Taking Calculated Risks for Innovation

//How do leaders create an atmosphere that encourages innovation? Join us as we discuss how leaders can tap into their team members’ gifts and engage their own motivators for solving company problems.

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Transcript

Hey, hey!  It’s Andrea, and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast.

Rosanne:  And it’s Rosanne Moore here with her.  Andrea, you got to talk last week with a really interesting guest.  We have so many interesting guests, but you spoke last week with Vital Germaine, and in addition to having some great insight that he shared, he has a really interesting personal history too.  Would you tell a little bit about that?

Andrea:  Sure.  Yeah.  I mean, he didn’t get to share a lot about that so I think that, you know, his books give more of the background that he has.  But the main thing that is so interesting about Vital – that he talks about, anyway – is his experience with Cirque du Soleil.  And so, a lot of the things that he shares in the corporate space as a speaker and corporate trainer, it’s all related to the kinds of work that he did with Cirque du Soleil, and creativity, and being human, and those sorts of things.  So, it was fun to talk to him about that stuff.

Rosanne:  That gave him a kind of unique perspective in talking about how he approaches business and how he approaches life, I guess, as an acrobat, when you fling yourself into space… 

Andrea:  I can’t even imagine.  Oh, my goodness!

Rosanne:  It’s kind of interesting, the perspective that comes from someone who can do that.

Andrea:  I know.  I think about people, like, especially acrobats who are doing these sort of death-defying tricks, and you look at it from the person who’s in the stands and you know, sitting and watching in the audience.  And to me, I’m thinking, “It’s so risky,” you know?  Like, they are doing things that could kill them, and it’s hard for me as a person in the audience to just relax and enjoy it or whatever.  I mean, I think that’s part of the thrill of going to, you know, like a Cirque du Soleil performance.

But you know, that sense of fear and the unknown, and “Are they going to get hurt when they do this?  They’re taking such risks.”  But I think what was one of the interesting things that he talked about was the fact that it’s not as risky as it looks because of how they train.

Rosanne:  Yes, I found that interesting, too.  Because I’ve always wondered, I mean, how do you start?  Like, how do you gain the kind of skill to be able to do that without killing yourself in the process?

Andrea:  Right.

Rosanne:  So, it was interesting to hear him talk about the things that they did to mitigate risk while they were learning certain skills.

Andrea:  Hmm.  I think one of the things that he talked about, and I’ve heard…  I think it was, like, Carson Tate, and I’ve heard other guests say these sorts of things where things that feel really risky, you know, it is a big risk in the end.  I guess I’ve talked about this too.  In the end, it looks like this huge risk.  But when you’re taking these small steps at the beginning to kind of get a feel for things – to learn the move, or to experiment with your body, and to get better at it, and things – then it’s not as big of a risk as you move even more into dangerous territory, or you pull the net out from under people because they’ve done it so much.  It’s more, I don’t know… you know, innate.  It’s less of a risk than it would be for so many other people who would still fall into the net.

Rosanne:  Right.

Andrea:  It reminds me of our son likes to climb – and I kind of mentioned this to him –but when he was really little, he would climb a lot.  I was pretty hands off when it came to climbing.  I mean, he wasn’t climbing really, really huge things, but I could sense in his body that he was able to handle it.  I had this sort of understanding and connection with my son in order to be able to see, “Okay, he can handle this much.”  And once we get to a certain point, you know, “Nope, he might be able to handle that, but I’m not comfortable with him going that high.”

Rosanne:  Right.

Andrea:  But I was thinking about that in connection to what he was talking about, and how while I would have let my son climb that high as, you know, maybe a four-year-old, as a six-year-old at the same time, I wouldn’t have let my daughter do that.  Because I knew her body and the way that she climbs too.  And I’m not comfortable with her, you know, going as high or whatever, because I can tell that she doesn’t have that particular set of skills and gifting to be able to do it with that much safety.  So, it feels more risky if I let her to do it, even if she’s older and that sort of thing.

I think there’s some interesting correlations between that kind of example and how much space and freedom we give to other people, especially people who are may be within our realm of influence or leadership.

Rosanne:  That was one thing he talked about, wasn’t it?  He was talking about the importance of hiring the right people, but also of once you have a business going or an idea going, of honoring who you have and having a good sense of who they are.  When you bring new people on board, giving them what they need in order to succeed.  So that was a big part of what he shared that I thought was really interesting because if we don’t know who we’re dealing with, then that’s going to create all kinds of problems.

Andrea:  Right.  I remember he was saying something about knowing people’s motivations.  Like, why do they care about things, what motivates them, and tapping into that motivation a little bit – which is tough when you don’t really know everybody, or you’re not sure you want them to have the same motivation.  I don’t know.  How do you find out what people are motivated by other than just asking?

Roseanne:  Right, the role of curiosity is going to be really important.  I think, too, he was talking about inspiring people.  And so, when you cast a vision or you can really articulate what your vision is, you can see who’s drawn to that, who’s inspired by that, and who is just like, “Oh, that’s a nice idea.”  Like, you know, it’s not their thing.  It’s not their calling.

Andrea:  And what do you think?  Does that mean that somebody who isn’t inspired in that way that they should, like, find another job or that sort of thing, or find another path to their influence?  Or is it more of, “Okay, so then we need to look at what does motivate them.”  What are your thoughts on that, Rosanne?

Rosanne:  Well, I guess we’re looking at it from two different perspectives, right?  You’re looking at it from the leader’s perspective, but then you’re also looking at it from the person who’s in the job situation.  I think one thing that stood out to me about that interview was the importance of being true to what you knew about who you were dealing with, and what your calling and your mission and all of that was, of not letting yourself be drawn away…  Because we all want to be flexible, and we want to adjust as things come up, and that is part of life, right?  Being resilient is an important life skill.

But at the same time, what I was reminded again was we also have to honor what we know about ourselves, and what works for us and what doesn’t, and not just hunker down and endure but look for ways…   And you’ve talked about that lots of times before.  You talked about it around the interview with Carson Tate of figuring out how to make your job your dream job.  And sometimes that’s knowing what you want and being able to articulate that to somebody else, to be able to ask your boss for that.  But it has to begin with you understanding what you want in that situation.

Andrea:  Sure, in doing work with the Fascinate Assessment with folks, one of the most interesting advantages that a person can have…  So they have seven different advantages, and you end up with your top two.  And then we look at those top two, and we think through what your voice, what your influence really is using those advantages.  Well, one of those is prestige.  And prestige likes to be respected for what they’ve accomplished.

So, prestige wants to be recognized for its accomplishments.  So, a person who cares about not necessarily awards or rewards and that sort of thing, but it could be that.  It could be expression of appreciation and that sort of thing.  So prestige wants that, but then the motivation of somebody else who has prestige kind of way at the bottom of their list of advantages, they would be somebody that maybe has no desire for anybody to even recognize what they’ve done in a certain way.

I still think that they want to know that they matter and that what they did mattered somehow, but how do you communicate that it mattered, or you know, for them to be able to see the results and see that it works versus somebody else who wants to not just see the results but also to be recognized for it?  That’s an interesting dynamic.  That can be a very polarizing kind of thing.  It can really push people away or really draw them in if you do or do not give them what they’re wanting in that particular kind of, I don’t know, recognition of who they are and what they’ve accomplished.

Rosanne:  Mhmm.  Well, prestige is mine – that’s my primary one.  And for me, it’s not so much being recognized as it is excellence.  I mean, excellence is important to me.  And so, I think that’s the motivating thing, of knowing that we’re doing the best that we can, you know, and that we’re looking for ways to grow.  Not in a perfectionistic sense of that we’ll ever arrive, but we’re trying to look for ways that we can learn and grow and keep moving forward.

Andrea:  So, for you then, would you say that the motivation is just…  I mean, how do you know when what you’ve done matters?  What taps that for you or communicates that for you?

Rosanne:  For me, personally, when it helps people.  Like, it’s important to me to know that we’re doing something that is helping people.  In fact, when we first did the Fascinate with me, I pushed back a little on the idea of prestige because I’m like, “It’s not about reputation or award or whatever for me,” but it is about excellence.  It is about doing things that matter and things that make a difference for people.  That’s really important to me.

Andrea:  How do you know that it’s made a difference for people?  What’s the evidence?

Rosanne:  I think when I hear that it changed what people did as a response.  Like, when they get information from me when I present something, and it changes what they do because they realize it’s going to matter, you know, it will help them achieve what’s important to them.  I think when they’re in a difficult situation, and I provide something, and they say, “This gave me hope,” or “This shifted the outcome,” or things like that.  I’m pretty concrete about things like that.  I want to know that it’s going to make an actual, real-life difference for the person or at least give them hope.

Andrea:  Right.  I totally get that.  And I feel the same way.  I don’t necessarily need the recognition.  I want to see that it’s making a difference.  But for me, I think I struggle sometimes with you want to know what you’ve done has made a difference and it matters, but you don’t always get the actual feedback to know that.  You can’t always know it, you know.  Especially if you’re speaking, or if you’re putting something out there on a podcast, or you’re doing something where you’re not in that kind of one-on-one conversation where the other person is going to actually… you know, where you’re giving feedback to one another somehow, where there is this interaction.

So, when it comes to motivation, we were talking about, you know, are we inspiring people, or what are people’s motivation, and things like that.  It seems to me that – and this is what we kind of talked about in the Deep Impact method – but that the biggest kind of impact that you can have, and the deepest kind of impact that you can have is still in that conversation.  It’s in the relating to a person one to one, you know?

Rosanne:  Mhmm.  Yeah.  And I think for me, too, the other part of it is that there has to be… and you talk about this when you work with groups.  There’s the balance between what’s meaningful to me and not having to pull that from somebody else.  So, it’s helpful when I get feedback that somebody says, “This made a difference,” but I also have to be clear in my own heart that I’m doing what I believe I’m supposed to do, whether anybody gets the full benefit or says anything or whatever.

For me, personally, I have to be convinced that what I’m doing is going to make a difference in the sense that if we do something that is good, whether we see the immediate outcome or not, ultimately it makes the world better.  So, I think that’s the other part of it, you know.  Part of it is understanding your reward system, but also understanding there’s got to be a greater good that you’re working toward whether you’re getting the immediate reward or not.

Andrea:  That’s a really good point.  And especially if you’re only getting feedback that is negative.  So, let’s say you have a work environment that is basically like, “You’re not going to hear from me… ” as your supervisors, your manager, as your team leader, “…you’re not going to hear from me unless you make a mistake, and then I’m going to come and talk to you.”  And that sort of environment is very unsafe, and it makes it so that you feel like you’re being graded all the time.  And that the only time that you’re going to be recognized and the only time that you’re going to even hear that you matter is when you find out that you didn’t do it correctly, and that’s the reason why you have to make changes. That’s a tough, tough… 

Rosanne:  It’s demoralizing.

Andrea:  It is demoralizing.  And yet, like you said, there can also be people who just… their buckets are never filled.  There’s never enough validation.  In working with the Deep Impact method…  I’m in the middle of that right now with a client, and I’m seeing so much how important it is to really come at this from both sides.  Like, as a person who is intending to influence somebody and as somebody who is going to be influenced by other people, you know, that idea that, “I matter,” or that other person matters, we have to provide that space where we can share that with them, that, “You matter.  What you did here was positive, and we appreciate what you did.”

And at the same time, those of us who are waiting for that kind of feedback need to do what you said, Rosanne, which is just know that you know in the depths of your heart and the depths of your being that you’re doing what’s right.  That’s a tough balance, but it seems like if you’re trying to produce a culture that’s getting to that point where you’re giving and receiving really good feedback that’s constructive, you’re working on both.  You’re working that internal response as well as how you’re communicating that to others.

Rosanne:  Right.  And if you are in a demoralizing environment, I think it’s really important to get outside of that to get feedback on what you’re doing.  I can remember… we’ve talked a lot about the Lifeline program that I’ve developed for women who are navigating the family court system in the case of abuse or coercive control, and one of the things that women in that situation often deal with is where they’re blamed for everything.  The burden is always put on them.  So, it can be so beneficial to go to a counselor who can provide some balance and say, “Yeah, you might want to change your response here, but know this is not your problem,” you know, so we don’t lose heart in the middle of that.

Andrea:  So good.  Yeah, so persuasion and inspiration – Vital was making that contrast in his book.  And so, we were bringing it up and talking about it, and he used the example of trying to get an elephant to move.  And when he used that example, I’m thinking about people that I love who are really stubborn and even myself.  I’m thinking about myself in a lot of ways.  Like, “You want me to move?  You’re gonna have to not just push me,” you know, like that.  “Maybe I’ll move if you push me, but I’m gonna go back, you know.”

I need to embody.  I need to understand and care and make that decision for myself because when I do, that’s when you’re going to get a lot of effort out of me.

Rosanne:  Mhmm.  Sure.  Yeah, that makes sense.  Yeah, I don’t think anyone responds well to coercion.  I don’t think anybody does.

Andrea:  Okay.  So, another thing that he mentioned – going back to this kind of acrobatic analogy – he talked about when he was in Cirque du Soleil, they could just teach him how to do a trick and show him how to do it and then get him to do it.  But what really was most powerful when they were putting the show together, instead of just creating the trick and then telling everybody how to do it, it was giving people the opportunity to try different things for themselves.

So, “We’ve got this jump.  You need to get from here to here.  How would you do it?  What are some ideas that you have to get from here to here?”  And that was such an inspiring kind of thought for me because it is so much more exciting and human to tap people’s gifts and what they’re wanting to do.  But it’s also hard if you’ve got an actual task that needs to be done or a problem that needs to be solved.  I thought that was really interesting, though, that idea of giving people that freedom to come up with a solution or at least to throw their voice in to the mix.

Rosanne:  That struck me again about the importance of knowing like what works for you.  The whole thing of being able… to both be able to try new things and be flexible, but also to know what works for you and what doesn’t, what stretches you in ways that it’s just not comfortable, and if it’s not going to work for you.  That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t for somebody else.  But for you, that’s not your space.  He talked about the difference between the precision of ballet or gymnastics but that shut down any emotional expression.  And he talked about that in terms of businesses, that there has to be that human connection, and I thought that was powerful.

Andrea:  Yeah, I do too.  And I wonder, too, the relationship, maybe, between that human connection and that human expression, and the ability to still work together as a team.  So, you’re still accomplishing a goal as a team, while at the same time honoring each person’s individual voice.  And I think of Cirque du Soleil as a place where they do that.  There is this overarching theme and choreography and whatnot, but at the same time, they’re giving people the opportunity to express themselves within their lane or their role of the show.

Rosanne:  Right.  It takes a lot of wisdom and vision to be able to do that because you’ve got a lot of creative people, and they have to work together.

Andrea:  And so there does still need to be a director.  There still needs to be somebody that is kind of casting the overall vision, and everybody has to align behind that vision, which really brings us to that point that he made towards the end.  We were talking about vision, mission, that sort of thing, and how it’s so easy to get off track.

Rosanne:  One of the things that struck me about what he said was that, at one point, they started out with this creative vision, and then the demands of business and needing to meet expectations of investors and that kind of thing caused them to change what they were doing to add more shows.  And slowly, over time, the creativity died.  Not completely, but they were losing something that had made them unique, that had made them successful to begin with.

I thought that was really an important insight, to be able to know what makes you unique, to be able to have that sense of your voice.  That’s something we do a lot with businesses to help them understand… like, we work with businesses to help them understand what their anthem, kind of the essence of who they are, what is their mission, what is their message that they’re putting out, and that they want to be aligned with at all times.

They had to come back to that.  They kind of had to come back to who they were and find a way to meet the financial needs, yes, but not lose who they were in the process.  I think that’s probably a normal part of any kind of growth.  People as they develop, there’s that dance back and forth between getting a sense of who you are and what you want to pursue and having to deal with the confines of a world in which it doesn’t revolve around you.

So, you have to adjust to the realities of your situation.  But you also don’t want to lose sight of what makes you, you.  And I think it is, it’s just a lifelong dance between the two of what makes you uniquely you, but you’re not the center of the university either.

Andrea:  Sure.  And what’s interesting about that is it feels like to me, every time I get to sort of a growth…  I have had maybe a growth spurt of some kind, and then you get to a place where you sort of had a plateau for a minute and kind of catch your breath.  And then it does seem like there’s always something that comes up that pushes you out of it again, and you have to sort of try to grow some more.  But what I like about what you’re saying, Rosanne, is that, “But you have to still stick with who you know you are.”

Rosanne:  Right.

Andrea:  You can still grow.  Growing is not replanting completely.

Rosanne:  You’ve talked about before about the difference between seeing people who do things differently and admiring their strength, but not feeling like you have to be them.  And I think that’s part of it, of recognizing what you can learn from somebody who’s different without having to feel like you have to imitate.  You can still be true to what makes your offering uniquely your gift to the world.

Andrea:  Yeah, I like the word “synthesis.”  It’s one of my favorite concepts.  That idea of bringing in new influence of some kind and allowing yourself to kind of take it in, evaluate it, think it through, figure out what it is, and then integrate it somehow into your being.  And he also talked about intuition.  We talked about intuition, but the idea of intuition is really intriguing.  It feels very nebulous in some ways, because who knows what intuition really is?

It seems to me that intuition is acting out of your full experience and the fullness of who you are.  It’s being able to respond thoughtfully but without overanalyzing, without overthinking, without worrying about what everybody else thinks.  You feel drawn to something, or you feel, “This feels right.”  I don’t know how to quantify that, but it does seem like synthesizing new experiences and new influences.  When you first do that, when you try something new, it’s not going to feel natural.  But the more you do it, the more you integrate it into who you are, into your experiences, into the way that you interact with people.  You practice it, you practice, you practice, and then it becomes intuitive.

Rosanne:  Yes.  And I think that was one of the points he made, too, about innovation being about openness.  Because you just made an important point that when you start something new, it’s not going to feel comfortable or natural or in alignment.  As you’re taking that in to begin with, it’s going to feel awkward.  And I’m just thinking recently about a conversation I witnessed.  I wasn’t actually part of it, but I witnessed a conversation between some people who were talking about a book that the one woman was reading.  And she talked about how distressed the ideas in this book made her.

Well, they were challenging some…  I was familiar enough with the book to know that there was substantive research behind it.  So, it was challenging her presuppositions, and she wanted to reject it because it made her uncomfortable.  But it would have been wiser – not that she had to accept every concept in it – but it would have been wiser if she had sat with that and thought, “Why am I so uncomfortable with this?” and worked with that for a while, rather than just saying, “I’m uncomfortable.  I’m not gonna receive this as a possibility of being true.”

Andrea:  I think having conversations with people like Vital remind me that what we do here at Voice of Influence is really more about transforming the person.  It’s about helping a person to become more aware of who they are and who they want to be, aligning themselves with their values – with the values and mission and vision of the organization that they’re in – in order to be able to more fully step into who they are and the gifts that they have to bring to the table, and to make a bigger difference in the world.

And that is quite a bit different than the idea of training somebody to do something.  So, it’s like teaching somebody to be an artist.  You can’t really teach it.  You inspire it, you demonstrate it, you share ideas, you share methodologies, you give people the opportunity to experience and try.  But if people don’t actually put effort into it themselves, if they don’t open themselves up to the possibility that they have more to offer and that there is a way to make their voice matter more by developing themselves, by personal and professional growth, and practicing and trying things, it’s not going to go anywhere.

So, I guess, one of my final thoughts is it’s just interesting to me that what we’re trying to accomplish – not just in doing what we do with corporate trainings but in general, just our whole mission – is so related to the idea of if asking the acrobat to try to share their expression, to how do you want to get from this pole to that pole?  Let’s give you some tools.  Let’s give you some ideas, but ultimately, it’s a question of you and how you’re going to do it.  You get to apply it to yourself in your own way.

Rosanne:  Mhmm.  And you’re the only one who can do it in your unique way.

Andrea:  And it matters.

Rosanne:  It does matter.

Andrea:  Listeners, thank you for joining us for this conversation, and next week, we’ll be back with another episode.  We’ll be talking about how to apply some of the things that we’ve talked about here.  And if you’re interested in learning anything more about our offerings, what we do, how we can bring our trainings, our experience of growth and transformation to your team, we would love to visit.  Just go to our website voiceofinfluence.net and hit that contact button.  And we’ll set up a time to visit and just hear more about you, and we can share a little bit about how we can meet you where you’re at.

Your voice matters, and you can make it matter more!