Insights from ‘Leading Excellence’: Brad Jevons and Stephen Dargan on Adaptive Leadership

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My guests for Episode #512 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast are two of three co-authors of the upcoming book “Leading Excellence: 5 Hats of the Adaptive Leader” – Brad Jeavons and Stephen Dargan.

Stephen Dargan

A diverse and inclusive, customer-centric, driven transformational leader with 20+ years of leadership experience spanning Australia and Europe. Stephen is a Shingo Institute Alumni, Shingo Facilitator and Examiner. He is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and a certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt.

Brad Jeavons

Brad Jeavons is a senior leadership coach focused on helping improve themselves and their organisations to create a better future economically, socially and environmentally for future generations. He is host of the Enterprise Excellence Podcast and Community and author of the book Agile Sales: Delivering Customer Journeys of Value and Delight. Brad was a guest back in episode 416, June 2021.

In this episode, Brade and Steve share insights into the key concepts of adaptive leadership, including the importance of understanding individual team members, cultivating psychological safety, and the five essential leadership hats: Inspire, Train, Support, Coach, and Direct. Brad and Stephen also discuss real-life applications, the significance of leadership shadow, and the critical role of serving the growth of others to drive organizational excellence.

Questions, Notes, and Highlights:

• What are some factors contributing to low employee engagement?
• Can you elaborate on the concept of the leadership shadow and its impact?
• What behaviors help cultivate psychological safety and engagement?
• What does it mean to be a leader who serves, and why is it important?
• How can leaders develop the ability to be adaptive or situational?
• What are the five hats referenced in the subtitle of your book?
• Why is controlling emotions crucial for leaders, and how can they improve this skill?

The podcast is brought to you by Stiles Associates, the premier executive search firm specializing in the placement of Lean Transformation executives. With a track record of success spanning over 30 years, it's been the trusted partner for the manufacturing, private equity, and healthcare sectors. Learn more.

This podcast is part of the #LeanCommunicators network. 

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Episode Summary & More

The Five Hats of the Adaptive Leader: Insights from Lean Blog Interviews

Welcome to an overview inspired by a recent episode of the Lean Blog Interviews. This fascinating conversation with Brad Jevons, Stephen Dargan, and occasionally referenced Chris Butterworth, gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the philosophy and strategies presented in their upcoming book, Leading: The Five Hats of the Adaptive Leader. This isn't just a book but a practical guide aimed at transforming leadership across various sectors.

Who Are the Authors?

Brad Jevons, Stephen Dargan, and Chris Butterworth are three experienced professionals with diverse backgrounds in leadership, Lean thinking, and continuous improvement. Their combined expertise provides a comprehensive approach to leadership transformation.

1. Brad Jevons: A senior leadership coach with a focus on improving leaders and their organizations, striving for economic, social, and environmental betterment.
2. Stephen Dargan: A Shingo Institute alum with 20+ years of leadership experience across Australia and Europe, emphasizing inclusive and customer-centric transformation.
3. Chris Butterworth: An award-winning author and international speaker, known for embedding a culture of continuous improvement.

The Need for Adaptive Leadership

Shingo Principles in Financial Services

In the realm of financial services, traditional methods often emphasize processing transactions (or “widgets”) with little focus on customer experience. However, institutions like the Commonwealth Bank Group have shown remarkable improvement by adopting Shingo principles. Their journey illustrates the potential for transformative leadership in an industry typically resistant to such change.

Challenges:

• Focus on transactional processes over customer experience
• Lack of mature continuous improvement culture

Solutions:

• Embracing Shingo principles for continuous improvement
• Investing in leadership behaviors that align with these principles

Real-world Applications: A Case Study

Stephen Dargan shared his experience in transforming underperforming financial service divisions into globally recognized entities within three years. This transformation was driven by embedding continuous improvement culture and focusing on both customer and employee engagement.

The Role of Leadership in Lean Implementation

The Leadership Shadow

A critical aspect identified in the book is the concept of the “leadership shadow.” This term highlights the significant impact a leader's behavior can have on the entire organization.

High engagement scores in top-performing companies are closely linked to the experience employees have with their direct managers. Conversely, many organizations with lackluster growth are plagued by poor leadership practices and low employee engagement.

Factors for Successful Transformation

1. Direct Leader Experience: Employees' relationship with their direct leader is crucial.
2. Meaningful Goals: Employees need to feel that their work contributes to the overall mission of the organization.

Practical Guidance for Leaders: The Five Hats of the Adaptive Leader

Learning from Stories and Case Studies

Unlike many theoretical books on leadership, Leading: The Five Hats of the Adaptive Leader aims to be a hands-on manual. It is designed to be referenced continually, filled with real-life applications and case studies to guide leaders through practical implementations.

Components of the Book

1. Foundational Concepts: Introduces key principles and frameworks.
2. Real-life Applications: Showcases case studies demonstrating these principles in action.
3. Experiential Learning: Focuses on hands-on application, offering tools and methods for leaders to implement within their own organizations.

Highlight: Leaders Who Serve

A fundamental component of sustaining excellence is the concept of “leaders who serve.” This aligns closely with Agile principles, which emphasize servant leadership as a cornerstone for successful, sustainable transformation.

Challenges and Opportunities in Modern Leadership

Employee Engagement: The Global Dilemma

Engagement statistics worldwide reveal a troubling trend of low employee engagement. This issue directly impacts organizational performance and growth.

Why Engagement Is Low:

• Poor relationships with direct managers
• Lack of meaningful, impactful goals
• Absence of growth and improvement opportunities

Addressing the Issue:

• Foster strong, supportive relationships between leaders and employees
• Set clear, meaningful objectives that drive organizational progress
• Invest in continuous learning and improvement initiatives

The Critical Role of Leadership

Top-performing companies consistently achieve high engagement scores by ensuring that every employee has a meaningful role and can see the impact of their work. Leaders in these organizations focus on:

• Developing strong, supportive relationships with their teams
• Clearly communicating goals and the pathway to achieve them
• Encouraging a culture of continuous improvement

Conclusion: A New Paradigm for Leadership

Leading: The Five Hats of the Adaptive Leader doesn't just present a new leadership theory but provides a practical, actionable guide for leaders across various sectors. By focusing on real-world applications and experiential learning, it aims to drive significant, sustainable improvements in organizational culture and performance. Whether in financial services, corporate settings, or non-profit organizations, the principles and practices outlined in this book can help leaders navigate the challenges of modern business and foster a more engaged, effective workforce.

Stay tuned for the book's release and embrace the opportunity to transform your leadership approach with tried-and-true principles and innovative strategies.

The Power of Rituals in Leadership

One significant point that emerged from the discussion with Brad Jeavons and Stephen Dargan is the importance of daily rituals in leadership. A prime example mentioned in their book involves a leader who took specific, daily actions to connect with their team and reinforce the organization's values. Every morning, this leader would walk around the office, greet employees, and genuinely inquire about their lives. Such simple, yet impactful, actions cast a “positive shadow.”

Positive Impact of Leadership Rituals

• Personal Connection: This daily interaction made the employees feel valued and seen, fostering a supportive work environment.
• Customer Experience Feedback: The leader reviewed customer feedback from the previous day, identified the team member involved, and personally thanked them for their contribution. This kind of recognition linked daily tasks to the organization's broader purpose.

These consistent behaviors led to a cultural shift, with 28 managers eventually adopting similar practices. This ripple effect magnified the initial positive impact, promoting a culture of recognition and alignment with organizational goals.

Cultivating Employee Engagement

Employee engagement is often treated as a KPI measured through annual surveys. However, Stephen Dargan emphasizes that high-level engagement is not just a metric to be achieved but a culture to be fostered. Meaningful engagement arises from daily interactions, a strong development culture, and leaders who genuinely serve their teams.

Key Steps to Increase Engagement

1. Foster Personal Growth: Career development opportunities should be pivotal, especially in roles often sidelined, such as contact center positions.
2. Continuous Improvement Culture: Encourage employees to be proactive in suggesting improvements. Celebrate successes and treat failures as learning opportunities.
3. Psychological Safety: Make employees feel safe to speak up and share their insights without fear of retribution. This safety is crucial for fostering innovation and engagement.

Psychological Safety and Leadership Shadow

The concept of the “leadership shadow” extends into the creation of psychological safety within teams. Leaders set the tone for an open, trusting environment by their own behaviors. According to Edward Deming's principles, 95% of issues stem from poor systems and processes rather than individual errors. Understanding this distinction is crucial for developing a culture where mistakes are seen as opportunities for systemic improvement rather than individual failings.

Cultivating Psychological Safety

• Blame Processes, Not People: When errors occur, investigate the system's shortcomings rather than blaming individuals.
• Understand Individual Interference: Recognize that both intrinsic (mental health, self-confidence) and extrinsic (external pressures, unsafe work environments) factors influence performance. Providing the right support can significantly reduce these interferences.
• Support Mechanisms: Implement mechanisms that help employees manage their interference, thus enabling them to perform optimally.

High-Performance Formula and Development Systems

High-performing teams are not built overnight. They require structured support and development systems that identify and cultivate talent from within.

Developing an Effective Talent Pipeline

1. Identify Capability Gaps: Regularly evaluate the organization's skills matrix to identify where gaps exist.
2. Upskill from Within: Utilize existing employees, such as those in contact centers, who may have undeveloped potential for roles in coding, product development, or other areas.
3. Transparent Career Paths: Provide clear pathways for career advancement, making roles more attractive and reducing attrition rates.

Moving Beyond Traditional One-on-Ones

Traditional one-on-one meetings often focus on past performance and future expectations without addressing the systemic issues employees face daily. Stephen Dargan advocates for a more holistic approach.

Transforming One-on-One Meetings

• Environment-focused Discussions: Spend time understanding the employee's work environment and how it can be improved.
• System Efficiency: Work together to identify waste and areas for improvement in their workflows, leading to a more satisfying work experience.
• Facilitate Growth: Ensure these meetings serve as a platform for discussing career growth and development opportunities.

This adaptive leadership framework, as illuminated by Jeavons, Dargan, and Butterworth, underscores that leadership is not just about strategic decisions but daily, consistent actions that align with organizational values and foster a culture of continuous improvement and engagement.

By adopting these principles, leaders can transform their organizations into thriving hubs of innovation, engagement, and sustained success. Whether one is leading a financial institution or a startup, the core tenets of adaptive leadership remain universally applicable, ensuring leaders are equipped to navigate the complexities of modern business environments.

Servant Leadership: Fulfilling the Growth of Others

One of the standout tenets from Brad Jeavons and Stephen Dargan's work is the deep-rooted emphasis on servant leadership. This model, which encourages leaders to serve the growth of their team members, offers a transformative way to approach leadership duties. It isn't merely about guiding a team to meet organizational goals; it's about nurturing the personal and professional growth of individuals, which, in turn, fuels the collective success of the organization.

Key Elements of Servant Leadership

• Emotional Intelligence: Leaders must first master the art of pausing and controlling emotions. Being able to detach from immediate emotional responses allows leaders to make more thoughtful and effective decisions.
• Understanding Context: It's not just about the situation but the holistic context surrounding a person, including intrinsic and extrinsic factors that impact their performance.
• Purpose and Alignment: Connect team members' personal values and goals with the organization's mission. This alignment fosters a sense of purpose and belonging.

The Adaptive Leadership Model

The concept of adaptive leadership is built around the ability to change one's leadership style to meet the demands of different situations and individuals. Stephen Dargan emphasizes the importance of understanding individual traits and contexts to tailor leadership approaches accordingly. This flexibility is pivotal in today's fast-paced, volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world.

Components of Adaptive Leadership

1. Situational Awareness: Understand each team member's unique personality, motivations, and challenges.
2. Emotional Management: Leaders must practice pausing between stimulus and response, a practice endorsed by both Stephen Covey's principles and modern organizational psychologists.
3. Behavioral Adaptation: Choose the optimal leadership behavior based on the situation and individual needs. This might require immediate action or a more supportive, coaching-based approach.

The Five Hats of Leadership

In their book, Jeavons and Dargan introduce the concept of the “Five Hats” that leaders should wear to navigate various scenarios effectively. Each hat represents a different aspect of leadership but collectively forms a comprehensive leadership toolkit.

The Five Hats

1. Inspire Hat:
   • Purpose and Values: Understand and align both personal and organizational values.
   • Core Belief System: Connect the team's core beliefs with the company's mission.
2. Training Hat:
   • Skill Development: Leaders as trainers ensure that team members are well-equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge.
   • Upgradation: Regularly assess and update training programs to keep them relevant.
3. Support Hat:
   • Active Listening: Practice empathetic listening to understand the emotional and practical needs of team members.
   • Vulnerability: Leaders showing their own vulnerabilities can build trust and foster psychological safety.
4. Coaching Hat:
   • Empowerment: Encourage team members to find their own solutions and paths to growth.
   • Reflective Practices: Facilitate reflective practices that help team members learn from their experiences.
5. Direct Hat:
   • Decisiveness: In situations requiring immediate action or when addressing major cultural violations, leaders must be direct.
   • Safety and Compliance: Ensure that the core operations are safe and compliant, and take immediate action when there are deviations.

Building a High-Performance Culture

Servant leadership and the adaptive leadership model converge on one critical aspect: building a high-performance culture. This culture emphasizes continuous improvement, personal growth, and a supportive environment, creating a thriving ecosystem for innovation and productivity.

Strategies for High-Performance Culture

• Talent Development Systems: Create transparent paths for career growth and skill enhancement within the organization.
• Recognition and Reward: Consistently recognize and reward behaviors that align with organizational values and contribute to overall success.
• Feedback Mechanisms: Establish clear and constructive feedback mechanisms that foster improvement without blame.

Implementing the Five Hats

As leaders implement these strategies, they must recognize that becoming proficient in each “hat” takes time and practice. They might be strong in some areas and weaker in others, so focusing on continuous improvement is crucial.

Practical Steps

1. Self-Assessment: Regularly evaluate your strengths and areas for improvement in each of the five leadership dimensions.
2. Training: Partake in leadership development programs that enhance skill sets across all five hats.
3. Mentorship and Coaching: Engage with mentors and coaches who can provide guidance and feedback.

By delving into these principles and continually refining their approach, leaders can create resilient, high-performing teams that thrive in any environment, be it volatile, uncertain, complex, or ambiguous. This is the essence of leading excellence in today's dynamic world.

The Modern Leadership Challenge

Leaders today are faced with an unprecedented set of challenges largely due to the rapid evolution of technology and the changing dynamics of the workforce. As Brad Jeavons points out, the landscape of leadership in the 1930s bears little resemblance to the multifaceted complexities modern leaders face. Social media, digital communication, and the entry of Gen Z into the workforce are reshaping the way leadership must be approached.

Bridging the Generational Communication Gap

Effective communication is a cornerstone of successful leadership, and understanding the communication preferences of different generations is critical. For instance, many of the new entrants into the workforce, born circa 2019-2021, predominantly communicate through text and social media platforms. This shift necessitates that leaders adapt their communication strategies to be more inclusive and effective.

• Text and Social Media Proficiency: Leaders must become proficient in using platforms that younger generations engage with daily. This includes not only understanding the technical aspects but also the cultural norms and etiquettes within these digital spaces.
• Avoiding Assumptions: It's easy to assume that all team members are familiar with traditional business communication methods like email. However, this isn't necessarily the case for the younger workforce. Leaders should ensure they offer training and guidance on these essential skills.

Evolving Leadership Practices

The rapid technological advancements and the influx of a younger workforce call for continuous evolution in leadership practices. Adaptive leadership plays a significant role in addressing these evolving challenges. Leaders must remain flexible, continuously assess the changing landscape, and adjust their strategies accordingly.

• Continuous Learning and Development: To keep up with the changing times, leaders should invest in their own education and skill development. This includes keeping abreast of the latest technological trends, understanding new communication tools, and developing digital literacy.
• Empathy and Patience: Understanding that leadership is a privilege, not a right, and that it comes with its own set of difficulties. Approaching these challenges with empathy and patience can foster a more inclusive and supportive work environment.

Practical Implementation: Wearing the Five Hats

For leaders committed to evolving and adapting to the new challenges, practical implementation of the “Five Hats” model is essential. Here are some further steps on integrating this approach into daily leadership:

Inspire Hat: Fostering Motivation and Alignment

• Digital Narratives: Utilize social media and other digital tools to create compelling narratives that resonate with younger team members' values and aspirations.

Training Hat: Ensuring Technological Fluency

• Interactive Workshops: Conduct workshops that are not just about skill-building but also about understanding how these skills are applied in a digital and often remote work environment.
• Peer Learning: Encourage a culture where tech-savvy younger employees can share their expertise with others, creating a cross-generational learning environment.

Support Hat: Enhancing Emotional Well-Being

• Mental Health Resources: With the digital age comes an increased risk of information overload and burnout. Provide resources and support systems that help team members manage stress and maintain mental well-being.
• Remote Support Systems: Implementing remote team-building activities and virtual check-ins can help maintain a sense of connection and support even when not physically present.

Coaching Hat: Empowering Through Guidance

• Digital Mentorship Programs: Set up mentoring programs that use digital tools for communication and program management, making mentorship accessible and efficient.
• Feedback Loops: Establish continuous and constructive feedback mechanisms using digital platforms to help team members grow and learn in real-time.

Direct Hat: Leading with Clarity and Decisiveness

• Clear Digital Policies: Develop and clearly communicate policies regarding digital communication, social media use, and remote working expectations.
• Crisis Management: Prepare to lead decisively in online crises, whether they're related to cybersecurity, public relations on social media, or team coordination in remote settings.

Concluding Remarks on Leadership

While this is not a conclusion to the discussion, it's important to acknowledge the ever-evolving nature of leadership. As Brad Jeavons and Stephen Dargan's conversations illustrate, leadership is a challenging yet rewarding journey that requires continuous learning, adaptation, and a willingness to embrace new paradigms of communication and management. By adopting the principles of servant and adaptive leadership, and utilizing concepts like the “Five Hats,” leaders can foster resilient, high-performing teams ready to tackle challenges of the modern world.

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Automated Transcript (Not Guaranteed to be Defect Free)

Mark Graban:
Hi, welcome to lean blog interviews. I'm Mark Graban, our guest today. Joining us from Australia are two of the three co-authors of the upcoming book titled Leading Five Hats of the Adaptive Leader. So we're joined today by Brad Jevons, who's been on the podcast before, and Stephen Dargan, the third co author for the book is Chris Butterworth. And the book should be available, or will be available in August, I should say. And the Kindle version, even right now as we're recording this in the middle of May, the Kindle version can be pre ordered on Amazon. So, Stephen, I'll say first, welcome to the podcast. How are you?

Stephen Dargan:
Thanks, Mark. It's lovely to be here. And obviously it's 06:00 in the morning over here, so I've had my coffee and ready to go.

Mark Graban:
Yeah.

Stephen Dargan:
So bright and early. Yeah, yeah.

Mark Graban:
I'm glad you had your coffee. My morning coffee is worn off as it's 06:00 p.m. eastern. Hopefully I'm not too brain dead or tired at the end of the day, but I think this will be a lively discussion and so I'm looking forward to it. And Brad, I'll say, welcome back to the podcast.

Brad Jeavons:
Thanks, Mark. Great to be back on the show, mate, and thanks for the opportunity to chat on this book. As you know, we're writing a book, labor of love and it's great to get out there.

Mark Graban:
Yeah, you're almost, almost at launch, so a lot of the hard work is done, more hard work ahead, but you're almost there. So I'm excited for you both. Let me read a little bit about the bios of the authors. First off, Chris Butterworth is a multi-award-winning author, international speaker, and Shingo faculty fellow. I saw some pictures. I know he was at the Shingo conference in Orlando last week. Chris is co-author of three Shingo Publication award-winning books, four plus one, embedding a culture of continuous improvement, the essence of excellence. And this is an interesting title. If Chris was here, maybe I'll get him some other time. I would ask him about this title. Why bother with the question mark?

Brad Jeavons:
Why?

Mark Graban:
And how to assess your continuous improvement culture. Stephen Dargan, also who is joining us here. He's a diverse and inclusive customer centric driven, transformational leader with 20 plus years of leadership experience spanning Australia and Europe. Steven is a Shingo Institute alumni, a Shingo facilitator and examiner. He's a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company directors and is a certified lane six Sigma black belt. And then Brad Jevons is a senior leadership coach focused on helping improve leaders and their organizations, helping them create a better future economically, socially and environmentally for future generations. So that maybe answers the question why bother?

Brad Jeavons:
Yeah, how do we make things better? Isn't it? But why bothers very much on that, you know, why bother to do all this too? And why bother to do that effort to make it, you know, better in that regard.

Mark Graban:
Yeah. So we'll come back and talk about why bother writing a book? But that's a good, good challenge and a good thing to tackle. But Brad is host of the Enterprise Excellent podcast. I've been a guest and he's author of the book Agile delivering customer journeys of value and delight. And we probably talked about that three years ago. Feels like last month and it also feels like 20 years ago.

Brad Jeavons:
Yeah, for sure, Mark. It goes quick, doesn't it?

Mark Graban:
Well, especially in these times. So, yeah, but that was episode 416, June of 2021. So in that episode, I had asked Brad about his lean origin story and we might get the short version in a minute. But first off, Stephen, I was going to put you on the spot here, if you can tell us, you know, how, what was your lean origin story, how, where, when, why, you know, did you get introduced to this and why is it so important to you?

Stephen Dargan:
Mark? It's like a game of two halves with me, Mark. I think for half of my career I've been leading large sales teams across, you know, many different industries in Ireland and moved to Australia back in 2010 as an economic refugee post GFC. So tried a new lifestyle in Perth and managed to get into financial services here in Australia. And when I did again, I was back into the old task with setting up businesses or going in and turning businesses around. But then in 2013, I was lucky enough to get involved with doing my lean 6ft of black belt and got introduced to Shigeo Shingo and his teachings and Chris Butterworth. And that's where we first met. And Chris became almost my mentor for the last eleven years on all things continuous improvement in mindsets and behaviors. So it's like a step change in my career because I found my purpose, Mark, and it was something that really drove me forward. So ever since 2013, I've been beating the drum on mindsets, behaviors and particularly on leadership behaviors. And it's something I'm really, really passionate about. You know, seeing the true potential of every single individual is one thing that drives me forward. So writing this book was always on the agenda and Chris and I have always spoken about doing a. You mentioned why bother in fact, we had a title, why bother in the financial services, but we never got around to writing that book. And we just, you know, lots of, lots of learnings along the way. You know, I applied for Shingo Prize and it's probably, probably one of my greatest failures. I cherish most in that we didn't get the prize, but the learnings we got from that kind of, we brought forward and, you know, step, step change and improvements in what I'm doing now. So the opportunity was there to write the book and I just grasped, grasped it with two hands, and Chris then introduced me to Brad and we just, yeah, it just evolved very quickly and just three of us had like minded attitudes and it was one thing that we all just were really passionate about, so it just flowed from there.

Mark Graban:
I don't know much about financial services. What would be some of the answer to why bother with lean and financial services challenges? Or.

Stephen Dargan:
Yeah, financial services, particularly, Mark, is pretty much widget driven. Like, you know, it's a large, customer focused, customer centric business. Yet most organizations and financial services don't think of their customer. They just think of processing widgets through queues and through service level agreements with no focus on the true customer experience. So why bother, when you come around to, why bother doing assessments and maturity assessments? There's not too many financial services companies worldwide that have embraced the shingle principles and moving forward with those, because I think we were one of the first, I think Commonwealth Bank Group in Australia were the first Shingo prize winners of silver medallion. And I think it was 2015, Mark, that they got a silver medallion for one of their collections and recovery centers. And they see a huge shift in their customer experience and obviously their cost base and custom colleague engagement. We were the first ones in Western Australia to go on a Shingo journey and, you know, taking a business that was underperforming, just ticking along to global best in class within three years. Washington was probably one of my proudest moments as a leader.

Mark Graban:
And you talk about the shift in your career being introduced to lean eleven years ago. It probably makes you think about times before learning about lean and what might have been, or it probably helps you better navigate, helping others come around and make the same leap that you did.

Stephen Dargan:
I think for me, Mark, I was always a leader that always was trying to find a better way of doing things. And when I moved to Australia, I was tasked with setting up a couple of business functions, and that's how I ended up in the lean side, because the Commonwealth bank at the time, back in 2012, 2013, went on a really aggressive productivity journey. Part of that journey was that they would take senior leaders out of their. Out of their functions, functional roles, and train them up to be lean six sigma black belts. And then the idea was they would place them back in those roles to drive that mindset and behaviors through the fabric of that organization or their function. I was lucky enough to be one of those leaders to be selected. So I was always a leader that really kind of always tried to make tomorrow better than today for both our customers, but more importantly, our colleagues, our frontline people, because they're the ones that are delivering the experience to customers. So it's always had that kind of natural ability to want to be better. Yeah.

Mark Graban:
And I've found, I mean, what your story makes me think of is leaders who get exposed to lean and they get excited and they, here's some language, here's some frameworks like this. It feels very comfortable, intuitive of like, well, this is how I was trying to lead. And now maybe there's some other tools or methods that. That help you better down that path that you are already, you know, you are already leading that way with those.

Stephen Dargan:
And look. Yeah. And I think, you know, I'm. Yes, I am a lean six sigma black belt through University of Cardiff and SA partners, but I'm not, you know, I'm not a purist at the, at the heart of when it comes to lean. And that's why I think was really passionate about writing this book. I wanted to, we three of us wanted to get a book that wasn't theory based and was applicable to every single leader, regardless of, you know, what capability you have, whether you're an aspiring leader or an existing leader, whether you're in the corporate world, sporting world, or even in the non for profit world. It's a book that's not even a book. It's a manual. It's a practical guide to help leaders improve, you know, their own, their own mindsets, behaviors, but also that of their teams and the people around them.

Mark Graban:
And, Brad, maybe I'll bring you in here and we'll talk more about the book. When Steven's saying, well, it's not a book. Well, it is, but what I hear you saying, or maybe. Brad, elaborate. It's not a book that you just read and then put aside. It sounds like more of a. A guide that you would work your way through in different ways. Brad, tell us a little bit more about the structure of the book.

Brad Jeavons:
Yeah, we frame it up, Mark, with the key concepts we've worked on at the start and then it really goes into real life applications right there because there's a lot of case studies in that section where we're bringing in the frameworks we talk to. And then the rest of the book really goes into heavily, you know, in the field, experiential, you know, how do you apply it? How do you do it? Case studies galore across many key aspects, and it's very much that book that is about the critical part that leaders play in actually achieving a lean journey or an excellence journey. And that's what we've really worked to do. But at the same time, we've partnered with a lot of the award winning leaders, both in sport and also business, to really get their stories. And what's funny with it, Mark, is how much of it just lines up. You know, it's not like you had to, you didn't even have to alter anything, you know, it's not, you had to try tweak it to bolt it in. It was, what I did was just best practice leadership, and that was a beautiful thing.

Mark Graban:
Yeah, well, we'll come back to that and we're going to take a dive into the book. And Brad, maybe I can give you this opportunity to tell whatever version of the lean origin story that you would want to tell. Maybe listeners are new to the podcast, they didn't hear you three years ago. Go ahead and tell your story. And how that's different than Stevens?

Brad Jeavons:
Well, I think the interesting one, Marcus, is a bit of the similarity. Around that same time, I also connected with Chris Butterworth and the mission I was on with a company which was signet and the Winston group at the time was how do we make transformation stick, how do we make lean stick and sustain for the longer term? And I got connected with Chris and also Peter Hines, Doctor Peter Hines, and both of those guys became really mentors to me. Same story as Doug's. They just helped us so much. And so I guess I'd come forward to now. And it's just such an honor to write a book like this with Chris. It's a bit of a pinch yourself type moment and. But my Jenny also went into the world of agile heavily too, as you know, Mark, from us talking in the past, and that is just really lean applied to the technology world. You know, there's so much overlap. Jeff Sutherland, the creator of it, basically openly says that he studied Taegeono. He studied all that and created that path. And I think that position out of that agile world brought a key concept to us about the book. That one of the key aspects in the scrum guide or in anything to do with Agile is about leaders who serve. And if you go that element of leaders who serve, it was that foundational piece that we went, right. This is. That's. If there's one key ingredient, that's the key ingredient to sustaining an excellence journey is leaders who serve in the shadow they cast. And so that's sort of then what brought us is this place here. And I was having dinner with Chris, I don't know, two, three years ago now, and I said, Chris, we need someone to stand up and write a book on this place because, you know, there's a lot of one hit wonder type leadership books, which are great. You know, they're good, you know, but no one's really done anything in recent times apart from Dargah's thinking of legacy, you know, like what James Kerr did, where that is comprehensive, but it's written purely from a rugby position. I think that's one book that really covers what do we need to do as leaders? But, yeah, I was talking to Chris and I say, I got this idea on leading excellence. I think that's a great name. I think someone needs to write a book that is more comprehensive on the position of leadership. And then Chris ran with it, dragged me in, and then brought dags in and, oh, sorry, Stephen. And it's just. That's Stephen's nickname, so if you hear me slip. But it's. It was just amazing, the knowledge that got contributed. Like, to me, it was just the epitome of teamwork, you know, right back in uni, I was studying Toyota and the power of teams over the individual, you know, and I just saw it play out, this book, and it was awesome.

Stephen Dargan:
Yeah.

Mark Graban:
So talk about the book and the book. You've already started touching on it. The book is a countermeasure, if you will, to different problems and challenges out there. So to dig in the problem statements a little bit. In the book, one thing you write about is employee engagement statistics. And this seems to be a global problem where measured. And, I mean, it's not inaccurate measurement. It's really just the experience of what employees are facing leads to disengagement, very low engagement. What are some of the factors that you've identified that you write about about why engagement is so low? And that's not even just a new problem.

Brad Jeavons:
I think, Doug, you're right. If I take this one. So with that Gallup survey mark, it was just an eye opener again, because we see it in what dags and Chris and I have done assessing organizations, helping organizations. We call it the leadership shadow. Right. We can see this leadership shadow. When it's strong, there's great. When it's not strong, there's weakness. And then you look at the. We had our sort of theories on what we were seeing, and we combined that. But then you look at the Gallup survey and they just said the same thing. Main contributor was the lived experience with your direct leader. That was like, number one is my experience with my direct leader of manager. And then the other contributing factor that we've really put forward that we've seen, and they've also seen, is that do I have a meaningful goal and do I feel I can make a difference at work, or am I just showing up to work to punch out widgets?

Mark Graban:
Yeah.

Brad Jeavons:
And that's the two key contributing factors. And that became the basis of the whole book, really was. Okay, well, how do we do this? Because the other statistics that's interesting. You look at the companies that are the highest performing, fasting, fastest growing in the world. They nail high engagement scores. Like, their engagement scores are off the charts. Why? Because every employee is moving the company forward.

Stephen Dargan:
Yeah.

Brad Jeavons:
Every employee in that we're not. I shouldn't say every. But a lot of the employees in those companies have a meaningful goal. They feel they can make a difference. They're chasing towards it. They've got good leadership practices in there that are focused on growing people's capability and they're nailing it. And then you go, the ones that aren't performing so well, they've got low engagement. There's one caveat in here, and I believe that caveat is where you've got like a bit of a monopoly type of situation, you know, like such a scale of business that their momentum is so big that their culture and this position, they still make money despite it. But I don't know if that's going to sustain into the future. We're seeing a number of those Goliaths struggle, and I think that will just get worse as we go forward if they don't lean into this type of piece that other companies have succeeded with in such a big way.

Mark Graban:
Yeah. And Brad, maybe you or Stephen feel free to jump in at any point. Talk more about the leadership shadow. That's an interesting phrase. If you can kind of elaborate on that in both the positive shadow that's cast or times when that shadow causes problems, you got doc.

Stephen Dargan:
Oh, look, you know, when you look at the leadership and what it takes to be an effective leader, I mean, the shadow is really important because they, they, what they do, what they say, what they coach their actions, their words transpires across the whole organization and many. If you look at a couple of the case studies that we have in the book, there was one particular case study where as a financial services organization and the team was pretty much at a low, just tipping along on a simple system of reward and recognition that was put in place. The leader came in every single morning and their shadow was to go and spend time walking around the floor, saying hello to every single person that was there on the floor, and not just saying hello to them, but actually connecting to them to know what was going on in their own personal lives. But the second ritual that they would do every day, Mark, was they would simply take the customer experience, feedback from the previous day. They would look at the feedback and they would understand who was the colleague that dealt with that particular customer. And then, you know, Brad mentions about connecting to a higher purpose, but the leader would then send them an email or physically go and thank them for connecting to the purpose, for delivering that brilliant customer experience and that simple recognition, it's not necessarily better reward, but that simple shadow or recognition every single day ritual that was done started to permeate the whole organization and the whole leadership function. Then underneath, which was about 28 leaders, I think, at the time, all started to do the same behaviors every single day. So it almost created this environment of reward. Sorry, recognition and connecting people to the overall organization's vision and purpose. It's simple repetition, reinforcement, mark, leadership behaviors that really drives, because people look up to the leader, they see and watch, they emulate everything the leader does. So if you're a leader that just cares about themselves and not cares about their people and cares about their organization and just tries to play the political game in an organization, they're going to get found out very quickly by their people. Their people won't follow them. But if you're an authentic leader and you're, you know, you're, you're vulnerable and you've got that humility as a leader and you've got that shadow and you have care and respect for your people, then people will start to follow you, right?

Mark Graban:
Yeah. Because that's, that's a reflection of those behaviors.

Brad Jeavons:
Correct?

Mark Graban:
Of the leaders or the leaders they see every day, or at least frequently.

Brad Jeavons:
Yeah. Mark, there's an interesting case study I've got. We've got on it, too. With a, in Australia, there's a super coach called Wayne Bennett. His stats are unbelievable. Like rival anyone in the world as a leader and coach. And he has one simple saying, which is, talk's cheap. It's what people see you do and how you make them feel that counts.

Stephen Dargan:
Yeah.

Brad Jeavons:
And he lives by that, you know, and that's that shadow, you know, it's like, well, what behaviors do we exude to cast a shadow, to actually inspire people and make them feel inspired, but then also help them grow, become the best I can become.

Mark Graban:
Yeah. So in the US, we say, you've got to walk the talk. I was in Quebec last week and I learned they have more of an expression. The feet have to follow the lips.

Brad Jeavons:
Yeah.

Stephen Dargan:
I don't know.

Mark Graban:
Is there, is there an Aussie way of saying that that's even different once more? Or would you say walk the talk also?

Brad Jeavons:
It's. We'd know of walk the talk. No, both of them. It's just, you know, do what you say is probably a very common saying here. Yeah. So it's. Yes, it's simple stuff, isn't it? But I think the challenge that we've all got is we've all got a challenge of habit. And I think the biggest challenge with our habit is typically our habits are programmed to serve ourselves. You know, like, we are wired to do things that make us feel good and provide us that positive feedback and experience, and that can. But really, with, to be a leader who serves, it's about our behavior is about truly serving the growth of the other person.

Mark Graban:
Yeah.

Brad Jeavons:
And it's not easy. I think, I know, I can think of, I could probably think of a million occasions where I've served my behavior rather than serving the other person. And I think that's the biggest challenge that we're all facing, to truly get excellence out of an organization.

Mark Graban:
Yeah. And I think where to go next? There's such a rich topic, and like, no, I'm going to hold that topic of servant leadership maybe until later, even though that might be a common thread in what we're talking about. But I want to go back a little bit and hear your thoughts when I hear this phrase, employee engagement or people lamenting that the engagement is low. We're all authors here, so let's talk words. Engagement is, in a way, it's a noun. That's the thing. We're measuring how much engagement is there. I think there's an old habit where leaders might blame those employees for not being engaged. I'm like, I don't think it works that way. Engaging others. Now, now we're at a verb, you know, engaging, actively engaging leads to engagement. I don't think I'm oversimplifying it, but I'm curious what you think about, you know, the behaviors that you've seen that lead to that result of an engaged workforce.

Stephen Dargan:
For me, I'll jump in here, Brad, but just from my experience, you know, and those people who know me know I'm not a fan of engagements annual engagement surveys, because they're a lagging metric. And sometimes, generally they're used for senior leadership to make them feel closer to their people. But in fact, if you are a true leader who serves, you should know how engaged your people are because you've created a safe, safe, psychological safe place for them to speak up and make a difference. So, you know, when I look at, when I look at why people, if you look at the mining industry in Australia, for argument's sake, the recent core logic data suggests that 30% of people leave the mining industry or they might leave their employer because of ineffective development planning. And we see that quite a lot. Right, when you don't develop your people to their true potential and they leave the organization or they get disengaged. An example that we have in the book is contact centers. Contact centers are generally the poor cousin of any organization. They're not treated with their entry level roles, they're not treated with the same level of respect, but yet they touch the most number of customers every single day and upwards of 1000 customers a day. So I classify them as the heartbeat of your organization. So when you get individuals that come in to be contact center roles, I try to say to them, you're not just a contact center agent. You have the massive potential to appreciate value in this organization. So what is it that you really want to do in three years time as an individual? Do you want to be in contact center? That's fine if you do. Or do you want to go and develop into product development or do you want to go into change management or finance department or any different, you know, there's hundreds and hundreds of different roles in any organization. And if you have a leader who truly understands that and shows the way, almost like gives them the guiding pathway to all these different pathways, as such, their eyes start to light up because they're no longer seen as an entry level role or the poor cousin of the organization. So when you start to create a really strong development system from your entry level roles, you start to become the nursery of really good, strong talent across the organization. So you no longer get seen as entry level. You're seen as the golden goose that lays the golden egg for the organization. And then especially when you create really strong systems, then you can identify gaps of capability, gaps across your organization and go, hang on, we need people in coding for argument's sake, because it's a future skills gap. Okay, well, let's look at the contact center. Is there any people in the context that we can actually develop through into those particular roles? So I think, you know, when you start to get people, start to develop people through their true potential, you get them to come to work each day, their true authentic selves, but also giving 110% commitment. That coupled with the reward and recognition system as I spoke about earlier, as well as, you know, keeping them fully engaged in what they're doing, obviously as well, people come to work as well, not to just do work. They love to affect change. So, you know, supporting continuous improvement framework, allowing them to ideate and change new things and make things better tomorrow than they are today. And, you know, celebrate failure as learnings and, you know, no longer slaps on the wrist for making mistakes. So when you start to create the culture, engagement levels will follow, your attrition rate will fall, will fall dramatically. Your unplanned sick leave, which is the greatest barometer, unplanned sick leave is a greatest lever. It's a leading metric to. Right, you know, a poor performing culture. So, yeah, I could mark very passionate about that particular subject. So I could talk for hours. Yeah, I don't think we have enough of the podcast.

Mark Graban:
Well, we could always do another episode and dig deeper into some of these topics. But I mean, you touched on a couple of topics that are incredibly important to me. One is the ability to learn from failures and mistakes. And I think a foundation of being able to do that is, as you mentioned, psychological safety. And I think you gave the right definition of it. If you feel safe to speak up, you are feeling a sense of psychological safety, and we want more of that. We have more participation, more improvement. But I'm curious, some of your thoughts or lessons around the behaviors that help cultivate psychological safety, cultivate engagement, maybe. There's a lot of overlap there.

Stephen Dargan:
There is a lot of overlap. And I think as well as back to the previous comment, leadership shadow, back to the Edward Demings of this world. And 95% of people come to work each day to do a good job, 5%, it's 95% of the defects are in the system or process. Never blame people, blame processes. My mantra. So if people make mistakes, go leaders should be going to look at, well, how does that mistake actually happen in the first place, what was the system or process that led to that? Did we not train them effectively? Did we put too much pressure on their environment? Was the environment for that individual, whether that be intrinsic or extrinsic interference around that individual? And there's a formula for high performance in the book, which we won't go through today, we can touch on today, but, you know, is there intrinsic or extrinsic interference surrounding that individual? So don't jump to, you know, blaming the person, because generally, so generally, 95% of the time, it's something that we have done wrong as a leader, and we haven't supported those individuals and we haven't served them well enough. So I think that's how you start to create psychological safety. When you start to have that leadership shadow of never blaming people, blame process, and going to seeking to understand and help me solve this. We made this error. Let's learn from it. Let's celebrate the failure. And what do we learn from it and make sure. And that's when you start to do that, your shadow and then your leaders all start to do that, that also starts to create that psychological safe place to speak up.

Mark Graban:
Yeah. Because back to habits and leadership habits, a lot of leaders, I think, have been taught, or they seem to have figured out that, well, they'll say we have to punish mistakes. Otherwise, that's giving permission to make more. And like, well, if you don't share the mindset that you articulated, Stephen, and I feel very formal calling you Steven, now that I've learned you have a nickname. But I'm going to go with Stephen. Um, oh, and I sidetracked myself with, with that side comment. That's what happens at the end of the day. But we're talking about. Oh, right. So you have a choice, though. Like, if they don't share that mindset of, you know, most everybody wants to do good work, they want to do quality work, they want to have pride in their work, as doctor Deming would have said. Well, no, people aren't like, if it was an I intentional, um, you know, if it was an intentional act, that's not a mistake. There's a different word for that. Sorry. That that got so garbled in my attempt to both make a comment and joke around.

Stephen Dargan:
But, yeah, but yeah, again, you know, if you go and start to look at the interference. Right. So generally, some people are, you know, make mistakes. Right. So. And some could be deliberate, but generally, generally speaking, you know, there's. I classified again in the book, there's three different. There's a couple of different scenarios where the individual's purpose is not aligned to the organization's purpose. So, you know, when, when somebody is not connected to the overall organization's purpose and on a completely different path, well, generally their behaviors are going to be quite different and they're harder to change. So they're there. You know, that's when you may need to use your coaching hat to, you know, put on the coaching hat to go, okay, this organization not be for you, Mark. So, you know, what is it? What is it that? What is your core purpose and what are you aligned to? And what's your true north? And then let's work with you to try and understand what are the best types of industries or roles that best suits you. And I've done that before, and people have come back to me and they've left the financial services industry and found a niche in some other industry and have come back and thanked me for actually helping them see where they should be as a person. Very, very rarely, people go in to deliberately do work, do bad things in work. Very, very rarely. Generally, if somebody makes an error or mistake, there's something going on. And I talk about in the book about everybody in this world, Mark, has some form of interference in their lives, no matter who you are. And that interference is broken up into two things. It's either intrinsic interference, so things are grappling. It will not be mental health issues, you know, lack of self confidence, afraid to speak up, you know, anxiety, depression, all those type of things that stop people being their true authentic selves and work. And then you got your extrinsic interference, which is, you know, things that happen externally in the environment, their leader putting a lot of pressure on them. Production over safety concerns, domestic violence, financial abuse. You know, I myself had my own interference when I was, you know, back in when I was a general manager of a financial services organization. I had a 16 year old teenage son who was quite difficult at the time. And those who have teenagers can resonate that. We, myself and my wife were arguing all the time and almost like drove a wedge. Now he's come, thankfully, at the end of it as they normally do. But that was the external interference for me, and that was, you know, hard to deal with at a particular time, as well as some into internal interference that I had. So generally, as leaders, though, we in the old command and control architectures of organizations, someone's behavior or performance tips, we generally go and put them on a performance improvement plan or slap a coaching plan on them without truly understanding the context and the environment that that person is working within. So I tried coach leaders to try and understand the intrinsic or extrinsic interference first. And then, you know, if you can try and identify that, then what I like to call, use the term, you dance with that interference. You put support mechanisms in place to help that individual. And when you do that, you start to create that psychological safe place again, and performance starts to shift and you feel that your frontline person or your staff member starts to feel more connected and will work harder, not because you ask them to, because they want to. Yeah.

Mark Graban:
And that makes me think of some good general lean thinking about not jumping the countermeasures, the performance improvement plan, the PIP, whatever coaching or whatever disciplinary process. Like, do we really understand? I appreciate, Stephen, that you're talking through the causes and root causes and contributing factors. Make sure we understand that first.

Stephen Dargan:
Yeah, we also send them back into, you know, an organization or system that has probably 60% waste built up into the system. As you know, Mark, most businesses have upwards of 60% waste and failure demand, as I like to call it. So, yeah, you know, as leaders, you know, I'm not a fan of one to one s. You know, the typical one to one is, you know, what did we do well last month? What are we going to do next month's type of conversation yet? Then we're sending them back into a system that's fundamentally broken. So the way I like to do my one to ones is, let's go and look at your working environment and how do we improve that? How do we improve the systems that you're working in to make them more effective and efficient so that you're coming to work each day to enjoy yourself and improve. Yeah.

Mark Graban:
So, Brad, let me maybe turn it over to you and come back to this, this word serve. So we might think of servant leadership or other ways of describing that in the book. What do you and the co authors mean by leaders who serve? Why is that so important right now?

Brad Jeavons:
Yes, I think back, the easiest way I can describe it is to add the extra words on the back of it, which is leaders who serve the growth of others. And that's a simply put, you know, is my behavior serving the growth of others, or is it serving myself or something else? You know, and there's a lot of external, extrinsic forces coming down on leaders that can easily turn them to a place where they're purely serving other factors versus really focusing on serving the growth of people, which ultimately then serves the growth of everything else. You know, it's like this fulfilling type of position. And what we write about in the book is it links back like the legend of this space originates with Ken Blanchard, with his work on situational leadership. You know, what we've done now, which really comes from Dargs's work and what he's just shared, is that we believe that leaders nowadays just need to get good at pausing, controlling their emotions. Number one, pausing looking at the person. And the bit that we've altered is we believe they need to think about the context surrounding them. It's not just. Not just the situation, you know, we need to think about the context surrounding, which includes what's going on, but it also includes everything else dags just spoke about and more. So that's sort of the evolution of it that we've added is that to be a leader who serves, the one thing we got to be good at is controlling our emotions. Just make sure we stay in conscious thought and then look at the person, think of the context surrounding them, and then choose our ideal behavior or the best behavior to help them grow, not, not to serve our feelings.

Mark Graban:
Yeah.

Brad Jeavons:
And that's the simple formula that we do expand on a bit more in the book, because when you come about the position of how do we control our emotions, that's a big gig. But we've had the help of neuroscientist doctor Mark Williams, who wrote the connected species on that, and a legend in organizational psychology called Laura Scander. They both really lent in and helped us look at those drivers of emotions. And so that's what we've then developed, this concept of the core belief system. And so that's another element of the book.

Mark Graban:
And that makes me think a little bit of thinking of a Shingo conference. I had the opportunity to see the late Stephen Covey speak at that event and to talk with him briefly. And one of the things he was talking about was, as you were calling it, a pause, Brad, putting in that separation between stimulus and response.

Brad Jeavons:
Yeah.

Mark Graban:
You know, that we can pause, we can try to get better at, myself included, pausing and then choosing how to react instead of reacting in just a very instinctual, reactive way.

Brad Jeavons:
It's the secret. And you're right.

Mark Graban:
Yeah.

Brad Jeavons:
Stephen Covey is that seven habits, where he brought that up, the gap between stimulus and response, that's the key. So what we're saying is that really, that pause is critical. And I've got to admit, for leaders listening to this, and this is what I do, it's my kids that I get the best practice with on this. So for me to practice it every day, I just practice it with my kids. Yeah. Because there's no, no better situation to really lean into that. But it is if you can nail the pause by controlling your emotions. Because if your emotions are riled, the pause is not going to happen. You know, and if you're, if you're rolled emotionally or you're rolled even too positively emotionally, you're not going to be conscious because your conscious brain shuts down in that position and you're going to be following habit. Now, there'll be a percentage of the time that your habit actually is quite close to being the right behavior, but it'll be a fair chunk of the time that your natural habit is not the right behavior to bring out the best in that person.

Mark Graban:
Yeah.

Brad Jeavons:
And on that, I think the best case study I've been so proud to ride is on that super coach Wayne Bennett out of Australia like this. This guy's a, he's been coaching for 50 years, won so many tournaments for so many teams, so many countries. He's won, he's won series for four different countries as a coach. And this is in rugby league, which is like gridiron without pads and a helmet. So I think a gridiron without pads and helmet, pretty brutal.

Stephen Dargan:
Yeah.

Brad Jeavons:
And he is a master at understanding the person right up front, building trust and psychological safety and then really being an adaptive leader by adapting his style to suit them. It's amazing.

Mark Graban:
So you answered the question that I hadn't quite gotten to yet of being an adaptive leader. But I think you drew that connection to situational leadership. And I'm not as familiar with the Ken Blanchard work, but I'll go back to doctor Deming again, who I do remember very clearly writing that managers, leaders need to manage each person in their team like the unique individual that they are. You know, so that makes a leader's job more difficult when you have to, oh, you actually have to, you have to get to know your employees and what makes them or us tick and why everyone's not going to react to the same style of coaching or motivation. Right.

Brad Jeavons:
Yeah. And Mark, that's the thing I love about this world we're in. You know, all these concepts are not really new. You know, they go back to Deming in the forties and Drucker way back or who's the guy that wrote to win, how to win friends and influence people? Carnegie.

Mark Graban:
Dale Carnegie.

Brad Jeavons:
Yeah. And I guess all of us as authors, we're repackaging and tweaking and adding bits to it. But it's funny that, like, humans are humans, aren't we? Like, I don't think it matters if it's a 1930s forties or now. It just comes down to organizations or a connection of humans and things. And the more that you can really help get the best out of all those humans and things by really growing them, that's the secret sauce in an aligned way, you know, with purpose and culture and strategy, and which is where I love being able to write this book, because it's the things that hang around lean that make it all work. You know, there's so many beautiful tools and techniques and lean, they're wonderful. Yeah, but it's all this stuff that actually makes it work and sustain, which is what's so beautiful about it, really. But once leaders and organizations can really lean into this, it helps them put effort into a direction that truly gets results. Whereas so much effort's gone into agile lean when you're just tools, focused and so much money, only to have it just drift backwards to pretty well what it was, you know?

Mark Graban:
Yeah, well, think of what happens when an organization copies tools or methods. I mean, there are many stories about copying an and on cord system. Toyota, you can buy the cords, the lights that go off, the chimes. Like, none of that is proprietary technology to Toyota. I mean, maybe they've cobbled a few things together, right? But you can go and buy equipment like that. But then the factories that have installed that equipment, and then without psychological safety for the employees, when they get yelled at and blamed and punished for daring to pull that cord, they learn not to pull the cord. So the problem's not the employee or, I know if you were to take somebody from a Toyota plant and put them in a different environment without that same leadership style and culture and psychological safety, that same person who, out of reflex, would reach up and pull the and on corded Toyota plant would probably also learn quickly. No, don't do it here at some other workplace.

Brad Jeavons:
I think, Mark, a lot of ex Toyota people become consultants in lean, you know, and I know a lot of them struggle because they don't understand the power of the culture they had through leadership. And a lot of them will go into an organization and say, let's just put the end on cordon and just put five s in, and then it doesn't work and it causes grief and all sorts of carnage is going on. And what they don't understand because they were oblivious to it, because they lived it, they were part of that culture. They, they didn't it's like they don't, a lot of them don't properly understand that. Like you're trying to do something in a place that does not have the culture that you had, the leadership shadow.

Stephen Dargan:
Yeah.

Brad Jeavons:
That you had at Toyota. You know, you got to get that right and work on that and then you can start really getting everything else to start to get results.

Mark Graban:
Yeah, very true. Stephen, what are some of your thoughts on, you know, if we aspire to be an adaptive leader, a situational leader, what are some of the things that people can do to develop that ability?

Stephen Dargan:
I think, you know, certainly, you know, we, it starts with, you know, the formula I think that we have in the book and we brad mentioned earlier around James Kerr's legacy. And for the listeners that don't know, it's probably one of my favorite books, leadership books of all time, very passionate about it. It is the 15 principles of the New Zealand All Blacks. Again, another type of rugby, the proper rugby, as I say, not the rugby league. It's meant because I'm a rugby union fan.

Brad Jeavons:
Come on, come on.

Stephen Dargan:
But it's how they sustained a high level of performance and culture over many, many years. And, you know, they start with what's called character. And the Sydney Swans are another AFL football team here in Australia. They have a term called no dickheads. And excuse the term, but that essentially means you want good people on your team. You want people who have really sound, you know, have your back at all times. They're not wide hunters. They're not going to be passive aggressive people. They're going to be with you through thick and thin and they're good people. Good people make good employees and good employees make good customer experience for your customers and shareholders. Yeah. The next thing is around behaviors, right. You need ideal behaviors. And, you know, when you talk about, you know, when you read the book, you'll clearly see that ideal behaviors drive ideal results. Right. So how do you have create ideal behaviors and also measure those behaviors through your organization? And the next component is vulnerability. You know, having leaders that are vulnerable and not afraid to say that they've got their okay to fail and, you know, they don't have all the answers. So being that vulnerable, and I got talking to about my own personal story on that one, which I won't go into today, but, and it gets quite deep and meaningful because I went to a very low place in my career. And that vulnerability, when I started to show vulnerability and speak to my teams about my scenario, it almost, you know, created a state of psychological safety and they almost seem, they then saw me as human and not as a leader. So they, their performance lifted the minute I started to show my vulnerability, which is why that pieces in the, in the formula and then they, the interference which we spoke about earlier. So I think as any leader is even just focusing in on those, that formula will try and get them to, will help them to get to really understand, as Brad said, the context and the scenario surrounding that individual and then look to work towards how do they actually put support mechanisms and help that individual through. Through to, you know, help them through to becoming a performing, high performing individual. So that's, that's one thing. And then, you know, looking at, you know, development systems, how do you create talent from and develop your people through the two potentials? So I think, you know, there's, there's, there's lots of things you could do, but looking at those particular two things will be a good start. And there's many hints and tips through the book. So, you know, there's different systems that you could use, but, but they'd be the main two that I would, I would focus in on. Yeah.

Mark Graban:
Well, again, we've been joined by Brad Jevons and Stephen Dargan. The book is leading excellence, five hats of the adaptive leader. I know I'll get an opportunity shortly. I haven't had a chance to read the book, so I've got to ask, because I don't know. And for the listener, don't blame me for not prepping on this. I figure I could, I didn't have the chance, and I could ask it here. What are the five hats referenced in the subtitle?

Brad Jeavons:
So what we've done with the five hats, Matt, is just look to bring it back to five simple things. So the first one is wear the inspire hat, which is a lot, what Stephen's talking about. You know, how do you understand someone's purpose and direction and their goals and their values? And then we call it the core belief system, you know, their core. And then how do you connect that to the organizations and does it align and is, you know, how does it line up the organization's core, you know, the organization's purpose and values and principles or behaviors? And then the next hat is the training hat. Like we believe leaders as trainers, you know, if you're going to be a leader who serves the growth of others or key part of that is training, how well do we train, you know, so if you're looking at, if you're looking at the person and considering the context around them and you're like, they're new. They just really don't know. We haven't trained them. And they're in a pretty good space emotionally. So potentially, I've just got to train them, you know? So that's the training hat, and then the next hat is the support hat. So this is that, again, links back to a lot what Stephen's saying. You know, when that emotional position's in play, understanding those internal and external factors that can be impacting them, and being really good at active listening and empathy and even vulnerability to lean in on that. The next hat, of course, is the coaching hat that everyone. There's so many books written on coaching, but I guess what we've looked at with the five hats, we think there's more than just coaching. That to be a truly great leader who leads excellence. And the coaching hat is very important because that gets people to think. That gets people to find their own way and really, really grow. It's like the superpower. And then the final hat is actually, we got the direct hat. We do feel there's a place to be direct, you know, safety situation. You don't coach in a safety situation. You just get the person out of the way or get the thing out of the way and contain it. But also, if you do see your culture being broken in a massive way, you don't walk past it. You may be more direct in that situation and actually, you know, go straight at the situation and open up the conversation. And so they're the. They're the five hats that when we say, look, it's about being a leader who serves the growth of others rather than yourself. To do that, you've got to be really skilled at pausing, staying in a good emotional state, pausing considering the person, the context surrounding them. And then what we've provided for is these five hats that we believe if you can build your capability in these five areas, and I guess as a leader, when you're looking at it, you'll be stronger in some and not so strong in others. And that's where it's not like you got to build everything at once. It might be like, well, I'm outsourcing training at the minute. I'm getting the training department to do it all or someone else. And really, it's not effective. Right. Maybe I need to do a train the trainer course and build my capability as a trainer. So that's. That's where the five hats comes in, just to really simplify and put it all together. And we feel that the hat concept of, although it's been used before by many. We just feel it's a great analogy, you know, because you need to be able to swap and change between these hats. Really. Doug, you brought that thought to us, mate. I think it's on the stand over to you for a second because I think it's something you've always used in your leadership language.

Stephen Dargan:
Yeah, it's, again, it's back to that understanding the environment and, you know, pausing and reflecting and going, okay, is because, again, back to the Edward Jennings. I think he's one of my favorite quotes. Don't blame people playing process. So how do we, how do we look at the surrounding environment of that individual and select the right hop first, take check of our emotions and get our emotions in check first. And, you know, you got to do this sometimes in the split second mark. So it's not an easy thing to do. But that's the learning as a leader, as you practice and as Brad says, practice on his kids, it takes a lot of time and practice to do it, especially in today's world of Vuca. It's fast paced and, you know, leaders are expected to make decisions and react very quickly. So the hats, you know, analogy gives them that little tool to be able to go right, pause, have it think, what's my emotions? And then what's the understanding? What's the interference or environment look like before making that reaction. Yeah.

Mark Graban:
And Vuca, for those who don't know it, and I'm struggling with it at the moment, so volatile.

Stephen Dargan:
Uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.

Mark Graban:
I got hung up on the a ambiguity.

Stephen Dargan:
Yeah. And, you know, you know, you know, Brad talks about 1930s. You know, for leaders are dealing with a whole new realm of challenges these days with social media, you've got, you know, entry level. I forget what gen we're in now, Mark. I'm showing my age now, but, you know, the 2019 2021 year olds coming into the workforce, their whole world is different, right. They communicate through text and social media. So how does a leader adapt to dealing with that, you know, face to face and, you know, don't assume as well, you know, when I was a leader of an organization previously, I assumed that everyone knew how to do emails. That generation doesn't necessarily know how to do emails. You know, it's just as basic as that. So it's just the leader has to continue, look, to evolve. Yeah. It is challenging. It's not. Leadership is not easy.

Mark Graban:
Mm hmm.

Stephen Dargan:
It's a privilege. It's a privilege, but it's not easy.

Mark Graban:
Yeah, it's well said. So we talked about these five hats, you know, Brad and dogs. I'm going to call you dogs now. We've gotten to know each other here that you're going to do, I'm sure, more podcasts or more webinars and like, you've got to get yourself the hats. Like, put on the actual hats.

Brad Jeavons:
Yeah, definitely. That's a definitely. That's a definite, that's an improvement opportunity, Mark.

Mark Graban:
It's five hats. That's doable. Five hats for each of you. So, yeah, I'm excited about the book. Congratulations to you, or at least on the progress so far. I know you still have work to do, but I know you'll get that over the finish line and I'm really looking forward to it. I think it's going to really have a good impact.

Brad Jeavons:
Thanks so much, Mark. Really appreciate it, mate. And thanks for all the work you do. If the books you write too, mate, like it's. I guess we're all just trying to get the knowledge out there and help people create that better outcome, mate. So thank you for. For having us on.

Mark Graban:
Yeah, thank you. Thank you both for being here. And dargs, I wouldn't know it was your first podcast. I'm going to tell the listener that now because they'll be surprised, too, like I said, the first of many. But thank you for being here and being with me in the audience today.

Stephen Dargan:
No, I really appreciate it, Mark. And thanks to all your listeners as well. Thank you.

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