Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
The Seven Tools for Doing the People Stuff Well
15 Plays2 months ago
This final episode answers a practical question: Now what?
After a full season of exploring curiosity and leadership, this conversation zooms out to look at the end goal. Not abstract philosophy, but real life. Most people spend the majority of their waking hours at work. If that time is consistently confusing, draining, or joyless, something is broken.
In this episode, we connect all seven Curiosity Tools into a single, usable system. Purpose alignment. Clear expectations. Healthy conflict. Clear language. Idea implementation. People development. Self leadership. Not as isolated concepts, but as a set of building blocks that work together.
The result is simple but ambitious: less anxiety, better relationships, stronger teams, and more sustainable results. This is about doing the work and doing the people side of work well, at the same time.
Recommended
Transcript
Creating Happier Work Environments
00:00:00
Speaker
So my final question for us is where we go from here. So I always like to think of the end in mind. So the end in mind in my work is always um how do we make work more fun, easier, and more productive.
00:00:14
Speaker
You're gonna spend 50, 60 hours a week there sometimes and I would hate for somebody to go and do that for 20, 30 years of my life even if they jump from company to company and go it's always just kind of terrible Yeah, that is like the general. If you're sending me a drug of Like I have to do this, right? Yeah. And so if the end goal is to make happier companies and for us to enjoy the work we're doing while we're doing it how do we do that? Well, we have to become more emotionally intelligent. That's the the idea. here All right.
00:00:44
Speaker
Well, this is the end, Sue. Well, these are good questions. I don't know if they're great. well We'll let the audience decide. That is for them to decide. I'm not here to make statements. I'm just here to pose questions. So my final question for us is where do we go from here?
00:01:00
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah,
Fostering Curiosity and Organization in Teams
00:01:01
Speaker
it's a good one. And I think practically what that means is like, so, i mean, you do work with teams and helping them become more curious using these tools and some some of the accompanying questions to kind of Uh, communicate more clearly, lead better, get more organized, achieve bigger goals, all, you know, eat more donuts, whatever, whatever, eat more chicken, whatever the thing is. But like, what do we do with that? Like, how do you put this together? are Is there some way of thinking through how to be more curious on like a global level that would be, i don't know, a useful sendoff? Yeah. So I always like to think of the end in mind. And so the end in mind in my work is always, um how do we make work more fun, easier, and more productive? You're going to spend 50, 60 hours a week there sometimes. And I would hate for somebody to go and do that for 20, 30 years of my life, even though they jump from company to company and go, it's always just kind of terrible. Yeah. because we're yeah That is like the general, you're stepping in and drawing a board. Like I have to do this, right? Yeah.
Evolving Leadership: Soft Skills and Self-Leadership
00:02:07
Speaker
But what I think is every human has a ah certain amount of agency to go, if I can increase my own self-leadership, and what we called leadership development in the 2000-2010s now is really called soft skills. You know, we know how to build the widget, but can you lead yourself? Can you lead other people? Can you communicate well? Can you set a good expectation? And so if the end goal is to make happier companies and for us to enjoy the work we're doing while we're doing it How do we do that? Well, we have to become more emotionally intelligent. That's the the idea here. And so soft skills can be the same as emotional development, can be the same as leadership development. They're all just interesting catchphrases for the same idea of going, we have to build the widget.
00:02:48
Speaker
but we need each other to build a widget. How do we get better at doing the each other stuff while we're doing the product thing? And so what you know we've asked now is seven questions are all based around these seven different tools.
Enhancing Emotional Intelligence: The Seven Tools
00:03:01
Speaker
So if you can bring all of those tools to bear, then all of a sudden you can set a great expectation. Okay, well, when you set great expectation, well what's the purpose of that? Or what's the purpose of that? Doesn't that need some clear clarified language? Around that, do I know how to ideate? Okay, well, we're creating the ideation. are we going to have a moment of conflict? Well, sure we are. And then how do we bring new people into that? Well, there's the personnel development part. And then finally, can I lead myself and then others and then the company or clients or the world? Well, if I've only been on the job three days, sure you can.
00:03:34
Speaker
if we're using these tools and asking these questions. Because what I never wanted to do when I set off to do this stuff was go, oh, here's an interesting philosophy. I've been around enough people who, like, oh, I have an idea.
00:03:47
Speaker
Okay, well, that's an interesting tweet or an interesting question, or I can look smart saying that to somebody else. And they go, oh, that's a good philosophy. I'm such a practical person, again, like this eight-year-old version of me, I still want it to work on a Tuesday. So if you're telling me, hey, Carl, conflict, like, we should be on the same page. Great. How do I do that? Okay, well, here's a tool.
00:04:08
Speaker
So there's a question that discusses a philosophy and a practical application tool that helps you execute on that philosophy of being more curious in a really contentious space. And so what I think is next is hopefully, you know, through the, you know, season here that we've covered these questions, people will be able to go, oh,
00:04:26
Speaker
oh, it's not one tool, it's kind of a Lego set. and When I start combining all these different pieces, you can make whatever you want to, but I think now you have the seven fundamental building blocks of becoming a really emotionally intelligent and aware person in your personal and professional life. And so really the hope is that people would take all these seven tools, start playing with them together in the same sandbox and go, oh,
00:04:50
Speaker
That's weird. That made me kind of a more clear, less anxious human for my own internal experience. It made me a better friend, spouse, partner, you know, in a relationship. It made me a better parent.
00:05:04
Speaker
It made me a better person inside my community. Oh, and by the way, it helped us make a lot more money in our company because this stuff just makes sense and it makes people want to be here and do better work and hang out to do even better work. And so it's just this compounding return on investment.
00:05:21
Speaker
Walk us through those seven tools one last time. Yeah. So you've got at the very beginning, what's purpose alignment? Why does my job matter? Okay. I need to know why this matters if I'm going to give space and energy and time to it. The next thing is expectation management. Okay. We have a purpose now. How are we connecting on that? How are we setting good expectations? The rules of the game, right? And the next thing is, okay, those new rules will probably create conflict.
00:05:45
Speaker
So how do we get on the same page with that, with each other? Oh, and as we're getting on the same page, now we need a clear matrix, clear language matrix to go, well, what you're asking or what you're telling me is not what I'm hearing, so how do we clarify those things? After you do that, what you need now is, okay, we're bringing new people onto this purpose. How are we developing them in this four-part strategy that gets them not only to know the widget, but now they can lead and train other people in how we do that stuff?
00:06:11
Speaker
around here. After you get somebody onboarded, what you need then is this sense of, okay, how are we getting these new ideas to be? Because, oh, you've got an idea factory new person who's seen us for the first time, but you don't understand the context. Okay, now we've got a container that we can take an ideator and an implementer and make sure that they don't, the ideator doesn't get shot down and the implementer doesn't get worn out.
00:06:34
Speaker
And then finally, the thing that kind of all wraps it together is self-leadership. Am I giving my attention to the right problem? am I giving my intention to two solutions? Am i being deeply committed to a result that means something to me, the team, the organization, the client, and then the world? And if you can do all seven of those things, I use them as much in my business as I do in my marriage, as much in my parenting as I do in my friendships. And so it's the combination of all seven of those things.
00:07:02
Speaker
If somebody wants to work with you and your team, what does that look like? How do they
Consulting and Leadership Services
00:07:06
Speaker
how do they do that? Well, first, they should probably have better taste than just hire you because you're clearly just way better at this. That's true. Yeah, they can just call Jeff instead.
00:07:14
Speaker
But if they're hard up and they want to work with us, um you just go to getmorecurious.com and grab the time on the team's calendar and then let us know, hey, this is the problem that we're up against. Because really what I'm fascinated by is over the last 20 years of leading, and I'm, you know, now at this stage, I'm helping everything from startups to, you know, major, you know, kind of transnational companies.
00:07:36
Speaker
And I think it's still these seven things. And so I'd be fascinated for somebody to ring me up and be like, hey, Carl, can I get 15 minutes? We have this problem. And we don't think one of your seven touches it. OK, great. I'm open. I'm curious. you know This is not the the holy grail. um But like I said, for the last 20 years, what typically happens is somebody rings me up and goes, oh, we have this problem. It's like, oh.
00:07:58
Speaker
Burnout is typically a purpose alignment issue. Or, oh, people aren't just doing their work well. Oh, that's an expectation management issue. Or, oh, our um administrators are really burned out or worn out. Oh, that's probably an ideation issue. So we listen to the problem and then we go, hey, we think you can do this. And then once we've engaged in that way, there's lots of different ways for them to practically use the tools. Yeah.
00:08:23
Speaker
Getmorecurious.com. And once we have that, um again, I'm a very simple person, and so I like simple solutions. So I typically have them to be time bound. So if somebody's going, oh, our company has a retreat. Carl, we'd like you to come and run a couple of these problems and teach us
Masterclass for Soft Skill Development
00:08:41
Speaker
how to solve them. OK, great. Or we've got a lunch and learn, and kind of like a keynote. Hey, come in for an hour and give us one of the tools and help us understand that.
00:08:49
Speaker
um are Two of our other ones that I think are really fun is we've created cohorts that you can do. Typically, people use them either for frontline workers who want to become managers or for managers, or it's ah like an escalation point for if you want to become an exec. Everybody kind of has to go through this leadership cohort. So you can have 10 people in it. You can have 100 people in it. But for eight weeks, we go through one of each of the tools, and it's one-on-one with me via Zoom for an hour with questions and the whole thing.
00:09:16
Speaker
So that's our cohort. And then um our last kind of in-person thing is our executive coaching. And so I can meet with the key leader or key leadership once a week, and we start typically at 90 days, and I'm just advising them. Hey, here are the key problems. Here's how you use this to kind of move their leadership forward.
00:09:35
Speaker
And then we've got one last thing that I'm particularly excited about, and it's really new, is we took everything that you've just seen now in the podcast and we created our version of a masterclass for soft skill development, for emotional intelligence, for how to do everything other than build the widget, you know, the people stuff. And so now you can take your entire company. and This is where we've seen the best results is as you're onboarding people or as you're doing new retraining, um everybody gets a subscription access to this online training. And so it's videos and quizzes and activation guides and print offs. And so it's basically us in an online box that you can access anytime you want.
00:10:15
Speaker
Yeah. Well, this has been One Great Question.
Upcoming Book on Emotional Intelligence Ideas
00:10:21
Speaker
These were all right questions. All right. They were pretty good questions. Well, we are working on the book that comes out next year. So maybe in the book, there will be like the really great questions. Better Questions by Jeff Goyne. I'm going to write two books. one one One for you, one for me. Okay, questions. All right. One Great Question.
00:10:38
Speaker
And then so much better questions. We're going to sell them on the shelf next to each other. Let's see who they pick first. Yeah, I mean, it'll be up to them. And and just two judgy pictures of you and I as the front cover. One looking at the other one. pretty good okay question. If you have low standards, just great questions.
00:11:00
Speaker
Anyway, that's what we did. You're welcome. You're welcome. go See you next time. Cheers.