Radio Front Desk
Radio Front Desk is a podcast that talks to real people in real clinics about what it takes to build a health and wellness business.
Host Denzil Ford, Editor-in-Chief of Front Desk magazine, digs into the inspiring stories of folks building their practices from the ground up — including what works, what hasn’t, and everything in between.
Created by the team at Jane App, this podcast is your source for discovering fresh ideas and proven strategies for clinic life. Join us on this journey of building a practice you love.
Radio Front Desk
The art of letting go: A masterclass in leadership for clinics | Melody Taylor, Growth & Development Coach at Jane
Melody Taylor is not a clinic owner. But she is the Growth and Development coach at Jane and knows a thing or two about leading a team, growing a business, and living up to your potential. And over the past year, Melody has become a mentor and coach for many other leaders at Jane.
In this episode, Denzil and Melody talk about letting go as a leader, establishing non-negotiables that can help you as you begin to guide others, and self-care that goes outside of the “Instagrammable”.
To check out more stories like Melody’s, head to frontdesk.jane.app.
Guest bio
Meet Melody Taylor, Jane’s Growth and Development Coach. With over 20 years of experience in strategy, leadership development, and executive coaching, Melody is passionate about helping businesses thrive through their people. She’s all about building genuine connections and crafting solutions that fit each client's unique needs. Melody blends sharp business insights with a personal, motivating touch to inspire purpose-driven growth in both individuals and teams.
In this episode
- It Begins with Trust article by Frances X. Frei and Anne Morriss
most of us who get into leadership roles it's because we were really good at doing the work and when it was our hands doing the work, we were really amazing at it. And when you transition into leadership and start making that transition into guiding the hands of others and having them do the work, that's really hard sometimes to let go of, but it's essential.
Speaker 2:On Radio Front Desk, I get to talk with health and wellness professionals on how they run their business usually. In today's episode, I'm sharing a bit of a different conversation. This time I sat down with Melody Taylor. She's not a clinic owner, but she is the growth and development coach here at Jane and knows a thing or two about leading a team, growing a business and living up to your potential. Over the past year, melody has become my mentor and coached many other leaders at Jane, so it only felt right to have her share some of her wisdom with you, our community.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Radio Front Desk, a show that surfaces what real people in real clinics are doing to open, run and grow successful health and wellness businesses. I'm your host, denzel Ford, editor-in-chief of Front Desk Magazine by JNAP. Here we have powerful conversations with health and wellness professionals on the business side of clinic life. We hear their stories and discover what works and how to do it, and we also talk about what doesn't work. If you want to check out more stories like this, head to janeapp forward slash front desk.
Speaker 2:This conversation is a really vulnerable one because I'm getting really real about some of the things that Melody coached me on, and I think that's where it gets really good, so I hope you enjoy it. There's something in this episode for everyone in health and wellness. So here we go, just to clarify why you're here with us today. You are a growth and development coach at Jane, and so this is a little bit different than some of our episodes, because you're not running a health and wellness business, but you do work at Jane and you're helping all of us become better leaders. So I thought it'd be really great for you to come on and just talk generally about leadership with me. So that's what I'm hoping to achieve today. Yay, before we get there, I wonder if you could just take us back to like how you got here. What's your journey, like what some things in your early life maybe that led to you being interested in leadership or coaching as a career, and then your early career as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great question. So, gosh, I would say like growing up I was an only child, single parent. We moved around quite a bit and so I probably found my way into leadership the way a lot of people do, which is seeking some sense of belonging and having some drive and wanting to get involved in things. Moving around a lot, you get to learn pretty quick how to make friends and getting involved in things and being seen as positive in that, I think, is really helpful. So I just would start to kind of make my way into various different things and then when I went to school, totally kind of different experience. I was the program that I went into. I started out in engineering. I got a degree in engineering first and yeah, do you have the?
Speaker 1:ring? I don't. I do have the ring. I don't wear it because you're not supposed to wear your end ring if you're not a practicing engineer. Oh, I did not know that. So it tells you a little bit about maybe.
Speaker 1:I'm a bit of a rule follower. From every now and then I like to break some, but then some others I like to follow. But I was always very reluctant about it and knew it wasn't what I was going to be in love with and want to practice forever. And actually when I first started working after I'd graduated, I found myself pretty quickly asking lots of questions about how the company worked and why we were making decisions the way that we were. Why did we operate the teams the way that we did?
Speaker 1:And because I was working as an engineer, the feedback that I got was yeah, that's not your job, Stay in your lane. So I thought, okay, is this the path that I want to be on for my career? And realized it wasn't. I wanted something that was more creative and allowed me to be strategic and to really explore. So I ended up going back to school doing MBA, and while I was there, I absolutely fell in love with strategy and organizational behavior. While I was there I absolutely fell in love with strategy and organizational behavior, so the kind of marrying of two sides of business from my perspective the human and the.
Speaker 1:What are we actually doing here?
Speaker 2:And, yeah, how do we get work done? What was your experience like doing an MBA? And I asked you that because I have a varied career journey as well and one of the things I considered was getting an MBA, but I never did that. I have my own reasons for that, but I'm curious what your experience was doing that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know what value you got out of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's funny because the I only applied to one program and I wasn't very interested in doing an MBA and I wasn't very interested in doing an MBA.
Speaker 1:I, I, I. It didn't appeal to me the idea of getting letters after your name for all those people who really value that. I'm not putting that down by any stretch, because it does add a lot of value for you, but I just I've always been a believer in I want to go after things that I don't know yet. I want to learn things I don't know yet, and so it never made sense to me. All of my friends and cohorts that were in the program that had finance undergrads and were doing a finance MBA, I thought what a missed opportunity to really expand your understanding. So when I chose that program, it was because they had a whole bunch of different specializations and I thought, oh, I can really explore here. And that ended up being the case. So I was like just a sponge. I went after everything. I studied chaos theory in business, I studied sustainability, not-for-profit, I studied strategy, like just all kinds of different things, so that I could shape it into what worked for me.
Speaker 2:Wow. I love that, so it does seem to have worked for you. You have had a career in coaching leaders, so would you tell us a little bit about that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, sure. So after I finished my degree, I went into consulting right off the bat. I think there's like a theme somewhere in my professional life of like I go to things, but it's like I don't want to do it the way that I'm used to seeing it. So when I got into consulting, the firm that I joined did everything through facilitation. So rather than going doing research, writing reports and kind of advising people on how to run their business, we had a really strong belief that the people in the business had the answers. They just needed to be unlocked.
Speaker 1:And how do you support people and help people to do that? So I cut my teeth in consulting with five straight years in tents of facilitating teams every single day and helping them make decisions about how to be better together, how to fix processes, how to set strategy, how to set goals all of that so incredible start to that world of helping companies be better through their people. Because worked in banking, I worked in construction, I worked in manufacturing and consumer products, like clients from so many different kinds of businesses and all having similar universal challenges when it came to how they got things done together oh, that's very interesting.
Speaker 2:That's fascinating. I'm sure you could write like a book on that.
Speaker 1:It's really fascinating and fun to see and and every every one of us, we all have unique experiences, and yet there are things that we all have in common in the ways that these things play out. I could go like a whole other podcast on like systems, dynamics and things like that. I won't go into that today, but just the ways that, as soon as you grab a group of people together and ask them to do things, there's some wild and crazy kinds of dynamics that come into play.
Speaker 2:That's a beautiful setup for where I want to go next, which is I want to get a little vulnerable and talk about how you were my leadership coach and I am willing to kind of like release some of those details. So hopefully I don't know. My hope is that maybe there's a story there that someone can relate to.
Speaker 2:That's the hope, so you're talking about systems thinking and I'm like OK, here's the segue. So yeah, you were my leadership coach, and something I think we might say that I was struggling with was being told that I was resistant to change, and so maybe I would come to the conclusion that I was resistant to change and I was also resistant to being told that I was resistant to change. So is that something that you, is that something that you have seen in other leaders, or is that like something that is kind of like a human thing to be experiencing at certain moments?
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah. I mean, you don't live life without going through change. Some of it you want, some of it you don't want, some of it you choose, and some of it you don't choose. Yeah, but you have to get through all of it, yeah. And so, um, I think for everyone, when they find themselves in a moment of resisting something, um, there are choices to be made, and some of them, and the only choices actually you can make as an individual, are the things that are in your control, yeah, and so I'm a big advocate of saying okay, well, what are those things and how ready do you feel to play in that territory?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you and I talked a lot about that, because I have a very particular way that I think the positive side of that is that I think in systems and I can analyze systems and come up with a process. I can also see around corners, things that are going to break. I also have strong opinions sometimes because I see these things, or I think I see these things Also. I live in a world where I've been doing this for kind of a while, and so words marketing maybe, but the kind of marketing I do is around words and creating messaging, and that I've been doing for a very long time. So how to do that is so straightforward to me.
Speaker 2:But when you're working with other people, an environment that is growing quite a lot, you can get into these moments where you're having a different reality than somebody else, and so this is where you and I had a lot of conversations about. I would say to you, like Melody, if we do this thing, this change that everyone thinks is such a great idea. It's gonna break these five things and no one else sees that these things are gonna break and or it's not important to them, but a lot of those four and a half of those things are gonna fall on team, so I care quite a lot about them. So how do we work through this? And I'm like I feel like I was saying to you a lot, like I'm right. I'm right because I know these things are going to break, like I can tell you right now.
Speaker 2:And what you said to me is what work is showing up, like that doing for you. And that was a moment where I really appreciated what you do and the skill that you bring, because it's not easy to put a mirror up in front of me. I have strong opinions and I wouldn't say that I'm somebody who holds them loosely. I tend to hold them very tightly, and so I just thought that was a beautiful moment and I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about how you do that. How do you hold a mirror up in front of somebody that you're coaching and help them kind of see like what it is that they're doing that might be holding them back, yeah it's a great question.
Speaker 1:So I think the very first thing that I will say and it's a gift of being able to be only a coach it can be challenging. I absolutely believe that it can be done when you're a coach as well as someone's leader. But the very first thing is, I believe in people's potential deeply and so, going in, I trust and I believe that if you choose to, you can get to where you want to be, and so I think that helps to be able to hold the mirror up, because I am constantly checking in with myself about is this in service? Like, am I hearing, am I listening, am I really seeing what's there? And then trying to offer that back.
Speaker 1:So the other thing I suppose is that I try not when I'm holding up the mirror, it's not with a definitive this is who you are, this is why you've done this. You know that's not holding the mirror up. Instead, it's saying hey, I just heard you say X, or you've said this before, and you're saying this now yeah, how do those two things fit? Yeah, and is it working for you? Right, right.
Speaker 1:So that's usually the approach that I take, so that belief in the potential and then the genuine curiosity about okay, this is what I'm seeing. And the genuine curiosity about okay, this is what I'm seeing, what's going on there and I think that's also somewhat over time and being in this work for a while is tuning in to the ways that people say things, the tone, you know if there's been hesitation before, and just really trying to pay attention to those various different cues and then use that to say, oh, there might be something there and also be willing to get it wrong. So sometimes I hold the mirror up and the person says, yeah, no, there's nothing there and that's okay. So to be okay with that too.
Speaker 2:You know I don't always that the little moment of like, oh, something, sometimes it's not are most people that you coach like energized by the process, or is there a wide variety of how people respond to the idea of being coached on their leadership style?
Speaker 1:you know something that I think, uh, so I've been doing this now at Jane for almost a year and a half and then for several years before that. I would say that it kind of falls into a few categories. So you have the folks who show up who say, yes, I want to be here, and you discover very quickly that they both want to be there and they're ready to do the work, and those ones like it's just easy, you know, because you're partnering in it. Right, and this is maybe a little a bit of a trick for any of you listening that are wanting to practice more coaching.
Speaker 1:One of the things, the traps that any of us can fall into is if I, as the coach, am doing the most talking in a conversation, I'm probably doing more work than the person I'm trying to coach, and so there's a dynamic of the effort of figuring things out should be with the person who's being coached. It's their work, it's about them. So if you, as a coach, find that you're doing all the talking, then something is something's off. Um, so usually if someone is has said they want it and they're ready, that flows very nicely and it's a very easy kind of back and forth.
Speaker 1:Then you get folks who are not ready and don't want it, and we shouldn't be starting that. You can't coach someone who isn't ready or doesn't want to be coached. It's a very futile kind of endeavor, right? So some of what coaching is, as well as negotiating upfront do you actually want this, which is important in any coaching relationship, but I think is even more important when you also share other roles with the person, particularly if you're their leader. And then there's the middle ground, which is I want this, but through the conversation you discover not quite ready. And then it's a process of saying okay, do we think that you can get there, um, and so sometimes that that's like an uncovering and and just allowing there to be space and time to see if that's going to happen or not right.
Speaker 2:Interesting, would you say more people are in any one of those camps across your career, or is it like divided evenly? I'm just curious, like how open in your line of work, like how open in general you think people are to the idea that to be a leader you kind of need to like be self-reflective and willing to some point. And I'm just wondering just overall as a whole how what you see there, like do people really, which camp do they fall into most often?
Speaker 1:I would say maybe 1%, probably less, of the people that I've worked with are are genuinely not coachable Right Um, and really shut down and don't want to learn, don't want to change. Um, the vast majority of people are, are welcoming of help, you know and and want to be better, genuinely want to be better. Um, even the people who, like I've done a lot of coaching where it wasn't the choice of the individual, they were part of a leadership development program or they were part of something that was going on in a business and they were basically said Okay, there's coaching as part of this and you're going to do it, and so that can be a challenge when you walk into the room with someone and they're like why should I listen to you?
Speaker 1:Well, first of all, it's not about listening to me. Yeah, so you kind of get into that rapport building pretty, pretty quick. You have to be able to do that pretty quick. But what I find is that even in those situations, people want to be listened to, they want to be able to share their story, they want to be able to do it in a way where they're not going to get back. You should do X. Why haven't you done Y?
Speaker 2:Judging for whatever it's been the amount like, I find myself shocked over and over again over the years about how few outlets we have at work for that as you're saying this, I'm thinking I think that's a huge reason why your coaching with me works so well, because you were truly curious about what my experience was, and that just allowed me to be open and it allowed me to look at the mirror and reflect on myself, whereas in other conversations I was just not getting that and it was like just change, just change.
Speaker 2:And I kept butting up against being told to just change and also like but I know it's gonna break and my job is is to create excellence. So I'm like I just feel stuck between all these things, like how do I create excellence while I let things break so that I can be flexible for change? It's just like I don't know what to do, and so I just think it's such a. I haven't really fleshed it out fully in this conversation, but it's a good example of how growing as a leader is bumpy sometimes and, um, it requires reflection and it's uncomfortable, but there's also like some tricks to it where, like, if you can feel heard and understood, I feel like you might be more willing to like get there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You said something earlier too, but when we first started working together, you had this sense of like oh, I'm right, yeah, right, you're not the only one who thinks they're right. You know the person on the other side.
Speaker 2:I feel like we're talking about leaders.
Speaker 1:I can't possibly be the only one who thinks I'm right, no exactly, but the person on the other end of that giving you the feedback of I just want you to change and do it this way, Totally.
Speaker 1:They're also saying right, right, right, and so if there's only one way to be, it's very hard to find a way forward that is together, yeah, so I think part of what you did, I think such a wonderful job of, is you started to let go of it needing to be your way in order to make room to discover okay, how else could this be?
Speaker 2:yeah, right, and I had to change my energy into almost like trying to protect what we had created up to that point, and change my energy, my focus, into like, okay, how am I going to? I guess this is like change management 101, but how am I going to bring my team along for this journey, knowing that these things are going to break, knowing that some of the excellence that we have built systems to create are going to have to be broken down and we might see some lower bars of excellence for a while, but that's just how it's going to have to be? While we go through this together and that's kind of how it ended up, working was shifting my focus from like a sense of protection to a sense of like we got to go through some bumpy roads for a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think there's something that we talked about at the time too, that you just, I think, also illustrated in what you just said, which is, yes, there may have been some things that needed to change, but there were also some fundamentals that you wanted to make sure you protected Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Like the quality of the work was not something that could be sacrificed. Yeah, so there are. I talk about them as non-negotiables yeah, really identifying what are the one or two things that you can't waver on yeah, and then letting everything else kind of flex around that, yeah, um, and I think that helps to anchor a little bit totally right to be able to then move. Okay, I can take action because I've got this, this piece that I can start with that idea helped me so much because it you and you were very clear.
Speaker 2:You like Denzel, you only get one or three like, and I was like I can do that, I can do, I can I need three, but I can do three, just three. And then it was like from there I was like okay, where I can be flexible and all these other things. So yeah, yeah, yeah, I love it. So let's get into some more of like what we're even talking about here, like what is leadership to you? What makes a great leader?
Speaker 1:Well, I've always loved the definition of leadership that is it is simply getting things done through other people. And more recently I've talked about it no longer being my hands doing the work, but I'm leading for everyone that transitions into leading others is our Western society. Most of us who get into leadership roles it's because we were really good at doing the work, and when it was our hands doing the work, we were really amazing at it. And when you transition into leadership and start making that transition into guiding the hands of others and having them do the work, that's really hard sometimes to let go of, but it's essential because, just really practical terms, you have two hands.
Speaker 1:You have a team of five people. How many more hands is that? Yeah? So usually what comes with leadership as well is an increase in some sort of scope, right. The expectation of what can be achieved when you have a team is bigger, right. And so if you stick with that notion of I have to be in control, I have to have my hands and everything, then you, by definition, limit what's possible in that entire team how do you coach somebody on letting go like that?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great question. That's a great question, I mean, honestly. I think what I try to do is ground in what's actually happening. So what is it that they want to see happening? Uh, that what they want to achieve, and is what they're doing right now achieving that right? It's usually pretty clear that it isn't right't, and if it is, then why are we having this conversation right? So, being able to get people to really think about their own situation and you're saying you're needing this and you're saying it looks like this right now, what's the nature of that gap and what's what do you think needs to happen?
Speaker 1:for that gap to be closed. Now, one hurdle I think that can sometimes come up is people will want to focus on what they get other people to do. So, as a leader, I have a team that I lead and I want Joey to do a better job in this area. How do I get them to do their job better? And I think you've maybe experienced this work that we did together. My first question would always be okay, well, so how are you interacting with Joey? What have you done to help set those expectations, clarify them, motivate them, create the conditions for them to do that work? And there's a lot of the ripples that that starts to have on the people around you without you actually having to go say to Joey, I need you to do this differently, right?
Speaker 2:I have a few things floating around in my head right now as we're talking. So I'm thinking about one way that I manage letting go. And then I also think that's related to one of my non-negotiables, but in the sense of, like, how I structure my team non-negotiable not so much how I relate to other people in the business, but the the idea is that I I let go by getting the right people in the right place, and I feel like that is such an important task that is so rich with opportunity, because you kind of need to know what environment you're bringing them into. It's something I've been talking a lot with the people on this podcast who are running these small clinics is how do they get the right people in the door?
Speaker 2:How do they make the assessment, in a short amount of time, of interviewing people Like who is the right fit for this role? And then for me, that's how I let go, though is I get the right people in the right role and then I'm very close for a bit. That's my other non-negotiable is that I'm not. I don't bring them in and say sink or swim. I'm very close, and different roles require different onboarding and training and all of this, but I definitely stay very close for a bit, and then I start to back off and then they need to come to me and they're like hey, remember me. And so that's kind of how I handle it is. I have to get the right people in the right role and then I can let go for sure Nice.
Speaker 1:You know, it's interesting because the other piece that I would say is in that process of letting go. I think sometimes people feel like I can either direct and tell and say, okay, I'm in control, do it my way, or I have to let it go completely and give people complete and utter freedom to do whatever they feel like doing, and that is very anxiety producing, because the leader is still responsible for the outcome in many instances, right? So what you're describing in that process of letting go is it's what are you letting go of? I actually think there are things that are essential for leaders to hold on to, and where I the distinction I make is let go of the how, hold on to the what and the why.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness, melody. No, you're like my worst nightmare right now. You know I'm like obsessed with the. How I know I know.
Speaker 1:So so this is the thing. Right Is, once you have those people in, yeah, and you know that they're doing what they need to do, obviously you, you've got to help guide the how, when, when it's for the first time, when things are being established, when someone's learning, uh. But once the once it's set and people know what they need to do, let them go, because more often than not, the how will be way better. This is going back to what I was saying about when it's only in my hands, I only have access to the how. That I know.
Speaker 2:When.
Speaker 1:I unlock that in other people. I have access to a whole bunch of other hows that I didn't anticipate. That could make it way better. So that's why I say but with that, holding on to the what and the why is really important, because that's what helps guide. Okay, I love that how, but I'm not sure how that actually drives our what and our why right now. And holding that, keeping yourself and your teams accountable to that so that they stay focused, they stay clear, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So let's switch gears a little bit to self-care. It's something of an interesting topic here because we are making this podcast for business owners who don't really have a lot of work-life balance. They are leaders. They are running around doing all kinds of things, busy trying to grow a business, trying to lead teams, trying to bring people in. Many of them are also practicing their work as practitioners too, and a lot of them their practice floats the business. So, or they're just the solo, you know business owner. So talk to me about the role of self-care in leadership and some some ways that in a real no nonsense kind of way, like without Instagram versions of this like what can people really do to make sure that they're taking care of themselves?
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, that's a great question, and aren't we all like figuring that out every day all the time? So I want to highlight one thing that you're saying is that people who run their own business sole practitioners, small teams, the stories, the pieces that I was just telling about like, how do you let go as a leader, right, when you're trying to help activate in other people? It's a reality for a lot of leaders that they are both still doing the work and they have to, along with leading the work of others, right? So I want to be careful to not kind of, in a black and white way, say you can't have your hands on anything, because sometimes it's just not practical, right, right. That said, I do think that people sometimes don't explore enough of what they could let go of.
Speaker 1:So I just want to, I just want to start with that, right? So, as far as the self care goes, I mean, again, this comes back to and it's challenging to do it at the beginning but the more that you can identify the things that are absolutely essential to you in your business, in what you care about, in the experience you want to create for clients, whatever the thing is for you that is most important. The more that you can get really clear and grounded in that, the easier it is to, every time there is a decision to make, to reduce some of the friction that comes with making that decision. Because I think that's part of what weighs on us, right? We only have so much capacity and we only have so much energy in a day, and to the degree that you can apply that energy where it's going to have the most impact, where it's going to be most meaningful, the better off it will be. You'll be tired, but it will feel good.
Speaker 1:It's when that energy goes into things where it's just like leaking away into stuff that doesn't create any meaning, right, that's, I find, what can be really wearing on people after a while. I mean, that's why something like Jane, just in general that's kind of why we exist, right is to help remove so much of that for our customers, right? So the self-care, I think, comes in in. How do you identify what's most critical, use that to make your choices and then be compassionate with yourself to say it's okay that all these things are falling off the list. Right, it really is Right. You know't, you can't get to all of it. Yeah, you know, I don't know if that's instagrammy or if that's really practical. You want to really like brass, tacks, stuff, right, trying to think.
Speaker 2:I love it though. I love it how it's like accepting that you kind of need to make trade-offs and but without the guilt. You don't need the guilt, you can just make the trade-off and move forward and feel great about the thing that you chose to do or the set of things that you chose to do, absolutely. Um, yeah, ali, our ceo, is always talking about this, like just finding small things, like she's. She's a big reader and she'll like be reading a book, but she's like I just read one small chapter a day, yeah, and that's her version of self-care, in a way, I guess, and growing and learning as well. She's like a lifelong learner, and that's just another little thing that floats in my head all the time because it's so doable. But over a month, you're getting so much information passing through you, totally, totally.
Speaker 1:I would very much advocate for, if there are things that you were already doing in your life that brought you recharge or energy, to try to keep doing those things and maybe even morphing them a little bit into being in support of the work that you're doing so they don't feel like. So I think sometimes for, especially for entrepreneurs, the whole concept of balance is like don't talk to me about balance, because you know it's not it's not possible and it just it already makes people feel like they're behind the eight ball because, yeah, I'm not balanced right.
Speaker 1:So instead it's like, okay, well, what are? How can you integrate some of the things that you love into the ways that you work? So, for example, years ago I worked with um, a guy who was starting his own business. It was in environmental consulting and he I partnered with him to help build vision and start establishing the major structures of his business as he sought to grow it, and one of his non-negotiables was that he had a young family and he wanted to be able to travel multiple times in the year and be able to work from anywhere that he was. And this was back in. Oh God, when would it have been 2012? So I think cloud computing was definitely getting going and was present, but it wasn't as predominant as it is now. But one of the things that we did in setting up his business is put all of their file systems on the cloud I went so that he and his people could access them from anywhere in the world that they were oh nice.
Speaker 1:And they would be live versions of their files. So something as small and simple as that was core to him being able to integrate those aspects of his life so that he could just run his business and still do all the things that he loved to do Right. So that's a small thing. It's like don't identify what the things are that matter to you in your personal life as well. And say, okay, how do I integrate those in?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that, so let's move to this one. So what do you think really make a business succeed? I have heard that you have a particular way of thinking about that in terms of, like, people being on their edge. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you bet, so I don't know of a business out there that isn't seeking to grow. There's not a lot, and especially in our day and age, the way that our economies are built and the way that our world works right.
Speaker 1:If companies aren't growing, they stop existing. So the impetus to grow is really, really strong and I believe very strongly that if people are growing in your business, your business is going to grow. So that means that any role that you're in, any work that you're doing, being able to find and say, okay, what's the edge of the thing? That I know, where's the territory that is unknown for me, how do I stretch just even that little bit into that territory? Because that energy and that drive to discover and to then integrate that new thing in that's how we grow, right, especially in a business like Jane. We're building software, right? We don't have a physical thing that we produce and sell, so it all comes down to what's in our brains and translating that into the products that we create. So if people aren't activated in thinking and thinking for themselves and thinking where can we go next and being on that edge, then we don't grow as a business, right? Yeah?
Speaker 2:yeah, I've kind of had a way of thinking about that that I've I don't know why, but it's just sort of been my way of thinking since I was a kid. Actually. I just I find things that are interesting around me and I become very curious about them. But then eventually one of them will be, it will seem really hard, and I always say to myself, okay, what's the thing that I want to do that I think I can't do, and then I go try to do it. And I don't always do them, but most of the time if I really sit down and I'm like, no, I'm going to take this so seriously, I get it done eventually. And that's kind of how I live. My life is like, looking at what I think is too hard, that I actually think I can't do it, and then I go try to do it and I feel like I imagine like people opening health and wellness businesses are kind of riding that edge a little bit. They're like this seems really big, but I'm going to do it.
Speaker 1:You know so.
Speaker 1:So something else I will add into this, right is, I think that when you're looking at big things, it can be, it can get overwhelming pretty quick if they get left in that big territory, right, um?
Speaker 1:So another uh piece that I also is linked to this idea of how do you be on that edge, how do you, how do you actually do that? Um is, uh, I often talk about that it's tough to balance performance and practice at the same time, um, and that often as adults, we don't give ourselves permission to be learning while we're also doing and performing. But it's it's exactly doing those things together that helps, um, being on the edge, being able to focus on your growth, actually just be integrated into your day-to-day. And the way that I find is easiest to do that is by taking something big that you want to achieve and saying, okay, what's the first, next step, what's just the thing, and how would I just do that for the next two weeks and just focus on that? Yeah, so I mean, there's a reason that habit forming, uh, books and, yeah, podcasts and you know are so prevalent.
Speaker 1:Right, because that's that is how we, how we learn and how we build those new behaviors into into habits. Um, it also helps to normalize failing, which I have a feeling most of the, if not all the listeners that are started their own business are really familiar with right, you gotta get okay with failure. Yeah, and I find that if you use the mindset of practicing something, just the word practice takes some of the pressure off of it having to be perfect and having to get it right.
Speaker 1:And if it's something that's small, there's like an element of play in practicing something. I find that all of those things are really helpful for, okay, it didn't go the way that I expected it to go. Okay, let's leave that, try it again. I've tried it a number of times and it's still not going the way that I needed to go. Okay, maybe I'll adjust, right Right, but when we keep things small, that's way easier to do Right Right.
Speaker 1:Then, if it's like massive thing that we invested, a whole bunch of time, money and people, people resources into and people resources into.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we just wrote a little piece on this and we're using the Front Desk magazine as an example of something big, and how we broke it down into steps to get it going and how, for the first year and a half of its life, the magazine we didn't know if we were going to get another one. We were just making one. For a year and a half, we were just like we're going to make one magazine and then that has a million little steps in it to get to that point and then keep going Right, and so that is. That is definitely something that my team and I live very vividly.
Speaker 1:I'm curious did you celebrate along the way with those little?
Speaker 2:steps. I'm curious did you celebrate along the way with those little steps? So I am not great at celebrating along the way. My team often reminds me and we do little things, but they're often the ones that drive the celebration, because my mindset is very locked into doing things that I think I can't do, and then, once I do it, I go well, what's the next thing I can't do? So once we made a magazine, I'm like, well, now I need to make a podcast. But the other thing is I just want more work. That's the reward for me, and so in this I was just talking with some other people about this, where it's like I need to actually actively think about what other people need for celebration and for recognition, because I I I personally don't need all that, and it's not the greatest thing in the world, but I just want more work and more responsibility and more opportunity to do bigger things, so that is your celebration though that it is yeah, like for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you did all of that work and then there wasn't the next thing or you were stopped from the next thing, you wouldn't feel recognized, correct, right, yeah, so it still is. It's just a different mechanism. It's just different.
Speaker 2:I just need to be sensitive to other people who are there. Like, can we?
Speaker 1:say, yay, well. So the thing is is like, anytime you're trying to build towards some new future and you're taking those small steps along the way, being able to celebrate along the way is essential. Yeah, in whatever way makes sense for people Because it builds momentum right. You recognize the small win and then people go, oh, oh, we, we did that, we can do that. Maybe we can do the next thing. Okay, I, I, that gives me some energy, I can move into the, into what the next thing? So it's building belief and it's keeping energy going Right. And you just think about the contrast of that and not recognizing and it having done the small thing and okay, it gets to the.
Speaker 1:It gets to, that small thing is done and it worked well, but it's like crickets, it's radio silence yeah and then the next thing starts and you get to the end of that small thing and it's crickets, it's radio sound, it all just starts to feel like work, yeah it.
Speaker 2:It feels like a grind right yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so like that's maybe the other another real. I don't know if it's a secret, but I think a really important part of being on the edge and growing is that it is essentially disruptive and it's uncomfortable. So if you're a leader trying to help your people grow, help your business grow, and you can see that they're in that uncomfortable territory, great, you want them there, but how do you help them feel as comfortable as they can in that discomfort and want to continue to build on it? Right, For anyone who hasn't looked into this in their world, take a look at the neuroscience of leadership.
Speaker 1:There's a researcher named David Rock who's done a lot of great work looking at the ways that our human brain reacts to and what we see as threat versus what we see as reward, and applying that in the world of leadership, and it's really. It's fantastic stuff because we're all kind of what's the word? We all have a reptilian brain. We all have ways that we immediately react and respond when we see something as a threat. So when we can shift that to seeing it as a reward, it makes us lean in and want to do more Right yeah.
Speaker 2:So that's interesting because one of my questions was about how to motivate people as a leader and I just wonder like if there's anything else you would add to this, because we're kind of like roundabout talking about how to motivate people through reward and and like recognizing things that we've done together and that would apply in any setting, but is there anything else you would say about motivating people?
Speaker 1:you know, I was thinking about about this ahead of time and thinking about kind of my my own experience in leading and one of the things that has always stayed with me, that when I figured it out I was like, oh okay, I got to make sure. I remember this was the power of of listening genuinely listening to when you ask someone what their experience is and they tell you their experience to genuinely listen to it and then respond to it. I found in myself there were times where I would ask the question and I would listen to the person telling me their experience and then I would try to help in a way that was reshaping it into what I thought their experience should be.
Speaker 2:So why doesn't that work? Why doesn't that work? It's such a common thing to do and it's like what is? Why is it so hard to just actually just sit and listen? And why do people, humans feel the needs to be compelled to respond and change the other person's reality? What is that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I would say that it's not actually listening. Oh, oh yeah, so it's waiting to hear the thing that reinforces what you already think, so that you can then be the person in the room that is the smart one, that knows what they're talking about. That everybody else says, oh yeah, melody knows what they're talking about that. Uh, everybody else says, oh yeah, melody knows what she's talking about.
Speaker 2:She's smarter than me so you're, that's just a quest to be right. Yeah, oh my goodness, yeah yeah, oh, my goodness.
Speaker 1:So for me, like, uh, I had one example at a firm that I was with for a number of years where we had an incredible team, a team a lot like Jane people who cared so much and were so invested in the work and were excellent at their jobs, and yet we still had moments of feedback from folks that were in coordinator positions. So we had the consulting team that designed and delivered all the work, and then we had this incredible coordination team that made it all happen. And we started hearing feedback that they're like, we don't feel like we're valued, we don't feel like we're being listened to. And I said, okay, I'm going to make this my mission for this to not be true anymore with this team.
Speaker 1:And I started doing a few really like simple things. I did do the what you would expect of sit down and meet with them and say, okay, what's going on? Why don't you feel valued? What is that about? Um, I definitely recognized in myself with a few of the folks. I'm like that's not a real thing, like I definitely had that in the back of my mind. Um, and then, but, then, but I cared about these people more than I cared about whether or not I agreed with what they were saying, and so one of the things I started doing was I tended to be someone this is back when we were all in the office I would never break for lunch, I would always just work straight through lunch.
Speaker 1:I purposely stopped doing that because that whole team always broke for lunch and they would sit just work straight through lunch. I purposely stopped doing that because that whole team always broke for lunch and they would sit in the boardroom and eat. Oh interesting, so I would just go join them and just to be there and spend time with them, Right, and I did that over a period of months. And then the other thing that I did was I started saying okay, when we start projects, I want you to come and be part of it and I want you to start telling us what information you need and when you need it. And in some cases, that meant they were involved maybe earlier than they wanted to be, and I definitely struggled at times with being like okay, you're in this meeting, like you gotta contribute you gotta add value right and.
Speaker 1:But I realized over time that actually they just really need to know what's going on. They may not provide input at that very beginning stage when we're in the design kind of conversations, but them being part of it early on meant they could flag things.
Speaker 1:Cause we would do all kinds of wild and crazy stuff and they are the ones who had to book, you know, the improv group in a small town in Utah or something like that. Right, so having them in there earlier just meant that they could flag things and it turned like it completely turned things around, of them saying, okay, like we know now what's going on, and that translation to them, feeling like they're heard and valued and part of the team yeah, I think that was quite something is there something in there of like letting go of formal authority?
Speaker 2:yeah, how do you? What are your thoughts on that? How do you do that?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that's an interesting one, well, hmm. So one thing that I will I'll just acknowledge right off the bat is, I would say, most of my experience has been in the world of consulting, which is very project driven, and I think that a project structure lends itself to not being as hierarchical.
Speaker 2:Oh, interesting.
Speaker 1:Because in a project you have roles, everybody has the roles that they're playing, and so you can manage the authority that way. So I would say that that kind of structure can be very helpful. What are we trying to achieve together and what are all of our roles in it? I think one of the other things that can help let go of authority, too, is that those roles vary from project to project, so where you might be the sponsor or the champion on one, you might be the person who is being told okay, here's what we need to do.
Speaker 2:This is a podcast, Like my team just like tells me what to do all day. I'm like what do you want me to do?
Speaker 1:Totally, totally. So that's one way, right, to kind of trade those roles a little bit here and there. And then I think, honestly, I would say that to not pretend that there isn't an authority difference when there is, that's interesting Right. When you have power over someone's livelihood, that doesn't go away, right. So to be kind of honoring of that and transparent on that right, acknowledging of it, I think is also really powerful right.
Speaker 1:So to be able to say, okay, we're starting this thing together, powerful Right. So to be able to say, okay, we're starting this thing together and I recognize that I have this, I have this access to information, I have this set of relationships, I have, you know, this, say, over our timeline, and I am, I am going to be clear about those things. And it's again kind of back to our non-negotiables in a way, right, right, but here's all the territory that we have that is open field and room to play in. And then to be really clear about holding yourself accountable to keeping that field open when you've made it open, to keeping that field open when you've made it open. There's nothing more frustrating, I think, for members of a team to be kind of given something and say okay, yeah, make it your own. And then they come back with a thing and it's like no, that's not what we're going to do.
Speaker 1:If there's any kind of hint that that's going to happen, you're better off to just say guys, we got to do it this way, Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I love that. Okay. So what are some practical things that you might be able to pull for people I guess for anyone, but I mean obviously primarily our listeners are running these health and wellness businesses. So what are some things they can think about to improve their own leadership or to think about themselves as a clinic owner? Being a leader in their clinic. You know, what are some things, that just simple, actionable things that people might do to just make some small changes that would make a big difference.
Speaker 1:Yeah, great question. So one of the things I would say off the bat is take deliberate moments to pause and both reflect yourself, but get your team to reflect on how is how we're working together going? So not how is the work, but how is how we're working going, so that there is an opportunity to say oh, you know, last week we had this kind of exchange and it didn't feel great and I would love it if we could do this instead. I think, so much of the time we're moving so fast and anytime you are building business, the business is the focus, rightfully, and so we're in it.
Speaker 1:Sometimes people use the language of working on the business versus in the business, and it's a bit of a confusing term, but it's like okay, if all we focus on 100% of the time is the work itself, there will be these little rubs that are building up over time, and so I think it's like having a bit of a release valve for that. I would say there's one thing you can do is just have a regular rhythm whether that's once a month, once a week, whatever works for your team to just say, hey, how are we doing? And to genuinely make that all that we're talking about, Not that, it's like five minutes, you know, tacked on to an already packed agenda so that it falls off every time you have it there, but make it that that's all it is.
Speaker 1:I think that that's really helpful to just allow that to get expressed before it builds and builds, and builds, to where now people are like, well, this is.
Speaker 1:I can't talk to denzel about this, because this is, this is just how it is yeah yeah, you want to get past that, because once that solidifies, it can be hard to yeah, get past. Yeah, um, yeah, so that would be one. Say the question for me one more time, because I know I had another. Oh no, it's okay, I have the other. So, when it comes to leading other people, I remember sharing this with you early on and I still really love it.
Speaker 1:So much of what makes for effective teamwork is founded in trust and whether or not you trust someone, and I really believe that that's not just something that is a black and white thing I either trust you or I don't. It's also not something that you have all the time and then it's gone, or like it's not binary that way. It's something that you can invest in, you continue to build. It's alive just because you had a really strong trust and rapport with somebody here. If it's been a while or if something's taken away from that, it can be built up, but it's like an active thing, it's a living thing, right? So one of the other kind of practical things I would always say for leaders is to really look at yourself and say, okay, do I trust the people that I have on my team? Do I genuinely believe that they can do the job, that they are committed to it, that they care about it and that I can rely on them to do the job. So I think we had talked about.
Speaker 1:There's a number of different models out there. I usually talk about it as a trust triangle of care, competence and let's see one Consistency, yeah, yeah. So does the person care right? And if they don't, then what are the kinds of conversations that can either help them to care more? Or you know what does that look like Right Competence Do they know how to do the job? Do they have the skills Right? And if not, how can you help build that? And then consistency Are they reliable in it Right? Are they delivering it over and over again?
Speaker 1:I find that breaking that apart can help you kind of define yourself. If I don't feel like I can trust yet, here's maybe the territory where I can do some work to help support that person. So I can, yeah, yeah. And then the other side of that I was looking up. There's a really great article that's titled it. It begins with trust and it's from two researchers, francis Frey and Anne Morris, and they talk about trust as well, of identifying where your trust wobble is so they kind of. I won't go into detail on what they are, but they talk about there being a few different categories of trust and we all tend to have a place that we wobble, where we kind of fall down on that a little bit. If there's a place where we're going to fail someone else and their trust in us, it'll be in that area. So for me, for example, if I'm honest with myself, mine can often be in the care category, because the way that I show care often is through my competence and consistency especially at work.
Speaker 1:And, you know, following through on things and doing what I said I was going to do, doing a good job of it. To me there's a direct translation of that with care, but for a lot of other people that doesn't translate to care at all. A lot of other people that doesn't translate to care at all. So I've learned over time to really be intentional about checking in, seeing asking where people like how they're doing what's been going on, Right, because I do genuinely care about those things. They just didn't come as naturally to me to express.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, yeah, I love that. Well, this has been such a great conversation, melody, thank you so much for coming, for your time and your wisdom. It's been so helpful and I think that our listeners are going to really get a lot out of this. So thank you so much. Thank you, it's been my pleasure. I love it, that's a wrap.