Michael: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the HaBO Village podcast. I'm Michael Redman.
Kathryn: And I'm Kathryn Redman.
Michael: And this is the podcast dedicated to small business leaders who want to grow companies full of passion and provision; that you are fulfilled and succeeding in a sense where you're thriving. And really, what we're really excited about is that whether you are thriving in good times or surviving the crisis times. We want to help you build or even rebuild your company in a way that is more helpful, profitable, fulfilling and even healthy as we come into this post-COVID.
Kathryn: Yeah, we think.
Michael: We're hoping. I stuttered on that.
Kathryn: I don't know. Post.
Michael: This post-COVID economy as we're talking about it, but we might be in the mid-COVID. I mean, this could last this while depending on what happens and here is a perfect time to go, okay, COVID really tested all of us to say how resilient we are, and some of us are more resilient than others, and there is ... It's not just random. You can actually strategize that. And in some industries, it's been harder because some industries have just been hit harder. So we want to talk about that. That's what this podcast is all about. We're excited about that, and it turns out we've been on a lot of other podcasts lately. Many of you know that our book Fulfilled, just published May 5th in 2020, and-
Kathryn: You should go to fulfilledthebook.com and purchase one if you haven't already.
Michael: Yeah, you know what? It really talks about the whole system and the model and everything and the concept of passion and provision, and building a company that has more profit and more purpose and leaves a legacy. But it actually gives you some really good high level ideas and some really great tactical things you can do. So we don't just leave it into a theory place. We do both and then we marry it with a lot of stories. And as we're promoting that, we're on a lot of podcasts, we're getting asked the question a lot, "How do you grow as a leader?" Because we talk about leadership a lot. And this question I've started noticing the habit, the consistency, the pattern that we keep getting asked. And so we actually thought that we should plan out a thought on that and have a little bit more clarity because we are intentional, but Kathryn and I have strategies for certain things and we have habits for certain things. But one of the things we do and I think a lot of leaders do this, how would you describe the way we move into regular patterns? Do we do it super intentionally and plan them out and strategize them and then execute them?
Kathryn: No, that's not who we are personality wise, even. We're both ... In the Myers-Briggs, we're both Ps which means we tend to be a little bit less planned than ... a little bit less methodical than some people.
Michael: Less methodic. We wait till the last minute to make sure we have all the data to make the best decisions.
Kathryn: Yeah, which sometimes works well and occasionally bites you in the [patooki 00:02:56]-
Michael: Arse, yeah.
Kathryn: ... because you didn't plan fast enough or well enough, but it happens. But I think what ends up happening for us is that we do things a little bit more intuitively, a little bit more spontaneously sometimes. And then ultimately, we end up codifying it because other people watch our lives and say, "How do you do that?" And then we're like, "Ah, let me think about how I do that, because I've never had to think about how to answer that question or how to actually codify it." So writing the book was really helpful in codifying some things-
Michael: It really was.
Kathryn: ... but it doesn't ... We wrote a chapter on leadership, for example, and you could fill the room with books on leadership. So obviously all of the ways that we would want to talk about leadership cannot be contained in a chapter. So yeah, I think for us, there has been way more of a ... One of the things that's funny for me, when you ask the question, "How do you grow as a leader?"
Michael: Right.
Kathryn: Because you asked this earlier and I have to laugh because part of me feels a little bit like a fraud, because I grow as a leader mostly by listening to you.
Michael: Oh, that's nice.
Kathryn: I know, right? Which, okay, so you're my probably ... In some ways, you're my largest mentor in leadership because you read a bunch of stuff that I have no interest in reading.
Michael: Right.
Kathryn: And then you process all of that with me and that helps me grow and learn, and then I end up reading stuff that's a little bit different. So you tend to read more on the organizational leadership side; running companies, some of those things. And then I tend to be drawn to really internal development stuff, and so we ended up having these really fun conversations. And you love the internal development stuff too. I don't want to leave you out that, but ...
Michael: No, thank you very much. Everybody thinks that Michael doesn't develop his internal at all.
Kathryn: Right, no, but I'm going to be drawn to read the book about the Enneagram, for example, and you're going to be like, "Tell me about that."
Michael: Yeah, and you really got into that. It's interesting. I would say that some of the stuff you get into is very deep and introspective. It's asking you really hard questions and stuff like that. I can't read as much of that as you can. But when all of the literature came out about emotional intelligence-
Kathryn: Oh, you ate that up.
Michael: ... I loved it because it did ask you to think about things, but it didn't go after really deep, "I want you to ask this hard question, this hard question, this hard ..." It talked about the concept-
Kathryn: It was more about understanding emotional intelligence, what goes into it, how do you test it, how do you grow in it a little bit. But it is way more about that big picture.
Michael: Well, it's how do you understand people and this is the way you can break it down. So it's more ... It's a system to understand, gain more clarity, which I love those things. And then from there, I become very introspective. But I don't need the book to be introspective. Actually, sometimes the books are not good for me because I can be too introspective. Right?
Kathryn: Pull him up.
Michael: Yeah, that's a joke around here at times that I'm a little too introspective.
Kathryn: [crosstalk 00:05:49]
Michael: I'm thinking about things nobody cares about sometimes and it happens, but what we're talking about here is leadership. So that's kind of how we develop leadership. We move in from the ... with the mindset that we always want to grow, that we believe that we should grow, and we believe we haven't arrived yet. And so how do we continue to improve these things, improve our internal so we can improve our external.
Kathryn: Yeah, and then you know, we're sitting in all of these conversations and being asked those questions and it's like, okay, we need to be able to more consistently and from a more codified standpoint be able to say, "These are actually the things we keep saying. Let's figure out how to hone them and say them better."
Michael: Yeah, well, you find that on a podcast you're like, "Oh, I don't have a quick answer for that. That's a conversation answer and we need something that's a little bit more codified that we can say, 'Okay, here's the answer.'" So we do have an answer. Now, let's get into that. The answer is basically at this point for us-
Kathryn: And remember, the question is, "How do you grow as a leader?"
Michael: How do you grow as a leader? The answer right now is really it's in four parts, and those four parts are assessment, learning, coaching, community. And we're going to break those down today on this podcast. Assessment, learning, coaching, and community because we realized these are four categories that we can talk about that we actively engage in and evaluate. So, assessment, let's walk through and just define them really quickly. Assessment is any of the tools out there. We like tools that will help measure certain aspects. So we love Myers-Briggs, right?
Kathryn: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Michael: And we've used Myers-Briggs for a very long time. We do Myers-Briggs coaching and workshops on that. We love different personality tests periodically, some of them silly. Winnie the Pooh, Tigger. You know, are you Luke Skywalker? Are you Darth Vader? All kinds of goofy stuff like that's fun because it gives potentially more insight and an opportunity to laugh and joke. DiSC and Myers-Briggs have been probably the most common for us in understanding people's personalities, the way people take in information, process and relate, and then different other things.
Michael: And in leadership, what we've come across and we talk about a lot ... We talk about it in the book, we talk about it on our podcast a lot. You may have heard it is the folks over at Circle Leadership who wrote a book called Mastering Leadership, and we like their assessment and we use their assessment because they actually did the work that for us seems fairly complete. They brought together all of the different leadership philosophies and concepts and maybe perspectives on it and they've put all those things into one test. So you get an emotional maturity assessment out of it. You to see the two major areas of relationship and tasks which are the two major areas of positive leadership or leadership in general. You've got to work with people and you got to get stuff done and work with the organization and everything else as a whole. You've got the idea of in that, there's 18 different competencies couched in five different categories. So, the five categories help you think about things really quickly, and then there's 18 different categories that you can say, "Okay, now I can kind of self-assess and think about and know that if I'm thinking about these 18 things or these five categories they're nested in, I know that I'm working on the right things to become a better leader."
Kathryn: Because that's just the upper half of the circle. Those are the ... If you're going to be a creative leader and live in this place where you're leading out of ... I think ultimately they would say out of love and not out of fear.
Michael: Right.
Kathryn: Then you have to be working in these areas. So there's a category of relating and self-awareness which are the relational side of things. Authenticity, which is right in the middle. It's part task and part relationship, actually, because how you lead from an exterior way, that courageous authenticity is partly a task, and then systems awareness and achieving on the task side. So those are kind of the five big areas is, "Are you relating well? How is your self awareness? Where are you with authenticity? How are you at just being aware that you need to have, implement, and run systems if you're going to be a successful leader in a business?" And then achieving that. So are you able to be decisive? Are you able to make good decisions and make them quickly? Those kinds of things are the things that are being evaluated, which is very helpful.
Michael: Yeah, and the other thing that this assessment does, it gives you the places where you can get into dangerous spots. The three major categories of mistakes that leaders make that actually cause liabilities in your leadership. And it's amazing. People rise up to great heights even in large corporations. Matter of fact, most of their work is with corporate work and we like to assess it to small and medium sized companies. And they'll say that you can have somebody who can have a career that looks very successful because they've risen through the ranks, but they actually lead from a place of more liabilities of compliance or fear or control or something like that.
Kathryn: They're protecting and controlling their own safety, so they're reacting in their leadership. They're not being creative and positive. They're being reactive.
Michael: And you can get a lot of crap done and you can really be effective in producing results as a leader. But there's a lot of casualties that happen in that reactive leadership and there's also a lot of stuff that you never achieve in your potential. Like, you've got so much potential and you can't ever really achieve and become your best self because you're stuck there. And actually, most leaders get stuck there from the research. So, you know what? I'm sitting here thinking we started talking about giving a highlight and then we jumped right into assessment. But the next three are learning, coaching, community. So we have assessment, learning, coaching, community. We've talked about assessment.
Michael: Learning is just a regular set of books, podcasts, everything else. We'll come back and talk about how we do that. We really believe in leadership coaching. We believe that you as a leader should be coaching others and that you should be being coached. Matter of fact, people who are being coached coach more often and it's a really powerful leadership tool to have in your quiver to be able to pull out and say at times, "How do I coach my people?" Because coaching them ... And there's different models of coaching and different methodologies, but the one we prescribe to really is a combination of a pure coaching where we're asking questions and pulling things out and helping people process better because what they DiSCover, they own, and then also putting in. Because quite frankly, people when they're trying to grow, they don't have all the answers, so we want to have that. And then a community of peers. When we combined ... And this is really what the Redmans do, what we do. We'll talk about them in the third person.
Kathryn: So they're not here.
Michael: Right.
Kathryn: The Redmans, when they're being their best selves.
Michael: When you look at this, we realized when we started looking at this growth process that we had continued to apply ourself to so that we could grow and sharpen, and when we hit places where we fall and make mistakes, we blow it and we have to deal with our mess that we made or frustrations and relationships. We came back to finally going, you know what we do is we are regularly looking on how do we know where we are in our development assessment? How do we learn more about strengthening those areas and how do we learn about the things that we don't even know about?
Kathryn: Yeah. The cool part about learning is that you're reading other people's perspectives, and they're asking and answering questions that you didn't think to ask.
Michael: Yeah, absolutely.
Kathryn: And that's really fun.
Michael: It's a lot of fun, especially when they're good at communicating.
Kathryn: Yes. I mean, sometimes it's not fun, but yes, when they're very good at it, it's very fun.
Michael: And then coaching, we were introduced really ... We've been introduced to concepts of coaching our entire adult life. We were really big fans of counseling as a development tool for you to work through your stuff. A good counselor is like their weight in gold. A good leadership coach actually fulfills some of those roles of a good counselor. Their crossover in skills, there's a lot of stuff. And then going from there, you know, leadership is lonely. It's really lonely. We're fortunate. We are a team in leadership and depending on what size your company is, if you have more than eight or nine people in your organization, maybe even more than five or six, you already have somebody who's a confidant and helping you, supporting you as leadership, doing some leadership roles and stuff that.
Michael: As you grow, you start to have a group of leaders and in not every situation, but a lot of situations, those people, you as the senior leader or you in leadership, there's a relationship between the senior leadership and the next level down or that peer leadership. And a lot of times, it's really positive and there's a comradery there. When you have that, it's pretty amazing. And in some companies there's not, but a lot of times what you need is as leaders, we need to know other people that are in leadership roles at other organizations that share and understand. So when you're having a good day, they realize why it's a good day and when it's a bad day, they realize why it's a bad day. And there's a lot of folks that don't get that. And when you want to share the highs and the lows and you want to feel understood and you need somebody to just to process with that will get it, those moments are really important and if you don't have a peer community that is made up of other leaders, it's really hard. It leaves a gap in our growth as leaders. Don't you think?
Kathryn: I do, yeah. And part of that is that when I'm leading my organization and I am struggling, it's hard to have conversations about struggling as a leader with people inside your organization. I mean, it just is. And even though there are times when that's absolutely appropriate and that would be courageous authenticity and some of those things, the reality is sometimes you really just need to process with someone outside the circle. You need to process with someone who has faced similar leadership challenges and who has wrestled through them, where it is safe to be vulnerable and to process those things and to allow questions to be asked without feeling threatened. So that's part of the reason to develop a community around you. It's part of the reason we started the HaBO Village, is to give people an opportunity to have a place of community. Because sometimes you can't. You haven't found it or you've struggled to find it and we want to be that with you and for you. So, the community piece is really critical.
Michael: Yeah, it's really a big deal. Some of you have heard us talk about the original concept of HaBO Village, but probably a lot of you haven't, because it's been a while since we've talked about it. The original idea of HaBO Village was actually envisioned as someday having a physical location that is much like a village. Imagine if you will, because this is probably the realest ... Most people have been to Disneyland or Disney World. Disney World is much bigger than Disneyland. But imagine going into Disneyland and it not being an amusement park, but it being a place where there's a whole bunch of businesses. Maybe there's shopping, maybe there's entertainment, restaurants and all that kind of stuff. So it's a really cool place to go shopping and hang out and have fun and get entertainment. Not unlike Disneyland, except there's no rides in HaBO Village.
Michael: But then what you have is you have all these small companies that are there and they have offices there and they're all prescribing to a passion and provision mindset. And so what you have is you have all these companies that want to grow a passion provision companies, who want to learn and understand. And in that, we as leadership of the village are there to provide consulting and training and coaching. And so, imagine having that accessible on a regular basis. Because what we know is the fastest way for somebody to learn is you need to be taught what you need to grow in and then you need to be given assignments and products or assignments and processes you have to do. And the feedback loop is the most critical part. How fast the feedback is. How incredible would it be if your coach was next door in the office next door around you and checking in on you because they didn't have to worry about traffic, they didn't have to worry about all that kind of stuff. And it could be an incubator, but a really intentionally focused incubator in a sense that was working with you as the leaders and then had maybe a coaching program for your staff, your intermediate leaders and your mid-level leaders and then your team. So you were helping grow them and invest them.
Michael: And if you wanted to send them to a conference, they literally could walk down the block. Walk down a conference center and attend all of that stuff and then go back to their office and their coach could show up and visit them in the office. And so the speed at which you're gaining insight and learning and dealing with a problem and being able to correct it. And then on top of it, being surrounded in a community where you may not know everybody, but when you leave work at night, all the people that you're passing, all the people you're going to the parking lot with, they're all other leaders who are dealing with their own companies, their own challenges, and everything else. And now you have even more easy access to brainstorm and to work with and talk about, and it's easier to go to lunch and all of those types of things because it's so near. And that's really this idea of, you know, we imagine what community of leadership would look like. And if we had all the money in the right now and we had all the dreams and we could do anything we want, we'd build an environment that so that a certain percentage of our folks in the HaBO Village could actually work there and have their employees there.
Kathryn: Yeah. One part of the dream-
Michael: And it would be a place that they could also come from other places.
Kathryn: Yeah, and part of the dream was to have mentors across multiple areas of business.
Michael: Multiple DiSCiplines, yeah.
Kathryn: Right? So, you know, people who are really good at the finance piece. People who are really good at the marketing piece. People who understand management and operations, but they're all thinking about it through the grid of passion and provision. So that holistic sort of model where you know that your finance consultant and your management consultant are not on opposite pages in terms of what matters and what moving forward looks like. But we can't build a physical village today.
Michael: We can't. But the reason I brought it up ... I mean, it may sound like to some people, "What the heck is he talking about?" I'm using it as an illustration to kind of give you an idea of, what does ideal community look like? It means that you have access to people and you have frequent conversations and frequent ability to talk about share the good times and bounce off conversation, because when you're in community ... and a lot of these online groups, and we do it with HaBO Village, you have the opportunity to access people through Facebook groups or private Facebook group or something that are shared community. Tell you what, I'm in one right now where I've been at now almost three years, and it's taken a while because of the methodology and the Facebook and all that. But it's gold. Right now, the people in our subgroup in this organization ... We have our own private Facebook group. We call ourselves the 10K club, and that has to do with the amount of leads you get. What we have is a lot of businesses in there. There's not tons, but everybody's on the same page. We all care about ... We all have similar values, we're all working at strategies. And then when we hit things that are really hard, because we all do in business, it gives us a place to talk about that.
Michael: Now, it's these four things. Let's back up and talk about our coach. Terry Walling, who's been on this podcast, is our leadership coach. He trains people and trains coaches. He does coaching. He's phenomenal. He's got amazing wealth of insight and experience. How would you describe Terry and that whole process of coaching for somebody who doesn't ... For somebody who doesn't have a leadership coach, what are they looking for and how do we talk about Terry as what are some of the things he brings to the table for us? Why is it important?
Kathryn: Yeah, so Terry has been amazing for me personally. He's been amazing because he has helped me codify my strengths. One of the things that I think happens, and I don't think I'm alone in this, is that as a leader, there are things that you are really, really good at that you think are just normal that anybody can do. And working with Terry, part of what he's done is he's allowed me to see what my unique contributions are that are not something that I ought to take for granted, like if I left the equation, somebody else could easily fill that role. And I think that's an amazing gift. He has really helped shape my thinking about what it looks to have a unique contribution you know.
Kathryn: Because he works with Michael and I both, it's been kind of a fun experiment because part of what he gets to do is help us see how we best work together. What is it that Michael brings to the table? What is it that Kathryn brings to the table? How do those two when they're working well, how does that synergy create something that is beyond what either of us could do alone. I mean, there's a ton of things that Terry has brought to the table but for the sake of time, I would say one of the biggest is really helping me see with much more clarity what my real contributions are and why they're so valuable. And that's been an amazing gift.
Michael: Yeah, I agree. And because of all the work he's done and the research he's done and the mentors he's had, we've pulled in together, been able to develop a lot more teaching and training and stuff that; some of it that we've just taken straight from what he does and we use it, and from everything from people in their early game of their 20s and early 30s, trying to figure out what some of those things are because there's so much ... what some of the strengths are, there's so much development going on and there's so much life being lived. And how do you take your unique experiences in life and how do they actually benefit you? Whether they are the highs or the really lows. And what we've DiSCovered is there really is nothing in your past that's wasted. It can all be used and interpreted and seen through a grid of how has it helped shape you, and what is the possibility for you as a leader to really glean the things that are really strong. You know, it's amazing.
Michael: I think one of the things that happened as a kid, you were ... You know, when you left England, you didn't expect to leave, and your mom and dad got divorced and that was pretty hard on you. We've talked about that before. Some people might think that what happened to a seven year old, you had no control, so therefore it has no influence or bearing on your leadership today. But it radically impacts your perspective and your leadership. Not everything, but it impacts ... We talk about the concept of can you emotionally bond other people? That's a conversation that was born partially out of that event, and then there's been other things that have been strengths and influenced your leadership that you've been able to glean from that, that was just something that sucked and was out of your control. Wouldn't you agree?
Kathryn: Absolutely.
Michael: Is there something else out of that that you think is relevant how it impacts ... How else does it impact your leadership? Because some people are thinking, "You know, not everything in my life impacts my leadership."
Kathryn: One of the ways that I've been shaped, I think, is there've been some really bad experiences that would because some people to want to completely walk away from whether it's the church or leadership in general authority. And so for me to learn that just because people screw up doesn't make all authority bad. For example, right? So I would say in a religious context, just because some of God's people are stupid, doesn't mean God is.
Michael: Right.
Kathryn: Right? So we've done the whole, "What does it look not to throw the baby out with the bath water?" And that analogy and learning that there's a parsing out of the principles and what is right and true and works, that have to be sometimes separated from people who use them poorly to injure you. So I think that's been a lot of my growth and learning. And then what does it look to be super authentic so that I don't be one of those people, right?
Michael: One of those people?
Kathryn: Those people who use the principles badly to injure people.
Michael: Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kathryn: So, I think understanding ... You know, one of the things that a coach does is they really do help you see how your world view and the things that you experienced growing up and whatever have shaped how you see things. And sometimes, the way you see things isn't the way you should see things, as it turns out. The grid that you have placed over the world isn't necessarily the right one. And so to understand that that actually does influence your leadership. Even if you go back to the assessment stuff. You know, if I grew up in a place where I felt constantly attacked, then the idea that I would need to self-protect is a very real reality, and a self-protective leader is going to hurt people.
Michael: Yes.
Kathryn: So just understanding that your inner game, as they call it, is a really massive impact on your outer game. And a coach can help you uncover some of those things and see them more clearly.
Michael: Yeah, I totally agree. Completely. We talked about assessment, learning, coaching, community. The learning for us is probably the one we've talked the least about. Really quickly, there are two major approaches to learning I think happen for people who are learners, and one is you approach things as they come. You learn about things that seem relevant at the time and you just kind of wander. You attack life as a leader, especially if you're a learner, and you just kind of take what's in front of you and you look for solutions to the problems in front of you and you're going to go out and find resources. Another person is you're just going to go, "Okay, this year I'm going to ..." We have some friends that are planners. Every Christmas, New Year, January, they sit down. Matter of fact, one couple I'm thinking about, Marcus and his wife, they go away and get a hotel room and hang out for a weekend and have a little bit of fun just getting away from the kids, but they plan. They actually plan their year. And I'm like, "We don't plan like that." We kind of-
Kathryn: Do they plan their learning too? Like, they have goals and dreams.
Michael: I think they had to plan their development and everything else, yeah.
Kathryn: We're going to work on X this year specifically.
Michael: Yeah, "We're going to work on this part this year." Stuff like that. And some people are just that intentional about calling it out. I don't think one is better than the other or worse than the other. I think they both have their strengths and their weaknesses. We are not the latter. We are the former, because we are just constantly voraciously wanting to improve and grow, and our two biggest barometers are, "Are we getting things done in a way that is effective and are we getting things that need to get done, done on time?" I mean, really. And are we making a profit at the company?
Kathryn: And are our people happy?
Michael: Well, and that's the other part, is relationships. We kind of assess, "Are we getting done what we need to get done for the company to run smoothly and be profitable, and how are we dealing with relationships?" And it's not just people at work. It's anywhere in our relationships, right? So we want to have healthy smooth relationships that don't run away from appropriate conflict, have the appropriate conflict, but operate out of peace. And the company itself is running smoothly and peaceful like a well-oiled machine. I want it to hum. Right now, my car ... I have a BMW. It's got a great engine. I love the hum of that car. There's a squeak under the hood right now.
Kathryn: I know. I drove it the other day. It was driving me crazy.
Michael: I don't like it. And I'm like, "What the heck is going on? This is not normal. I want it to hum, and it's not humming. That's really annoying." And so there's this concept of just wanting to grow and learning. How are you learning? How are you growing and how are you assessing? Really quick, here's the real fast, as we come to an end here, Kathryn, what are the top three assessments that you like or that we like, that you would recommend to people?
Kathryn: The Circle Leadership.
Michael: Okay, that's the first one.
Kathryn: That's the first. Been talking about that.
Michael: We've been talking about it a lot, but I want to just recap.
Kathryn: Yep, so that comes out of Mastering Leadership and you can buy the book and then you get the test. And then I'm just a really big Myers-Briggs fan. Always have been. I think it really, really helps identify who you are, how you're put together, just in your makeup as a human being. I'm a big Myers-Briggs fan. I don't even know that I have a third favorite.
Michael: I like the DiSC.
Kathryn: Yeah.
Michael: The DiSC feels less warm and fuzzy then Myers-Briggs to us, or to me. We know Myers-Briggs really well and have spent, I don't know, 25 years thinking about it. So Myers-Briggs is really cool and we understand how to interpret it. DiSC, I like DiSC because it's similar but it's like a Venn diagram. It includes some things that Myers-Briggs doesn't, so it gives you another perspective with similar tools for categories and things like that.
Kathryn: I mean, I don't mind the Enneagram. I just think it's complicated to understand the Enneagram well, and I think it takes a lot of work and I think people use it really cavalierly.
Michael: Yeah. Well, okay, and that's been very popular and a lot of people it and everything else. But really, as you dive deep into it, and you have dived deep into it and we've had a lot of discussion, it's very clear that the way most people are using the Enneagram is barely scratching the surface and it actually misuses it at some level. So the goal of these assessments is not just to be entertained. At least at the level we're talking about, it's to actually have something that creates actionable data and not just, "This is the way I am." And if it's going to tell you these are certain things that ... who you are, it needs to be really clear how you understand those things and apply those things. And I think the Enneagram is can be very insightful in some ways, but it takes a lot of work and a lot of depth and a lot of studying.
Michael: Myers Briggs is difficult because of that same thing. It takes a lot of thought and understanding, but there's a lot more ... You can access certain things in it faster and when you have good teachers or coaches, and there's a lot more about Myers-Briggs than there are Enneagram, you can understand it quickly. We do a lot of really cool, short workshops on different parts of Myers-Briggs, and just those pieces can bring incredible insight. So that's four assessments, the Enneagram being the final one. What's your top one or two things in leadership right now for learning that you would recommend? What things have recently ... are near the top of your list?
Kathryn: I do ... I listen to podcasts and I read blogs. Some, I'm really enjoying. I enjoy Patrick Lencioni. I think he's just a really great person to learn from, and then I'm doing a little bit of learning right now from Michael Hyatt.
Michael: Nice, nice.
Kathryn: So, that's two.
Michael: I always recommend The Speed of Trust. We talked about it on the podcast. I mentioned it yesterday. I just can't get away from that book because Speed of Trust, trust is so fundamental and it's really a great tool that we can use on a daily basis in work, business relationships, all that kind of stuff. And then for coaching, you just need to find a good leadership coach. Find somebody who probably is experienced. I would look for a coach that has at least three years experience coaching. Coaching or counseling and understands leadership development, has studied leadership development somewhat, and I think that's real important because you want to get somebody who's actually going to help you. They've studied leadership theory, leadership development, and they have at least three years coaching.
Michael: And you know, some of those coaches might say, "Well, how do I get experience?" I'm like, "Well, we're talking to folks that are leaders of companies that want to be passion and provision. You need somebody who has some experience being a good coach, and I would recommend that you not get a coach who doesn't have any kind of leadership experience on their own." They haven't lived ... I personally would not hire a leadership coach that was under 40 years old. I was told by a friend of ours a long time ago, "I don't read leadership books written by people under 40." And I said, "Why?" He said, "Because while you can learn stuff, usually people under 40 haven't lived enough life, so what they're writing about is what they've studied. People over 40 have studied, but they've lived. So they're writing from a combination of leadership, studying and research, and experience." I just think that there's a lot to be valued there. So those are some recommendations that I have on that. And then community. If you don't have community ... If somebody doesn't have a lot of community and they're trying to figure out how to find leadership community, what would you suggest, Kathryn?
Kathryn: Come join us at the village.
Michael: That's a phenomenal ... HaBO Village.
Kathryn: We're a couple days past 40, so we have lots of experience.
Michael: Our membership experience, our membership and our course, both of those have a lot of value, and the membership is small and intimate now. It's growing and we are continuing to develop that community over there, and it's in its early stages because we realized, you know, we've been building the other part of our business for the last 18 years, and now we want to start growing and giving back and creating this kind of community for our tribe. But if that's not an option for you, you need to find something. And I'll tell you what, this is going to sound strange. I've never been a join a group type of person, except we've always been faithful church goers. We've been faithful and involved in and dedicated to that. When I was a kid, I was in Boy Scouts and stuf,f but I joined Rotary-
Kathryn: Yeah, it was a good experience [crosstalk 00:37:26].
Michael: ... about 15 years ago and I did that for 12 years. And it was a phenomenal tool. It was very helpful.
Kathryn: Well, and it's a bunch of leaders and they're there to give back to the community, not to just self-promote, which a lot of groups are about that. So that was kind of the thing that was really fun about Rotary.
Michael: Yeah, they were there for fellowship and there to serve. And so that really worked well for us and it was a surprise, but it was recommended. I got drug kicking and screaming into it and I stayed for 12 years because the value was there. Great organization with a great heart, and each chapter is different, but some chapters are better than others and more interesting. But there's at least something like that if you're really struggling and there's some great associations out there, but we would love to have you investigate HaBO Village.
Michael: All right, well, that pretty much wraps up our conversation today. I hope it's been helpful. It's definitely been helpful for us to continue to articulate these four things; assessment, learning, coaching, community. When you're coming to deal with, how do the Redmans grow as a leader, I think actually as we've put these together, these are things that every leader needs to be doing. You need to be knowing where you are. You need to be taking in new perspectives and ideas and thoughts. You need to have somebody from the outside helping you ask questions that you don't know to ask, and forcing you to be honest about how you answer them. And then you need a peer structure; a community that you can be safe in to share your victories and share your defeats and rejoice and find consolation. And those kinds of things, we think are super powerful. They've been super powerful for us to help us and they actually directly relate to us enjoying a passion and provision company and finding more fulfillment in our lives.
Kathryn: Indeed, they do.
Michael: So, thank you very much for joining us today. You're awesome. We love you. We appreciate you spending time with us and we hope today was helpful, and if you are interested, Fulfilled, the book is out at fulfilledthebook.com, and we would love for you to go over and check that out and be engaged more in our community and learn more about passion and provision. It's a great book. We poured our blood, sweat and tears into it and we think it'll be helpful for you. And maybe you could give it to somebody else who might be helpful too. It's a great resource to just give away if you've bought into this concept and want to have more passion and provision in your business or have been somebody who's been pursuing this a long time. This codifies this in a really easily tangible way that you can give away to a friend. So, that for us, I'm Michael Redman.
Kathryn: I'm Kathryn Redman.
Michael: This is the HaBO Village podcast. Have a great week.
Kathryn: Bye.
