Leadership is a never-ending journey.

The most prolific leaders continue to learn, gain knowledge and apply it to their daily lives. They leverage their expertise and influence to make a greater impact on their organizations.

As a traveler on this journey, I’m always seeking out new points of views and perspectives on how to continue to grow my own leadership skills.

Which is why I was excited to meet Ron Reich. Ron is a passionate leadership/management development subject matter expert and coach with 28 years of experience in diversified industries.

An expert facilitator, Ron believes in involving participants in their learning, leading to higher engagement and quality results.

Join me to take another step on your own journey as we level up together.

Links

​Follow Ron on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ron-reich-7809829/

Register for my Virtual Happy Hour: https://www.adamliette.com/virtual-happy-hour

Learn more at https://www.adamliette.com

Activate The Warrior Within https://www.adamliette.com/awaken-the-warrior

Transcript

Adam Liette
What's going on there smooth operators Welcome to this week's interview, I'm so excited to have you because we get to dive into a subject that's very near and dear to my heart. It's something that it's what it's like my 2am Wake up. You ever have that where like, you get this incredible idea at two o'clock in the morning, and you can't let it go. And you end up having to like get up and write something down just to remember it like this is the topic that inspires my 2am Wake up moments. And it's all about how to be a better leader. It's the topic of leadership, this never ending cycle that we're on of increasing our leadership skills, increasing how we're perceived by our team, how we're able to get projects done without feeling like, let's be frank, we've all had a lot of bad leaders in our lives. We've all had people that ruled by edict by authority, and by you will do this or else. And if you're anything like me anything like most of the men of my generation, we really don't lead that way. Right. So these leadership models that were taught told about or you might have learned in school, or from some bad boss he had 25 years ago, they don't work. They don't work for us. And so it's not natural, it's not our natural way of leading. Which is why it says never ending process, never ending journey. And we can either say, crap, I'm never going to learn it all or flip that around and say, I get the opportunity to continue growing. And that's the the way I like to look at this subject. This is another opportunity for me as well. If you haven't guessed by now, I like to bring on guests where I'm going to learn quite a bit too. So get your notes out, be ready to go hit the record button on your own device. Download the episode, whatever you got to do to make sure you don't miss a second of this because I have Ron right with me. Ron is a passionate leadership and management development subject matter expert. He's been doing this for 28 years, coached multiple people in many different industries. And Ron, I'm so happy to have you with me. How are you this evening? Adam, I

Ron Reich
am fine. Thank you. And truly it it is really, really good to be here. And you know, I instantly. I want to pick up on your initial comment there. Because for me, it is just so important is that this is a never never ending journey. And you know, I'm a I'm a big sports fan. And Joe Paterno said many years ago, if you're not getting better, as a leader, you're getting worse, because your competition is getting better. And it's just never ending. And again, really Adam, please, I am not blowing smoke. I love it to where it's just like, oh, man, I'm never going to learn everything. No. And that's great. Because there's always so much more out there. That's wonderful. I never want to stop learning.

Adam Liette
Exactly. That'd be boring, honestly. Yeah. And I think we've all been in those lines of work where it's like, well, I've got it. And then what, like those are the jobs we didn't last then or those are the careers that were like moved on from right. Yeah,

Ron Reich
yeah, exactly. You know, it's, it's funny, because, again, it's reminded me, I don't know how many years ago and it doesn't matter. I read an article in the paper as reading a column or whatever. It was a marketing director who was in her early 40s. And the article said that, you know, there's a she isn't, you know, 4042, whatever it might be. She said to her boss, Steve, at 42 years old, it's over. It's over. There's nothing left for me to learn. And I was like, man, if you ever said that to me, and I'm your leader, and you're dead serious. We are going to have a very, very serious conversation. And if you're not willing to come off that stance, you're not going to be here much longer.

Adam Liette
No, I can't imagine that. In my day job I have. My the former CEO of our company is nearing retirement. And she's she's still sharing stuff every day. Not because he's trying It's like she's learning from it too. And she's like, it says part of her leadership model is to read read read it And then share it with us. And man is that such an inspiration just to keep, let's,

Ron Reich
let's let's go down that path for a minute to that the the best piece of business advice I ever got was from an old boss, I'm working at a pharmaceutical company. And we were talking about my performance review, my increase, and so forth. And I was happy with everything you and I got, you had a good review of good increase and everything. And I was talking to him about my colleague, and one of his other direct reports, David, and I was like, chill, I just admired David so much. He's so well rounded. And he knows so much about so many different things. And he was like, Ron, if you want to become more of a resource to people, and if you want people to start coming to you, as a subject matter, expert, start reading, start reading. And in the last 20 years, 22 years, maybe since I got that advice, I have read probably close to 400 leadership books. And it's an it's incredible, because again, number one, it has made me a resource. I mean, I can give book recommendations to people, there's information from these books that I can just pull out and here's here, here's a phrase you may want to use, or here's a model of which I'm aware of that can help you. It gives me the it gives me confidence in it also allows me to tell people confidently and and I'll leave it at that, I guess confidently? I don't know the answer to that. And that's okay. Because I don't know everything I never will. And I'll try Oliver.

Adam Liette
That's so refreshing. It's, I just, I just released an episode not well, not too long ago, in real time when we're recording it. By the time this publishes, it'll be a couple months ago. But it was all about like showing vulnerabilities and how, like, there's ways to do it in a leadership role. And I think that's one of them is being able to say, I don't know the answer to that question and being confident enough to say that.

Ron Reich
Oh, absolutely. And I mean, that, that, that that is one of the things within it. For me. It's a very key topic within emotional intelligence, as far as I'm concerned. And I do this, when when I'm coaching somebody, I do it in my leadership sessions, actually, no matter what, or whether it's even individual contributors, I had them tell each other out loud, what are your strengths, share your strengths. And then also, I need you to share your limitations. And how is it important to do that at work? And you know, sometimes people are like, Oh, gee, I feel like I'm bragging. Number one. It's like, how is it bragging? Every single person has strengths. I have strengths. Absolutely. And I'm proud of them, Adam, and again, we don't know each other at all. I mean, I didn't enjoy it thoroughly. And I mean it to talking to you so far. You don't know me from anybody. A couple of my strengths, though. I'm a good facilitator. I know what I'm doing. I can draw information out of people. I'm good at that. And I shared with you before, I'm a resource to people. I have read a lot of different books, I stay connected through articles and so forth. So I'm a good resource. Okay, good. And I say to people, you know what, I am completely open in sharing my limitations as well. I'm not strong. Technically, I never had been, I never will be. I pray and I'm not kidding. Nothing goes wrong technically, during our chat, because we're going to have an issue. Equally as important. I don't write that, well. I just don't I struggle putting proverbial pen to paper. I mean, I can do it. Yes, I struggle. And one of the things too, for leaders is is is having the confidence and making yourself vulnerable enough to ask for help. Because when I write something, my wife who I consider my my colleague as well, because you know, I'm you know, I'm a one man show. All right, something she writes beautifully. And as like Laurie, would you would you edit this for me? Would you just edit it you know, grammar content, whatever it might be and as I I'm not that good at it? No? Sure. I'll be glad to thank you. Thank you. I'm really appreciate that. Which is equally as important and it's not just here. This is your job. Please just do it. As I know. Thank you for taking the time to help me this is something at which I'm not that good. I struggle with this, but I need your expertise.

Adam Liette
Absolutely so important. It's the hardest thing to ask for, to ask for help, until you get used to it. And then it's quite an emboldening because, you know, you can ask, and quite frankly, I think we fool ourselves into thinking, Oh, that person doesn't have time for me, or they're too busy too. They don't want to do this. For the person giving of themselves, it's quite something when we give of ourselves, the connections that form. And that's a two way street, you're giving of yourself to your team, your team is giving of themselves to you. And it becomes this really symbiotic thing that happens within an organization.

Ron Reich
I finished a clay, I do a lot of work for the American Management Association. I finished a course a number of years ago now doesn't matter how many, whatever I was in Philadelphia, Friday afternoon, we had finished, the participants have gathered their things and everybody is leaving, one participant came up to me. And we it was just she and I in the room. Now. Do you mind if I ask you something about work? No, go ahead. We start talking maybe half hour, you know, again, along those lines, all of a sudden, she stopped and looked at me. She's like, wait a minute, wait a minute, we're done. Everybody's left. You're not getting paid for this. And you're talking to me. For what reason. And I was like, there are a couple of reasons. Number one, I like to think I'm a nice guy. More importantly than that, I care. I care. And equally as important. Anything that I can share with you that I can pay forward, at some point in time is going to come back to help my wife and I later on in our lives. Because if I can make you better in any way, in your in your job in your world, it's just it's just that it's the circle. It's just the circle of life, and it will come back. And I Whoa, giving of myself, it's just, I get great joy from that.

Adam Liette
100% It feels it feels good. It's good practice for us in our leadership and coaching capabilities. And like you said, it comes back and even like, I challenge anyone listening to this, like think of when you've given of yourself. And if you haven't recently go do it. Like now like, Well, don't pause this episode, but like after this episode, like go give of yourself to someone else and then just wait for it to come back to you. It will I promise you that. I want to flip. I want to flip a little bit because we've been talking a lot about leadership and like downwards, if you will, like leading those that need our help, or that are, you know, below us on the pay scale, if you will, I hate to think about an org chart that way. But for many of us, well, I think all of us at some point or at some level, we have a boss, even if you're the CEO of the company, you have you have bosses, whether you realize it or not, you have people that are technically like above you that you're trying to lead as well. And I know we talked about this in our in our pre show about how to lead people that are above you how to use your leadership capabilities in that position.

Ron Reich
Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, I think so much of everything comes down to what is the relationship you have? What's the relationship between yourself and your boss? And you know, how open is it? How honest is it? And you know, what, at? How willing are you to make yourself vulnerable? To give your boss some feedback? And again, equally as important? How open is your boss to getting that feedback? And to answer the question, Adam, and this is something that I have used in the past, I have recommended it to a lot of different people who have shared with me how effective it's been and that is very simply the start stop continue model.

Adam Liette
Are you familiar with that? Or not?

Ron Reich
Okay, very simply. You can you can ask your boss, you can ask anyone when we're talking about this relationship. Let's keep it there. Boss. How open are you to getting some feedback from me? These are some things I would love to see you start doing that you're not. These are some things I'd like you to stop doing that are making my life difficult. These are some things you can continue to do. And along those lines, it also doesn't have to be limited to the relationship between yourself and your boss. It can also be boss, I noticed in the meeting the other day, you kept interrupting people, you may get to you need to be you interrupted Adam, when he was making the comments about the budget revisions, you need to you need to be careful with that. And then, and then this is the part that I love about this, too. Yeah, there's something called the feedback loop. All right. Feed feedback loop simply is pay. If How can we do this? If, if you're my boss, Adam, okay. And I have, I have asked you to please, please stop interrupting me, or stop, stop interrupting the team during meetings. The feedback loop simply is I ask you, Adam, how comfortable are you, if I if I see you interrupting myself during a meeting or other colleagues that I tell you about it right away, and we talk about it. And that's your feedback loop. And that's how you can become as the leader more aware of the behavior, and when it's happening, and how to modify it.

Adam Liette
So fascinating. I hadn't heard it referred to in those words of start, stop, continue. That being said, like people that I coach and join my program, I teach second level leadership, the operator on how to get their team to talk to them in that way, how to, like Coach it out of their team members. So they're receiving that kind of feedback. And it's very much in this in the same format. And I remember the first time I did it, like, like yesterday, because it was my team's like, Wait, we just get to tell you what we think. Yeah, you too. But the the level of feedback that I got, and the immediate fixes I was able to make to my team members lives was tremendous. And it elevated my own role. upwards and downwards in the company, it made me a central figure of how the company was operating on a day to day. That's right.

Ron Reich
That's exactly right. And I mean, it shows for me, it goes back to the word we use a few times the vulnerability of yes, I'm willing to get this feedback. And I'm willing to change my behavior. I'm willing to talk about it. And what happens, what happens then, obviously, I hope it's obvious that relationships improve. Trust improves. And if all of that is improving, it's almost inevitable that productivity is going to improve and results will.

Adam Liette
Lead people don't just listen to like demands anymore. But what is going on with this world? Ron? I don't like this. Oh, yeah, no. I think it's it's especially true with younger people. And they we can like make millennial jokes or say, what's the new one now? The, like the young ones, like 1920 years old, I forget what they call them now. Sorry, I'm aging myself. I'm not that old guys. I'm only 40. But like, they I know, especially in my career field, I deal with a lot of creative types, high personalities, like they did they will not respond to leadership by edict it doesn't work for them, and you're just shooting yourself in the foot.

Ron Reich
That's right. That's exactly right. You know, and I mean, and she and that's where, again, it goes back to getting to know the people that with whom you work, what's important to them? Well, you know, what are their strengths? What do they love to do? What are their limitations? Equally as important? What are their triggers? You know, we're going to what are some things where I where I have to be careful, and I mean, and etc. There are so many different things we could get into here. And you know what, Adam, if you don't mind? I mean, because we're talking with generations. One of the best books I've read, relative to that topic is called the best team wins. And it's written by every Reddit allotting, yeah, Adrian gossip, the author, I love it. I just absolutely love it, talking about all of the different generations, what they're about what they're looking for, what's important to them, and how the dinner different generations need to interact with each other to be effective, because I need them Do I need their experience? I need a Wii. And they need me to, you know, they need by my expertise, and how can we best synergize? How can we best come together with that, and it's a wonderful resource.

Adam Liette
Brings you back to Ronald Reagan, when he said, You know, it's amazing what we can get done. If no one cares who got the credit, or something, I paraphrase it, but it's very much in that same way. If you if you can't, I have a couple of Reagan books on my shelf, my daughter's named Reagan, I'm kind of a Reagan guy. So that's the most politics I've ever talked on this show. There it is. That's the beginning. And

Adam Liette
that is so cool. And I think about 99% of the people I work with are remote. And what you'll think it's a hang up with people, they think I'm in a remote situation, like I'm not going to be able to build those relationships. I'm like, well, we all got zoom, right? We've heard of this thing. And we got Hangouts, and we got cell phones, like, how have you found effective ways to actually connect and get to know people in that in that deeper way that that we need to to be effective leaders? I think I think part

Ron Reich
of it for me is, even with the zoom, it's more challenging, no doubt. And still, one of the things I love to do is just talk to people, unsolicited is just call you an animatronic. Hi, how you doing good? What's going on? Nothing. I just called to say hi, what's going on today? As Reagan? What are you gonna, what, what books are you reading? Are you going to just whatever. And, and just and try to go back to what and again, this is one of the key things that in my opinion for any leader is just to show people I'm human. You know, I'm human. And I want to get to know you on different levels. Of course, I need to know you professionally. And I also want to know you personally, you know, and I'll go I don't I don't need to know the you know, the deepest, most intimate secrets you have or anything like that. Still, in all I want to learn about you, because that's how we're going to be most effective.

Adam Liette
That's cool. I'm gonna share one with you that I think you're gonna love. I'm a child of the 90s. So we grew up when there's this great show on MTV called cribs. And it would show these, you know, rich and famous people's houses, and they get show off all their stuff. Well, we did a team cribs once, where everyone was encouraged to film their workspace, their home workspace. And yeah, it was like, oh, show me where your desk is. But what did people inevitably do? They showed the things in their office that were important to them. Like everyone in the office, so my, I have this bottle of bourbon over here. It's 82nd Airborne Division, commemorative edition bottle. And I showed it off to everybody without even thinking, I'm like, wow, I just showed them a huge part of my soul. Like, boom, right there. So that's a cool thing to do, that everyone gets to contribute to. And yeah, can be played off like a fun game. But you're learning a lot about each other too. Well,

Ron Reich
and you know, Adam, you're reminding me to another wonderful way to learn to learn about people. And you can do this remotely. Or you can do it face to face my preference on this and my preference for anything, candidly, is face to face. And still, one of the most powerful things that people can do is tell stories. Tell the story about an event in your life. It can be as a child, it can be as a as a teen, it can be as an adult that helped to shape you into who you are today. And I mean, I wonder one of the most powerful examples I have. I was in Atlanta, quite bad maybe seven, eight years ago, whatever. I was working with a leadership team to help them to develop a vision and a mission statement small technology firm. And I said to them, I'd like you to tell stories, so you can get to know each other on a deeper level. And it Okay, fine. Nick was the CEO and we were meeting in his home he had again, you know, the crib. Tight and I had said to him if you don't mind, Nick, I'd like you to go first. And I'd like you to make yourself vulnerable if you don't mind. I'm good with that time. Storytime comes Nick. Go ahead, if you will. Seven leaders around the room and I was there as well, guys, when I was a little kid, I was incredibly ambitious. And I mean, incredibly, I didn't get one paper route. I got two. And the reason I wanted to do that is because I desperately wanted to get a VCR. I wanted a VCR. And you know what, you guys? I did, I saved my money. And I got my VCR and to you know what? After I got it, I had $65 left. I went to my mom and dad and said, Mom, Dad, the Carnival is in town. I'm 12. Now, can I go by myself? They talked about it and they said, Son, you know what? You're responsibly unmanned. Yes, go, you can go by yourself. So I did. I got my wristband, and I got my hot dog. And his team is sitting around and I was too and I was like, Where you going with this neck?

Adam Liette
I said the sign of a great story. When people are like, where are you going with this.

Ron Reich
I got my wristband, I got my hot dog. And then the tears started slowly at first. And then I started to play the games. And I played for a little while, and now he is openly crying. After a half an hour, my money was gone. And the guy who was running the game told me I was the biggest sucker he had ever seen in his entire life. Nick slammed his hand down his fists down on the table. And he said to his team, and that is the reason I am so tight with the money in this company. Because I vowed nobody will take advantage of me again. Nobody knew that about him. Nobody. And they were all sitting there like in awe was like Nick, we just thought you were cheap. We thought you were a tightwad. He's like, Well, no, this is the reason I am. And it's like what a revelation. And and again, getting to know each other on a deeper level football.

Adam Liette
Wow. So the next Christmas, he got like five VCRs or so.

Ron Reich
That would be a great gag gift, actually. And

Adam Liette
it's a great gag gift anyway, here and 2023 Like what am I supposed to do with this thing? My kids are they look at like big televisions with the back and like what's that dad? Like? Oh, that's how TVs were like eight years ago.

Ron Reich
Oh, you must be really old. You must be really old.

Adam Liette
And I love that idea of sharing with story because it enables us to share more about ourselves. And people react to stories. It's it's crazy. When you think about the pivotal leaders in whatever industry you're in, and you pick up their book and what's the first thing and it on page one is the story. Always, I know Russell Brunson stories like the back of my hand, because I've heard him tell them so many times. And I think two is just like three weeks ago, where I was I was teaching some things on I call them warrior tactics. And it's just like personal things that I do, like, keep myself sharp and keep myself as a high performer. And I knew like some of them are like way out there like people like why would you do that? That's crazy. What you don't eat all day? Sometimes I'm like, yeah. And but how i Firmed it up for them was I had I told the story of recovering from PTSD. And how it was by developing these habits that I fully recovered. And I'm a different person now. Because of just habits, no medication. No, I mean, some therapy, but like nothing really, it was all internal. And when I told that story of how I got to that point, man at you, I had the whole room in the palm of my hand.

Ron Reich
That's exactly incredible. And I mean, the the phrase I heard about storytelling is that you invite people along for the journey. And I like that. You're not I mean, just for me, I mean, I have nothing, nothing like you know, the, you know, the post traumatic stress or anything like that. One thing that shaped me as a professional, I had just gotten into training and development. And I was doing a lot of sales training. And I was I was going to be doing a five day product knowledge, selling skills course, product knowledge days, one and two selling skills three, four or five clients. I did not know the products as well as I should have. And I deny that to no one. What I thought I could do was skate through it. The product knowledge part, and then really concentrate on the selling skills which I knew very well. On the morning of day two, around 11 o'clock, two people from Philadelphia walked out. You don't know what you're doing. And they left. About an hour and a half later, I got a telephone call, again talking about different levels of people from my boss's boss in California, and I was in New Jersey, and Tony ripped me to shreds, rightly so, because I made a dumb mistake. Point being what did I learn from that? How did that change me? I will add them never walk into a classroom again, or onto a onto a podcast call without being prepared. I will not do it. Because I never want to go through that again. Ever. And I won't.

Adam Liette
Yeah. Less about the getting ripped for it. But more about the story you told yourself like how we felt about it, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Ron Reich
Oh, boy. I can still hear him screaming.

Adam Liette
I'm sure.

Ron Reich
He's Tony. Tony. Tony died, I think about four or five years ago now. And I swear, I can see him upstairs where it is just like, yeah, that was a dumb thing to do, right.

Adam Liette
That's how you know it's good when they just skip your full name. What?

Ron Reich
You know what let, let me pull the story all the way through because there is more to it actually. The people who I was working for Toshiba many, many years ago, copiers and faxes, okay. Again, I'm dating myself. We did not have direct sales reps, we had independent dealers who sold our products. The two people who left from Philly worked for a dealership down in that area. The president of the dealership told Tony and he told me in a telephone call, I will never ever, ever send people to any Toshiba training. Again, like, okay, art, listen, again. Kenickie, what can I do to change this, please, we had a couple of conversations, ultimately, what ended up happening, I said to him, I'm doing another class in a month or you know, whatever it is, if you will send one rep two reps, I don't care how many people you send, we won't charge you for it. Let me make it up to you. Let me show you how I've changed. He sent them. And again, took just to make a very long story short art, and I became friends. And he said to his reps regularly to all of our training. And that's again, the point for me good leaders, I was wrong. I admitted. Here's how I'm going to change. And you know, I'm hoping we can repair this relationship. Will that always happen? Come on? Of course not. That's out of my control. The only thing that's in my control is what do I do about it? How do I try to persuade? Like we were talking before the Shut up.

Adam Liette
I think it's so interesting to gosh, now I'm reflecting on some things where you could have easily just let that go. And now this story has a different meaning has a different ending, and probably want to change the direction of your life a little bit. In the opposite direction. I,

Ron Reich
Adam, I denied nobody yet throughout my life. And even now, to a certain extent I can be a little insecure, with perhaps the, you know, a little bit of the imposter syndrome or whatever it might be. I've gotten much, much, much better at it. As time has passed. Way back then to when I was first getting into training and development. I thought it was over. And I'm dead serious. I really really did where I was like, I have just ruined this this opportunity that I have. It's over. And again, just self talk. I stink. I'm no good at this identity again, Ron, you're awful. And thank God there were people around who could talk me through this and realize or helped me to realize, Ron, okay, yeah, serious mistake, no doubt about it. You can't change that. Here's what you can change. And it helped me and this is where I am now and I'm so grateful.

Adam Liette
And where I'm finding myself is the ones I regret. And the ones I'm lamenting are the the opportunities where I didn't take that next Step to say I was wrong, how can I fix this? Here's what I'm gonna do for you. And some of those honestly got to talk about getting vulnerable. They're still here, in some ways, like, I never made some things, right, I just said, forget about you. And now I'm like, is it it's not too late. It's never too late, I don't believe to try to repair it. And I'm partially challenging myself, I, it's gonna go on my planners. And as we're done here, of the people I need to reach out to and make it right. Because that the end of that story has to change. Even if the end of the ending of it is I fell on my sword, and I was responsible to all of it. For all of it, even what I wasn't, there might have been my result that caused it. But I was I still have a responsibility in this narrative. Right? Oh, my gosh, see what I mean listeners about me like, this is why we do these things. And that's why we have these conversations. Because if you haven't had one or two ocean shifts, yet, in this episode, go back and listen again. Because my gosh, that's that's heavy, heavy stuff, I like it. Okay, I'm gonna come down from that as

Ron Reich
well and add in, you know what, for me, and you've done this again a couple of times throughout our conversation. And for me, it's the sign of a good leader is that we're being very, very serious together. And yet, we're also able to laugh. And we're all we're also able to be flexible, and to enjoy the conversation. And yet, it gets very, very serious as well. And that to me, again, is the sign of just a good leader, and a good relationship where it's not like, oh, we have to be serious at every moment. Don't you realize we have a leadership podcast here? As I know, you Yeah, we're in a leadership podcast. Fine. That's, that's wonderful. Let's have some fun with it. Let's all try to learn something from each other. Let's have a couple of laughs because at the end of the day, from and again, I speak for myself, that's what it's all

Adam Liette
right. My goodness, I think. Now you've circled in the door, something I wanted to go into, as well. And it's like, it's so funny, I love podcasting, it just naturally moves in this direction. I think that might be the solution to one of the things I was going to ask about, which is decision making fatigue, and like, feeling fatigued as a leader like always in that role. But I think we might have stumbled into that idea that it is a little bit lighter, and we can joke, and that takes away some of that pressure, some of that feeling that you have to always be on. That being said, I'd love to hear any other further thoughts you have on that

Ron Reich
decision making or decision fatigue,

Adam Liette
decision fatigue, and just feeling like I can't always be on. And I have to take the back seat sometimes. And how hard it is for a leader to do that. For some leaders to do that, I should say.

Ron Reich
My experience has been to with many, many leaders is that they, they crave control. And so sometimes maybe without even realizing it. And and and you know, let's circle, let's circle back to the I don't know, you know, and it's okay to say that or I don't have to make all these decisions. And again, here's again, being being well connected. I get a lot of different newsletters. Many, many years ago, I got a newsletter from a friend of mine, Chris. And within the newsletter, there was something called the three golden questions. And as soon as I saw that, I was like, oh my, oh, my. These are keepers. This is going into every leadership class or every coaching session. I do. Okay, somebody, somebody from your team at the agency comes to you. Okay, Adam, we've got a problem, Boss, we've got a problem. What should we do? What's your typical response? What's the problem? Okay, assume you know the problem. Assume you know that. Then what?

Adam Liette
Go into immediate problem solving and try to fix it for him. Okay.

Ron Reich
About this instead. Three golden questions. Adam, we've got a problem, which what should we do? No chance. I will not talk to you at all until you have answered these three questions. What do you intend to do number two, What options did you consider? Number three, what makes your choice the best one out of the options you considered? And that for me that takes that takes so much pressure off the leader and other off of me. When I do that, where it's like, I'm not going to do this, you're going to do it. That's your job. Unit, it's not my problem. It's your province that we have a problem. It's you have a problem. And I'm not trying to be a smart aleck with that either by any stretch, I'm really not. Because all of a sudden, if I do that with everybody. Oh, sure. You know, my wife's name is Marina. Laurie has a problem. Come on in. I'll help you, Adam, you kind of prob. Okay, David, what's your issue? All of a sudden, it's like, it's 530. I'm tired. And I haven't gotten a whole lot done. And then again, Adam, think about it, if you will, please. Who's who's learning who's growing? If you're gonna say, here's what I think you should do, this is what I believe is the right thing to do. I mean, it's just, it's just is a win win for everybody.

Adam Liette
Yeah, and now you're, you're inadvertently growing second level and third level leadership as well, because you're teaching them tactics, they are employing them in real time.

Ron Reich
Exactly. And I mean, the other thing I always say to people, is that when they answer these questions, it shows you as the leader, okay, what's the depth? What's the breadth of their knowledge? Maybe, you know, maybe they can't solve this problem. And that's okay. Maybe they do need some coaching. And I'll provide that if that's appropriate. I also, you also learn how they think, how can how much thought had they actually given this? Just, you know, a hope of these different

Adam Liette
things. Yeah, I was just thinking that as you're saying, I was like, you are, you're able to see their decision making process, how they're coming to it. And the coaching moment, might not be over here, in their recommendation, but it could be way over here on step one of the decision making process, and now you're fixing what's actually the problem. Right, exactly. Oh, I'm gonna use this. Oh, yeah. This is this is happening tomorrow, man. I love it. This is so cool. Man. I just love geeking out on it for sure. You mentioned you've read a ton of books. I got mine I can recommend but I'm a voracious book readers. Well, I got this whole bookshelf over here. What are its one just had to pick up a couple of leadership books like what are some of the big ones you would recommend to start with?

Ron Reich
I what I always do is I break it down into categories. If people are learning if people are interested in learning about organizational development, if you will. And what I mean by that is, if you want to learn how to develop a mission and a vision statement, and prioritize what needs to get done, organizationally, the best book that I've read about that is called the advantage. It's written by Patrick Lencioni. And he talks he talks in the book about that every organization has smart people working in it. The problem is most organizations are unhealthy. And he says it and his his his thinking his rationale is they don't know where they're going, or what they really, really want to be. And once you establish that, now you have a guiding light off of which to make decisions. And he has a wonderful process anytime I've worked with organizations. In with this type of work, I asked them to read the book before we get together. And that's been very helpful for for seasoned leaders, who you know, who do know and understand the basics, if you will. The book that I really, really have enjoyed is called leadership is language by David Marquet. He said he's a Navy guy, and it's an excellent forgive

Adam Liette
him. Yeah.

Ron Reich
I told you my nephew was an airfoil. It was in the air. David David talks in the book, though, about how how leaders should be doing Very, very little talking. They need to be listening more, much more. The big thing that I took out of it to Adam, was how to phrase questions. Okay? And if, for example, they you're going to be, you know, I'm your boss, and you're going to be giving a presentation, what most leaders will ask Adam, are you ready for the presentation? what answer do you get? Yes or no? Instead of that, Adam, how ready? Are you for the presentation? On a scale of one to 10? How ready are you? Eight? This is so Okay, good, good. What can I do to help you to get to a 10. And just those sort those sorts of gems, I love that. And you know, there's a lot more to it. And again, that's just an excellent book for the seasoned leaders. For people who are looking for the basics, if you will, the best book that that I can recommend is called leading at a higher level, written by Ken Blanchard. And he talks in there all about situational leadership, which he developed with with Paul verzi. And it's excellent, because he talks about how how leaders how he helps people learn when they should direct, when they should coach support, and truly delegate for individuals. He also talks about the same thing relative to teams, he talks about the need for recognition, it's an excellent book. Excellent. So those would be my three of my top ones.

Adam Liette
And here I go, because I haven't read any of those. So I'm gonna have to go buy them all. Which means I'm going to soon soon need another bookshelf, that's about where I'm getting to. But those are good problems to have. Run, I've so enjoyed our time together, I do want to be respectful of your calendar as well. Before we depart here, where can the listener learn more about you? If

Ron Reich
anybody is interested in learning more about me, the best way to do it, Adam very simply is through my LinkedIn page. Just you know, Ron, right, our ei CH, ar l be training and development. And, you know, just just as you and I have done in the time that we've been together, if anybody wants to chat, that's what we will do. We will chat, you know, so you can message me, whatever you want to do, you're not going to get a sales pitch, you're not going to get oh, I can't share information with you. Unless, you know, I'll have to charge you. That's not the way it's going to be. I will happily talk with anybody. And even if it's appropriate, and we decide we may want to work together, wonderful. If not, so be it. Because again, I love to pay it forward.

Adam Liette
For sure, man. And honestly, you get the best clients that way. I found. So the hard sell tactics have their place in certain niches, certain product lines, if you will, man, when you're doing like the one to one thing, I don't like it, because I've I've done it, because you know that you're told to do it to grow. And I got some really crappy clients. And ironically, those are the ones that are on my list. Right? I have to go try to make this right. Because it didn't end well. So Ron, this has been so much fun, man, I really appreciate. Appreciate where you are in this world and the service that you're providing. It's, it's really it's a passion of mine to see leadership continue to grow to its next level, and to change with the world around it. And, man, it's such an honor to have you on the show and to get to. It's

Ron Reich
been my pleasure. Thank you. I really appreciate it. This was a lot of fun.