Relationships at Work - The Leadership Mindset Guide to Creating a Workplace We Love

How To Take On Compassionate Accountability at Work with Marc Lesser

May 22, 2023 Russel Lolacher Episode 65
Relationships at Work - The Leadership Mindset Guide to Creating a Workplace We Love
How To Take On Compassionate Accountability at Work with Marc Lesser
Show Notes Transcript

In this episode of Relationships at Work, Russel chats with CEO, executive coach and Zen teacher Marc Lesser on creating the mindset and practice of compassionate accountability.

Marc shares his thoughts, stories and experience with...

  • What is compassionate accountability.
  • How to add compassionate accountability into our culture.
  • How to handle conflict with compassionate accountability.
  • The importance of a mindfulness practice.
  • The impacts from home to the workplace.

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For more, go to relationshipsatwork.ca 

And connect with me for more great content!

Russel Lolacher
And on the show today we have Marc Lesser. And here's why he is awesome. He's an executive coach and Zen teacher, I had to slow down. When I said Zen teachers, you notice that there's just a bit of a bit more relaxed in my voice. As soon as you say Zen teacher, and founder and CEO of Zed... I'm Canadian. So I'd say ZBA associates, associates, an executive development and leadership consulting company. He's helped develop the Search Inside Yourself program within Google, which was a mindfulness based emotional intelligence training for leaders. He's this guy writes a lot. He's done five books, one of which I'm gonna highlight right now, because it's, it's new, it's shiny, you can get it. Probably by the time this is released. He's the host of Zen bones podcast. And that book I was kind of teasing you about is called Finding clarity. How compassionate accountability builds vibrant relationships. Yeah, name of the podcast, get it relationships at work, yeah. Builds vibrant relationships, thriving workplaces, and meaningful lives. It's a key topic for discussion today. I'm excited to talk to you, Mark, welcome to the show.

Marc Lesser
Great to be here. So I'm excited to talk to you too.

Russel Lolacher
Thank you, sir. So I have to start with the question I asked all of my guests, which is, what's your best or worst employee experience?

Marc Lesser
I've had some terrific ones. And I've had some some pretty bad ones. Maybe you need to be start upbeat here.

Russel Lolacher
Sure.

Marc Lesser
Yeah, what comes to mind is, when I was running the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute was, which was an organization that actually got birthed at Google Headquarters. So that was kind of amazing. And partly that was, you know, a relationship that I had with a Google engineer, when I got brought into, to figure out how to develop mindfulness and emotional intelligence programs in Google. And just the whole process of that early relationship, and then building, building a team and creating exactly the culture that I wanted, wanted to create, like, and that meant hiring people that were smarter than me, which didn't take that much. But but it's, it's, it's harder to do that than it sounds. And, and we were just, we were just rocking and rolling as a, as a team. Now, it didn't hurt at all, you know that we have the Google branding and Google wind behind us. So that was a beautiful combination to the winds of that brand, with the great people that I had hired. And just like, everything we did turn to gold, it seemed like, oh, let's try doing a public program and see what happens. And 60 people from all around the world sign up for a public program and love it and and want to know, you know, where else can we do these, and we ended up doing, doing public programs in Toronto, and Montreal, and then all over the world. So now that's a success story about relationships and people and team building,

Russel Lolacher
I actually want to dig into that just for a sec. Because the funny thing is, is it doesn't sometimes it's a luxury, a lot of the time it doesn't matter, the name and the brand, or the resources, or the wind beneath your wings to actually be successful sometimes, like you can have all of that working for you and still not deliver what you were actually hoping to do and minds changed. What did you feel was key for you to be successful in that role?

Marc Lesser
It's funny, though, I also thought that, you know, you can have none of those things and find something that is very successful. Absolutely. as well. Yeah. It's interesting, you know, and I think a core rule of thumb in the business world, is that when what you do is successful, you're a genius. And when it's not successful, you're an idiot. And it could be the same exact thing. There are many variables to this. I would say that part of it was that we, I think we were tapping into a real need around helping leaders be more human. We were dealing with, I think, the problem of stress, anxiety, and kind of a lack of passion and meaning in people's work that we, you know, again, I do think that the Google wins helped with the credibility piece. But so in some way, it got us in the door. But once we were in the door, I think that we were, you know, one of the language that Google engineers would use is they could take their game faces off off in our workshops, and I think there's a real need passion to be able to take your game face off, meaning to not have to be defensive or to play a role or, you know, so it's interesting. Of course, we are all playing a role. You know, we are different people in the business world in the work world, but we don't have to be assholes. See you told me not to curse. And here I am, you know,

Russel Lolacher
That is a lie, I did tell you could curse. I'm just amazed, you took advantage of it. I'm glad you bring that up. Because there is that masking that a lot of us do in organizations, especially when we move from one environment to another. And I think that really plays in well to what we're going to talk about today. Because we're talking about compassionate accountability. And that as you talk about in your book, is something that's important, not only in your relationships at work, but also in relationships at home. And I want to dig into that. But first, I usually have to start every podcast the same way. And I didn't think I was going to when I first started the podcast, which is defining terms, because we talk about stuff all the time, and we never actually say what they mean leadership being a big one that just drives me nuts. So can we start with first? What do you mean, when you took on this journey of this book around compassionate accountability?

Marc Lesser
Yeah, so let's start with accountability, because that's the the, in some way, that's the driver here. And accountability is I think both individual so aligning with your own values, doing what you say you're going to do, holding yourself to what you know, to a kind of inner alignment and how that plays out in the in the workplace. But then a lot of accountability has to do with relationship. And the word I like a lot is the word alignment. And I would say accountability is about being aligned with what success looks like, both in terms of what it is we're trying to achieve, but also how we're trying to achieve it. And it's both of those things. And the compassionate piece is that it's easy for accountability to be harsh or cold, or it's it there's nothing human really about accountability. And it needs that relationship piece, that trust piece, that careness kindness piece. And there's something you know, there's a just a very basic tension between those two words compassion and accountability. But the reason I latched on to them as I think, I think they're essential, I think that, you know, compassion without accountability, those that doesn't work, you know, just a really great workplace, but we're not much getting done. Because we need to get stuff done. And, and accountability is getting stuff done. But it leaves out the human element, the caring the trusting element, and that's, that's turning out, you know, it's that's turning out to be more and more essential. And it's a relatively new, I think, aha, just how important humans are the emotional piece, the mindfulness piece, the color, you know, so many, almost every business is depends on people working together, collaborating.

Russel Lolacher
And that's something I've actually struggled with for years. It's actually one of the big reasons why I started this podcast was that leadership, and we talked about definitions, but leadership is I always saw defined in the corporate world was getting a thing done, right, fixing somebody else's problem. Like that was that's leadership, damn to be who actually gets hurt in the record of accomplishing that thing. But that wasn't the measure of success. That's not what gets rewarded. That's not what gets promoted. So what's the reception to suddenly coming in and going? No, no, no, no, we've we've got human beings that actually are getting burnt out here. What how is the accountability, compassion been received with all these changes we've been going through?

Marc Lesser
Yeah, I think once you once you experience that the workplace doesn't have to be horrible. That and in fact, again, this is aspirational. But something that's worth aspiring to is for the workplace to be a place where you can actually grow and cultivate character cultivate well being while at the same time, and not not only at the expense of getting stuff done, but increasing what gets done. This is the math. This is the magic and this is what I was describing the opening question that you you know, like, and not everyone is lucky enough I think You get to experience it. But once you experience it, you know, I think of a, you know, my first company that I started was a calendar and greeting card company. And there was something about our Yearly Meetings of like, what new titles are we going to create for calendars for the next year. And there was just such a, we had so much fun playing, collaborating, imagining brainstorming, and achieving achieving great results in that in that process. And it was just such a beautiful experience. But, you know, that wasn't my experience in a lot of workplaces prior to that, that I found myself in where things were tense and anxious, and where there, you know, a lot of backbiting and political stuff. And, and that's, I think, more the default in especially, well, I was gonna say, especially in larger organizations, but anywhere where there's people trying to, you know, deal with money and power and hierarchy. It takes it takes a real, I think, strong aspirational skill and mindset to break through those more default kinds of habits that are easy to fall into in the workplace.

Russel Lolacher
Well, you need the book Finding Clarity. So I'm really curious how that digs into this benefit.

Marc Lesser
Yeah, you know, it's interesting when, when the book was in process, and the book was all about accountability, and compassionate accountability, and someone said, What is it really about? And I said, it's, it's about clarity, you know, and that accountability is in some way, about becoming more clear about, again, what is it? What does success look like? What are we trying to achieve here? What are we measuring? What is, you know, who are our customers? And what are our financial goals? But also like, what kind of culture do we want to create an all of that, I think, requires a kind of clarity, in the sense of breaking through our habitual energy breaking through the, you know, so many of us grew up with all kinds of ideas about, you know, work isn't supposed to be fun, there's a reason they call it work, and many other I think, limiting and mistaken beliefs. So clarity, in a way is the kind of having a clear vision about what it is we're doing, and being able to see and identify, you know, mistakes and breakthroughs and limiting energy and mistaken beliefs and all that stuff.

Russel Lolacher
How do you introduce this into a culture? Because first you have to know if you even need to introduce it. And then you have to do so?

Marc Lesser
Well, usually, you know, most most cultures are you bring in any awareness. And there's often like a tremendous amount of conflict in any in any organization. And an interesting starting point is how are you guys doing with conflict? How skilled Are you in identifying, working with and working skillfully working through conflict conflict? How are you doing with measuring, you know, accountability and performance? These usually are places where there's a fair amount of stress, anxiety and room and room for improvement. Yeah, I mean, that's often in a way, that's the starting point for this book is around avoiding conflict is trouble. And as I, as I, you know, openly say the the only times that I've gotten into trouble in my work world have been through avoiding having those difficult conversations, letting things get wonky. And and things can get wonky quick when you have groups of people working together and, and leaders and people working there are not leaning into and skillfully working with places where we're not where we're not aligned. Or where there are where we are being triggered by someone else's behavior, where we're constantly feeling like, we can't talk to that person. We can't tell the truth here. It's too dangerous. Like of all those things are just culture killers, and just really bad for business.

Russel Lolacher
So there's a lot of people that are well, they avoid conflict. They are either the introverts or people that just don't feel they get anxious or don't want to be in those situations where there is that conflict. Can you sort of walk me through what conflict looks like with a compassionate accountability lens?

Marc Lesser
I mean, it's interesting to see well, that you know, the the first rule of that is to be curious, not furious, right? And this is the name of the first chapter in my book. Because often when there's conflict we humans are, we often go right to either blame or defending ourselves. And I think this is, I think it's helpful to understand that this is something that's part of our evolution, you know, that we, we want to be safe. You know, we need to, we need to stay alive, we easily feel a sense of, we easily feel attacked in some way, even when we're not being attacked. someone looks at us or says something. And there's a fight or flight tendency. So it starts with to be more curious to me more curious about your own feelings about your own patterns, and how are you with conflict? Are you someone who likes to attack? Are you someone who likes to retreat? What would it look like if you were more skillful in working with conflict, and it starts, I think, with curiosity. And then from there, I think, if you can not be so caught by fight or flight, you can start to notice, you know, what, what stories are you telling about yourself or about the other person about the other people's intentions. So again, it's like, a great way to one, you know, there's many, many tools and tricks about working with conflict. But one a really good one. In fact, I used I used it today, in some misalignment that I was having with someone who I worked with is, you know, the story that I'm telling myself, is that is that this isn't something that you feel all that excited about, because you you're not showing a lot of initiative, you're not coming up with a lot of new new ideas. So, but just starting with the story that I'm telling myself, is a way I'm not attacking, and I'm not defending I'm being I'm making myself vulnerable, by saying, this is something that I'm doing, and I'm wanting to check out. What's what story are you telling? And like, in this case, it's like, Huh, that's it, that's interesting, you know, I'm telling myself quite a different story. And, and just to be able to get those, those stories out, there can be a really potent and profound relationship builder. But it takes it takes some courage, it takes some self awareness, you know, again, you know, and sometimes we're just so you know, if we want to strangle someone, it's hard to, you know, start with the store and destroy it. And you have to be able to say, in a way, that's real and not sometimes that can be perceived as attacking or defensive. We also are, I think, to recognize that we are emotional creatures, and to be part of, I think, relationship building, and part of a big part of leadership is self awareness and emotion and aware of our emotions. And sometimes we don't even know it, right. We people often don't even see that they are, you know, attacking or avoiding. And other people say, Gee, you're, you seem really angry. Oh, no, I'm not saying oh, well, yeah, your body language is telling me that you're, you seem really angry, or you seem really defensive. So these are, I think these are such important skill, building well being building character building, that, that can spill over nicely in all our relationships, you know, the way we are in work is the way we are in our marriages, or with our families or as parents and, and I think we can practice this stuff at home. And it'll help us in our workplaces. And we can practice this stuff in our workplaces. And it'll, it'll spill over and help us in our homes.

Russel Lolacher
I want to dial back just a minute. Therefore, because you're getting into the mindfulness of it. You're getting into that because I often say and I love that you said this, that self awareness is one of the biggest superpowers you can have. Because everything springs from understanding yourself better. Where maybe I'm getting into your zen teaching here. I don't know. But what are some things that people can be doing because they're there? I know people that are listening to things like this and going yeah, that's easy to say to understand yourself better, but they're too busy being in 17 meetings today, to take that breath to go. Am I mad? Am I angry? I'm just you're surviving.

Marc Lesser
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I have a strong bias here that, you know, not only mindfulness, but I think this is one of the real important things about having some kind of meditation practice. Because I think we all we all need, you know. I love sports analogy. Geez right, so we get to see Steph Curry, you know, shooting that three point shot and just amazing right? His skill, his passion, his enjoyment, he's clearly not. There's no thought when he's shooting that shot that, that he's gonna miss it. It's all like, I'm just, I'm just completely in the moment, shooting this basketball, but behind the scenes, countless hours of practice countless hours of practice to be able to be in the moment, skillfully. So I think the same thing is true of leaders and people in the workplace. If you want to be skillful in having these difficult conversations, if you want to show up as a spacious, engaged, you know, Sage like leader, there's got to be some practice there. And, and part of that practice, I think, is to have some time when you're outside of the game, when you're just, you know, in some way, one way that I describe meditation, it's the practice of training yourself to let go of expecting things, training yourself to not be caught by whatever story you're telling yourself. Right? It's those stories, those stories that lead to us blaming or defending, blaming or defending, you know, and this is, this is, you know, terrible thing for leaders to do is to blame or defend, right, who wants to work with the leaders blame, like blaming and defending Not good, not good behavior, for a skillful leader. You know, it takes like practice and Abad. It's like it's in the body. So meditation. And to me, meditation and mindfulness are somatic practices, body practices, where we're actually getting in touch with our breath, we're getting in touch with our bodies, we're getting some insight. So if, if anger, if we're feeling angry, and sometimes anger is quite appropriate, but sometimes it's not. So this is where that like, being in touch with, oh, anger is arising in my body, as opposed to yelling at someone, or squat, you know, suppressing it, and turning away. So those emotions live in our bodies. And those emotions easily become stories that turn into action. So this is the, this to me, this is the nitty gritty of, when we talk about self awareness, it starts with the body, it starts with our emotional lives and, and noticing our, our kind of habit energy and not being so caught by those habits, being able to turn that habit energy into having more freedom about how we're going to respond to a spot to respond more freely, more appropriately. If it's time to be angry, be angry, if it's time, you know, to celebrate, be able to celebrate.

Russel Lolacher
Could you give me the link then for that mindfulness, those practices to the importance that that has on that compassionate accountability?

Marc Lesser
Yeah, again, these things are completely intertwined, I believe, right. So because in some way, they require a high level of self awareness and a high level of having the freedom to not be tossed around by our habits and and life energy, not be tossed around by our fears. And the the blame the blame game, the the, you know, the blocking game, so, yes, so to be able to skillfully align with ourselves and with others, I think requires that kind of that practice those self awareness practice those emotional intelligence practices, and certainly the compassion piece, right to truly, to truly care about people outside of their roles. This is a big one, I think it's easy to fall into in the workplace, because we feel our roles are important. What we do is important, what we accomplished is important, but man, we're all human beings. And to remember that and be able to this is I think, a profound way to build more caring, trusting effective relationships is to realize the dual nature of our roles. You know, there is the particular work roles, but there's also the human roles that we need to recognize and take care of.

Russel Lolacher
So we touched on a bit, but I'm really curious to your thoughts on this because the book digs into it is the fact that we are being compassionate and accountable in the workplace and at home, are linked. Now the reason I think that's so interesting is because I can't tell you how often leaders treat home life as a completely separate entity than their work life. They treat things they do in their regular life around building trust, as things they just don't even think occurs to them when they're in the workplace. What like account, like all these things, I just, I find it so weird. So how does this sort of bridge that gap?

Marc Lesser
I think it's, I think it's good to recognize we are different, right? It's we there are different sets of rules and expectations, the cultures in our work life are different. But there's also a tremendous, I think, amount of overlap in in our essential humanity. Right. In, in our, you know, bringing in, it's interesting, I think of I recently did a workshop for wildland firefighters, these are like, athletes who are have to be really, really skilled at making quick decisions in life and death situations. And there's, there's one leader who shared with me that he turns into, he doesn't like himself, when in emergency situations, because he becomes an absolute jerk, an absolute bully. And we talked about, you know, experimenting with seeing, could he be just as decisive, clearer, and at the same time be much more caring and trusting and to see how that works out? I've had a lot of these conversations with executives, who, who also, you know, people who tend to be bullies it no longer it used to work, you know, you used to get promoted in the workplace. No, no, maybe some places, but I've worked with many coaching clients who they're just not going to be able to be the kinds of leaders that they want to be if they can't distinguish, questioning people from interrogating people, interrogating people that you work, who work for you, does not go over very well, people will be, they'll be afraid of you. And it's not a sustainable or healthy relationship. I think now, there's been much, much more assumption and agreement that our we need to be we need to have healthy relationships. And that healthy and effective actually go together. Just like at home, right? You can't just boss your kids around or boss, your partner, you know, whoever you like, there, there needs to be a sense of alignment, there needs to be a sense of a different kind of accountability. And, yeah, and compassionate accountability, I think is actually a great guideline for raising our children, or being a father, right, or being a mother or, yeah, that bringing in that, that sense of high ethics, high honesty, dependability, you know, with with trust, and love, even bring in the L, the L word. And I like to bring in the L word, even into the leadership world, in the business world that I think there's something beautiful about, you know, really respecting and loving the people that we work with. It's kind of workplace, I want to work work within.

Russel Lolacher
Alright, I'm right there with you. And I agree with everything you're saying about building relationships, again, name of the podcast, that's why I prioritize it so much. But I also know organizations that, as you say, aren't ready for this kind of conversation. The or, or even just from an individual standard are like going and going, Yes, I'm going to be compassionate, I'm going to be accountable. I'm going to lead this way. And they walk into a culture that looks at them going, What are you talking about? So how do you champion this? Do you stick to your bubble? Or do you scream to the high heavens? This is the way things should be.

Marc Lesser
You know, Russel, this reminds me of I was working with a big, you know, multinational corporation, in which we were, I started talking to a variety of leaders about bringing in mindfulness and emotional intelligence. And each leader said exactly the same thing. Well, I'm ready for this. I want this but the but the organization's not ready. Every different person I went to. So it's so interesting. So often, our perception of our organizations. I mean, there are exceptions, of course and there are toxic leaders who are just never going to change But I've found almost everyone wants a healthy, vibrant, trusting workplace. And I think it, it takes, my suggestion is you go first, but you have to go first with skill. And you know, and you have to embody it right? You have to make yourself someone who is perceived as trustworthy, someone who is not only talking about this stuff, but that you can feel it, you can feel it from people who are well processed, who bring this who really walk, walk the talk and talk as well as talk the talk. But try little experiments, try you know, whatever it is you're wanting from it. This is I think, a good rule of thumb from all relationships at home or at work, whatever you're wanting from someone, whether it's more recognition, appreciation, you go first, you you express recognition, you recognize other people, you appreciate them, you want more time you can you give them more time and see what happens.

Russel Lolacher
Model that behavior.

Marc Lesser
Exactly.

Russel Lolacher
So you're, you're talking about communication? How can you be more compassionate, accountable when it comes to communication, where you're trying to? Yeah, bridge that gap as well.

Marc Lesser
You, you just have to practice it, you have to bring you have to be willing, again, you have to be willing to notice and your own fight or flight response? And be someone who is more open, present. Curious, someone who's not being caught by your own stories and being curious about the stories, the stories around you. Yeah, be someone who's willing to listen, you know, to listen to be to notice what people are struggling with? And seeing how can I help? How can I help this person's anxiety? What are they what are they struggling with? Sometimes people bring in, you know, the, the anxiety of there's difficult relationships, their divorces, or children who are dealing with drugs, and just sometimes just taking a few minutes and being willing to listen and feel someone else, you know, some a little bit of empathy. You know, empathy is a big part of compassion. You know, empathy is actually being willing to feel someone else's feelings, and compassion is that plus the desire to actually help and heal.

Russel Lolacher
What I'm getting all personal with, you now, Marc, what inspired you to write this book? Like, what problem did you feel that needed to be fixed to put this book out into the world?

Marc Lesser
Yeah, I think partly was personal was to see how much I have been growing and learning through my own struggles with conflict, and that it didn't come that a tremendous amount of work. in me getting more and more skilled as a leader. And I found it to be one of the most important skills with my team, and with my organization, was being able to go toward lack of alignment and conflict. And then all of the pieces around that, which meant, I had to become more and more aware of my own habits, my own fight and flight energy. Yeah, and I got to do it with my team, I got to do it with my, you know, my partner with my children. You know, seeing that I, it was a bad habit of avoiding conflict with my children. And I've gotten better and better over over time. Still imperfect, but some definite improvement there.

Russel Lolacher
Well, as you've introduced this in workshops, and mindfulness, and we talked about touching on a few of this, what have you noticed in leaders that this was sort of this aha moment? What did they need for them to go? Oh, yeah, this is the way I should be addressing.

Marc Lesser
I found it's such a great conversation, like how are you doing with conflict? How do you deal with conflict? How would you rate yourself and most, you know, most leaders are conflict avoidant and can use improvement in that area. Some are overly high accountability and low compassion. You see a fair amount of that, especially at the higher echelons and they're they need different skills and strategies for dealing with with conflict they need to bring more connection more of the compassion piece in. Yeah, I once got hired by a CEO of a large complex company who everyone was afraid of them. And it was not the kind of environment that he wanted. It was an invite I'm in a fear, you know, and everyone thought, every time he called Oh my gonna get fired, like, who wants to work in that kind of and, and he didn't want that and he needed to better understand, you know the way that he habitually created fear and stress and didn't want to do it and needed to practice making himself more aware and more more vulnerable with the people he worked with.

Russel Lolacher
And I think, you know, practicing compassion and accountability over and over and over again, I think will help with that.

Marc Lesser
Yeah, I also, you know, one of my favorite rules of thumb in this realm is, if you're not cultivating trust, you are cultivating cynicism. That cynicism, I've noticed is the default in most companies, because there's power, there's money. You have to really work at building a culture that is high in trust high in compassion and accountability. Yeah, it's very easy to break it. It's very easy to break that and we're also I think we're also tender hearted, even even the people that are the crustiness looking underneath those crests often are tender hearted people that are easily fall prey prey to fears and cynicism.

Russel Lolacher
Well, I think that's a beautiful way to end this mark. Why don't we finish it with the one question I also end every podcast with which is what's one simple action people can do right now to improve their relationships at work?

Marc Lesser
I sometimes I call it the, the four most important words in relationship are how are we doing? And actually, to be able to ask that question and mean that and and then just be curious and willing to hear what someone might might have to say, how are we doing? It's a great question. In many, many of our work relationships and not bad at home, either with your partner children parents. Yeah. But with with true curiosity, how are we doing?

Russel Lolacher
That is Marc Lesser. He's an executive coach and teacher and CEO. And he's got a brand spanking new book called Finding Clarity - How Compassionate Accountability Builds Vibrant Relationships, Thriving Workplaces, and Meaningful Lives. Thanks for being here, Marc.

Marc Lesser
Thank you, Russel.