Busy Is a Leadership Problem (Not a Badge of Honor)

In this episode of Relationships at Work, Russel Lolacher sits down with leadership expert and author Kishshana Palmer to unpack why being “busy” has become one of the most damaging habits in modern leadership.

They explore how busyness blocks clarity, weakens relationships with teams, fuels burnout, and quietly erodes organizational culture. Kishshana shares how leaders can shift from constant reactivity to intentional strategy, why clarity is a leadership responsibility, and what it really costs when productivity replaces care.

If you’ve ever worn “busy” as a badge of honor, this conversation challenges what that habit is doing to you, your team, and your culture.

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Transcript

Russel Lolacher: And on the show today, we have Kishshana Palmer, and here is why she is.

Awesome. She's a keynote speaker, author, executive coach, and an organizational change expert. She's the founder of management, delivering custom coaching, consulting, and training for leaders and teams ready to grow with clarity and care, and she's got herself a book out that I really think you need to check out.

It's called Busy as a Four Letter Word, A Guide to Achieving More by Doing Less. Hello?

Kishshana Palmer: Hello? Hello.

Russel Lolacher: Good morning.

Kishshana Palmer: Say good morning. Lemme tell you who's not busy, uh, who's, who's not listening about not being busy? Uh, my two staffies. Okay. These two nine month olds are like, oh yeah, we were sleeping for the last two hours, but right now it's time to party.

Russel Lolacher: That time of the day, they look at the clock and they're like, okay, now, now is a thing. Now is when we're gonna get busy. Totally get that.

Kishshana Palmer: That's it. That's it.

Russel Lolacher: I'm super curious to talk about this in the sense that I talk often about being busy and how if being too busy is probably one of, I think one of the busiest barriers to leadership to actually being a good leader is I'm too busy, I'm too busy.

Then you're too busy to be a leader if you're too busy. So I'm wanna pick your brain. So curious about how we should be attacking this better. But before we get into any of that, I have the question. I like to. Kick off all of my chats with which is Khaw. What is your best or worst employee experience?

Kishshana Palmer: Okay, so I'm gonna do worse so that we can just build up.

Russel Lolacher: I like it.

Kishshana Palmer: We could have a, a crescendo for the rest of our time. So I was on an executive team and I'm one of those professionals that actually have been in the C-suite pretty a long time, probably since my, um, early twenties. And I think at that time, you know this, I'm still in my early twenties. Okay. But 20 years ago, um.

And I had a CEO who would introduce each member of the executive team that CEO knew their bios, they knew where they were from, they'd break down their schools, and then that CEO would turn to me and go, okay, K, go ahead, introduce yourself. Now, if that had happened like a week after I started, sure. But the CFO and I started six to seven months prior on the same day.

So why was I getting the introduce yourself? Wave off and everybody else was getting this like Oscar introduction. And the reason that I call that one of the worst is because it was, uh, emblematic of what was happening to me and to others like me within the organization where you are like in a room, but you're pretty much invisible.

Um, you are thinking that you're on Gilligan's Island with others, but you actually are still maybe on the boat. At the island. Right? Um, and I decided that I was going to talk with the CEO about it because I ran one office and that CEO ran the other office. So this was supposed to be like my counterpart, right?

And I said, Hey, let's go for the safe word. Because you know, that's some things that you know, you might do some things that, you know, the way you show up in the world, maybe you don't recognize that that's not okay and I'm not gonna put my CEO on front street. So let's have our little code word, a little safe word.

CEO said, yes, that sounds great. Ka. I love it. Okay. I wasn't, I was, I was unaware of my blind spot, so I thought that was a win, right? Ooh, the best. Russel the worst. Here's what happened. We went on break. A week later, we're on break for three weeks. We come back from break. Nothing has happened except for break.

All of a sudden, I have a performance problem. All of a sudden, my staff feels like I'm not listening to them. They didn't tell me that that's what they heard. All of a sudden, my work is in question. All of a sudden, I'm not performing. And I believed that I served the pleasure of the CEO when you're on the C-suite. I'm like, look, if the CEO E is not pleased, then my job is to run a team, raise money, run policy to Snap.

Like I can't be here for that. And so I was like, what are we gonna do? And so I ended up negotiating a package out because I went from being this like stellar new team member who had done this like magnanimous amount of things in seven months to performance challenge. And what made it the worst for me at that time is because it's in a leadership role, right?

And so it's not something I don't have other peers I can really talk with this about except on that C-suite. And they do not have the same experience I'm having thing one, thing two, now they're frozen in place because they're like, what if this happens to me? So now instead of folks coming to like rally like this cannot stand, they're like, I'll say nothing.

So then you're even further out by yourself. And I was a young solo mom. With a mortgage and a kid to feed. Right? And so whereas now looking back, I was like, I should have sued the hell outta these people. At the time I didn't because I was like, what? I gotta feed the kid. So I got a great package and I, and I left.

The reason I say it's the worst is because it left such a mark on me that I did not go back into full-time work for anybody else again. And I was like, I'm gonna chart my own path the rest of the day. You have it.

Russel Lolacher: It's. Uh, it becomes a reoccurring theme in my conversations is that, and you sort of mentioned this, and I don't want to throw you under the bus a little bit, but you talked about leadership roles, but I'm like, but you just demonstrated somebody that had no leadership skills. In a leadership role and shouldn't be in that position.

But we assume because they're have the letters after their name or the title that they've done the work, that they're a better human being, that they are a leader. And yet just 'cause executive does not equal leadership and yet, but we default to assume it is and it becomes this reoccurring problem because they're losing great staff. Because of that behaviors. So what did you take with you? I mean, if you're not, if you're like, I'm out, I'm not, I'm not rewarding to anybody ever again. What did you take with you? Is it pretty much, was it not to sound horrible, was it sort of like a, I'm gonna get, I'm getting jaded now. I am off you executive types because of this one experience.

Kishshana Palmer: Oh, so jaded. What? It took me a minute. I was salty. You hear me? Okay. The chip that was on my shoulder was so big, I probably could have launched a new tech firm. Like that's how big that chip was. You hear me? Um, I had to really do some introspective work because when you essentially are quit fired, right?

Um, and you can't talk about it and you can't like articulate it, I couldn't, I'm a writer. I couldn't write about it. Um, what it ends up doing, you end up turning inward on yourself and so then you start to think, okay, well maybe something is wrong with me. Like maybe there was a reason why that person didn't come to my defense or didn't advocate for me or fill in the blank.

Maybe I'm the problem. And so when I launched my practice, I stayed as far away from those types of things as possible. And I did this thing where oftentimes I think leaders and folks who are in positions of leadership do is that I started to lean into my skills area. And for me, skills are things that you learn to do, that you get paid for. And we often hire for skills where I think now what we really need to be looking at are talents, things that come easiest to me, and then I can decide if I wanna monetize them. And if you're in rare air, you're gifting, and those are things you're born with, and then you can decide to monetize them or not.

And most of us never either hire for those things, nor do we actually get to live fully in those things. And so the shift for me was like, wait a minute. Everybody who works for me moves up into leadership roles, has stayed in the sector, stays in the business, invites me to their weddings, and to ask for a resume and references 10 years later,

Russel Lolacher: Right.

Kishshana Palmer: I, I think I might be doing something right. What did I do even though I didn't persist? And so that is what caused me to like have a real shift in the way I look at what are sort of like the components of being a healthy, a dialed in leader because I realized I was too busy focused out.

Russel Lolacher: Hmm.

Kishshana Palmer: On what you didn't do, what you didn't do, as opposed to like, what am I actually bringing to bear? Where are my blind spots? What are some things I need to understand? Being a leader who works with and for other leaders. And so I started to ask different questions as opposed to try to answer the questions that I just, I, there was no, there was no answer.

Russel Lolacher: Wouldn't that be amazing to have a performance review? They're like, how many weddings did you get invited to this year? Like just sort of.

Kishshana Palmer: It's a listen, I just want folks to know that is a litmus test. And I remember during the pandemic, I said it on the other side of it and I was like, look, I said if during the pandemic when everybody was doing Zoom, baby reveals and weddings, if you didn't get invited to your teams, fill in the blank Life event, they don't like you.

Okay? You are not it. And the number of folks who would like send me notes, like I think I'm that person. Do you do coaching? I don't think I'm likable. You're probably not.

Russel Lolacher: Yeah. Yep.

Kishshana Palmer: I just think like that is actually a thing to me that that is a KPI worth measuring,

Russel Lolacher: Oh, it absolutely is. It's the humanity piece because we focus, and again, back to the confusion of executive equals leader, which is not the case, but deliverables, delivery, pro profit, you know, equals leadership. Again, not the same thing, but, so that leads me to my first question because. I love definitions.

I, I hate confusion because clarity is key in the organization and we're not good, great at it as we've kind of illustrated around leadership around, you know, what success looks like. So we're gonna talk about being busy,

Kishshana Palmer: Yeah.

Russel Lolacher: May seem obvious to anybody asking, but I'm kind of curious as to what, how you define being busy when it comes to the workplace.

Kishshana Palmer: I think being busy as it relates to the workplace is when you are so focused on other people's stuff that you do not take the time to slow down. To really focus on the stuff that you need to do to move the needle. And so that can look like if you're in finance, that can look like you're so focused on the expenses and making sure that AP and AR are on the books properly, that you don't take the time.

To actually get your game up in terms of making sure you're upskilling so that you are staying in your talent flow, that you are not learning what's new and different about how technology is moving finance and how FinTech is moving along, that you're not investing in making sure that users in the organization understand the why or that people don't treat you and or your team like FedEx, Kinko, they're just gonna drop off the copies at nine and pick them up at five.

Where is the check? Where is the deposit? Where is the a CH? Can you start the wire? Right? Like you don't get an opportunity to actually build and sustain healthy relationships at work when you are busy.

Russel Lolacher: So what I'm hearing is it's more not what you're doing, which everybody equates to busy being what I'm doing, all the things I'm doing. I'm not enough time of the day, but from what I'm hearing from your definition is it's all the things you're not doing. The busyness is about putting the, putting the roadblocks, self-inflicted, or not to stop you from being an actual leader person in the workplace.

Kishshana Palmer: Exactly right. So, so I'll give it to an example. So somebody on a C-suite who is running a vertical, right? So you're running the people vertical, you're running ops, you're running it policy, you're running, um, strategy. Um, if you do not take intentional time each month. To slow your brain down to do some strategy and thinking, right?

Where, what's the road ahead? What's happening out in, um, in the news in our industry? What's some forward thinking things? Am I connecting with other peers? Do I have my finger on the pulse? Have I gone and talked to young people who are coming into this space that are seeing you see what I'm saying? Like, am I keeping myself fresh from a strategic perspective?

If you're not taking the time to do that, then actually you are gonna be a tactician. When you really should be deploying your team members to do the tactics. You can't set strategy if you are too far in the weeds.

Russel Lolacher: If it's more about being reactive than being proactive,

Kishshana Palmer: Exactly.

Russel Lolacher: So you've, you've titled the name of your book, busy is a four letter word. Why did you feel the need to be that bold about it and also to kind of, I guess, reframe it for people?

Kishshana Palmer: Yeah, because people were like, oh my gosh, you're so busy. Oh, Kani, you're so busy. Oh, Kani, you're so busy. And lemme tell you what was happening to me. People stopped inviting me to stuff,

Russel Lolacher: Mm-hmm.

Kishshana Palmer: but they didn't ask me. And then I said, I was busy. They would say, oh, I just figured you were busy. Oh, you're doing so many things.

You're just so busy. Oh, I know. You're so busy. You probably don't decide for me what my priorities are. And then I realized, oh, I'm giving people mixed messages in my mind, I'm a multihyphenate who has learned to move in across different modalities of delivery, but everything I do in my mind is about impact so that people can see different ways they can live well, so that they can lead well.

But that wasn't. I was transmitted. Now that wasn't what was getting transmitted in. Okay, don't mind me, Russel, I'm watching this thing called invasion on Apple TV right now, and so I'm all, I'm here with the transition, the transmissions right now. Forgive me. So, um, so for me, I realized like, oh, people see me a way that I'm not, that I'm not experiencing for myself one and two.

Internally, I'm exhausted and I don't seem to ever finish anything. So like, imagine this conflict. People see you as a super high performer who's so busy, you can't come to the fill in the blank. They see you as excellent and delivering on and, and, um, and a reach, oh, I wish I could be like, so now I'm outta reach, we're on the inside.

I'm like everybody else and I'm struggling. And guess what else? I am trapped because now people believe me to be a way. And now I can't talk about the humanity of what's actually happening to me. So I said, if that's happening to me, that has to be happening to other people. So let me figure out how to get myself outta this thing.

Russel Lolacher: It seems to be so tied to identity because we work in the workplace and we're like, I'm busy. You are busy, and we use it as an excuse. It's, or it just seems to roll off our tongue. But everybody's busy to some degree. Even if you don't have a meeting right this second. To your point earlier, if you're doing it right, you're strategic, you're thinking about the next thing, the bigger project, how to calibrate.

So what are we getting wrong here? Because it feels like we're still celebrating productivity, we're still celebrating delivery, and we seem to be missing this whole piece.

Kishshana Palmer: I think the word that you used a little while ago clarity is, is the, like the, the, the linchpin.

Russel Lolacher: Hmm.

Kishshana Palmer: We are not clear as leaders on what Big S strategy really means. We are not clear before you even get to strategy. Strategy is your North Star. We're not clear on the vision that the strategy is driving toward.

Russel Lolacher: Even if there is a vision.

Kishshana Palmer: It's like, you know, when, when like people talk in like half sentences and I, um, I have a friend like that who she'll get like two thirds of the way in her sentence and then switch sentences and go two third the end and switch. Like she never finishes the sentence, but it's like this interesting language.

I've known her for a long time that I can follow now, but can you imagine if you're sitting in a, in a team meeting and your leader is just giving you word soup and you're supposed to go, I'm smart. I'm learning. So you pretend like you know what they're talking about, but you have no damn idea. They don't know neither.

So I think a lot of leaders, actually, again back to the don't slow down to get out of the tactics to make sure you actually can set vision, which means you have to get out of your environment, right? So that you can have some, some head space to go, what does this look like and what would need to be true?

And who do I need to have alongside me in order to make sure this is true? To then be able to have the people, the who's to help you with really refining what that strategy strategy should be, and then having leaders who understand how to deploy little s strategy so that they can get the stuff done.

Russel Lolacher: You got my brain bouncing around from three levels here because I see from a busyness perspective, it's how we per perceive busyness and the impacts to us. Surrounding ourself, our team, and then the culture, which might have a very different idea of what busy or not busy looks like. So starting with ourselves, what is the cost to ourselves of being busy?

Because I mean, you've already illustrated, you may be losing opportunity because other people are mis conceiving your situation, or they are and they're just not, you know, they're not delving in to have those connections and conversations with you. So I'm just thinking it from a mental health and wellbeing standpoint.

Kishshana Palmer: Yeah, I think a lot of us, and I will speak for folks, um, you know, so I'm a Gen Xer, um, came into the workplace under boomers, right? Where you show, show up early, you leave late, you don't complain, you figure it out. And then if you are parenting, then if you were a, a latchkey kid of the eighties. Um, or you were a young person in the, in the early nineties, right?

Like you were, find a way of, make a way, figure it out. Doesn't matter what your socioeconomic background was. Um, you, you on your own. Okay? Then we get, then we have these babies and what are we doing helicoptering in on the Helio pad for everything. So we create this environment where we are fostering. An air of like mediocrity to the people who were supporting.

And I put that in quotation marks. I would actually say helping, and then I'll go one step further to say that, are we actually helping them? So what happens is that we end up having dis-ease in our own bodies. So our mental health takes a hit because depending on what generation you are listening to this, you might've been taught not to complain, duck it out, figure it out.

If you came into the workplace and you got tossed into the deep end and that was your onboarding, it is really hard to let go of that way of being. And everywhere you go, there you are. So if you got tossed into the deep end as a kid and then you got tossed in the deep end when you went on your academic journey or your vocational journey and then you got tossed into the deep end when you started your career, lemme tell you what you're doing.

You still swimming in the deep end right now. It doesn't matter if your heart's failing. It doesn't matter if you're at risk for stroke. You like, I'll get to the doctor next week. I'll do this next week. I don't have time for that. I'll do, and you are modeling that it is okay to not take care of yourself.

Russel Lolacher: So are we needing to reframe here? Because you talk about I'm, I'm a Gen Xer too, and it was all about complaining. You get it, you mask you. Like I come from the service industry where you scream and shout in the back and you put on the facade the minute you come out onto the floor.

Kishshana Palmer: You better believe it.

Russel Lolacher: And the workplace is, I don't care what corporate, this, that, and the other is the same thing.

So. Is it a reframing exercise? Because I'm thinking if we don't call it complaining, if we call it constructive feedback, if we call it like, how can we better improve the organization by not calling it complaining? What are your thought? I'm, I'm seeing this almost a communication exercise in some way.

Kishshana Palmer: so for me, that's one of the things in terms of rethinking stuff, you have to like reset your baseline. And so that's why having vision is really important. That's why naming, if you don't have it, that we're in a position and we're in a point of inflection. That's why being able to say like what are, what are our actual assets, our human assets in terms of like what do we have on team?

Where are we strong? What are our digital assets? What are our physical assets like? What are some of the policies, procedures, and practices that we have? Can we look at those things from a position of strength so that we can level, set and name what is ground zero? A lot of times when I work with, um, leaders and they are really struggling, particularly with intergenerational teams, it's because younger professionals coming into the workplace, they're like, why?

Why? Why Can you gimme a reason why? And they're like, further, actually, don't gimme a reason why. Lemme tell you my why. Let tell y'all we raise those, those young people. Hello. They're doing it to us at the house too. Okay. Just to be clear. And so our frustration. Isn't that we're not naming the why because we still have more of a command and control type of leadership do.

'cause I said so, right? I don't have to have a reason, I don't have to have clarity. I don't have to to to read you in. Right. You could be over your, excuse you on young. So in order for us to recept this so that there is a place to move from this idea of complaining to naming is so that you, your team understands the container that they're actually in.

They got their guardrails. They know what the protections are, they know what they're actually working within. We are in a period of input. Here's what that means. I love your, your point about always making sure you understand your definition. And by input we mean it does not mean decision just to be clear, whatever.

Um, and giving people space to move through what they're thinking about, what they're recognizing, what they're actually living with. And taking that data in because hello friends, you are in a relationship with your team whether you like it or not, and it's data for the health of your relationship. So for me, I want leaders to really like, in terms of like rethinking this whole idea about being busy, that pause is so important.

If you have not left your desk, if you're working from home or you have not left the factory, you have not left the plant floor, you have not left your office to go for a walk, to take your, your iPad or your notebook and go sit somewhere else. You better put that on your schedule for this Friday. Pick it up and go sit somewhere else and start to really give your body an opportunity to.

Like literally start to reassert what it needs. Give your brain an opportunity to slow itself down so that you can start to go, okay, mm-hmm. What the heck is really going on right now? Mm-hmm. Because I think a lot of us, Russel are disconnected from what our body is telling us. And we say we're trusting our gut, but some of us need some, some leadership, probiotics.

The gut's not right.

Russel Lolacher: So looking at it from two angles though, what is the canary in a coal mine, not only for ourselves, but to your point, the people we have relationships with. Because as a leader, we have to be paying attention to the, okay. I'm, I'm. Into and I should be pulling back. But we not only have to recognize that for ourselves, we have to recognize it for the team that we're responsible and accountable.

So what is it internally and.

Kishshana Palmer: So when I work with leaders, typically I start with their calendar, which I know might people might like roll your eyes. And I just wanna tell y'all for the, for the record, most of the things Russel and I talk about, duh. You, there should be nothing I say that is actually that revolutionary per se, other than the Aha, which is the other side of Duh.

You didn't action it yet. For real. Hello? So I think thing one, when I work with leaders screen share, lemme see your calendar. When I see an executive and they don't have meetings on their calendar or they don't have like, oh, so and so stopped by my office, or so and so did a, a quick huddle. I make them go through the exercise of if somebody talks to you for longer than five minutes, it's a meeting, it's a huddle at five to 10 minutes.

Right? It should say huddle with Russel, right? And what do we talk about? Because you want to start to see where you're spending your actual time, and then you get to decide. Uh, I haven't been able to get work blocks done because I'm in meeting nine hours a day. What does that mean for me to be able to have a clarity of mind to deliver?

Clearly, I have to actually start to, um, delegate and delegate differently. What I do then with teams, once I've done that with the leader, is look at how folks are getting work. So I, I come from a grants background. Uh, when I first got into nonprofit work, I was a grant writer for a first couple of years, and I did, I did federal grants and you had to track your time, um, so that it got aligned to the budget area, right?

So I'm comfortable with time tracking, so I believe in doing that with your team a couple times a year because it gives you an opportunity to recalibrate where folks are actually spending their time, and then you as a leader get to take that data. And go, huh? Do we actually have the right priorities?

Are we actually driving to the bottom line? Or are we limping along to the bottom line? Are we burning out our people to get to these outcomes? What can we do differently? Then you can bring your team back into those conversations. So really looking at the tools we already have, starting with yourself. To start to see what is the data telling us about how we need to operate moving forward so that we can do something different.

Because the answer typically is in the room, the answer typically is in the room for me. So I think like, and that to me is one of the simplest things I do. Oh, can I see your calendar please? And they're like, my calendar. It's like a yes. I would like to see it. Oh, you didn't put that, you went for a walk.

Oh, you haven't eaten in three weeks. You know.

Russel Lolacher: Well, it's so, I mean, I love the idea of being obvious. I love the idea of just going, well, let's use the tool that we all look at every day. Are you a leader or a cog in your wheel of a cal? Like, are you following your calendar around or are you leading your calendar? Um, much different perspective of this.

Kishshana Palmer: Hundred percent.

Russel Lolacher: So what kind of conversations do we need to have? Because in a diverse workplace as a Gen Xer, you may be leading boomers, um, or a millennial leading Gen Xs and boomers that have a different perspective of busy equals success.

Kishshana Palmer: Correct.

Russel Lolacher: And you are coming in this doing yourself work. Understanding that calendar is the, is the.

Canary in a coal mine as it were. How do you approach a team that might have different, even culturally, have different ideas coming from? So there's, you know, Asian countries that have a much different idea of what a nine to five or different hours look like or how to spend that time or outside of work where you're building relationships.

That's all work. So how do you approach that when their definitions might be different?

Kishshana Palmer: So when I go in or I go on my team and we do leadership experiences, for example, we start there, I start at the house, I don't wanna talk about work. So for most of my clients, even when we do big, big hundreds, hundreds of people exercises, we get in that people business. Okay? I wanna know what birth order you are.

I wanna know what your family of origin is. I wanna know, did you grow up? How did you grow up socioeconomically, right? Did you talk about money? Um, did you play sports? Were you the last picked for kickball? Hello, uh, nerds of the world? Unite, like who was a dance major and who was in theater? Like, the reason that I ask these questions is because everywhere you go, there you are, and it helps me.

And I'm, I'm a Clifton strengths coach, so it helps me to leverage whatever assessment tool, whether it's Clifton strengths or it's disc, um, or it's ILS, whatever it is. To then take like the reality of people's lives and create sort of like an interpersonal heat map that now we can start to talk about.

Now we start to talk about commonalities and themes. Now we can start to help people understand one another through the lens of, so when I'm a leader and I'm a Gen Xer and I know that I have team members who are like, yeah, um, that's not in my job description. It makes it easier for me when I come in to go, here's the cheat sheet of how to work with me.

Well. And as a leader, people got to know how to work with you, and then you've got to know how to work with your people. So for the folks who are like, that's not in my job description on the inside, I might be like, you the hell? It isn't your job description, just check on the 15th and the 30th. You know, like that is my internal dialogue.

I'm not gonna lie to y'all externally. They might see it in my face though. Somebody, that's somebody who hasn't worked with me yet, because nobody, people who work with me will not say that out loud twice. Externally, I'm like. Fair. Fair, right. Also, your job description is actually supposed to be an umbrella of responsibilities, not a ticker tape of tasks.

And most people write them as this long ass to-do list, and that's what we get it twisted. So then I got to bring it back up. Ah, you're right. Let's look at your work plan though. Let's look at what success looks like. Are we on the same page? Let's look at what it's going to take for baseline. That's to say you showed up to get the paycheck that you signed up for and now what does it look like to move up?

So we get to have different conversations, um, for my team members and I actually was a 21-year-old with boomers on my team. Lemme just be clear that I had to manage. And so for me, I understood instinctively that there was a little bit of deference that I needed to have. In terms of how I worked with them, that grew to serve me so well because I understood, oh, these folks are gonna be here for their 35 years and they're gonna get their pension and they're about to go, and so no one's leaving.

So I'm not trying to move up the ladder. I'm trying to learn what I can so I can expand my capacity so I can move on, and I need folks in my corner who are gonna champion me to do so.

Russel Lolacher: Mm-hmm.

Kishshana Palmer: And so the way I asked questions became about that, right? Like that knowledge share, that transfer, that learning from stylistically that savvy with politics, the being able to understand how to navigate in corporate spaces.

So instead of it being like, why are you like that? I was like, Ooh, I'm very curious. Isn't I like me? So I want managers to, and people, managers, and leaders more globally to get curious about your team members. Get curious about the makeup of your team. And I think that we, and I grew up, you know, I came in, I'm sure you did too, into the workplace where you don't talk about religion, your family or politics. But if we talk about my earlier statement, everywhere you go, there you are all, and the things we don't say.

Russel Lolacher: We mentioned this earlier about boundaries, and I can hear, I can hear people listening to this going, okay, sure. We'll create and affect the organization, the team that we're in. But I live in a culture where you don't get to say no based on X title based on where you sit in a hierarchical chart. So as a leader, am I empowering my team to go?

Yes. And or are they able to say no? Like where is the boundary to boundaries?

Kishshana Palmer: I think that, so first of all, to me, boundaries are an invitation to how people get to be in community with you and in relation with you. Those are things that you decide internally are go, no go. Rules are the things for other people.

Russel Lolacher: Hmm.

Kishshana Palmer: Um, and then as a leader, you create and you hear me say the, the guardrails for your organization, for your team.

And if you think about guardrails friends, for those of y'all who have gone bowling and you see the little people when they're learning how to bowl the bowling alley, I did not know this when I was learning to, bowl has a little thing. You press the button and on the sides come up these two plastic guards that make sure no matter where the ball goes, lemme tell you what it does get down the lane and it hits a ball.

Your job as the leader is to ensure you put things in place that no matter where that darn ball goes, it is going to hit those pins. And so if you grew up in a culture like I did of guessers and not askers, and so you grew up in a guessing family where you're expected to know, if you find yourself saying internally, well, they should just know, whoop, pause.

Probability is how you grew up in a guessing family. Right, or culture or, or both. And that you're dealing with someone who you don't know if they're a guesser or an asker or group in that family. So that's your opportunity to pause and ask, because if you understand how people come into their workspace, that's an opportunity to build that relationship.

Then you get to say, oh, this is a, a yes and. Or a no. Here's another alternative. So if you want to move to a type of leadership style where you get your team members get to experience, yes. And you have to model what that looks like, and you have to explicitly name it. I would like us to try it this way because I've noticed that y'all are telling me no by not doing stuff or doing it late, or doing it incorrectly or doing it half ass, or whatever the thing is, right. You are telling me yes. And by taking forever to finish on the thing I told you to do with another pathway and then I'm so exhausted by y'all. I said go ahead anyway, so your behavior is already doing the thing. I would just like just to name it up front and codify it so that we can keep it on front street.

Russel Lolacher: I think we've lost the meaning of words like leader, because the whole point of being a leader is you lead somebody, you don't go, there's the North Star. You go figure your own way there. No, you.

Kishshana Palmer: You actually have to

Russel Lolacher: Yeah, it's not an interpretive dance. You are a.

Kishshana Palmer: it's not dance. It's five and six and seven and eight, and one and two and three and four. And if you don't want to dance to that rhythm, my friends, you don't have to, you could go.

Russel Lolacher: Where does that show up in artifacts that we are so reliant on an organization like onboarding performance reviews. How does us getting away from busy look like when we're sticking to that process that every organization seems to go

Kishshana Palmer: Oh, okay. I'll give you a quick example. So, you know, I just mentioned this whole thing about, um, uh, personality assessments. So many organizations have some version of something that they try or use, and typically it is nested in like, uh, the employee retreat, the annual company summit, whatever. But it's not rolled into anything else.

So if you have new. Team members take an assessment when they start and it doesn't show up in their onboarding, in their work plan and how they're assessed in their performance evaluation if it doesn't come in any conversations. Was it just a fun exercise that you spent a lot of money on? 'cause seems so.

So when companies wanna hire me to come in to do strengths, I ask, well, what are you gonna use it for when I leave? Maybe I shouldn't ask that question. 'cause I'm like, you know, you wanna pay me alright, but I just can't live that way. And so. Companies need to really, leaders specifically need to be thinking about.

When I think about organizational health, one of the levers that I need to pull is are the tools that we are using to assess success, actually helping to improve the health and wellbeing of our employees so that they are performing better and not just performing. I don't want tap dancers. I would like synchronized swimming though, you know, a little bit different.

Back to your, I wanna interpret dance. So if you like an assessment, take the time to make sure that that tool will actually work for the different types of generations that are in your organization. The different types of, uh, people, we get our demographics mostly when we, when we join organizations. Take a look at that stuff with your people team and then make sure that you work so that those things fit together.

And then as the executive leader. Talk about why it's important, talk about how you use it at work. If you really wanna be brave, talk about how you use it at home. You'll find that adoption will go up 'cause people are curious, nosy, if you will, about what makes others tick, and then work with your people team to tie that into how we change and shift the culture, a set of behaviors in our organization.

Russel Lolacher: But Kishshana, we're so productive. We're doing such a great job. Look at our numbers. We are busy. The sales guys are doing great. Like why should we worry about how the sausage is made? Because the sausage is fantastic at the end of the day. So you've got, I'm sure people that are a. Equals dollar sign and they feel like productivity is moving the needle.

What is the benefit? Of course, I'm, you know, voicing the critics here. What's the benefit of not being busy, because we're obviously being pretty productive, so busyness is working for us. Why would we change?

Kishshana Palmer: I think it's a difference between getting the big box store brand of batteries

Russel Lolacher: Hmm.

Kishshana Palmer: and getting the fancy rechargeable, so you might be productive, but to what end? If you are burning out your people to get to the outcome and you have high churn, then actually you are experiencing loss and then you're experiencing that the actual creep, the leakage, if you will.

Because every time you have a vacancy and have to, to post, to train, to onboard, to get the person back into cycle, and sales teams are great examples of that where it might be one or two high performers, but baby, those teams are turning over. They're turning over. Why? Because there's not a a, there's not a, a position of care.

What do we provide for our sales teams to using that example to ensure that in addition to hitting their actual numbers, that they're taking their, they're taking care of themselves while they do it. And so go ahead.

Russel Lolacher: I was just gonna say like, I, what worries me sometime is the stories that people tell themselves. IE hey, there's huge turnover. Well, you know what? They just weren't a right fit for us like that. It's the, they aren't our material for our organization. They burnt out because they weren't ready to do what was needed to do.

X exhales X, blah, blah. That toxic behavior is thankfully getting a much more of a spotlight, I think since COVID more than anything. I, I love the, the shift, but it's still a problem.

Kishshana Palmer: It's huge, but guess where it comes from. You gonna laugh again? I'm gonna say it one more time. It comes from the house. Here's a quick example, y'all. When my daughter, she was about to be 20. Yes. Can you believe it? Russel? I almost 20-year-old. Look at this. Good skin. I don't even have no makeup today. This is a

Russel Lolacher: As a fifth, as a 19-year-old. That's amazing.

Kishshana Palmer: Oh lady. First of all, can I just take a pair of paragraph because people are gonna understand this. My child told me the other day, I was, I was, she was said, whatcha gonna do today, mom? I was like, oh, I'm gonna go into the garden. I think I'm gonna repo the plants for fall and clean up the, the front patio.

'cause I like to work in the morning. She says to me, sounds appropriate. I said, what she for your age? I said, excuse me. You know what she said to me, friends, well, mommy, you know, you're closer to 50 than you are to 40. You understand my life? Mm-hmm. Okay. So I, I have to give y'all that little aside.

Russel Lolacher: Fair. Fair. Chanel no longer lives with you, but yes, it's a lovely story.

Kishshana Palmer: She's not officially on her own pay bills. Thanks. You know? Um, but I think that, like for me, one of the things that has like really stood out to me is that as a, when she was little, my mom. I said to her mom when we were growing up, 'cause I have four siblings, when we were growing up, you know, y'all parented us all the same way.

And if somebody ain't fall in line and they fell off the truck, that was the person who fell off the truck. Oh, you know, your sibling, you know, they just couldn't do right. Parents did not blame themselves. Okay. So my, uh, progressive self said to my mother, well, you know, mom, now we actually parent to the child.

And so each child is different. So you actually have to pay attention to what they need to give them what they need. Right. See, you're not, you're not, I have, I know listeners are not, and not, this lady says to me, what new parenting book are you reading? And so I give y'all that example to say, many of us are like, well, it worked for me. And so if don't. It's, oh, it's your fault. It's not an indication that I don't know how to adapt. And what I'm saying is that we need to actually shift away from that, my way or the highway to, if we in fact want to keep making money, keep making more widgets, have bigger services, scale, be the world leader of be the boutique firm of whatever your actual like.

Goal is for your company, then you actually have to, um, you know, have a nuanced way of thinking about longevity because otherwise we are not loyal anymore. And actually friends, the call's coming from inside the house, it's you. Okay. I just wanna

Russel Lolacher: So it's us. We're responsible. So I like wrapping up conversations with sort of that. Dipping your toe in. Where do you start tomorrow? You're not reading a whole book. You're not taking a whole course or hiring, you know, you or anyone else to sort of help with this, but you need to take a first step in the right direction.

Say tomorrow, after listening to this podcast, what would you recommend is that baby step to even acknowledge that busyness is a problem?

Kishshana Palmer: So thing one, the way I wrote my book is that you don't actually have to read the whole book. Um, it's written in self-contained chapters and the chapter titles actually tell you what it is. So you just look what your, what your challenge is today, and, and 10 minutes later you have your first step. I just want y'all to know that's how I wrote it.

Okay? That is the neuro spiciness of me. So if you want to say like, what is your one thing, your one thing is to acknowledge that perhaps there's a quiet voice going, you know, you're tired. You have to be able to name for yourself that something is not quite right. A lot of us have a hard time saying something's wrong, but if I ask you what's not right, you gonna, you gonna gimme a list of things?

So that first step, acknowledging, I think I'm at a point where something needs to shift. Sit with that feeling. Sit with that. Sit with it for a couple days, y'all. Let it come to you for what it is. Then I want you to focus on what I call my five star wellness plan. Give it to you in a minute. Your physical health and wellbeing, your emotional wellness and wellbeing, your spiritual wellness and wellbeing, if that's your jam, your financial wellness and wellbeing, and your community wellness and wellbeing, who you surround yourself with.

So that's your crew at work, that's your crew at home, that's your crew in your community, right? Of those five things. Think of those as dominoes. Which of the five, if you knocked that over, would knock over the rest of them? For me, in this season of my life, Russel, it's my financial wellness and wellbeing.

That is the thing that I've had to knock that over and focus in because it affects my mental health, it affects my spiritual life, it affects my physical health, and it is affecting my community. 'cause I ain't going outside. You see what I'm saying? So if you as a leader are able to go, hold on, let me just do a gut check.

Which of the five do I need to focus on so that the other dominoes will start to fall? I promise y'all, if you're able to do that and identify that one thing and commit to yourself that it is a responsibility you have as a leader to make sure you are well in that one area, you'll start to see your leadership at work shift almost overnight, almost overnight. That's what I got.

Russel Lolacher: That is Kishshana Palmer. She's a keynote speaker, author, executive coach, and organizational change expert, founder of management. And there's a book you check. Check it out, please. We're all busy. We need to stop this nonsense. Busy is a four letter word, a guide to achieving more by doing less. Thank you so much for being here.

Kishshana Palmer: Oh my gosh. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.