Episode #5 - Are You Ready to Eliminate the Drama from Your Workplace?

Dennis McIntee, who will be at the Executive Leadership Forum, is known for working with leaders to uncover their personal organizational constraints in order to build high-trust, high-performance cultures. Tune in to hear podcast host, MoASBO Exec. Director Kim Cranston, interview this leadership expert.

Transcript

Welcome to SchoolBiz Chat with Kim Cranston, MoASBO executive director, each episode of this podcast is dedicated to discussing events and issues that affect the people who are in the business of supporting students. Now let's take a few minutes to see what's going on in the school business world. Hello, everybody. Thanks for joining us for this edition of SchoolBiz Chat. I am delighted to have as my guest today. Dennis McIntee, Dennis is going to be coming to our Executive Leadership Forum and he is also our facilitator for this year's administrative leadership development program. I had the privilege of meeting Dennis at an ASBO, executive directors meeting in New Mexico and was really impressed and took a lot of of value away from his presentations and reached out. Yeah, me and said we need you in Missouri. So Dennis, thank you so much for being here. I tell people that you are on a mission to eliminate drama on teams and then the workplace. So, tell us a little bit about yourself and about how you're doing that. The whole piece of eliminating drama. Yeah, thanks. Kim. I'm super excited to be with you and we are really going to have a blast. You know my crew started in marriage and family therapy and gosh probably about 15 years ago I Had a particular person that we had really made a difference in his marriage, had a team in Indiana, and he said, Dennis can you just come in to spend the day and maybe some of the things that you've helped me with in my marriage? I think they could really add value to my team. And, you know, Kim teams are simply like, you know, groups of relationships, right? And there's some relationship principles that once you learned them really make it more make, make what you do more efficient. They make it simpler easier, faster, and Reduce some of that friction. And so when when we say drama, and we're talking about things like the excuses, right? Or the blaming, or the complaining, or people, not taking responsibility, like all of those things, are really perpetuated by this idea of what we call drama. And so we're really on this mission to create self-directed. Self-responsible work teams that that really get results and especially, like, in the case of asthma members, like really getting back. Back to like, you know, helping students, right? Really getting back to that mission of why we do what we do. Well, I really like that. We talked a lot about students being at the center of all of our work and so I'm glad you're highlighting that. And then I'm just sitting here thinking about, as you're talking about teams and relationships, isn't that what it always comes down to relationships and then communication within those relationships? Yeah, it could sort of What happens is that everywhere? People see you're here. Like people see things, right? They see actions. They see Behavior or they hear words and then they immediately tell themselves a story and then that story produces a feeling which generates the action. And so there are actually we're going to talk a little bit about this during our time together but how do we control Our Own Story, right? Because the story that I tell myself really generate some of those those feelings, right? Something happens on a show. Why do people always like come in late and And and then well it's just because they're, you know, they're just lazy and they don't really even and I just create this whole story. And so, how do I manage my own story but then it even a deeper level? How was a leader? How do we step into other people's story and help manage their own story? And we've seen that a lot especially, like, you know, inside of school districts, right? I mean Kim, how many stories are there out there, right? So there's they're everywhere, there's thousands of them, it doesn't matter. If it's true or not. True, it's the story and Because it's the story becomes true to them. So how do we step in and like, reframe the meaning? And so, that's a lot of like some of the skills that we're going to be talking about. And if I can help it, you know, anybody it's really helping leaders manage, their own story, and then really shape the story of their teams. As I think about our membership, our membership consists of such a variety of people and at the leadership piece, our leadership, Well, sorry, we have superintendents assistant, superintendents different titles of people Chief Financial officers Executives managers. And one of the things that I hear from my folks all the time is, you know, this work would be really easy if it weren't for the people and that's the problem, isn't it? It's dealing with people and figuring out. Not only like you said my But how, what is their story and and how did those two come together? Intersect contradict all of those things? Well, key, a key thing that kind of happens is that, you know, Kim everybody has like their own meeting and a lot of times like we use words, right? We say well, listen, you know, you got to be nice to parents and, you know, it may be an educator will turn on, say why am I didn't cuss them, right? Because it because of, to that person in their culture, being nice means I didn't cuss right? And so even like, you know, that whole be kind be nice. And so here's here's a great leadership technique for for everybody. Listening is when you say, these sort of give this feedback you say, hey, like this is what blank means to me or this is what blank looks like to me. Hey, this is what being kind looks like to me and then you share a story, right? Because people remember stories, they don't necessarily remember words. And so, instead of being very directive say like with values like hey, you know, you need to be You know, more diligent. Well, this is what diligence looks like to me. And, you know, this is what being efficient looks like to me and you continue to paint that picture because people see in pictures, they don't see in words, right. Kim. If I say dog, I'm seeing a dog. You're seeing a dog, a different dog. But if I say, hey, big black dog. Big black dog, white teeth. Big black white teeth with foam coming out of its mouth. Now, can we're starting to see the same dog and so, I think that's what happens a lot of times with communication, we say things like, Well, I told them, well, did they even know what those words meant? Because they're to their culture, it means one thing and everybody has their own culture and what's fascinating came as that, you know, sometimes my dysfunction can seem functional. Like, when I was first, man, I've been married 32 years and it's a fascinating story. Brought my wife to my family reunions our first year of marriage. And after a couple hours Kim, she brought me to the back room. And she said, Dennis, are you guys crazy? I was like, what, what are you talking about, right? Because can I come from the family that has three rules? Yells the loudest wins, he who sustains the yelling the longest wins. And the goal is to always win for 21 years, I thought that was normal, but it wasn't until I went to my wife's family. Reunions and went, huh? My family is not so functional, but for 21 years, I was kind of raised in that and I think that becomes a problem with communication sometimes is that we're using words. But meaning is not found in words, it's found in people and so really like being able to share your meaning and that's also that's another way to sort of share the story. Right. I'm just thinking about how important that is as a leader, because I can say to you, like you use the word diligent. I can say, I want you to be more efficient. What is the efficiency to me? May not be efficiency to you and so you have the person who is trying to be efficient operating under his or her definition of that, and it may not be what the managers is, and that's what makes communication. Difficult. It really is. We have this some Fraser we call the drama-free reality check and it's this gap between expectations and reality, and we're not saying have low expectations, but we wanted to shorten that Gap using some some of these skills and the worst thing that can happen. Kim. Is that, you know, you'd for you to say, Dennis, you need to be more diligent. And for the next week, I think I'm being diligent and, you know, and you look or efficient and you look out and go, Dennis, you're not efficient at, all right. And how frustrating is that for me? Because I think what Kim I'm doing everything that I thought you wanted me to do. And so many times this happens because even like, I don't even know what this means to you. So efficiency to you means one thing efficiency, to me means one thing, and you want to continue that kind of shorten that that gap between expectation and reality. And that is hard. What you're talking about, takes time and effort, and we're all very busy and particularly in leadership roles, Lots of times, we throw things out there and just expect people to know what we're talking about and then move on and especially if those people don't ask us questions we just assume they heard the message as we intended it to be received. And that's not always the case but investing that time upfront. Sure does pay off down the road. Yeah, it's almost like I think him some leaders. Have this idea that people have a sixth sense, you got the five senses and then they believe their teams. Have a sixth sense which is called you can read my mind, they have a migrating sense. Right? And you know and I get it's like there is a lot to do and I'm sure everybody on the podcast. It's like you know you have an overloaded to do list. Your you know, there's just so many things for you to do and my encouragement is that you, you have to go slow to go fast and what we mean by that is that if you keep trying to go faster and faster, you'll end up slowing down because you'll have to like redo things. And you know you'll have to let me go behind and Things. But if you can really learn to sort of just slow it down in the beginning, get real clear and get real Clarity of thought and Clarity of action. You'll eventually go faster. Yeah that makes tremendous sense and I'm just thinking about as we live in this, whatever world it is that was changed by the pandemic. And as we're, I don't know, rethinking re-evaluating some of these relationships and how we work together. I I think the tips and information you're going to provide at our conference, could not come at a better time. I really don't, and I really hope so. And, you know, and if anything, if leaders can really manage the story, right? Because especially, as we went through, like, we're kind of like past the great shutdown, right? And we're kind of in this reset, whatever, whatever we're calling it. There's still a lot of stories going on right now, and if we can really learn to just step in and be able to share our story, it really kind of builds that trust, which is sort of the foundation of all teams. Rick asked him, if I don't trust you, then I'm not going to be transparent with you. I'm not going to be vulnerable and maybe I'm not even going to ask you questions, right? Because whatever reason, I don't trust you and I'm not going to trust you if I don't know your story and where you where you came from. And so we're going to really look at this and give some practical strategies, which is what I think people need. Oh absolutely. So I am so excited for you to be here and especially for you to be working with our administrative leadership development team I think that group is going to learn so much and we're excited to be kicking off that event at this conference. So Dennis, thank you for being a part of this. Thanks to all of you for tuning in to this edition of Schoolbus chat. If you enjoyed this new episode, be sure to leave us a review on Apple podcast and Spotify and share this episode with others who may be interested in the topic until the next time. Take care and thanks for all you do. Keep students at the heart of school business will keep chatting. This has been SchoolBiz Chat with Kim Cranston. New episodes are released on the second and fourth Friday's of each month. If you have topics, you'd like to be covered in the future send Kim and email at K Cranston @moasbo dot-org?