🎙️ In the season finale of Bad Meetings, host Erika McKellar sits down with Dr. James Chitwood, leadership expert and author of Leadership is Not Enough, for a masterclass on transforming bad meetings into powerful opportunities for engagement and connection. Together, they explore the 50-50 meeting structure, how communication shapes organizational culture, and practical ways to create psychological safety in teams. Dr. Chitwood shares candid stories of meeting failures, lessons learned, and actionable strategies to elevate leadership and team dynamics. If you're ready to lead better, communicate effectively, and build a culture of trust, this is the episode you can't miss.
Season 1, Episode 9: Leadership is Not Enough with Dr. James Chitwood
In the season finale of Bad Meetings, host Erika McKellar sits down with Dr. James Chitwood, leadership expert and author of Leadership is Not Enough, for a masterclass on transforming bad meetings into powerful opportunities for engagement and connection.
Together, they explore the 50-50 meeting structure, how communication shapes organizational culture, and practical ways to create psychological safety in teams. Dr. Chitwood shares candid stories of meeting failures, lessons learned, and actionable strategies to elevate leadership and team dynamics.
If you're ready to lead better, communicate effectively, and build a culture of trust, this is the episode you can't miss.
---
Key Takeaways
---
Episode Breakdown
---
Don’t forget to follow, subscribe, and leave a review to support the podcast. Season 2 is coming soon!
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (00:01.58)
Welcome to Bad Meetings podcast, where we embrace the awkward, the weird and everything in between when it comes to professional and sometimes not so professional meetings. I'm Erika McKellar. I used to be a people pleasing conflict avoider, but that wasn't working. So I went all in. I even got a master's degree in conflict resolution. And I spent the next decade learning hands on how tough experiences can actually improve our work life. On this podcast, I chat with people who have gone through it.
We break down their bad meeting story, find the lessons and share tips on how to have better meetings. It's simple, but it's not easy. You may just learn something from someone else's mistake. Listen in and reach out if you have a bad meeting story to share. Thanks for listening. Today on Bad Meetings Podcast, I'm so excited to have Dr. James Chitwood with us. He is our very first author on Bad Meetings Podcast. He is a former or current consultant
Army vet, former college president and professor. What a CV. Very, very impressive. I can't wait to hear more. Dr. James, is that all right if we call you Dr. James or would you prefer the more formal Dr. Dr. James is fine. My sisters call me far worse. So we'll we'll go with that. That's good. I don't know why it's fitting. It seems like the more casual Dr. James is good for you.
so we'll go with that. Okay, great. Awesome. So, one thing that we really want to dive into here is that you released a book recently and that's incredible. It's something that's on my bucket list, but we'll see if I ever get to it. So congratulations on that launch. And I have this book in front of me that came all the way across the pond. I live in Stockholm and Dr. James, you're from the Midwest. Yes. I live in a Chicago suburb. Yes. Chicago. Great city.
And this is the book right here and it is Leadership Is Not Enough. And I am so excited to hear more about this in relation to your bad meetings story. So why don't we go ahead and dive into that. But first off, James, I want to ask you, what is a fun fact about you that maybe you wouldn't normally say on a podcast or in a professional interview? A fun fact. Well,
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (02:22.606)
Currently, underneath me is my best friend, which is my English bulldog. And his snore right now is really low, so you probably can't hear it. He may get to a resonance where we can actually hear him snoring. And Erika, a fun fact about that, for my book, I interviewed people for a very long time. And I was about nine months into my interviews when I was interviewing somebody who knew me well and said, Jim, I have to tell you that if I didn't know Bruno, that's the name of my dog.
was sleeping underneath your desk, I would think you might be farting on this call with me because of how loud his snoring is. And at that moment, all I thought about was how many people were on calls with me and heard that and didn't know what it was and didn't say anything and what their mind must have thought at that moment and how awkward it must have been for them.
Bruno. that's so funny. It's one of those stories that you would imagine like come up during COVID, right? When all of the embarrassing Zoom stories when we were all getting used to that new way of working, right? Dr. James, you might be having to switch your diet around. You might want to drink a little more water and a lot less dairy. Hilarious. I love Bulldogs. They're just so cute and smushy. And yeah.
I would love to have an assistant, an English Bulldog assistant. So I think we're all a little envious. So with that, we're going to jump right into your bad meeting story. Like all bad meetings episodes, we focus on the guests and their own experiences. And this is not about, you know, the sensational moments, what went well, while those are really important. Those are actually few and far between. We learn a lot more.
from the moments that maybe didn't go the way that we wanted. So Dr. James, if you could jump into your bad meeting story and talk about a time where this meeting didn't go maybe the way you anticipated and what you learned from it. Yeah, so I was working with a client who has a monthly meeting and this client loves to, a business owner,
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (04:37.974)
like most business owners, very knowledgeable in particular areas. Most people who start businesses are pretty smart individuals who have some skills. this individual, we would hope, right? If they're going to last, they do anyways. And he loves teaching moments. And so at beginning of every meeting, he does a monthly discussion, kind of like a theme. unfortunately,
It doesn't resonate with anybody in the crowd. And so his entire staff is sitting there and he'll go on for a 10 to 15 minute diatribe about this monthly topic that he wants everybody engaged in. and can't understand why it's not. And what's interesting the most about this Erika is, know, I mean, it's 15 minutes of me watching everybody else in the room with their heads down, not connected, not engaging, wishing this conversation would end quickly.
and I've had conversations with this person and he recognizes that that's true and yet doesn't change and doesn't do anything to change the behavior to perhaps create a more engaging environment. And, and, and it's, it's, it's interesting. It's, really interesting to me because, know, I, in my book, I teach a fundamental of one-on-one meetings. Well, it's actually a fundamental for every meeting, whether it's one-on-one.
teams, departments, divisions, entire organizations. I believe that every organizational meeting needs to be what I call a 50-50, which is actually a lesson I learned from my uncle Roy, which is half of that meeting has to be quantitative. You have to be talking about the performance of whatever we, if it's a person, a team, a division, an organization, you have to talk about the numbers. Why? Because every organization is either growing or it's dying. It's pretty simple math, right?
Water will be more expensive next year, paper will be more expensive, people will want raises, health insurance will cost more, everything will cost more and if our revenue is not exceeding that, then as an organization we're going to fail quickly. So you have to talk about that, right? So everybody's aware and engage and knows what's going on. And then the other half has to be qualitative. It has to be a qualitative conversation and that can be training. It can also just be getting to know the people. And so I say that because
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (06:58.508)
this meaning that this individual has doesn't have structure to it. It's okay, I'm going to stand up here and I'm going to give this 15 minute diatribe and then I'm just going to randomly call on leaders and have them give updates, right? So you don't know what leader who's going to get called. They can say whatever they want. There's no structure to it, right? And so the meetings have no resonance at all with anybody because none of it's put in relation to how does it help the people do their job? that's kind of why I really put that in the book is I really
believe that at the fundamental level, the one-on-one meeting between the manager and the employee is the most important meeting any organization can be having. And then if that's the most important, right, it just goes from there. So when you're meeting with your entire company, that's pretty critical, right? And you should think about it, you should structure it, and you should make sure that it's meaningful for the people there. If not, why are you having the meeting? If it's just to sit there and listen to yourself for a 15-minute diatribe?
then you're probably not, you you're not, you're not using everybody's time wisely. Right. Get a YouTube channel and record yourself and see, right? And what does this do the work? TikTok is all about that. Go for it. Right. Exactly. That's exactly how TikTok was born. Dr. James, I'm curious, you talk about this 50-50 meeting structure and this, this, this leader that was leading these weekly meetings.
Was he, was there anyone in the, in the chain that above him that he respected that he looked up to? or was he the guy, was he the CEO, the head honcho? He's the top of the chain. everybody, everybody hangs from him. So literally, so, yeah, no, I do give the feedback, you know, because I am the nice thing about being a consultant is I can be brutally honest. Yeah, it's what I'm paid to do, right? I'm paid to be completely honest.
I have to couch that in the fact that I'm being honest with somebody who's paying my bill, right? So, you know, there's definitely some deference and some civility which must occur. So yes, the challenge is, it takes a lot of work to really structure a meeting and come into it prepared and have everything in a row to then have a quality meeting and to do that repeatedly. It takes a lot of work on the leader's part. And most business leaders are stretched so thin.
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (09:24.61)
that asking them to spend an extra two hours on a Sunday to prepare for the Monday morning meeting might be kind of hard, not because they're lazy on Sunday, it's probably because they have other stuff and they're looking at other reports or that might be the only time they get to spend with their family, right? Like there's other things, but what most people don't recognize is that the role of the leader is a lot. And if you're a business owner, it's not 24 seven, it's double that, right? It never ends. It never turns off. It's always on. So
It just takes a lot of work. So even if I'm honest and forthright, the behavior change that is required can be daunting when a person is already stretched too thin. Right. So what would you do in this situation? What is the advice that you would give your client? Who is the CEO of this company? I realize that you did your best when you were describing these, you know, this lack of engagement, right? were employees were clearly disengaged. How did you eventually get through to him?
and make him understand that this is really important. He needs to prepare, he needs to engage people, he needs to get feedback and he needs to improve. Yeah. Well, continual dialogue, just continuing the conversation going forward. In the end, I'm a real big believer that there's this old phrase from Yoda, there is no try, there's only do and don't do. So frictional character, I just quoted there.
But I really believe in that you either do it or you don't. If you don't do it, then you don't complain about it. You just accept it as truth or you do what's necessary to change what it is you want to change. It's kind of that simple to me. I understand that there's a lot of hard work. so the leader and I are we are working through this and spending the time and, know, every like everything it takes acknowledgement first. And luckily, this person is really smart, really cares, wants to help, really engaged.
struggling with the resonance piece, struggling with the, you know, it's really hard to be extremely, extremely, extremely smart when everybody else might not catch it as fast. And so the leader, it's a little challenging at times. And so, you know, we're working to create that ideal structure to create that.
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (11:44.504)
To make the time meaningful to the employee. It should never be about what's meaningful for the leader. It should always be about how is it meaningful for the employee? How does it help them do their job? Right? doesn't do those two things. you'll always succeed. It's just difficult to keep your eyes on that prize, right? Because there's always so many, as a leader, there's always so many other things pulling your attention away. So it's hard to continue to focus on that, I can imagine.
So how would you, when you say structure that you're working on this, how would you guide a leader through this? Because I'm, I'm speaking to our audience right now of either current leaders or future leaders, right? So what can they, I mean, look, we've all been there where we've gone on a rambling, you know, rant and a meeting and, had our opinions about things that we believe are super important, especially when it's your own baby, you know, when you're the CEO, this is your business. Of course you want to talk, you could talk about it all day long, but
Not everyone feels that way. So you're right that it does take practice. It does take time. So how would you lead a guide, a leader through this process and where would you focus most of your energy? Yeah, in preparation. Right. Really, it takes that it takes preparing and planning. Right. And those aren't the same thing. And so, you know, my my recommendation is if you're going to
Well, number one, I believe in having a Monday morning meeting every Monday. Yeah. For some reason, for some reason, it has to be Tuesday because of people's travels or whatever. Okay. But at the beginning of the week, you should have a meeting every week, right? And bringing everybody together. And what that requires then is create a structure to where every leader, if they're going to be speaking, they know when in the order they will speak, they have prepared their information and presented it on Friday. And the leader
then has from Friday to Monday to go through that, compile their thoughts, put it together so that when the meeting happens on Monday morning, let's just say, everything's already done. And it started Friday, right? It started with everybody having their information and ahead of time and preparing. the key point here is everything has to be gauged through the lens of how does it help the employee do their job? Right? If we are coming at it from that perspective,
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (14:08.428)
Why does it matter to you and you being the person receiving this information? Exactly. Exactly. You know, most organizations spend a lot of time on what I call brand speak, which is how they, how they talk to the external world. Right? They, they, have immense budgets and strategies around external communication. Few organizations have an internal communication strategy.
Right. And I believe that's there's two ways to motivate or upset an employee fastest. One mess with their pay. Right. That's that's number one. Right. Just plain and simple. Right. Number two is communication. Plain and simple. Right. And so organizations need to have an internal communication strategy based upon the simple concept of how does what we are about to say help each individual employee do their job. And every department's different.
Right? So every employee in that department is different. So every department should be receiving a slightly different variation of the message based upon how it helps them do their job. And that takes work. And that's kind of the main thing when I'm talking about back to preparation, it takes work to do this. Yet again, you want to motivate or demotivate your employees fast. It's communication. Get it right? Can go what do wonders of weathering any difficult storm.
It's so true. And I'm thinking back on this amazing book I was just reading today, that you had some really great points. I would assume that this is coming from your background in the Army, in the military. And my father's a Vietnam veteran. So I grew up understanding and hearing stories about that world. He wasn't active duty when I was growing up, but I do have some visibility into that space.
And I can imagine that your experience with leadership was really shaped by that. And I love what you said in the book because, you know, the average, I think, person, you know, just regular civilian, you know, is really, you know, thinking, okay, this is like, you know, the leader makes the rules, they tell you what to do, you do whatever they say, but really the military is not like that at all. And you said in your book that, you know, the leader has to be
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (16:25.934)
There has to be a buffer there, right? Because you never know when the leader could get taken away. So the team needs to be able to operate independent of the leader. And I thought that was really key to, and I think also flipped on what, how we normally think about leadership. We expect this hero to come in, tell us what to do, save our ship, it's sinking. But really, all they can do is motivate the team to execute, right? Right. Yeah.
Absolutely. Yeah, it's fascinating. Most people don't grasp that concept of the military that the communication structure is such that everybody knows everything, because you never know who you're to lose in battle, right? And so many companies operate with this need to know basis. Well, unfortunately, when someone needs to know, it's often too late. And so that's the truth. war. Yeah, yeah. So we need to prepare people ahead of time and every employee
will make better decisions if they know everything, right? And so, you know, every leader needs to be talking about what keeps them up at night and what gives them hope, right? And really emphasizing those hopeful things. And so when employees know everything, then they can make better decisions and those better decisions at the micro level really help the organization along. Employees are making decisions without a boss next to them most of their day. Right?
Especially these days where we're, you know, most of us are working hybrid, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you want them to make the best micro decisions all day long, they have to know everything in order to make the best micro decision that they can. And they have to be able to provide feedback back, which is an important part of the internal communication strategy. It can't be one way. It has to be a loop. It has to go back all the way back up. I love this know everything because I can imagine
I'm always thinking about the devil's advocate. You know that one person that's always in your meetings that's like, but what about this? Right. And always bringing up the counterpoint of, always try to imagine what that person might say. And that's what I'm going to do here. So someone might say, it's impossible for every employee to know everything. You have to like have specialists and experts in certain areas. How would you respond to that? As long as we knowing and being aware. Right.
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (18:47.158)
I'm aware of quantum physics. I'm not a quantum physicist, right? Everybody should know what's going on and be aware. It doesn't mean they have intimate knowledge of the micro details, right? And that's really that difference. If everybody's aware of what's going on, then they can make better decisions. And they don't have to know it in detail to have a general broad brush understanding.
of that. And that will still help them help them make their micro decisions that they make every day when they understand the broader picture.
So how do you help people understand the broader picture? And I'm leading into your model right now, because I think it's so smart the way that you broke it down and starting with training. And I'd love to hear more about that and how you work with your clients on sharing knowledge across different positions and functions and teams. That's really interesting to me. How many organizations believe that the only
department capable of providing any training is a training department. Right. And, and by the way, the first department cut when there's budget issues is the training department. So right. And typically, right? Yeah, yeah. And if, if you want your organization to, to continue to grow and be strong, then it must be a learning organization and must consistently be training. know, most people don't recognize that.
the military is a training organization. It's either preparing for a mission, doing a mission or reviewing that mission. And so it's all training focused, right? And so I bring that back to the organization's training because I believe that the best people to provide training are the ones doing the job, not a training department, but the other people who are doing it, right? And so, and other people in the organization, I'm a real big believer in intra and inter.
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (20:52.046)
team training, right? So that you can get cross development going, everybody's understanding what everybody else is doing. And they've got a really good understanding of how their actions are affecting the entire organization. If somebody only understands how their X does Y in their little silo, and they don't understand the greater alphabet of the organization, then they're missing the bigger picture, right? And so it's, it's, you know, your training should be done, you know, it needs to be developed with your people and delivered by your people.
Right. So to continue along that train of thought, how do you avoid analysis paralysis with say, like, you know, all of these different teams that are trying to train their skillset, let's say to the wider organization, because training takes training, doesn't it? So how do you give them like a blueprint to say, okay, you're an accountant or an engineer, you're very detail oriented, you want to share everything because you're so passionate about it. However,
Just remember that your audience is not this way or they might not understand the fundamentals. So start there, please. Yeah. That's very true. If you've ever heard an engineer decide to go into training mode, can turn you off pretty quick, right? I mean, turn you off, like make you go to sleep. So there is definite truth to ensuring that there is structure.
Right. And so it really starts with an understanding of instructional design. it does. I do believe in having a training department, but their sole purpose is to help develop the training that is delivered by others. Right. They're not the trainers. They're the ones who work with the subject matter experts in the organization to develop the material that is then delivered by the departmental employees. Right. Very smart.
Right. Because it's true. Like people like management and you mentioned this in your book, too. People assume that these soft skills are, you know, something that just everyone has or you just learn like there's no effort to be trained in these soft skills. And I think this I think that term just gives does it even more of a disservice, in my opinion. Right. So so how do you get people to understand that soft skills mean hard money?
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (23:16.686)
That can be a challenging one right there. It can be very, very, very difficult. I really believe if we stick on the thought of training that one of the mistakes organizations make is they promote top performers into management roles and don't teach them how to be managers. They assume that because they have the hard skills, they also have the soft skills like you. don't like the word soft skills because...
It'll make or break a company very, very quickly. So, you know, we need to teach our managers, we need to have onboarding, you know, management 101, director, now you're a director over managers, how do you do that? That's a different skill set, right? Or a VP level over directors is another skill set, right? And so most organizations, they don't have any development for this, right? They have maybe new employee onboarding, and that is just all about, you know, maybe how to do your job, and maybe what the culture of the organization is.
how to ask for time off or get payroll. exactly. That's it. Well, then they don't teach managers, OK, as a manager in this organization, this is how we expect you to engage your employees based upon our mission, vision and values based upon our culture. This is how you should be managing. Right. These are these are those soft skills that you need to be developing in order to be a good manager in our culture. Listen, not every culture is
what we would call positive. Some of them are just straight up boiler rooms. And if that's that organization structure, and every employee comes into it knowing that then right, then that's okay. Right, exactly. If that's what you're looking for, there's no I love the term, there's no right or wrong culture. It's just that if you're honest about it or not, right, like this is what you're gonna get, you know, you, you don't get out of law school expecting like a cush job where you're working, you know, 3040 hours a week, no, you're going to be working 80 if you want to like make
partner, you know, and that's what you expect. You know that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that you said about onboarding. And I'm, I'm like a passionate on border or person who believes in onboarding because of my first position, actually straight out of university when I was like 21 years old, I ran our onboarding program for an investment management firm in San Francisco. And you know, I was talking to people about, you know, their health insurance, their
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (25:43.576)
their stocks, their vesting. I had no idea what I was talking about really, because I was 21 years old and I had never dealt with any of these things. But I realized through that process how important onboarding was and I really ended up taking it seriously and learning as much as I could because it's scary starting a new job or even a new position with the same company. And you had a concept in your book, which I love, which is that you need to do an onboarding every time.
there's a major shift, like you get promotion or you're moving to a different type of role. I think that's, that's like, duh, of course, why wouldn't we be doing that? But then I think that the argument would be resources, right? So how do you convince your clients or an organization to invest effort and time into onboarding?
Well, again, your organization is either growing or dying. And so, it's really just that simple, right? And so, I always break it back down to that. Is this going to help your organization grow or not, right? And by that, is it going to help your people grow or not, right? I'm a firm believer that a manager's job is to develop their employees to be able to take their job so that they can make better decisions at the micro level, right? It's all interrelated and connected, right?
And so, to convince someone, I mean, you just have to really show them that most people have experience in these other realities and truths that they can acknowledge their relevance, right? And say, yes, okay, you're absolutely right. I see that. So again, it's just helping them to understand that managing is not being an employee. And whatever your culture is, to your point, you have to be honest about that, right? Do you really?
Like there's a lot of people who act one way and speak another. So if they can just acknowledge that actually what they want isn't what they're saying, but it's what they're doing and then just build everything around that, it would be so much simpler for them and everybody else in the organization. Right. Because then we're all on the same page and the people who self-select out because they don't want to work in that environment can. I mean, it's so fundamental to, you know, an organization. think when, when do you think companies lose sight of that?
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (28:00.598)
And I'm asking this because I come from a perspective of startups who come from like the ground up. And there always seems to be a tipping point when an organization sort of forgets why they're doing what they're doing. And what is your view with that? That's a hard one. I remember I was working with a startup and the founder had said, listen, we're not building a great company to sell, we're building a great company.
And what I know about building company, great companies, if you build a great company, or later, will come along and pay you a boatload of money for it. Right. That was what he said. And then six months later, it's not the focus. We were focused on building it to look good to sell it. Right. And that disconnect can be very, very, very real. Unfortunately, there are just truths to organizational reality that this organization may need to.
fell in order to survive, right? In order to get the finances necessary to help it grow beyond its survival mode that it's in now. sometimes that isn't as simple as getting them to remember what it was that they said about creating the right environment, right? Yet in the end, there's enough empirical evidence to firmly hold true to the fact that a positive culture produces positive results.
and that doing good business produces good results. So there's stacks and stacks of data to prove that engaged employees are going to do more than disengaged employees. And if you want your employees to do more, especially as a startup, then you have to find ways to keep them engaged. Right. Right. And you had said that there's two ways to motivate people. the real simple one is compensation, right? It's paying them well, but it's also on the other flip side.
it's making them feel safe and do like they're doing something meaningful. And I think that today is even more important than it ever was because the expectation of the next generation of leaders, they want to be doing meaningful work. That's the most and in a company that develops them and cares about their growth, whether they plan to stay there or not, because everybody wins in the end, right? Yeah, absolutely. You know, money is not a motivator. It is a demotivator.
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (30:22.07)
Right? It's like a baseline. If we look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs, money's at the bottom, right? It's a roof over your head and food upon your table. It's safety and security. That's what money is, right? For some people, there's a prestige level to it. Sure, that gets you to a higher level, but really money's baseline, right? And so, know, organizations need to figure out how to focus and engage people at a higher level, right? Because if all they have to offer is money, somebody else will offer their employees more, right?
And psychological safety is critical for engagement, right? And it's this real truth that if your employees feel psychological safe, feel psychologically safe, meaning that they believe they can make mistakes without retribution, they believe they can voice their opinions without retribution, they can question without retribution, then you're going to have a more engaged employee.
You know, there's this, you know, when I was a leader, actively leading, you know, I asked everybody their opinion on everything. And so people knew that they could come to me with their opinions. I might tell them, listen, that's a great idea, but we can't do it. And here's why. But the fact that they knew that I was listening meant the world to them. Right. I would say your employees, don't have to do what your employees say, but you sure as heck better listen to them because they're the canaries in the coal mine. Right. Nobody knows what's going on with your competitors or your internal resources better.
than your frontline employees. So start listening to them if you really want to know what's going on. Isn't that the truth? And I think that that when it comes to them trusting you like that vulnerability based trust and being able to come to a leader and tell them, hey, guess what? You know, I'm on the front lines day after day. And these people are not happy with our product for these reasons. And I'm going to tell you before it spirals out of control. I mean, that's
That's to go to the boss and to say something like that. That takes a lot of trust. So how do you as a leader, how would you advise somebody as a leader to foster that kind of environment? What should they be doing first? Yeah, absolutely. Well, two things. Number one, back to the quantitative part of the 50-50 meeting. There needs to be documentation, right? And that documentation needs to have a funnel path.
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (32:45.358)
back all the way up to the top. So that's A, that's your formal. Your informal is an anonymous community. Well, there needs to be two ways for the employee to reach directly up to the C-suite. And one of them is attributable feedback, like a suggestion box. And then one of them is anonymous. And the thing about it is- I have have anonymous, yeah. Must have anonymous. And where most organizations fail miserably,
is that they don't do anything with that information. They take it. If they have it in the first place, let's just go start with that. So if they have it, they just take it back and they go through it in their C-suite. like I've been at the table when this is happening, right? A bunch of people who just think they're smarter than God are sitting there and they're reading all this and like, we're doing great. this person. I know who wrote that. And they're just tossing it. Right. And so what happens then is people believe that nobody's listening. Right.
And so the first thing you have to do is establish communication channels. The second thing you have to do is create a structure where back to that Monday morning meeting in that Monday morning meeting, or if it can only be monthly because of the organization structure. Okay. I agree with weekly. Let's just say it's monthly, at least then every month they need to be reviewing that feedback in front of the team, everybody and saying, here's the feedback we received. Okay. Maybe.
We left off one because it was HR inappropriate or was HR and we're dealing with that one separately. Right. That happens with suggestion boxes. Sometimes you can't read everything because what's put in is either A, inappropriate simply because the person who wrote it is disgruntled and they're not being kind in what they write or B, they wrote something that needs to be investigated and that's a whole different thing. But for everything else, the 90 some odd percent of it, you can sit in front of your team and say, this is the feedback we received. These are the ones we can act upon.
and why. These are the ones we cannot act upon and why. Some of it can be, you know, this is a great suggestion and we're going to look at putting it on a budget for next year. We just simply can't afford it right now. Right? But the key here is when the people know that the C-suite or the leadership team is actually receiving the information, reviewing it and giving feedback, then they know they're being listened to. And it's that last piece that is critical.
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (35:07.266)
People don't need to agree, they need to be heard. Right. And here's the thing for about communication. I was interviewing a principal from a local high school here. And she said this phrase that I just think is so, beautiful. She said, in the absence of information, fear takes hold.
And her first name is Jackie. Her last name is escaping me right now. In the absence of information, fear takes hold. And that's the thing every leader must understand when they go with this need to know basis. If you're not telling them, fear is telling them. Especially in times like this, right, where people are really genuinely nervous and worried about their safety and their security going back to the hierarchy of needs, right? Right.
Yeah, everybody is. Yeah, those in these tough times communication, it needs to be almost over communicated. What absolutely. I'm sorry. It's just like if you look at today's times as changing times and you have to look at it from a change management perspective. And one of the key one of the cornerstones of change management is over communication. I don't actually like the word over. I just think it's appropriate communication.
Right. Yeah. I tout myself as an over communicator and I kind of do that intentionally because most people go, really? But it's like, I don't know, maybe it's just the culture that I live in. But it's like not always appreciated. However, I would rather be over than under and make sure that there are no miscommunications or misunderstandings. Or if there's something that I don't clearly understand, I'm very open about that. But I think those are the
the rules and the nature of things when you're a consultant like you and I are, you learn those things that you have to be super crystal clear. Otherwise, you're going to be wasting your own time and money or somebody else's time and money. Absolutely right. Okay. Well, I'm just, I'm like, can't wait to dig in more to this book. I've read about halfway through and I'm really loving the track model. I think it's something that
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (37:19.822)
everyone in business, regardless if you're a leader, if you're an employee, if you're a student, this is something that's like really just fundamental to education. And if we're talking about appropriate training, I think this is a great place to start if you don't know where to start when it comes to teamwork and leadership. And Dr. James, I want you to just finish off with your final thoughts and conclusions on what this book could do.
for somebody who was willing to take a couple of days and read it. Because it is quite an easy and quick read, but lots of just really fundamental ideas about interpersonal relations and organizational behavior. Sure, absolutely. Thank you, Erika. It's interesting. I was talking to my sister who read my book, and she's also a consultant to project manager. And she said, Jim, what did you leave out?
Like, what are you leaving for your consulting business? And I said, I left nothing out. A person can literally read that book and implement everything in there and function great. is, Leadership Is Not Enough. An operator's guide to a performance culture. And that's really the key point. It's taken from the look. I have a doctorate in organizational leadership. I'm an ops guy, right? So this ops person.
So this book is really an operator's perspective. If you are a new leader, I've had a number of leaders read this book and say, gosh, I wish I read this 20 years ago, right? Because it's so fundamental that now that they're C-suite executives, they've been through all of this and they get it. So to them, it's common sense. But 20 years ago, it wouldn't have been, right? And so it's really understanding that this book is going to give you some fundamental, very tactical, very real world
elements that you can implement in your organization to produce great returns. And what you have to do is understanding that training, recognition, accountability, and communication, that's the track model. They're a single strategy, and you have to look at them as such. And when you do, and you see that holistic picture, then you can create an environment where your employees thrive. So the track model is the system working together, not the training, recognition, accountability, and communication.
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (39:38.066)
separated out, right? It's all of this. it's why I use the word. Yeah, it's why I use the word element and not pillars, right? Not I could say these are the pillars of my model, but pillars are strong. They're independent. They don't touch elements come together to create something stronger, right? And so training is part of recognition and accountability and communication weaves through all of that, right? Recognition is also part of accountability and training, right?
and communication flows through it, right? Accountability is, it's important, right? And so all of these pieces operate as one strategy. And when you look at them as one, well, then, you you'll never cut your training department because you recognize in doing so you're going to hurt your accountability and your recognition. Right. they all, none of it is independent. It all works together. and, and I want to, I w I would love to get your thoughts to finish off.
because this is a really hot topic right now is vulnerability. And I really liked your take on it because, of course there are the big thinkers or big thought leaders that we all know that are talking about vulnerability, but I think that people might misconstrue that or maybe overuse it. So what would you say to new managers who are, you know, really trying to make, you know, a good rep, have a good reputation?
and lead in a balanced way, what would you say they should take away from in either encouraging vulnerability from their employees or showing vulnerability themselves? Start with, don't know and follow it with, what do you think? People get promoted into a management role and they think that they need to have all the answers and that's simply not true.
the, if you are the smartest person in the room who has all the answers, you have failed miserably as a leader, right? You want people who are smarter than you, who have more answers than you, right? Your job is to draw that information out of them, right? So start with, don't know, what do you think? And you will be amazed how much great information is going to flow to you. A, how much respect your team is going to have for you for admitting that you don't, even if you do know the answer, it's okay to say, I don't know, what do you think?
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (41:57.516)
Right? So that you can hear more and develop a sense of trust with the employee that you're willing to listen and you believe that they have knowledge that you want to hear. Right? So start with I don't know and follow it up with what do you think? That's the best advice I've heard in a really long time. I don't know. What do you think? How powerful is that? It's one phrase. It's step one. It's low hanging fruit. See what happens. See what happens. You that to anybody you encounter.
in work or even in personal and just, you know, see what, hear what they have to say. Cause yeah, I think that's, that's really brilliant advice. Thank you. you. Yeah, absolutely. Erika, if I may give one other quick one, it's after giving instructions to someone, ask them to tell you what you just heard, what they just heard. So, okay, super cool. Could you just tell me what you just heard so that I can make sure we're on the same page? Right. So powerful to, to, to, to really.
get into that deeper level engagement with the employee. And it's so simple. And you have not only those tips, but so many more just like, mean, I wish I could read them all, all the quotes that you have and all of the examples that you've shared in your book, Leadership is Not Enough. And you can find this online, right? And either digital format or hard copy, which I love. Thank you for sending me this real book because it's so nice to hold something and read it. Yeah, I'm a physical book.
Holder, reader, I just like them, I prefer them. Yeah, so a person can go to leadershipisnotenough.com and that'll direct them to where they can buy it. Super. And Dr. James, if anyone wants to get in touch with you, how could they do that best? Yeah, they could go to, well, I'm on LinkedIn, Dr. James Chitwood. They could also go to my website, which is performance culture is not enough. I also have a website, Dr. James Chitwood.
that has a submission form and you can go there and reach out. In the back of my book is a discount code. So if somebody wants to engage my services, there's a 25 % off engagement code there. My way of saying thank you for reading the book and let me know how to help. well, thank you so much. And I will include all of that in the show notes. I really appreciate your time today and thank you for these just like
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (44:20.27)
Practical tips, it's so nice to have actually some steps and some action items to follow. I think that's so valuable because there's a lot of theory out there these days, but practical application is not as common as it should be, think. So thank you for that. Thank you, Erika. I appreciate that. I appreciate your time. I'm happy to be here. Thank you. Thanks so much.