but nobody has that view anymore. Nobody knows it all anymore. Plus there’s a lot of unknowns and unknowables out there. So the real challenge is how do we get the best thinking of our combined wisdom of the people of the organization and collectively come up with what’s best for the organization, not this group or that group, but all of us together doing it. And so that really starts making a very different process than historically.
(03:13)
So it’s not top down, it’s not just saying that people in the organization what are you and just do it. It’s the collective wisdom of the organization coming together and through that collective wisdom, really figuring out what’s the best course of action in a world of change where things are changing all the time. Nobody has all the answers, but what we can do is bring our best wisdom to it, talk to outside resources as we can, and then most change fail because people don’t invested in it. Somebody wants to change me. Yeah, I’m not sure I want you to change me, but if I taught the ideas for my own change and you caught the ideas for your change and we bring those together as what we can do for the culture and the organization of overall, then we have ourselves positioned to have people committed to the change. Cause I see benefit in it because I helped create it and initiate it in the organization. And that’s what the change champions do and that’s what the dialogical approach says is really to engage the organization and the transformation process.
Rob Jolles (04:13):
Got it. we’re onto a topic that to me I’ve always wanted to write a book. Fred called it looked good on paper. Okay. <laugh>. Because there’s so many things that we kind of work. So obviously this not only looks good on paper, this is the right thing on paper, but I’ve got to believe that there’s pushback. And if you don’t mind me barring me, the sales guy in with you, there’s almost an element of selling. It feels like it goes on to make it their idea that, do you talk about that in the book?
Fred Miller (04:44):
We do, but I think that the thing right now is I work with lots of leaders. I’ve been doing this work for 40 some years and I think there’s never been a time now where leaders know they don’t know all the answers. There been a time now where changes is happening, happening, happening. So this is the fun of Troy, New York going across the sky as you see my shadow behind me. And so leaders are and have to be in a learning mode. They got to be in an inclusive mode. It’s not anymore that one person has all the answers. So it’s a different time. And that commitment that they need from people only happens by people being included in the process.
Rob Jolles (05:26):
Right. Can you give me some examples of how change champions has had an impact on an organization or a corporation?
Fred Miller (05:39):
Sure. And I would start even a minute before that, which is really at organizations realizing that people count that we’re not in the industrial revolution anymore in a post-industrial revolution and we’re not where people were hands and feet and this was your job. Move this from here, put it over there, shout up, do your job. We actually did work with Total Motor sales and we went to the plant where they first let the person pull the cord and stop the production line. That was an incredible thing to see and experience because that was the first time to say, I want you to think I want to bring your wisdom to the process. I don’t want you just whi passing something and not thinking about it. Cause that’s the way it was. Let it go down the it go down the line, stop it in the process.
(06:26)
So we have organizations doing that. So organization was having a lot of errors and what they were doing. And so they got together, they talked about it, they brought people’s voices together and figured out how to solve that problem. And so the errors went from X to minus X in a matter of months. Or another organization where it was a manufacturing organization and the pharmaceutical industry. And there was a problem in one of the valves. They were getting a substance in there that was not right or appropriate. And for a while all the leaders would just go into the conference room and try to sort it out and they would wind up working over the holidays and all that stuff. And then finally they asked one of the workers, what do you think? He said, I was wondering when you were going to ask me. It’s because we do this in the process back here. It creates that in the process here.
(07:20)
The wisdom. The wisdom that’s in the organization that’s not being tapped. I always laugh about a time when many years ago we were doing work of a major corporation and we were interviewing people and we were interview, we had this woman coming in for an interview and she came in with a little book and we said, you’re bringing a book in like a diary. Why are you bringing that here? She said, I’ve been saving every idea I’ve had for all about 15 years. Nobody’s ever asked me, you’re the first people to ask me. And here are all the ideas normal. That’s what happened to many organizations. Shut up, do your job. I don’t want to hear what you have to say. And that made the difference. We’re working with a manufacturing facility in the UK and the plant was not doing well, actually it was on the list of plants that were going to close. And we started doing this work similar to the change champions there and got people involved and the plant turned around, their safety record improved, their defects decrease, their contributions and new ideas accelerated. And a plant that was going to close was on the list is open and still open 20 years later because it added value, because people got involved in that involvement, resulted in thinking that could not have been there if it just had one group trying to solve the problem.
Rob Jolles (08:41):
And you’re basically working with a bunch of subject matter experts. We want to hear from them. It’s funny I don’t know if you ever saw this study, it was done some years ago where they had babies and they were showing them a series of pictures and when, and the babies were very happy to see these wonderful pictures. And when they took the pictures away, the babies weren’t happy. But what made them even more angry, Fred, when because the babies had the ability to control the pictures they were seeing when they took control away and had them come up randomly and remove their control, the babies were three times more upset. And I really thought as I was watching that, how honest is that when you look at a two year old, a one and a half year old, and you see the frustration double or triple by removing control.
Fred Miller (09:33):
Yeah, participation makes all the difference where people can bring their brilliance if you let them bring it and they can’t bring it if you make it difficult for them or you don’t listen to them. I mean, one of the things I think that’s been critical for leaders and recently I remember Tom Peters, he said, wrote in search of excellence and I, I’ve always loved him, me too. And he talked about in search of excellence, what we found out the secret to a great organization, the secret he would yell when he talked, the secret was they listened to their people. He said all the research, all the data, all the stuff that’s out there that talks about it, they listen to their people. I think we’re learning and relearning that lesson over and over again. I think more organizations are doing that. We have more leaders going out and doing listening tours inside of their organizations. We have a lot of processes now where we want to hear the voices. Now it’s hear the voices and then do something with those voices. You don’t have to do everything the voices have said, but there’s a lot of wisdom in those voices. How do we tap that wisdom for the betterment of the organization?
Rob Jolles (10:38):
Yeah, I’m glad you brought up Tom Peters too. He was an inspiration to me when I was in my twenties working for Xerox, we actually had a Tom Peters video. We was tracking different companies and I remember he was talking about the banks and he said, shouting Tom Peters, God forbid, they should never be open when the customers actually around. Because that’s when we used to talk about bankers hours. And it’s funny, one bank changed and then they all begin to change. Yeah, okay, well lets talk about times.
Fred Miller (11:09):
That’s a simple thing. Sometimes that’s the obvious things. But we’re in a rut. We’re in a way of looking at things and thinking of things and we think the way we’re doing it is the way to do it. And that’s why the change champions are so important because their whole process is dialogue. Let’s talk to the people in the organization. Let’s look at our current frame or paradigm in the organization and let’s see if that frame is working for us or can we frame the organization differently, frame the organization in a way that says, Hey, the real wisdoms at the top of the organization or frame have a framing in the organization that says, I was with a leader once a couple years ago now, and he said, when we bring new people in this organization, I don’t think they should talk for the first two years. They should just listen to what’s going. And everybody in went, oh my goodness. But he was senior leader of an organization that was a frame, that was a frame that he carried and the organization needed to help him see that that frame was not the frame that was going to have to the organization have the success that he wanted it to have.
Rob Jolles (12:07):
That’s amazing. That’s amazing. Well to me there’s, there’s talking about it and there’s doing it. So alright, let’s say I’m putting a senior leader right in front of you right now and you’re going to be talking about implementing change champions. Give me cherry, pick me two or three the most important things that leader would have to be willing to do.
Fred Miller (12:36):
I mean I think it starts with what we’ve been talking about. Listen to your people.
(12:40)
You got to listen to your people and go out there and hear their voices and let them, I think not be afraid of a process of change where you don’t know every step and everything’s going to happen. I think leaders have been trained many that you should know everything, don’t do anything unless you know where it’s going to come out. Change doesn’t work that way. Life doesn’t work that way. Things evolve, things move around. Things adjust. You have to adjust the things. So there’s something about some degree of comfort you got to have with not knowing all the answers. The thing I’ve been saying to a lot of leaders I work with recently is you got to change first. A lot of times leaders get up in the front and say, okay, I need y’all to be different. I need y’all to do this. I need you to do that.
(13:18)
And the leader doesn’t act like there’s anything that she or he needs to do differently. And so really that leader saying, and here’s some ways that I’m going to change. Sometimes it’s just going to come around and talk to people informally. And you have to come in my conference room, my office to see you. I as a leader, I’m going to come into meetings and not run the meetings. I’m going to just join the group and be part of it. I as a leader will be your biggest supporter as you’re going forward. Servant leadership. I want to be a servant leader. I’m not going to be out there in front. I’m going to be with you in the process as a leader. I’m going to tell you what’s going on. I’m going to be as honest with you as I can be. I mean whatever those things are, sometimes they’re small.
(13:58)
As small as when I see it walking down the hall, I’m going to speak to you. I’m not going to act like I’m so important. I don’t have time to speak to the people in the organization. I was working at a plant one time and the plant manager leader every Friday at the end of the week, there were doors that everybody had to go out. He would stand at the door on that Friday and say, thanks for your work this week. Appreciate what you did. How Jill or John or Joe Bob, thank you for what you did. Thank you Mary. Appreciate it. Good job on that project. That was, that’s what people, there’s not enough appreciations in this world. There’s not enough thank yous in this world and a good leader, the leaders that we need today being good saying thank you, giving appreciation is important.
(14:45)
And again, they’ll come back to your question and show the change. Show a change, show something that going to differ. It can be as small as hellos and can be big as I’m no longer going to be the first one that talks in every meeting. Whatever that is. That helps to be different. And I think the last thing I would say is don’t let your fears stop the process your just don’t let your fears of the unknown. Don’t let your fears of experimenting something different. Don’t let that hold back the process. Yes. If something’s threatening the wellbeing of the organization or the bottom line of the organization, of course speak up and raise your hand. But just because you’re uncomfortable, a lot of leaders we work with are introverts. And one of the things we talk about a aligning kalil, James said something group is saying hello.
(15:32)
It’s the first step to people feeling included. And there are a lot of leaders who like to look at their shoes when they’re walking down the hallway versus at the people. Once somebody give a story of getting in the elevator with a senior leader and the senior leader was thinking about something but the person wanted to say hello. So they got their courage up and they said, hi, I’m da da person. Say don’t you see? I’m thinking, can you imagine how that went around the organization to say, don’t bo, what’s the message you want to give? Yeah. Leaders are thinking all the time, hopefully. And they’re saying the elevator and what would it take to say thank you and watch your name and glad to meet you and thanks for working for this thing. And then go back to thinking, yeah, yeah. It’s not big, but it’s a mindset.
(16:22)
It’s a frame that a lot of leaders have carried historically. I think it’s changing. So I don’t want to take today’s leaders like this, but they’re things that leaders are still doing. The open door policy when the door’s not really open, I have an open door policy, but if anybody goes in there, bless you. Right? Who knows what’s going to happen as a result of that. So I think things are shifting. I know things are shifting and they got to shift faster. One of my big things you say that’s great. What pandemic Covid did for us to say do those things faster. We’re already going to move out of the five day work week. That was going to happen eventually, maybe 10 years from now, 15 years from now, it’s happening faster. Leaders were already going to eventually start talking to the people more. Covid said, Hey, if you want me in this office, you got to give me some purpose with being here.
(17:12)
I’m not just going to coming and sit at the desk when I can do the same work at my home. Why should I be here? So organizations talking about collaboration days, they’re talking about come back to the office and we’ll spend all the day interacting in meetings. We’re not going to be on our screens talking to the person in the office next to us on the cubicle next to us. We’re going to have collaboration. We’re going to have days where we come and we’d start grading that community. Cause that’s one of my worries these days. If everybody’s working from home, I don’t know how you get the glue that’s necessary for an organization to be high performing. You can be okay, but you’re not going to be of the highest performing. And so we got to periodically have people come together. Maybe it’s once a year, maybe it’s once every other year. I’m not saying it’s got to be frequently, but you can’t. Human beings are social animals. <laugh>. Right? I love seeing you on this medium and it’s great, but it’s not the same as when you and I were together two months ago in California. Right. It’s a different whole experience. So we can’t have both. It’s both. We’re going to do both, but we got to create those opportunities for people to come together so we can be literally real with each other and have the spontaneity that results from human interaction.
Rob Jolles (18:24):
Right. Well, and particularly when we’re talking about putting an idea out there, because now you’re talking to me as a seminar leader and I don’t want people getting together every three years. I’m noticing the formula that’s being followed in 2 23 for me is, and I’ve got a number of companies are doing the exact same thing and I didn’t bring it up Fred. They’re bringing those groups together to train them, to teach them to build a process, something repeatable, predictable for me. A lot of times it could be selling or marketing, but then we go back and we’ve got two different organizations that want 25 virtual follow ups now, but we’ve got the mind share of the individual. Now we’re going to implement what we talked about. But it’s hard to get the mindshare on a screen. It’s hard to feel that once we get it then we can nurture it and control it perhaps on screen. But I, I’m noticing that.
Fred Miller (19:23):
And the same thing about culture. Once we come together and we can kind of create the culture, then we can go to the screen and play it out, manifest it, enhance it in the process. But we need, cause culture takes trust. This is not the medium to build trust
Rob Jolles (19:40):
<laugh>. Right, right.
Fred Miller (19:41):
Communicate information, share information. There’s a lot of things we can do here that are wonderful we can even co-create here. But that doesn’t guarantee trust as human beings being together. Now it doesn’t mean no trust can be created this way, but the degree of trust you need for the highest level of performance. We’re saying a lot of sports teams play right now. Supposed they only did zoom until the last game happened. Not going to have the level of success. You’re just not.
Rob Jolles (20:06):
Right. Yeah. Fred, it’s interesting. If you’re go into a second edition, at least visually, I see almost like we plant the garden together and then we maintain the garden virtually in a sense. But I can’t plant it virtually. And planting takes a lot of work. Not that implementing doesn’t, but there’s a maintenance almost to implementation. But I can’t somebody to believe through a screen. If I can get them to believe, then I can support that belief. You said a bunch of things. I just want to unpack a few things if I could. First of all, I’ll tell you, I’m, I’m going to throw a story back at you because I am a firm believer and I believe it was Demings that always believe trainings should come from the top down, not the bottom up. And I remembered when I was at Xerox, David Kerns was our C E o and Xerox was trying to battle back because we were getting hammered.
(21:07)
Our patents had come up and Xerox was leaning back going, well, everyone’s going to buy Xerox. Well, no they’re not. The Japanese are making really nice equipment and selling name, name and name wasn’t working. So Kerns decided, well, we’re going to embrace quality. And we took it very seriously. And one of the things that David Kerns, the c e o of Xerox said, you go find me and every time you see me, I will have my laminated card that supports this process. So told this story a few months ago, but I saw him running, I worked at the training center in Leesburg, Virginia. So I’m running and I thought, yeah, I’m going to do it. And so I pulled over and wave from him, the runoff, and I ran next door him, I said, hi, Mr. Kerns, Rob Jo, it’s a really pleasure to meet. Very warm. I said, I’m just curious. Got your card with you. He reached into his pocket and there he was running with the laminated card. Guess what? Hundred thousand people embraced leadership through quality problem solving. Quality improvement. Because it came from the top down. They walked the walk and weren’t the grunts weren’t trained and told, go do that, but don’t let it get in the way that which can happen. Let’s put it that way. I think we’ve both seen a little of that.
Fred Miller (22:23):
And he didn’t say to you, I’m running, don’t talk to me. Right? No,
Rob Jolles (22:28):
Did not.
Fred Miller (22:28):
You want a jog, but maybe we can talk for a few minutes.
Rob Jolles (22:32):
Yeah but
Fred Miller (22:33):
That’s authenticity. That that’s believing it. It’s not coming from on high and edict out to the organization. It’s believing in what you’re saying. It’s listening to people. It’s joining them in the process of change.
Rob Jolles (22:48):
My dad had a saying when it came to leadership and he used to say it all the time. He said, because I was trying to find my leadership way. And he said, just remember it’s never go on and do it. It’s come on, let’s do it. And he repeat that over. And it was like a mantra of his and it first, it fell on my kind of deaf ears. I was trying to understand it, but as I got a little older, I went, there is a lot of wisdom in just remembering that. Don’t go on and do it. Come on, let’s do it. Alright, can we get that? I’m assuming we can get that book at Amazon. Of course we can because I saw it. But I just want you to remind us. Yes we can. Right? Yeah.
Fred Miller (23:28):
Yes we can Amazon and other places. But Amazon’s a good place to go for change Champions. Perfect. Fred Miller, Monica Bigs and Judi Katz.
Rob Jolles (23:36):
Yes. And I was on that site looking it over myself. It’s looking good. Nice thing about my audience is, and they know this cause I tell ’em every time, Fred, you can be quiet for a moment. My audience doesn’t just buy books. They write reviews on books because it’s very important to authors. That algorithm is for real at Amazon. So grab that book change champions and you know, get extra credit when you write a nice review. There it is. Fred’s showing it right now. I’m looking at it. It’s looking good. It’s looking good. All right, let’s shift. We’re coming down the home stretch, but I want to talk about you a little bit and maybe we can take that bridge over because rarely does Do we find a book? The book finds us. So tell me, how did, why this book for you, why did this, I’m assuming you didn’t get hit on the head by a coconut dot, something made you say, I want to write this book, you and Judith. Tell me about that.
Fred Miller (24:40):
Yeah,
(24:44)
We’ve been doing this work around change champions and groups for years. And we wanted to spread the word. We wanted more people to understand it mean. One of the people who reviewed the book said Consultants usually write a book and tell you here’s the headlines and see me if you want more. But in this book, the consultants spell out every detail of how you go about creating chance change champions and how they bring about change in the organization. And so our work is, our firm was founded by a woman named Khalil Jameson in 1970. And I remember when I first started working with her, she was like, let’s write this article about this Fred. And I said, if we write the article about it, then they’ll know it. And then what do we’ll do? That means we’ll have to write another article about what we’re learning as a result of putting that one out there.
(25:34)
And I feel the same thing about this. Let’s tell people everything we know, everything we know about this and how it works and whatever. And what I hope is that they use it and they make the changes that are necessary for their organization. And again, the change is about how do you enhance your mission and your vision and your strategies of the organization. This is very bottom line focus. What’s the culture you need to support that mission and vision in the organization? And if you want the best work from your people, include them. It’s why Judi Katz and I, many years ago you used that term to talk about corporations. One of the first people to start talking about inclusion as it relates to the corporate setting. Include people and they are more committed, include people. They can bring what I call, bring brings to work time. That’s what we need. We’re in a incredible transformation right now. I don’t think anybody’s seen a transformation like this not in decades or maybe hundreds of years. And we need the wisdom of the crowd. We need the wisdom of the people in the organization. And so change champions is really about how do you tap that wisdom? Cause none of us is as smart as all of us. And I carry that as a way of thinking about life and thinking about groups and what they can bring to the party.
Rob Jolles (26:49):
I gave you my mantra I learned from my dad. I’m telling you sitting here, Fred, the mantra I’m pulling is from you. One of ’em is include people and listen to them. That’s not getting lost on me today. <laugh>. That’s going to go in our show notes as well. Include people and listen. And last thing, I’ll move off this, but just so you know, I’ve never met a salesperson who says, I don’t listen. But I got to tell you, when I do a workshop, I never ask ’em if they listen. I never ask ’em if they ask questions. I pull a 180, I pull sort of a little tricky exercise and say, here, break out your smartphones, hit the record button, just sell something to somebody. And there is no listening and there are no questions. And after we sync that hook in a little bit deeper and I ask them, well, what do you respecting people that can lead and communicate?
(27:40)
Oh, they’re great listeners. They ask questions. Good. Okay, go play your tape mag. Just count how many questions and let’s see how well you were listening. And there’s an old saying, what we hear, we forget what we see. We remember what we do. We learn an exercise. I could make that point in 10 seconds or it takes me about 20 minutes, but you know what? They never forget it. And I tell ’em, I got plenty more for you. But if you walk out of here and you say, for the rest of my life, my career with my family, my friends, my business, I’m going to ask questions and I’m, I’m going to listen. I’m going to be lock in. If you got that out of this program and you commit to the rest of your life, you just went to the best program workshop you’re ever going to go to, I, I’m going to go deeper, but I don’t want to bury the lead. It’s that important. And I’m hearing that over and over again from you, Fred.
Fred Miller (28:29):
Yes. Yeah. And one of you, I grew up in the inner city of Philadelphia in the fifties and my birth certificate said Negro on it. So I mean there that meant something. That meant your life was like this and the limits were there and the boundaries were there and it was little expectations of you. And I grew up thinking, well, most people are against me or most people are not wanting to support me or make things difficult for me. And it was breaking out of that world and eventually going to a company called Connecticut Life Insurance Company that I started meeting different people and meeting different people. Broaden my way. I always talk about, when we talk about diversity and leaders in the company and organizations and how good they were, diversity, the ones that are all in there are coming in talking about diversity are people who have been outside the United States, people who have been outside the country and been in other countries and been in other cultures.
(29:22)
They have a very different view, a more enhanced view of what diversity means because they’re not stuck in our fishbowl in that whole saying that the fish discovered water was a flying fish. Those people who get outside the United States and still get suspected because some of our best champions about why diversity important, that you’re not just a black kid from the inner city of Philadelphia, but you’re a person who brings their diversity. Brad, I love my identity, but my identity comes with a lot of experience that enhances the situation. And my journey has brought me a lot of things. I bring a lot of knowledge, but that’s true of everybody. We all bring knowledge, we all bring experience, we all bring things we learned from our backgrounds and growing up that enhances who we are as a person. If the organization taps that they get more, not less. And instead of trying to keep it down, how do we value it and cherish it and let people know, hey, people share what they want to share. You don’t have to share everything, but it’s okay here to share as much of who you are that’s going to be helpful to you being your best self. And that’s a lot of what I, I’ve learned in the journey about how do we tap the best in people, let them be their best.
Rob Jolles (30:34):
Right? Right. Wow. Very powerful. I remember learning when I at Xerox had to run meetings and one of the things that was a little odd about Xerox was the manager was not the leader of all our meetings. We rotated our leaders, we rotated our scribes, we rotated our timekeepers. We’ve had a role called process guide that back, it sort of took a backseat to the meeting. It was just making sure that people were included and that we didn’t have a few people that were talking a little too much or a couple of introverts that were getting away from us. Or a manager who wasn’t a leader for that day who might be leading a little too much. We had a, somebody just watching the meeting and I have to tell you, it was brilliant. It worked really well and it developed a lot of leaders because the old formula is, well, the manager will lead every meeting. Well what about the rest of us? When do we get a chance to put on the pads and try this ourselves a little bit?
Fred Miller (31:32):
Right on.
Rob Jolles (31:33):
Yeah. Alright,
Fred Miller (31:36):
I gotta allow the manager to sit back and listen and hear. Right? It’s hard to lead and listen at the same time. It’s art and people, some people can do it, but a lot of people do better if they can listen to things, reflect on it, and then be able to participate.
Rob Jolles (31:52):
I was just doing some role plays last week and I, they, I’ve always put ’em in groups of three. I got a seller, a buyer or observer. And when my numbers aren’t, don’t work out in threes, I just have a seller, a buyer. And everybody goes, well that must be easy. I go, you’re missing one thing. The observer gets to step out of both roles. And it’s astonishing that it’s always the observers that come back and go, now I hear what you were talking about now I see what you mean. The seller is focused on these new tactics that we’re learning. The buyer’s trying to come off their script, trying to help ’em or not hurt, but the observers the only one that, that’s the flying fish you were talking about that’s outside the tank. Ands going, oh, that question would resonate or that one would not make me feel very good. I was surprised at that reaction.
Fred Miller (32:43):
Yeah, I hear that. And most people in organizations have been put in the role of observer. So that means there’s a ton of wisdom in the organization that’s not being tapped. And so that person who came into our interview with her notes from 10 years, that was wisdom in there was everything you said in there, who knows. But I bet you there are some great things inside of there.
Rob Jolles (33:06):
Yeah, yeah, you are right. One of the reasons why we were enur, we encouraged, and I don’t want to just label people introverts, but the people that are just aren’t as comfortable talking in a meeting. They might be very comfortable talking somewhere else for the exact same reason you said Fred. We were out to try and balance that feedback, that involvement, because it’s the ones that were sitting back that usually sit back in the meetings that have been the observers. And they’re not as emotionally tied. They’re not trying to sell an idea here or there. They’ve actually got both sides of the coin there that they’re looking at. And if you can include them, you have people that have been looking at things without any emotional involvement and they are a wealth of information. But you have to go get ’em. You have to make it easy. You have to give them a mechanism to get in because if you’re waiting for their hand to go up and for them to push their way in, it won’t happen.
Fred Miller (34:03):
Yeah. Tria, we were acquired recently. It was a lawyer who led the law department and he talked about this culture is fine, you just got to be, you know, push. You got to just be aggressive and da da da. And one of the women in the group she was Asian, said, that’s not how I want to interact with people. And he said, well, we can teach you how to do it. Said No, no, that’s not how I want to interact with people. And she said, I can be effective and I can accomplish everything, but if that’s a behavior that’s necessary to be successful here, that’s not going to work for me. And he was like astounded, like, whoa, somebody doesn’t think that’s the behavior. And so that’s what you learn by interacting with others. You’re not going to have that conversation necessarily on the computer screen. But if we’re in person, we can learn about some of those things. If we’re in person, we can hear the other person. But in person, I can sit back a little bit and listen and listen to what I can learn from the other people in the room. There’s wisdom in every person. And the job of teammates and of leaders is to create the form where that leader, that wisdom can come out even better for the betterment of the organization.
Rob Jolles (35:17):
And I think we’re on the same page here. It’s interesting, I’ve never actually articulated this, but sometimes the most wisdom is from the ones that those observers, those ones that have been sitting back, the ones that you’ve, you, you’re not even looking to because they don’t normally talk in a meeting. They may have the best information sitting there. We just have to remember to go get it. I’ve got the sense that Khalil is one of those mentors to you, one of a very important person in your life. Give me one or two others that really are major part of your life.
Fred Miller (35:48):
So my business partner 30 years, Judith Katz, who co-wrote the book with me has been just, I call the best business partner in the world and there aren’t many 30 year business partnerships. And so it speaks a lot to her. And who she is she did what I call a boomer retirement a couple years ago, which means she doesn’t do any of the stuff she didn’t like and she only does the stuff that she really wants to do now. And mainly that’s writing books, which we just did and writing articles, which we’re working on more articles. So she’s been just a dear friend she’s been somebody I could trust, somebody that I can make mistakes in front of and learn from. So it was a great business partnership and it continues. She’s just retired, but we’re continuing it. And then the last person I’ll mention for video of time, it’s my mother who was the one who as I was at inner city negro coming up in Philadelphia, had to go to fight with guidance counselors who wanted to put me in the trade classes versus the academic classes. Guidance counselors said he’ll never go to college, never.
(36:54)
She was the one. So you got to be the head of the pta, the parents teacher association so she can make sure that things were happening in that school that was right for others. And also right for her son, she lived to 105. 105. Wow. And she had tons of wisdom and insight that really obviously stayed to me to this day and will stay with me forever that I pass on to my children. But she knew that if you didn’t put effort forward, you couldn’t guarantee you were going to get a result that was going to be pleasing to you. And so she was willing to invest, whether it was working as a poll worker or being in the PTA or whatever it was, and so that she could make the community and herself and her family better. So she’s somebody obviously who is dear.
Rob Jolles (37:43):
Well Fred, she helped raise and teach one heck of a great son. So hats off to your mom and 105. That’s that’s terrific. One, she had a one heck of a life.
Fred Miller (37:57):
She had her wits together very, very well. She was still doing her own bills all the way through her nineties.
Rob Jolles (38:02):
Wow. Well that’s terrific. How did, all right, that was going to be my last question, but I just have a tiny question. How do people get hold of you?
Fred Miller (38:12):
So Fred411@kjcg.com. Fred411@kjcg.com. Ok. Jameson Consulting Group.
Rob Jolles (38:24):
Perfect. And you have an Amazon authors page?
Fred Miller (38:27):
Yes.
Rob Jolles (38:28):
Good. All right. So we know we can find you on Amazon. Yes. And we’re going to go looking for that book. Well change champions and I am so glad we were able to do this finally. We too. Just terrific. I’m so grateful you’re able to spend some time and talk and we’re going to be doing this when we don’t have the camera on as well. But Fred, just really terrific. I learned a lot and I’m just grateful you were able to spend some time with us.
Fred Miller (39:00):
And I want to thank you for the work that you do, and I want to thank you for the wisdom that you bring to situations and the humor you bring to situations. And I want to thank you for just being a person out there trying to make the world better and sharing your wisdom. So thank you very much and thanks for having me here it means a great deal.
Rob Jolles (39:16):
Okay. Fellow Barrett Kohler author, you take care. And folks we’ll do it again as well as we can next time. Until then, stay safe.
Outro (39:27):
Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed today’s show, please rate and recommend it on iTunes, outcast, wherever you get your podcast. You can also get more information on this show and rob@jolles.com.