Michael Scott was clearly the best part of The Office (don’t @ me, Dwight stans). Because while he was not great at the business part of his job, he was even worse at the intangibles. And some of us were probably laughing because of our own insecurities. I feel confident in saying that if you’re reading this, you’re already a better leader than he was.
But since that’s a pretty low bar to clear, we probably all still have some room for improvement as leaders. It’s easy for us to get caught up in the numbers without remembering that we’re all people with wants and needs, and placing a little more emphasis on that side of the business can help with culture, retention and the bottom line, as well. Let’s discuss!
Get the weekly newsletter to read more.
Carl: Seriously though, I was not ready for humans.
Gene: I feel you. Sometimes it feels like that.
Carl: Oh man. So today's episode is all about soft skills.
Gene: All about- [crosstalk 00:01:04]
Carl: Why is it so hard?
Gene: The soft skill.
Carl: And you know why it's about soft skills?
Gene: Why that?
Carl: Because if you have a team that's good at it and you are good at it, you have to be good at it first. Because then you'll attract the people that are good at it.
Gene: Okay.
Carl: Then your retention goes up.
Gene: Retention.
Carl: And you don't have to recruit as much. As you get people who like to work together ... I know, we had this conversation. You're just not nice. No, we had this conversation, we may have had it on the show I can't remember. But just talking about how at that one event that we had, the Design Leadership Camp, the first one, there're 30 people that ran a table that are running some of the best teams in the world. At Disney, at Google, at AMEX, at ... all over these great names to drop. But one person asked the question, "How many of you fired somebody for a hard skill in the last six months? How many of you fired somebody because they could not do their job?" And only one hand out of 30 went up.
Gene: Right.
Carl: She then asked, "How many of you fired somebody for a soft skill in the last six months?" And before she could finish saying it, half the room, the hands went up.
Gene: Yeah.
Carl: And you're going, "Okay, it's not that you aren't great at building these apps, it's that you're an arse hole. And there was a rule that I'm sure you heard about." But you know what? It's not even just being an arse hole. It's like we act like-
Gene: [crosstalk 00:02:53] Yeah.
Carl: Soft skills is either, "Oh no, he's nice. He's got great soft skills." Or, "She's mean. She has bad soft skills." That's not what it is at all. There's a lot more to it.
Gene: I like how you broke it down.
Carl: Yeah?
Gene: Yeah. Communication skills, flexibility, motivation, organization and compassion.
Carl: There you go.
Gene: I like those. It's almost like ... how many of them is there? Six. It's almost like the six cardinal rules of soft skills.
Carl: Wow. That's amazing. Well, and the thing is, after six I was tired and I wanted to go to bed.
Gene: Well- [crosstalk 00:03:34]
Carl: But yeah, let's dig into this a little bit-
Gene: Being well rested before you go to work is probably a soft skill.
Carl: It could be or a great plan.
Gene: A really good plan.
Carl: I think ... but no ... but ... so it's taking care of yourself? [crosstalk 00:03:51]
Gene: It's a good plan, but I don't know if it's a soft skill.
Carl: Yeah. Because I mean-
Gene: It probably should be.
Carl: Think about how long we've been on this planet, some of us longer than others, and we're still figuring out how to take care of ourselves.
Gene: Yeah. Pointing at you [inaudible 00:04:06]. Yeah. Look at that focus.
Carl: [crosstalk 00:04:10] This guy. That's really nice. You've got a great camera there.
Gene: Yeah.
Carl: So yeah. Let's start by, I think the biggest soft skill is how we interact with others.
Gene: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Carl: And-
Gene: For sure. [crosstalk 00:04:26].
Carl: I think probably part of why our friendship started. Because you could tolerate me.
Gene: I was going to say it's because I have the ability to put up with a lot of bull shit.
Carl: And I have the ability to generate [crosstalk 00:04:40] tremendous amounts.
Gene: It is a perfect relationship.
Carl: Tremendous amounts of bull shit, that you then deal with. But no... But I mean, if we think about it, communication skills. This is a big place to start because most of us don't do a great job at listening. We hear about it all the time, active listening. People have tried to put other words around just listening. I think you're listening, but I'm not sure you heard me. All of that kind of stuff that just shuts an arse hole like me down. Gene, why would you let me call myself that?
Gene: It's your show.
Carl: Oh wow.
Gene: It's your show.
Carl: And now it's my show?
Gene: Yeah.
Carl: Okay. Well you just cut yourself out of 50% of-
Gene: Of stuff.
Carl: Millions of hours.
Gene: Yes. I'll take it.
Carl: No, but what do you think about... When you think about bad communication skills, does somebody to come to mind?
Gene: Yeah.
Carl: Talk about that. [crosstalk 00:05:50] What comes to mind?
Gene: I'm going to talk about myself and just say that, any time that I can remember that I've been confused over something or I made a mistake because I didn't do something the way someone asked, I can pretty much remember that it was because I didn't pay attention.
Carl: Yeah. [crosstalk 00:06:10] Did you get frustrated though?
Gene: I did, yeah. Or you thought you paid attention. Because I don't know that it's like, you're just a jerk and you don't pay attention. I think you can think you're paying attention but you're distracted. How many times have you talked to somebody and they're looking at their damn phone?
Carl: Oh, I mean constantly-
Gene: [inaudible 00:06:30].
Carl: Sometimes I'm talking to myself and I catch myself looking at my phone while I'm talking to myself. I'm like, "Could I have your attention please?"
Gene: Yeah. Is it rude to do that? Is it rude to kind of like, "Hey, this is important."
Carl: Well, that's it. Then do you become the person-
Gene: You're like, "Wow, he's pretty pushy. [crosstalk 00:06:51] I wanted to not pay attention in peace."
Carl: Let's dig into this. Because maybe we can... We can't cure cancer, but maybe we can help people from getting punched. So when somebody's looking at their phone and you're trying to talk to them... I did this once and I'm not... okay, I'm married 20 years. I'm not saying that everything's been wine in roses because it has not. I mean, look at me. But one thing you can do when you're talking to somebody and they're looking at their phone, is text them.
Gene: Oh Shit. That's kind of a passive aggressive movement.
Carl: So whatever ... it is so passive aggressive.
Gene: Okay, cool.
Carl: So I was thinking maybe this weekend we could ... and then you just send a text, "Hey, do you got a second?"
Gene: I don't think I'm sharp nor fast enough to be able to pull that one off.
Carl: I only did it once and it was not worth it. I thought it'd be funny and it was not worth it.
Gene: Yeah. The blow back from that is like ...
Carl: Yeah.
Gene: I will say I have been in a meeting with some people that were on my team and I could tell they weren't paying attention. And I did text them. I was like, "Hey, eyes up." He's like, "Huh."
Carl: Nice.
Gene: Like [crosstalk 00:08:02]. Like, "Hey."
Carl: What about this? This is a real thing. Okay, I like where we're going now. Technology is automating poor soft skills.
Gene: I think it might be.
Carl: When it gives us these auto responses.
Gene: Right.
Carl: Right. So, I know sometimes I'll send a message out to somebody and I'll get back, "Okay." Now I am one of those people who, words like sure.
Gene: You're like, [crosstalk 00:08:31] "I'm just viral", I'm just, "Okay."
Carl: Whatever. You may think whatever doesn't belong in there, but I will make the argument that, "Okay sure", and "Whatever", are kindred words.
Gene: [crosstalk 00:08:41] They might be.
Carl: When somebody is in the... Checking messages on the watch is the one that gets me the most.
Gene: Yeah, because they think they're being sneaky.
Carl: Well, it could be that or maybe ... or don't even then they just kind of look at it and they're like, "Uh-huh (affirmative)." And then you see them push something, and basically they're pushing one of those auto responses.
Gene: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Carl: And you know when they did that to you. And the thing is, it's like wonder woman just deflecting incoming messages.
Gene: Yep.
Carl: But you don't have to do that when there's a real person in front of you.
Gene: You don't. This is sidetracking this whole conversation, but-
Carl: I don't care. I like this.
Gene: Do we really need to respond that fast? One of the things I think all that's done is it's made us feel like we have to respond faster than we really need to. Because just because somebody texts you, it doesn't mean you have to respond within 18 seconds. You can take five minutes.
Carl: You can take a day.
Gene: You can take half a day. Yeah, you could... Even if you're driving your car, you probably shouldn't text right away. Because you're like... I mean [crosstalk 00:09:56] just be careful.
Carl: I want to watch you drive like that.
Gene: I don't.
Carl: So I mean thinking about this... Okay, so when I got pulled out of work and wasn't able to do my day job, my Bureau stuff... I still was hanging out with the Bureau socially, but I wasn't able to do all moving the behind the scenes stuff, I had somebody who was helping out with my email. Katie, awesome. And she basically, we just set up some folders. Which was, forward to Lorie, if it was something about an event or whatever.
Gene: Right.
Carl: Reply, if it was something I need to reply to. Or archive. And so if it was just somebody replying to something but there was no need for response, she'd put it in the archive folder. I found a few in there where I was like, "Well, but I would respond to that." A lot of people might not, but I might want to say, "Wow, I really appreciate that. Thank you." That little extra email, that message back probably wasn't that necessary.
Gene: Okay.
Carl: But it felt good to me. I also think that one of my challenges is I hate... Somewhere inside me I hate not having that last thank you. And maybe it's wanting the last word. I don't think it's the same thing.
Gene: Last word freak.
Carl: Well, but last word means you want your idea to be the last idea. If you're just thanking somebody, is that a last word?
Gene: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Carl: Shit.
Gene: Yeah, I think it is.
Carl: [crosstalk 00:11:27] break.
Gene: It depends. Is it a sincere thank you or is it just, I got to close the loop, thank you?
Carl: There you go. But see this gets... Okay, now we're getting back into the whole over communication problem.
Gene: Try man.
Carl: Well, I'm just going to say this then we'll get back over to the soft skills. We reap what we sow, right? It's, whatever we put out in the world comes back. We attract what we put out there. It's like... So if you have way too many inbound emails like me, it's probably because you don't let the conversation stop. Okay, let me ask this. If after somebody does something you send a gift that just is an appreciation gift, is that a last word?
Gene: Yes. Words and gifts are the same thing. Emojis too.
Carl: Well, I just-
Gene: But isn't continuing the communication sort of your job?
Carl: Yeah.
Gene: I mean, it's kind of what you're here for.
Carl: I mean, it is.
Gene: I mean if you're in business development or whatever, that's what you're there for too.
Carl: But if you get to a point where you can't manage your own-
Gene: Well, yeah.
Carl: Inbox. We're definitely [inaudible 00:12:42] under pressure. So coming back around to soft skills. We obviously have them in droves. So communication's huge. Make sure you're listening to people. And making sure that when you say something, you say it in a way that they can hear it. Written communication can be so tough because extroverts and introverts living together ... that was a Ghostbusters' reference, you're welcome. It was dogs [crosstalk 00:13:11]. Coming at you.
Gene: Mass hysteria.
Carl: I know. Exactly. "Is that true?" "Yes Your Honor, that man ...", okay.
Gene: Yeah. Where do these stairs go? They go up.
Carl: Oh my God.
Gene: That's not in the movie.
Carl: So this is why we are friends. I wouldn't to say best friends, but I want to put pressure on you or upset other people. Okay. So ... ah, you put your little lip out. I want to [inaudible 00:13:36] on it. Okay, we're besties.
Gene: Yeah. That's good.
Carl: Anybody listening to this right now, I hope you're just enjoying the background noise because we're obviously not bringing the content today.
Gene: I disagree.
Carl: Well, good. I'm glad for you. See [inaudible 00:13:56]. So making sure that we not only listen, but we respond in a way that people can hear. And this... There was a question in the Bureau Slack, and I knew ... the person who was asking, I knew they knew this, but I just ... I would just felt like I had to say it. But they were saying they were hiring somebody or they had a relative, like a nephew or something, that was becoming a coder and asked what are the most important skills? And I'd immediately went to communication. Not anything around technology.
Gene: Yeah.
Carl: Super smart, successful business person. She knew that. But for me it was like, I'm also thinking, okay there are a lot of people in this channel watching this and I think it's important. And so even with that, just the way that I said it I think I did okay. Because I didn't say, "Well, communication skills of course." I said, "We [inaudible 00:14:43] I know this but, communication skills are super important." And I think that's the other thing. It's making sure that our words don't attack that other person's foundation, or make an assumption ...
Gene: Yeah.
Carl: That they don't know this.
Gene: Right.
Carl: I think all of those things are super important.
Gene: And helpful for sure. Little humility goes a long way.
Carl: Well, there you go. Humility. I've heard of it. It's like [inaudible 00:15:12] Isn't that kind of like [Sasquatch 00:15:14] though?
Gene: It burns a little bit.
Carl: It does. Is it burns a little bit? Yeah okay, you really need to get back on track here. I'll tell you the biggest soft skill that I suffer with, that I am not good at, is flexibility. I get in my mind that things are going to be a certain way, and as soon as it starts to divert from whatever this predetermined outcome was that I have-
Gene: You don't like it.
Carl: You know-
Gene: Why is that though?
Carl: It's a great question. I mean... And sadly I've put this in my kids too. I can see it with them and I'm like, "Well, what? No, we're just leaving 10 minutes later, it's not like the whole day is ruined." And then I'm like, "Oh, that would be because I get frustrated if things don't go the right way." Why is it? I could blame my dad, he's not going to show up and say that I'm wrong. Wow, I know. Too soon? It's... [crosstalk 00:16:24]
Gene: No, it works, but I'm calling bull shit on it.
Carl: Yeah, I don't know why that is. I mean I kind of want take it back to, I guess just that human condition, imposter syndrome. Feeling like you really don't know what's happening. And then you tell yourself this story about, this is the way it's going to happen. And as soon as it doesn't go that way, that little voice in your head just goes, "You don't know anything."
Gene: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Carl: "You have no idea what's happening." Either that or drinking in the morning. One of those two. See, now that was because I got a little [inaudible 00:17:10] with myself and I had to deflect it. The old drinking in the morning joke. I don't know why do people use milk on their corn flakes?
Gene: Just use whiskey. How about motivation?
Carl: Yeah, honestly, this is the one that I struggled with today. [crosstalk 00:17:32] I couldn't get motivated to do anything this morning.
Gene: Okay.
Carl: And here I am sitting quiet.
Gene: So how is it a soft skill?
Carl: Motivation's a soft skill-
Gene: [crosstalk 00:17:44] your ability to motivate others.
Carl: You really do motivate others, absolutely. And I think the only way that, that rings true is when you can motivate yourself. When you can stay at that high level of energy. Because people will sense it otherwise. I mean, we're social creatures, we sense things from each other. We know when somebody's not being honest with us, and we know when we're okay with that.
Gene: Yeah.
Carl: But I think when it comes to motivation, especially for leaders, you have to really believe in whatever it is that you're motivating others to do. You really have to believe that, yes, this project is important and here's why. You have to show up with that kind of belief system that, yeah, the work that we're doing does matter.
Gene: Yeah.
Carl: Because if you don't, nobody else is going to care.
Gene: No, they probably already don't. You're going to have to carry that for them probably, as the leader.
Carl: Yeah. I think ... I mean, you've got a good point there. But people follow what other people do.
Gene: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Carl: I mean, you've probably seen this. When they would... I'm sure Candid Camera did it way back in the day. I'm sure that other punk shows have done it but where, you can just get people to start standing in a line...
Gene: Yeah, no, standing.
Carl: And other people will get in the line.
Gene: Right.
Carl: Or one person looks up already stops and starts looking up. We did this at, what was it, at [UX Mad 00:19:18] a [Jim Remsik's 00:19:19] event, where I just tested, I just pulled out my phone to see if other people would do it. And it went right down the line. You kind of see it. So it's the same with motivation as it is with anything else. If they see people being excited about the work. If they see people wanting to do the work. If they see people wanting to be a part of their organization and the company. Now, when you're in charge of it, it's a little bit different because they know you've got a vested interest. But that's where you have to put the vested interest in them.
Gene: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Carl: And understand, what is it in this project that make that developer or this writer or that project manager get excited?
Gene: I would say that if you're in a leadership position, it's even more on you. Because the response of not being motivated is going to be exponentially larger for-[crosstalk 00:20:09].
Carl: Oh yeah.
Gene: Team members down the line.
Carl: And did you just call me a moron?
Gene: No.
Carl: Okay. Because it sure sounded like it. No, but ... and I think one of the ones that needs to go in here, maybe even more than motivation, is just empathy.
Gene: Right.
Carl: It's like, if you can understand what motivates somebody, then you can help them find whatever it is in the work that's got to get done. Even if it's not this project, it's not this work. If it's like, "Hey, I know that this doesn't feel the best. I know this doesn't feel like we're moving forward. You're doing something you've done a ton of times. But if we do this, it helps us fund that." Or, "It helps give us time to learn this." [crosstalk 00:20:58] So you kind of tie it together though.
Gene: You do. And in a very... We were talking about empathy, it really can help stop things like overreactions. And it can really help communication too because if you just have a little empathy for somebody, they can just be having a bad day. And that can go a long way in terms of figuring out what the hell's going on. Which kind of helps the whole engine run. If you just have somebody that's having a bad day and they react to something, maybe you shouldn't overreact too. You should identify what's going on. I mean, I think that's a soft skill that, more so nowadays, people at large in this country, I think we just don't have it and we're not practicing it.
Carl: Yeah.
Gene: Because its like we're looking for shit to jump on people over.
Carl: So compassion was one of the ones that made the list in terms of soft skills and-
Gene: Yeah, empathy, compassion. [crosstalk 00:21:58] I think they're very similar.
Carl: They are ... I mean there's ... they're definitely similar. One is more about understanding somebody may be going through something, another is trying to understand what they're going through.
Gene: Exactly. [crosstalk 00:22:12]
Carl: And I think when I look at what you just said, I mean, the country, the world, definitely on our teams.
Gene: Yeah.
Carl: Yeah. I mean sometimes people are going through that thing. I was talking about somebody yesterday who I'd severely disagree with on just about everything on the planet. And all I could hear myself in the back of my head say was, "Who hurt you?" Who raised you and you kind of fell into this belief pattern. But then look who raised me and I fell into my belief pattern. Yes, humans are going to have challenges and humans are going to have beliefs that other humans don't understand and are diametrically opposed to.
Gene: Yep.
Carl: But unless they're actively hurting someone, which a lot of thoughts do I'm way off the deep end now...
Gene: No I think if you put it in the sense of the mission, which is, let's that you have a project and that's getting the project done. Having these existential conversations about political views or religious views or views about viruses whatever, it's not going to help get the project done. You know what I mean? If you want to turn getting a project done into, should I be here? Those are two very different problems that we need to solve in different ways. And I think it's the difference between empathy and compassion. You can disagree with someone and have empathy.
Carl: Right.
Gene: You can know that they're going through something and not care about what it is in terms of responding and working on a project. You know what I mean? Just shut the hell up. Let's work on the project versus let's go have coffee and find out why you're so angry or sad. Those are different things. And I think, from a leadership perspective too, you have to detach the two. You know what I mean? You got to be able to shift gears, I think.
Carl: Well, first of all, I do want to go get coffee and talk about why I'm angry or sad, but let's finish the episode first. Yeah, this is interesting. I don't-
Gene: You might disagree with me.
Carl: I might, but I'm not sure. Honestly. It's like I know we're almost knitting a little bit here.
Gene: Yeah, I think so.
Carl: But I think the important thing is, if you can make that move ... I mean, compassion is important, but empathy I think wins.
Gene: Of course.
Carl: It's just that empathy takes more time.
Gene: It does. And in terms of soft skills, it's a skill you have to develop for sure. Because it makes you have to get out of your own head.
Carl: Yeah. I-
Gene: And I think most people respond from that point of view. They respond from, "Well, I'm having a bad day too."
Carl: Well, yeah. We all got [crosstalk 00:25:03] These wires didn't just show up this way. We've been working to be who we are our whole lives.
Gene: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Carl: And all of these different... We all know this, but all of these different things that happen form us into the person we are. That's why we're all different. It's like if you look at, this is really weird but I going to compare it to a chess game. If you look at a chess game, those first few moves are just predictable. We all start off the same way. But then somebody makes something a little different. And suddenly everything, butterfly effect, everything changes. And we all have these points in our lives that set us off on this course. If you ever do a life plan or you sit down with somebody and kind of go back over your life, you'll find these pivotal moments where everything changed.
Gene: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Carl: And I think, to what you just said, really struck a chord, about how somebody says something and you instinctively react.
Gene: Yeah.
Carl: And it's because it's challenging your belief system. Or you feel like you are going to lose something if you listen or if you give them what they want. But honestly in almost every situation, not responding is better than responding.
Gene: Well, yeah.
Carl: Initially.
Gene: And you see this on social media every 30 seconds of the day. Why are you ... clearly the ... if ... the reason people are arguing on social media is not the argument. It's so many other reasons why they're typing that response.
Carl: Yeah.
Gene: It is rarely the actual being in the fray for the response.
Carl: No. Oh my God. Soft skills on social media. Could you imagine?
Gene: That'd be awesome.
Carl: It would be.
Gene: Well, no one would use it.
Carl: Well, I mean, maybe it wouldn't be as entertaining. Maybe it wouldn't-
Gene: There'd be no comments.
Carl: Back to those, the origin days of, "I had a burger."
Gene: Wouldn't it be nice?
Carl: Yeah.
Gene: I just want to see pet pics and what you ate for lunch. I really do.
Carl: Oh, come to the Bureau Slack.
Gene: And your kids.
Carl: Yeah, man... I'm just... I'm thinking about all the times. I mean, we've all done these tricks or heard that these tricks like where you respond in an email and then delete it. I don't think you can just un-wire yourself. And even with therapy and all these kinds of things that you can do, medical marijuana, you're still going to have that wiring. It doesn't go away. It's ... you're right, it takes a lot of work. And that's... I think the biggest thing for me, and this has helped a lot, is I don't reply to emails when they first come in. And I don't, if I get a Slack message and I'm not sure about it, I don't reply to it right away. And this has been really only for the past few months, because I used to be in that cycle of, if I don't it's going to overtake me. There's so much coming at us that if we don't respond to it, it feels like we're going to lose our way.
Gene: I think you're right.
Carl: That we're going to be overwhelmed. And I think that's a big... That's really helped a lot. Because even when I then sit down... I mean any given morning, I'm going to get 30 or 40 inbound emails. Okay, and-
Gene: Oh yeah.
Carl: I mean, legitimate. Not spammish stuff, not that kind of stuff.
Gene: Yeah. People, yep.
Carl: People. And I will scan them. And any of them that look like they're going to require a longer response, I mean I leave them all until a later point in the day. But then the ones that require that longer response, I may even leave overnight. And it's not because I don't want to reply to the person, it's because I don't want to just shoot out an instinctive response. I want to give myself a chance to think about it.
Gene: I think that's so important in business in doing the work we do, is to do just that.
Carl: Yeah.
Gene: Take your time. You know what I mean? I know there's a deadline and you got five projects going, but take your time. Respond thoughtfully. Make sure shit's spelled right. Like basic shit. I can't tell you, it's actually a pet peeve of mine, and I've gotten very pissed. And [inaudible 00:29:22] I never did anything to the person, but-
Carl: Said you're sorry.
Gene: When somebody responds and you know that they responded on their phone and it's just this gibberish. You're like, "What are you talking about?" Or you ask three questions and they respond to one. You're like, "Great. You want to go back and answer the other two? Put your phone down for five minutes and fucking read my email." That's a pet peeve of mine.
Carl: Your soft skills are amazing.
Gene: But that just shows me that they're ... they lack those skills, they're not paying attention.
Carl: Yeah.
Gene: It just tells me, wow they're not paying attention.
Carl: Yeah. I think there's something about... When you're in a conversation with somebody directly, obviously you can't just walk away and come back the next morning.
Gene: Right.
Carl: People hate email, but it does [crosstalk 00:30:08] give us certain advantages.
Gene: Pause.
Carl: Exactly. Otherwise it would be... I just had this vision of whoever you were talking to and you just leave the room, and then they're the next morning you're going, "So anyway." And they go, "Oh, Jesus, where did you come from. What?"
Gene: "I'm finishing our conversation."
Carl: Yeah. "No, I just thought you'd like an answer ...", 17 hours later.
Gene: Yeah.
Carl: But yeah. So that's where the flexibility side comes in, and that's where improv comes in. It's like-
Gene: Yeah, yeah.
Carl: And not that you're acting or playing, but that you can quickly get to a place where you can still be heard. And you know what my pet peeve is with me? When I go fast, I use the wrong spellings of words. And then I go back in and I see it immediately if re-read it-
Gene: Oh yeah.
Carl: Like hear and here, there-
Gene: I'm embarrassed.
Carl: All these types of things. But that's [crosstalk 00:30:58] trigger for me to know that I wasn't really thinking.
Gene: Which one may makes you the most angry when you see it in other people?
Carl: When they do it?
Gene: Yeah.
Carl: I don't know that I get angry when other people do it.
Gene: I do. And the one that triggers me is a part. A space part and apart. And it's like, "Oh, you want to be a part from this project?" "You're fired!"
Carl: Wow.
Gene: I'm just kidding. I don't get ... I don't really give a shit. But it does bother me when they can't get a part and apart right.
Carl: Yeah.
Gene: Because they have opposite meanings.
Carl: I want a t-shirt that just says, working on my soft skills.
Gene: We left one out. Let's hit this last one, organization.
Carl: Yeah. I mean that one... It gets to that point of being able to trust other humans. And I think for me, organization is about understanding. I mean, it gets to delegation.
Gene: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Carl: Yes, I have to keep all my stuff together. But one of the interesting things that happened, again when I had to kind of take this absence. I had set to dos... I use Todoist, to do app. And I had set to dos that would start every day.
Gene: mm-hmm (affirmative).
Carl: One was... Think about the newsletter. One is, promote on social. Or whatever it might be, but just to trigger me. "Oh yeah. I need to let people know there is a great event or else they're not going to know to go to it."
Gene: Okay. Well, that's important.
Carl: That's kind of a thing. It's not like people are sitting there going through my garbage, trying to figure out what's next.
Gene: What's Carl coming up with.
Carl: Exactly, what could happen next. But that level of organization to me, it just means that you have to get to a point where you can let go of stuff and ... because otherwise you just get overwhelmed.
Gene: Yeah.
Carl: I'm still... And the thing is the newsletter hasn't come out yet. So we're looking at a draft right now and I've been getting some great or from [meetus 00:33:00] actually as they're going through and helping with a lot of things. But I need to go back through it and think about it. Because I'm thinking maybe delegation is more of that soft skill than organization. Or maybe they're separate. But really you got to be able to keep things moving. Organization, delegation, prioritization. [crosstalk 00:33:24] That's a huge one, is knowing what's important and what's not. Because sometimes we do stuff just because we've always done it.
Gene: Yep. Yep. You ever have a problem with someone that you work with who has the trouble prioritizing things? Things that are way more important ... particularly with client facing things. They treat everything with the same urgency.
Carl: I did. I mean, definitely in the [NGEN 00:33:50] days we had some people who, everything got the top priority. And if you were to think of it in terms of any kind of list, basically it was more chronological than it was truly important, [crosstalk 00:34:06] level of importance. And that would be one of those things where I would... And I think this is a requirement for great leaders to sit down and say, "Hey, show me what your priorities are right now, so I can help out." And then if they show you more than five things, that's not priorities, that's just a list.
Gene: Right. Right. They're not- [crosstalk 00:34:28]
Carl: That's stuff I got to do.
Gene: Yeah. [crosstalk 00:34:29].
Carl: But if... A lot of times, and this gets back to communication is, if you haven't shared why something's important, they don't understand the context of what they have to do, how are they going to know what's more important?
Gene: That's right.
Carl: So I think that becomes a big thing. And also just when something new comes in hot for you, as somebody who's leading a team, make sure you take the heat off if it's not as hot as the thing from yesterday. Because you're feeling it now.
Gene: Yeah.
Carl: It's just right now you feel it and you're like, "Oh yeah", because you've already written off the other thing because you handed it off. So if you're like, "Hey, we just got this new opportunity and I want to make sure that we move forward on it." And then you push that up. They may drop the thing yesterday, which was pay your taxes.
Gene: Yeah. Yeah.
Carl: One of them has a big impact. The other one ... may have a bigger impact so...
Gene: Yeah. I think that's something that... We talked about communication skills. In whatever mode that you communicate in or cadence you communicate in, make sure you're including prioritization as part of that. Whatever thousand points of light that you're using for your communication, make sure it's a big one. I would say that you're making sure you communicate prioritization. I found that some of the contractors we work with, and then my business partner, we were missing that. And for a while we were sort of like ... I was like, "What the fuck? Why are you ... why do you keep harping on this one thing?" And we never discussed, "Well, this is actually important because this client keeps calling me over and over about it."
Carl: Yeah.
Gene: It was like, "Oh, well, when you said that", I was like, "Well, I'll just do that right now." Whereas before I was prioritizing it myself.
Carl: Did you all ever use the GAF index?
Gene: No, I don't even know what that is.
Carl: It's the give a fuck index. And so-
Gene: That's the good. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Carl: Yeah. So basically the GAF index, we used to do this at NGEN. Which was everybody had basically ... you had five cards with a one to a five on it. And we never really did it so much as the game, but we would just say... And basically, let's say it is, bring on this new client. And somebody's like, "My GAF is a five. I really, really want this." And somebody else goes, "Well, my GAF is a three. I mean, it'd be nice to have." And somebody else goes, "My GAF is a one. It's whatever, if it comes or it doesn't."
Gene: Right, right.
Carl: And then when you have the conversation, it's not yes or no. It's, "Well, this matters to you. So I'm cool with it." But it kind of forces you into this understanding that not everybody feels the same about everything.
Gene: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Carl: And that... I always thought that was a really powerful... And we only did it when we found ourselves in times of disagreement.
Gene: That's cool.
Carl: Yeah.
Gene: That's cool.
Carl: Pretty cool. Cool things.
Gene: [inaudible 00:37:17] why don't you marry it?
Carl: Whatever. A lot of people did the GAF index. I think it's really powerful.
Gene: Yeah, it's fun too.
Carl: Gene, we've come to that time.
Gene: What's your hot take my friend? A Luke warm take?
Carl: We're just people. Where just people trying to do stuff.
Gene: That's right.
Carl: No, I mean that hot take I think is that we all have different goals. We all have different aspirations. We all have different places we want to get to. And we need to realize that we can only go so far on these things together. And then we're going to diverge. We're going to go into different places. But while we're on the same path together, I think that conversation and communication and empathy and listening and making sure that we're not getting ourselves overwhelmed so that we can help others, I mean, that's the path forward. As long as we're working towards the same goal and we can appreciate each other, humans can do some pretty cool stuff.
Gene: Just like Boba Fet learned.
Carl: Oh, is that the new one?
Gene: You ever watch that?
Carl: No.
Gene: You just outlined the whole story. It's beautiful.
Carl: Yes. Maybe I'll get some royalties. I'm excited about it. Gene, take care of yourself.
Gene: You too man.
Carl: Because we're best friends.
Gene: Don't make everybody else mad.
