The Talent Forge: Shaping the Future of Training and Development with Jay Johnson
Welcome to The Talent Forge! Where we are shaping the future of training and development
I am your host, Jay Johnson. Through my 20+ years as a coach, trainer, and leader, I have seen the best and the worst of talent development across the globe. That has inspired and compelled me to create a show that helps other professionals like me navigate the challenging waters of growing people.
The Talent Forge isn't your typical tips and tricks podcast. We delve deeper, explore the future, and pioneer new thinking to help our audience achieve transformation with their programs and people.
In each episode, we talk with industry thought leaders, dissect real-world case studies, and share actionable strategies to help you future-proof your training programs. Whether you're a seasoned L&D professional or just starting out, The Talent Forge is your one-stop shop to shape a thriving learning culture within your organization.
The Talent Forge: Shaping the Future of Training and Development with Jay Johnson
Behavioral Assessments Redefined with Dr. Barb Thompson
Welcome Dr. Barb Thompson, a distinguished clinical psychologist and Army veteran, into our conversation. Dr. Thompson takes us on her remarkable journey from clinical to operational psychology, sharing valuable insights from her experiences working with top military leaders. Her unique perspective sheds light on the delicate balance of personal drives, collaboration, and effective listening skills essential for leadership success. Engage with us as we navigate the challenges and triumphs of coaching high-performance leaders, addressing feelings of intimidation and the ever-present imposter syndrome.
Meet the Host
Jay Johnson works with people and organizations to empower teams, grow profits, and elevate leadership. He is a Co-Founder of Behavioral Elements®, a two-time TEDx speaker, and a designated Master Trainer by the Association for Talent Development. With a focus on behavioral intelligence, Jay has delivered transformational workshops to accelerate high-performance teams and cultures in more than 30 countries across four continents. For inquiries, contact jay@behavioralelements.com or connect below!
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayjohnsonccg/
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Speaker Website - https://jayjohnsonspeaks.com
Welcome to this episode of the Talent Forge, where we are shaping the future of training and development. Today, I am joined by special guest Barb Thompson. Welcome to the show, barb.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:So you have an incredible history and I should say, Dr Thompson, We'll keep it colloquial for now, but I would love for our audience to get to know you and the work that you're doing, Cause I think it's so critical, so important and it actually hits pretty, pretty deeply home for me. Um, why don't you go ahead and take a minute to introduce yourself and tell us how you got into this talent development space too?
Speaker 2:Okay, sounds great. I'll give you the nutshell version, if I can do that. So, um, I give you the nutshell version, if I can do that. So I'm originally born and raised in Oklahoma and so I still call that home, go there about once a year, but eventually my dream was always to get out and see the world, and I never thought that I would become a psychologist or a scientist of any kind. In fact, it was just such a natural interest for me that I couldn't stop. I just kept going and I ended up getting my doctorate in clinical psychology. But then I joined the Army and that's when my career and really personal life and fulfillment took a sharp turn and steep slope all kinds of things. Sharp turn and steep slope, all kinds of things Because I learned about this other side of psychology that I just really frankly, didn't know about.
Speaker 2:You know, I joined the army to help service members and then I was introduced to what's called operational psychology. So it is, you know, taking behavioral scientists, people who have studied their whole lives, behavioral scientists, people who have studied their whole lives and become familiar with human behavior, and then putting them in a consultative space in all kinds of different arenas, and so I just fell in love. I knew instantly when I heard about it that that was for me. As weird as that sounds if you get into more of the specifics people might think I'm crazy, but that was, that was what I did in the army.
Speaker 2:And then, you know, married a service member, special forces officer, and and then at some point, you know, us being gone at the same time just didn't make sense for our kids and everything. So I got out and did some reserve time with the army and then have been a contractor for the military um one unit or another since that period of time. So that's, that's me in a nutshell. Um, I also have just uh found a lot of fulfillment and keeping the relationships that I've made in those military units and you know those people go on to just do some amazing things nonprofits and other organizations that, um, you know I'm just happy to to uh be a part of in any way. So I think that's it.
Speaker 1:Amazing. Let me start off by saying thank you for your service, thank your husband for his service and you know my brother was uh 82nd airborne in the Rangers and so.
Speaker 1:I understand, I do have at least some understanding and I'm not going to say I understand personally, but I do have some understanding of the challenges and some of the different navigational, you know barriers that you have and that you're dealing with. So you're actually, and and I definitely want to get into the operational psychology a little bit because I find that so fascinating and I, I, you know, when I was reading your profile I was like damn, I might've missed a calling here, like that would have been super interesting to me.
Speaker 1:So that's, that's incredible. I definitely want to dig into that because I do find it really fascinating and and in particular you know, with our audience being trainers, coaches and HR people, there's a lot. I'm sure that they can learn from some of your experiences and knowledge in that space. But I kind of want to start with one thing You're working with, obviously, some of the highest performing leaders in the world, right In these high in these military positions that I saw that you had started a leadership program inside of this space. What was that experience like?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great question. I think it's difficult, uh, for me to answer that. What was it like? So I think that, uh, you know, going to work for me every day was exciting and challenging. You don't really know. I kind of felt at home already in that space, you know, having been in the army and kind of grown up around like special operations folks, and so I didn't find it particularly unfamiliar. But I will say that sometimes what the characteristics that an individual might have in order to get them to a certain level might also be the same characteristics that make it somewhat difficult to influence them. Does that make sense? Difficult to influence them?
Speaker 1:Does that make?
Speaker 2:sense. Oh, it makes a ton of sense.
Speaker 1:So you know it makes way too much sense for me because one of my strongest biological drives so you know I talk a lot about the biological drives that Dr Paul Lawrence and Dr Nittan Noria had put out with their book Driven how human nature shapes our choices I have a very strong drive to acquire. I'm highly competitive, I want to win, I want to win big, and I've realized that while that helped drive me in so many of my different places, it also held me back until I learned how to balance some of those things where I could actually listen to other people more effectively, where I could actually collaborate more effectively, et cetera. So it really resonates with me. Now, you know, when you're working with these high performance leaders and that can be a little bit intimidating I know some of our audience have actually gotten this question like, hey, I just got put into a place where I am working with these sets of leaders and I've experienced it too.
Speaker 1:When I was coaching with the NASA's executive leadership team, it was one of the first times in my entire career that I started to feel almost like a little bit of imposter. Like what the hell am I doing? Yes, should I turn around now? Yeah, exactly Like. Okay, they have a thousand years of spaceflight experience and I'm going to walk in and talk about behavioral science, okay. So how did you manage that? Because I presume at some point in time you may have had a little of that feeling or a little of that apprehension.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Are they going to take me seriously?
Speaker 2:Do they think?
Speaker 1:how did you manage that, how did you overcome that? Because obviously you were incredibly successful in your career and I think it would be really insightful to our audience to hear that.
Speaker 2:Yes, if I go off track, keep me on this question because it's such a good question, and I think that a lot of organizations or teams are missing out on the expertise within their walls because of what you're talking about here. So I would say, absolutely I felt like I was not worthy, I, I, I would say to kind of, uh, be be in the same four walls as some of these individuals, knowing what they've done and what they've sacrificed, and and having seen, just to be really frank with you, like their personality profiles, how smart they are, their IQ tests, um, really intimidating group to be around, um. But I will say a couple of things helped me. The first one is just knowing that they're professionals. They're so focused on their mission they're not really concerned about you being at the same caliber with the same expertise and in fact, that's not why you're there at all. You're there because you're different, right Like you're there because you're focusing on something completely different that may be additive to the processes and the products and the missions that they're going after.
Speaker 2:So reminding myself of that really helped and, honestly, just ripping off as many band-aids as possible. So how many conversations can I have? How many encounters can I get into where the fear of having those conversations continues to decrease over time. Do you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 1:Yeah, anytime that we're starting something new, engaging in something uncertain, the more certain it becomes. The less anxiety that we feel, the less cortisol all that. So just getting in there and starting was kind of one of the strategies that got you through.
Speaker 2:Yes, and then the last piece would be putting out um, just putting out information and and soliciting those conversations in a way that matters to the environment. And one way I did that there's a couple of ways, but I put out a newsletter. It's kind of old school, but when you're in a small environment and you're talking directly, like you can be a conduit of the themes that you see going on around you, especially as a person who observes behavior right, observes themes in human behavior kind of observes and understands the undercurrent. You know they're focusing kind of down and in on these problems and you can kind of focus up and out and look at the organization as a whole and see different themes and then present them with information that's helpful for solving the problems that you see that they're having right. So I just tried to start by being helpful and I think by focusing on yourself or focusing on, like, how unworthy you may feel or having that imposter syndrome, that's really self-focus and you want to take this, the focus off of yourself, I think, if you want to contribute in a way that's really meaningful. And so I'm always just trying to look at the individual or at the team or at the organizations, like what am I noticing here, like what about what I know about psychology can be helpful for them, and I don't have to win the world over, right Like I'm just putting out principles that are already out there in behavioral science that may again incrementally help what they are doing, and so the newsletter was helpful for that.
Speaker 2:The newsletter started conversations that I would have never had started had I just been walking the halls, if that makes sense. And then the last piece is that you know, one of the specialties, whether you're talking about coaching or behavioral science, is that we know a lot about assessments and we have all different kinds to use. You know at our disposal lots of different tools, and I have found that by first saying hey, here, take this assessment. Everyone is curious about themselves, everyone, everyone's curious about themselves, and most assessments don't take long to complete, and so if I would send them links now, of course, for the people I'm working with, they've already been assessed and selected, so they take it the battery, I'm sure, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So they're like you know what's one more. And the important thing is never, never put out an assessment without putting aside the time to debrief the people and give them something valuable from the assessment. Don't just throw it out there. That's kind of like worst case scenario, right, like tie it to a theme, a problem that you're seeing, that you know that they want to have solved, and then emphasize the debrief. And we ended up making the debriefs of these assessments like part of how we functioned at the unit.
Speaker 2:So when people would come in after assessment selection, they've taken the full kind of psychological battery. We would give them another one and then we had like an introductory course, kind of like an onboarding, and we would debrief them and then and just have those discussions about hey, here's the norms for this environment. I found that people really like to know the norms and then where they sit in regards to the norms for that environment. All of that super helpful information. The natural curiosity is already there and you, you really will be helping improve the way that they interact with the people around them with that additional information. So those are some of the ways that I try to overcome because they are it's even even now, I mean, I I find myself like more grateful than anything else and it kind of like leaning on the experience, like that.
Speaker 1:You know the little things that you there's so much insight in what you just said. I'm going to pull a couple of things out. First of all, I love that you just said I'm grateful. This is something that I really try to hammer into trainers and coaches Be like what are you grateful for? Get into that sort of mindset of I'm grateful for this opportunity, this experience. You know, in a worst case scenario what ends up happening Maybe it doesn't land, okay, that's okay, get in there and do it again and again and again, the repetition, and all of a sudden we start to be much more confident.
Speaker 1:But one thing that I so appreciate that you said, barb, was where you said I have a unique insight, or I have a different perspective, and I think that's so powerful. Right, because me walking into NASA I'm not going to teach them rocket science, I'm not a mathematician by any stretch of the imagination, but I did have something unique that maybe they hadn't experienced before. Or you saying that really just kind of resonated with me as you, as somebody who has developed an assessment. I could not 100% agree with you more. It's that sort of like debrief. It's that hey, let's go through this and get a better understanding, let's get some questions answered, and I think that that's one of the most powerful ways that we really can make and really interesting impact is having people go through a discovery after they've taken a set. Nobody reads the reports right, they look at the scores.
Speaker 1:They like you, know they yeah exactly they do the general, you know, F read Okay, I'll read these three sentences down to the middle and read this and then, okay, that's enough and put it away. So the fact that you're debriefing on them I'm sure helped to build a relationship, but also probably gave them and you significant insights.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when it comes down to it, the relationship is always the most important part. Like whatever, however, the conversation starts almost doesn't even matter Like, once you get into the conversation, you they'll discover kind of what unique attributes and skill sets you have to bring to the table, especially in these high performing environments. Because they are thinking two steps ahead. They're already thinking strategically right, they're already so focused on what could be helpful or what might be harmful, and so you don't really even have to do that work for them If you just show up, you know, and be willing and courageous enough to start the conversations and and hold onto those relationships.
Speaker 1:Well, and I'll be honest with you, barb, I've worked with high performance leaders and I've worked with low performance leaders, and I'll take high performance leaders every day and twice on.
Speaker 1:Sunday. It just makes the, it makes the work more, I don't know. It feels it feels better. Right, it feels like you're actually making a difference when that occurs. But sometimes we do have to work with leaders that maybe are not at the level that we'd like For sure. What is maybe one of the ways in which you approach that situation? Maybe you encountered some and obviously names and everything left out changed to protect the guilty and or the innocent.
Speaker 1:But you know, when you find that person in that leadership position, it's maybe struggling, or maybe it's just not aware of some of the barriers or challenges that they're facing, or maybe unwilling to change. How did you approach that? Because I can imagine that lessons from sort of your experience in that military side would be really, really advantageous for those of us not in the military side as well. How did you overcome?
Speaker 2:those barriers.
Speaker 1:Hopefully, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so a couple of different things. You you might hear about it one way or another. Um, I think that kind of the informal route is how I heard about kind of leadership issues. Most is that people you know tend to talk about their frustrations with other team members, um, and then sometimes, you know, it's just very blatant like Ooh, like this person may not know about the effect that they're having on the environment, and so it's not simple to get something like this enacted in a culture, especially depending on how they react to feedback or kind of what their stance is on feedback in the first place.
Speaker 2:But what we did is made, you know, kind of like normalized giving feedback, and I still don't think it's a normal thing that that people do. I think it costs time, it costs effort and there's some interpersonal risk that most of us don't grow up like being taught how to have difficult conversations. But I do think that that is one area where high performing teams, when they're willing to do that, excel exponentially, and so we really relied on feedback to give everyone insight, right and the, and we'd have the leader go first and you know we would be there and most of the time we would kind of say, oh, this is how it starts. We used a stop, start, continue method. It was really short, it was behaviorally anchored, so it's not an emotional process. You've got two minutes. What should this person person you know start, stop or keep on doing to be successful in this environment? And I will say that that it's so simple. It's so simple. It's not easy. People would get very anxious before you know if they, if their team, if they were on a team and they hadn't done this, stop, start, continue before, continue before. But once they did it, that is, I think, what really made the difference for making those behavioral changes.
Speaker 2:Because it's not anonymous and that's scary to some people. But sometimes anonymous feedback like we just slough it off, you know we're not, we're not really sure For us, our ego is kind of like I don't know who it is, it's like it's probably not important, and then a lot of feedback when it's written, or these anonymous surveys, it is not specific, it's not specific. So you can say, okay, I don't think this person really likes the way I do work, but what am I to change? Gosh, I have no idea and I have no idea where to start. So I think that type of in-person, face-to-face short behavioral anchored feedback stop, start, continue. I have seen now making making changes for any person is difficult, right, especially?
Speaker 2:when you're under stress and most of these high performance environments, they do come with additional stress.
Speaker 1:Plenty, I'm sure.
Speaker 2:Yes, stress Plenty? I'm sure yes, and so the nice thing about the face-to-face feedback done twice a year with your core team is that everyone is vulnerable at the same time. Right, and ultimately, what it ends up doing is building trust. It builds a language that people can easily use. They're not scared of, right? So I easily now have a way to give you feedback that I didn't have in the past. Right, stop, start or continue, and the practice go ahead.
Speaker 1:I was going to say and I love that because in my experience and the data shows this too, it's something like I think it was Harvard research that shows 87% of employees want more specific, direct, growth-oriented, focused feedback, and another study shows that, like 80% of managers do not feel comfortable, ready or prepared. So the stop, start, continue is a really powerful tool to kind of get that conversation going. So please continue, barb. I'm I'm definitely dialing, dialing in on this.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So what I found was that it ends up building trust with the teams, which is just an awesome and amazing by-product of giving, giving feedback. It gives you something specific to go after and then you can kind of measure it over time, because every six months you're doing this and you're like, oh yeah, like six months ago my team told me this stop, start, continue this. And then let's like, let's see how it's going now. And so it builds that trust. Everyone's vulnerable at the same time. But then the other thing is like um, once you well, yeah, it just gives you, it gives you something specific and it gives you something to go on and makes you comfortable so that you have the language, so that day to day, even outside of like a formal, they're able to actually use it in the hallways or in their own offices and not even, not, not wait until that six month mark. So you find that small incremental behavioral changes are made by the team, you know, on their own, you know, even outside of these, once they get started.
Speaker 1:Well, and once you create that culture of feedback and normalize it, like, hey, my intention is not to criticize you, put you down. I'm not telling you something because I want to disparage you or disparage the efforts that you did, but I'm really just. I want you to be at your best, because when you're at your best, I'm at my best and then we are at our best. But you really do have to spend energy on creating that culture of feedback. Otherwise, I tend to find that feedback goes better when there's sort of like a higher purpose or a higher level of trust amongst the team, like hey, we're all going in the same direction. I'm not telling you this to give you a hard time. We just need everybody firing on all cylinders. And when that seems to occur, that culture of feedback sort of naturally comes into place where it's like.
Speaker 1:I remember when I was playing hockey. I loved feedback, you know, but there was times that I got back to the bench and I already knew what I screwed up and I already knew what I needed to stop doing or continue doing or whatever it was. But even having the coach kind of reinforce some of that of like this is what I saw. This is how I think you can do. This was always for me. Even if they were yelling it, I knew that they wanted me to perform better. Uh, not everybody operates that way. I think athletes tend to be okay a little bit with uh, you know, a coach giving them a hard time, um. But with that being said, I think you nailed it, being humble enough to take a step back and say what is this here to teach me?
Speaker 1:And how can I operate this going forward? But yeah, the lack of specificity I think is a huge problem in feedback discussions Like, hey, you did this, okay, what am I supposed to do with that? How am I supposed to operate going forward? Or how does that practically make me better at whatever it is the task that I'm I'm charged with? So, yeah, yeah, I really love Jocko Willink and his work and all the work that he's done. But one of the things that you said is you're in some of those spaces and you're looking at it.
Speaker 1:You're able to kind of pull back, have a larger vision of the organization, and that's something that you know Jocko talks about all the time and his podcasts or his books about being able to sort of like not have that tunnel vision, not just focus on one thing, but really kind of pull back and see the entire operation. What was it that maybe gave you the ability Because it seems that that's not an intuitive ability to kind of take that step back, detach and look at the bigger picture. What was it that? Maybe? How do you remind yourself to do that every now and then? Because I know myself I can get sometimes that tunnel vision of like.
Speaker 1:I got to do this got to do this, like there's a fence, I'm going through that fence. Oh wait, take a step back, look around and be like I can go around this fence way easier than going through it. You know how do you get yourself to kind of give that visionary sort of pullback to get the broader picture.
Speaker 2:I think that if your role isn't already defined within the organization, you should define it Like people should know why you're there and what you can help with, and that may expand or retract right, but you should definitely define your role as best you can and just that definition, and like your mission, essential tasks, will help keep you focused on what your purpose there is to do. Now I might have you know as far as like observing the themes across the whole organization. You have to get yourself plugged in all over the organization in order to make that happen. So you have to take a lot of risk and just showing up being an observer saying, hey, can I just learn more here? You know. Hey, is it okay if I pop into this? I have nothing to say, I just you know, I want to know more about what you guys do or how you do it.
Speaker 2:A lot of those types of conversations will help you get the bigger picture, you know, and create the relationships where you can actually keep your pulse on some of those themes.
Speaker 2:But I think first and foremost, you do need to define your role within the organization, what you're there to do, and keep a list of how you know, like your mission, essential tasks, whether that be five or 10, and keep it on your wall, keep it somewhere, um, where you can see it, and then have a teammate that also keeps you accountable and, hopefully, you're consulting I almost I almost forgot to say that. Like in my mind, that goes without saying. Like you are talking to other people about the work that you're doing, because you I'm sure you could do great work all by yourself, um, but you can, because I'm sure you could do great work all by yourself, but you could do better, for sure, 100%, when you involve other people. Maybe it's just consultative conversations, maybe it's just friendly conversations, or maybe it's more formal teamwork together, but you're always going to be better when you include other individuals, because they add perspective to what you're doing. So those are the kind of tips I would have for you.
Speaker 1:It's so smart.
Speaker 1:That's actually so.
Speaker 1:When I was working with Ford Motor Company and doing consulting with them, one of the things that I did have some of their managers do was like, okay, I want you to go and spend a day with your marketing team, see how they're communicating your products. I want you to go spend a day with the design group, see what challenges or barriers they're facing and giving them that broader perspective. So here's my advice to you trainers, coaches, hr people out there go sit in the divisions, the organizations, whatever it is, and learn what their actual challenges are, because sometimes that does not come through on surveys, it doesn't come through in the polls, but when you're sitting in there, you actually will get a finger on the pulse of what is actually happening and what some of those challenges are. So I think that's a brilliant piece of advice. Barb, thank you for that. I want to jump into this operational psychology, and you know timing be damned here. I know we might end up being a little bit longer than a normal episode, but this is just so fascinating to me.
Speaker 2:You can turn it off, folks, that's right.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to ask could you help us define what the scope of that is, cause I think that this is going to have some really powerful learnings and insights that we can surface. For somebody not necessarily doing operational psychology in the military, but kind of taking some of those principles, so would you help us define it maybe?
Speaker 2:to start off with, Sure, I would say that the closest thing, if you just want to kind of keep something in mind as we go along is going to be an organizational psychologist or IO psych. So you're in a consultative space. But we were all clinically trained, so we've got all that training in behavioral science and human behavior. Now we use that to consult with our military counterparts. Some of the additional training that we get once we join the service. That will help distinguish us from our clinical psychologist counterparts. A few different things. So number one is going to be the area of assessment and selection for special mission units, right? So we're going to spend some time and get supervision on, you know, administering the battery of psychological tests that whatever unit or organization uses to assess people, you know, prior to their kind of work center or selection process. So that's one piece. Clinical psychologists don't do that. What they do is people come to them when they have a problem. They diagnose the problem, they treat the problem. We are looking at healthy individuals for the most part, who are high performing or trying to be high performing individuals. So assessment, selection is one piece that we are, we're trained in in addition to our clinical foundation.
Speaker 2:Another piece is going to be SEER psychology. What's called SEER psychology? You might've heard of SEER school psychology. What's called SEER psychology? You might have heard of SEER school. So it's born out of that. So survive, evade, resist, escape.
Speaker 2:And that part of operational psychology is knowing kind of above and beyond your clinical foundation, how do humans behave when they're captured, isolated, detained, etc. Okay, I mean, you can think of many historical examples of POWs and things like that, and an operational psychologist are going to be the psychologists that help reintegrate our service members or other citizens once they've been isolated or detained by some kind of enemy or force abroad. Another way that we consult is for the purposes of security or, you know, intelligence operations, and so I would say that's kind of in a nutshell. Just again, you know when, what? The fourth piece we've already talked about in detail, which is that organizational health piece, right, like how are you investing in the culture? Right, like, how are you reinforcing the attributes or even helping the unit create organization, create the attributes that people should strive towards to be most successful in that environment? And coaching, feedback, all that stuff would be that last piece. But that's operational psychology in a nutshell. Most of those things are training.
Speaker 1:After you know we've had our you know done our degree and things like that, so was that helpful or a clinical psychologist, I do focus more on the organization, with a focus on individual behaviors within sort of that microcosm of you know. Here's your behavioral ecology and I'm going to focus on these tiny behaviors. But having some experience with things like the Minnesota Multiphysic, the NeoPIR and a number of the other sort of clinical diagnostic tests, and then also everybody's always heard of DISC and Myers-Briggs and Insights and all of these others, and so after studying the science of those, one of the things that kind of inspired me to create an assessment using a different scientific framework was there was, I see so much value in it. But I think that sometimes when those assessments are used, they're used in an inappropriate way, at least in the civilian world. Can you help me maybe share? Can you share maybe a little bit about your perspective? I'm sure that you've seen a disc training where it's just like Barb, you're a high D and this means that you're going to do.
Speaker 2:X.
Speaker 1:Y and Z and you're a very low C, so you're not going to be able to exhibit. Let's talk about this because I think, that there's a huge problem with assessments and the way they're deployed in the general working world. Yeah, it can be really dangerous if you're if you're not careful with it.
Speaker 2:I think it they're very powerful tools. They can be, you know, power for good or power for bad. So, on the assessment and selection side, you know the formal assessment and selection process. You know those tools have been around for quite a while. They're they're tried and tried and true. You know scientific backing for that purpose, right, and we wouldn't use things like the disk or the MBTI for assessment selection Thank you created and that's not their purpose.
Speaker 2:And so trying to make assumptions about people's you know behavior or capabilities or abilities based on those tests is inaccurate and dangerous. But once people are in your organization, hopefully if there's already been some type of assessment up front in the hiring process, first and foremost, you're going to debrief that. And, um, you know the assessment selection process for military organizations, uh, has been through legal review over and over again. So I would say, be careful. If you haven't had, if your organization wants to use an assessment prior to hiring, there are laws around that and you don't want to want to like you don't want to meddle in that Now if you're hiring processes.
Speaker 1:The other thing, and this is something I always advise DISC and Myers-Briggs and a number of those other sort of generic off the shelf are not designed for selection process there. No that's not their purpose. Please don't use those. The tools that you're speaking of, barb, are obviously significantly different than those, than those types of assessments, so I I can't echo that enough, and this has been part of my crusade of like why are you doing this? This is not not good, and if you want to think, about it in a certain way.
Speaker 2:Think about it. You know, take yourself as the case example. I would say, right, like you, I know you've taken some kind of assessment and you're like, yeah, people could think a certain way about me or my behavior based on this. That's, it's not really expressed this way in this environment. Right, you wouldn't want to have assumptions made about you that are incorrect and and I certainly do not want to be the one making incorrect assumptions. So use the assessments.
Speaker 2:I would say post hire for most organizations, but, yeah, use them as an onboarding process to invest in every new hire. How will they feel like you're investing in them? Number one it's a little bit of money for some of these assessments. Number two hopefully it's kind of like in a group and individual setting so they get to know their teammates around them their first day in the door. That's going to help them feel, you know, a sense of belonging. But you just spending extra time with them, extra attention on them as a person, will also, you know, kind of cement their commitment to the company up front. So I would say they're very powerful tools. Do not over-assume on the tools. I would be more curious than anything else. We have them drive discussion.
Speaker 1:Great advice, yes, great advice. The curiosity thing I mean that is that's exactly like hey, this, this is the start of a conversation. Here's the box that you're in now. Go behave that way for the rest of your days, so continue on that bar. I didn't mean to interrupt you, but as soon as you said that, I'm just like oh, thank you. Yes, that's exactly a big point of like utilizing it as a tool for onboarding Brilliant, you know, for coaching, for inquiry, for engagement, for, you know, curiosity-based coaching opportunities 100%. Curiosity-based coaching opportunities 100%.
Speaker 2:Or, if individuals have their own goals in mind, then even easier to select an assessment that's kind of focused around the goals that they already have as an individual and say like, yeah, let's just see where you're at and get the discussion going that way and talk about it. But, yeah, I would say, even with high performers, when we give them assessments and this is post hire this is when they've arrived at the unit, because we do want them to get to know each other. Now, the risk involved in their job is different than most teams. Right, it's a little bit higher. We want, initially, right out of the gate, for them to trust one another with their own lives. Yeah, so there's a big task in front of us to really dig deep early. Um, I would say that most organizations don't have, um, the same requirement to dig deep early. I would say, go ahead and dig deep. Like, what's it going to get you really committed individuals that trust one another? Like, how can that be bad.
Speaker 2:But anyway trust one another. Like how can that be bad? But anyway, um, it is, it is. It can be time intensive. So, um, even in these high performing environments, there is a tendency for any person, once they see some kind of result on some kind of test that seems scientific, to put themselves in a box right and and then to have that temptation of making excuses, kind of, for their behavior.
Speaker 1:That's just how I am.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly. So what we say is like this this is an assessment, like this is just kind of how you're answering these questions today helps you learn more about it. Helps you learn more about who you are, so that you don't say this is just who I am, so that you know that there are more opportunities for different behaviors as you encounter and interact with people who are different from you. And so knowing you know as much as you can about your teammates and yourself is just going to expedite that process and make it more fun and fluid. You know getting to know one another or giving each other feedback and stuff like that. But yeah, we have even specific conversation about like. Don't ever say like, oh, it's because you know if you're using the disc. Oh, you know because you're a D or you're a C. Like, no, that that's baby stuff right Like we're trying to.
Speaker 2:we're trying to walk, run and fly here.
Speaker 1:So yeah, well, and and and. Thank you for that, because it's so important when we think about, when we think about what we can justify with just being like well, I guess that's my personality, that's how I am. We challenge that at every single turn. And just like no, that's how you're choosing to be. Because your core individual self, whether you want to look at it as the chemicals that make up your body guess what those are one stimuli. Your environments, another stimuli your upbringing, your genetics, your epigenetics, all of those are stimuli. But at the end of the day, your behavior is your choice.
Speaker 2:Isn't that so powerful and exciting?
Speaker 1:It is.
Speaker 2:It is.
Speaker 1:It's inspirational to say you know what? I am the master of my own behavioral destiny. But I really think that that sort of like block that we have as humans oftentimes puts us in that position of go I can't change it. And it's really what our brain is saying is I don't want to change it. It's hard to change it. That, this pattern, yeah, this pattern. I know what the end result of this pattern of behavior is. I don't know what the end result of a new pattern of behavior is.
Speaker 1:So that fear and uncertainty kind of blocks us. But I love what you're saying here, because it is so important to not get locked to say I can't shift this because of my personality or because this is what I'm supposed to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and what these assessments should be teaching us is a curiosity and respect for diversity, respect for differences. The more diverse and different the people on your team are like, the more potential you have right for any mission set. The worst thing we could do with an assessment and you see it happening, I know is like is people taking on, taking them on as like a label and and it's like something that they're proud of, like oh I'm, oh I'm a D on the disc, you know, like they're better than other letters or other types of personality or people who have other behavioral defaults. That's the worst thing you could do. The best thing you can do is just take it as like wow, I'm so curious about how this person responds. I'm curious about how they could contribute to the team. I'm so thankful that people have different defaults than myself.
Speaker 2:Does that make sense, yeah?
Speaker 1:Oh, it makes a ton of sense. So actually, the assessment that we use, the behavioral elements, it's not you're one or the other, we're all four. It's a hierarchical decision-making process.
Speaker 1:So my strongest drive is my drive to acquire. My second strongest is my drive to learn. My executive assistant hers is the drive to defend and then, followed by the drive to acquire. The defend drive is our structure process managing risk, overcoming, creating systems. That is my least, and when the two of us are working together, she provides structure. So I come in and I'm like, hey, I've got this great idea, let's do this. And it's like okay.
Speaker 1:Jay let's take a step back. How will we do this? What's the operation? And really walks me through it.
Speaker 1:She appreciates my innovation. I appreciate her structuring to make sure that I'm not just, you know now all of a sudden studying polar bear habits in the middle of the Antarctic when it has nothing to do with what we're actually trying to do for the mission. So I think it's so important you had mentioned that diversity. You know there's a lot of different types of diversity out there. Obviously there's the ones that we all know about and hear about constantly about. You know the different intersections and we do a lot of work in diversity, equity and inclusion but different intersections of race and culture and education and so on and so forth. But I do think I'd love for you to kind of talk about that a little bit, about the diversity of these different assessments, because I think that's an underlying diversity that's often not looked at is how do each of your members show up in these different sort of assessments that they're able to look at? You know somebody who's very, very open?
Speaker 1:or you know I'm just using the NEO PIR, for example somebody who's very very open versus somebody who's very agreeable, and how those things can interact to create a higher performance team. Can you comment a little bit more on that, barb? I think that's really important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think we always presented this way is and I just did it recently had a whole team right, take an assessment.
Speaker 2:But then I, the way I debrief it, is as a team, so you can see everyone all at the same time and you can see the differences all in one picture. And then two of the main questions I always ask are like, how do you see this showing up on your team? I don't know what they're going to say and I just let them sit with the question, right, and then we talk about, yeah, what are the strengths of this team Looking at your structure as a team, not anyone as an individual, okay, and what are some things that? What are some areas that we might need to work really hard on or try to set up like an additional structure for accountability. So you know one that is I can. Just one example is like if everyone on a team is high in agreeableness already, you can say like, okay, yeah, like we're gonna have a really hard time giving you know any kind of critical feedback or sharing our feelings if we think they're vulnerable or they might drawing boundaries.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so all those kinds of things, and then to be able to talk about it as a team and then and then put in some structure. Like, okay, well, this is us unique as a team. Um, you know, what are some ways that we can put structure around that, or accountability around that, so that we know where we can still get the benefits of having diversity on agreeableness, like having someone that's willing to speak up first and and and call things out without you know that being anyone's default. So that's just one example, but, um, yeah, so I'm talking about diversity in, um, you know, life experience, diversity and personality. Yeah, diversity in the way that we take risks or make decisions, think creatively or, you know, keep people to a structure. Like all of those, all of those things really us as a person, not necessarily as those other identifiable qualities that people mention when they usually when they're talking about diversity.
Speaker 1:And you know, we kind of divide it out a little bit by inherent diversity, meaning the diversity that we were born into and acquired, diversity, you know, the diversity that we've acquired either through education or lack of education, or through socioeconomic status etc.
Speaker 1:And a number of different things. And when we think about it, you know, kind of goes into that whole nature versus nurture thing, but at the end of the day it's both right. So right, yeah, my experience. We could. We could be born, we could be born genetic twins, grow up in different environments and while we might share some aspects that's coming from the genetic side we're also going to have very, very different approaches or lenses or experiences to look through. And I think that that's really important when we think about diversity of how is you know personality, how is you know how is experience and that knowledge, that knowledge acquisition, how is it you know that my life experiences also contribute to multiple different you know intersections that we can look at. Barb, this has been one of the most fascinating conversations and I'm confident that I could continue to talk to you for an hour.
Speaker 2:I know we're just going to keep going.
Speaker 1:I know right. One of the things that I would like to do is, you know, I know that you have some experience and knowledge in burnout and I would love to invite you back to the show to actually kind of focus a little energy on burnout because I think, again, the applications that you're doing this at that level could really really contribute to the larger, to the larger audience and that civilian side of things. But I don't want to, I don't want to cheapen it by just saying, all right, talked about burnout and then you know. So, if it would be okay with you, I would love to do a part two with you at some point in time and really kind of focus a little bit on that burnout and how to manage people when they do experience some kind of deep seated trauma.
Speaker 1:Or you know, because trauma and we're learning more and more about trauma that it's not always a capital T trauma, but each of us experiences trauma on a daily basis. It's a continuum and it's something that sticks with us. I think it would be really fascinating to have a deeper conversation about those things, because I know that it's something that organizations are struggling with right now. So, with your permission, I would love to invite you back for that conversation.
Speaker 2:I would love to have a longer conversation about burnout. I appreciate that you don't want to just throw it out there. We dealt with burnout as a serious problem in one of those high-performing units that I've mentioned, and I would love to get into the weeds about how we handled that.
Speaker 1:That would be great and actually I do a lot of burnout work with healthcare and started that process during COVID, so I think that could be really, really powerful. So audience stay tuned for part two, where we are going to dig into that. But, um, barb, how would our audience get in touch with you if they wanted to reach out, if they wanted to connect with you and even just share their gratitude for the work that you're doing? Um, for you know, the military in our country sure you can find me on linkedin.
Speaker 2:Send me a message, or I'd love to connect on there. It's probably the easiest way to find me, and then a couple of the organizations that I work with you can get me through their websites as well. So shieldsandstripesorg is one way that you can look me up and counterculturesolutionscom is another way, and those are both military related organizations. Um, you know, one is nonprofit and one is a for-profit solution. So reach out any way you can, but those would be three ways to find me.
Speaker 1:Amazing. Well, thank you so much for your time and your insights. I think this was such a great conversation and lots to take away for our audience. Barb, really appreciate you taking the time to be here today.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me. It was a blast.
Speaker 1:And thank you, audience, for tuning into this episode of the Talent Forge, where we are shaping the future of training and development.
