THINK!

[00:00:14] Speaker A: Welcome to Momentum. Your inside track to the strategies, mindsets, and the how they did it. Stories behind world synergys continued success. Let's unlock new levels of achievement together and join today's podcast. [00:00:26] Speaker B: Welcome to Momentum. As always, here we have Glenn Smith, our CEO. [00:00:33] Speaker A: Hello. [00:00:34] Speaker B: Hi, Glenn. We have charles on engineering. Hello. Hey, Charles. Hey. And I'm Matt Jones. And we are here today on our fourth episode to talk about think, our fourth core value. So, to start out with, we'll talk about just what think is. We'll just define the five different words, and then maybe we can go through each one individually and talk about it. So the each word, the t is true, h is helpful, I is inspiring, n is necessary, and Kay is kind. So, Glenn, you want to start off talking about. [00:01:27] Speaker A: Sure. Sure. So, as you might recall, when we were defining these core values, we were tossing around a myriad of different terms that we wanted to use to kind of represent what this is about. It's about addressing, like, your inner voice and your outer voice. Right. And so, you know, we all think things all the time, and thankfully, you know, we're a species that can actually pause. And before you actually say what's on your mind and say it, hopefully in a way that's actually productive. So, think, for us, is just the core value to make us pause before we speak. And it teaches us not just in how we use our voice, but how we communicate digitally as well. So we want to have a certain voice or a certain tone when we're talking to employees and customers and partners and what have you, it doesn't always transcend the way you always want it to. And sometimes we. We slip, or sometimes you just use people as a sounding board and you kind of pause the core value for a second. But at the end of the day, it's about making sure when you're communicating with someone that you're saying in a way that's not going to offend because that doesn't help anyone. That then puts someone on the defense. So you want to say things in a way that is going to be the best way to be received. So, you know, we found this. What is the term for the. [00:03:15] Speaker B: The acronym? [00:03:16] Speaker A: The acronym, right. Think. And it's a. It's a way for you to pause and say, so is what I'm about to say. Is it true? Right. Is it. Am I. Am I gossiping? Am I talking behind someone's back? Am I speaking fact? Am I, you know, am I speaking from firsthand knowledge? Or is this hearsay and this whole acronym is challenging by itself, because, you know, it's hard sometimes not to talk about things that are sensational and things that you heard through the rumor mill. But we all know that it's just, it's not constructive, it's not helpful, because no one wants someone talking behind your back. So we want to make sure what we're saying is factually true to the best of our knowledge. [00:04:13] Speaker B: And it's especially difficult in today's world because the media is sensational. So everything we're taught and we talk about outside, about the world and the goings on in the world is always sensational. So it's very easy to bring that same practice into work as we're talking about people, clients, whoever, whatever it might be that we tend to kind of have that same mindset. But I think it's helpful for us to, again, take that pause each time and question, boy, if somebody tells you something, boy, that just doesn't sound like glenna, I should question whether that's even true or not and not just repeat it on to somebody else. Or if you received a message that you felt, if you repeated it, you might not say it in the right way or whatever. Just making sure that you are saying things properly as they were truly given and not embellishing, I guess, is a way to put it, because, again, that's how rumors get started. That's how people get hurt from these things. [00:05:32] Speaker A: Sure. Sure. And to some extent, having two kids that are twelve and 13 in school, some of this is anti bullying, this acronym. Just recently, my son came home from school. He made us aware that he called another kid a boulder and that it hurt this other kid's feelings because he's kind of a big kid, and all the kids were calling him a Boulder. So Grayson said, boulder. Back to this kid. And he realized it hurt his feelings. And something is small, or you might think is small, you don't recognize until you actually say it. You see the person's expressions, that that's not a way, a good way to communicate. He should have. And he uses this. He calls it introspective, which I thought was a pretty big word for a 13 year old kid. He shouldn't have said it. So, you know, he's starting to learn something very similar in terms of, you know, our core value of think. [00:06:42] Speaker B: That's good. So then what about helpful? [00:06:46] Speaker A: Yeah. So if you're giving someone feedback or you're communicating to someone, is what you're saying, does it actually add any value? Does it really help the individual? So often that we're communicating with someone or some team, and you say a bunch of extraneous things, that. Does that really add any value to this conversation? What are you saying? Because sometimes you say so much that actually you confuse the message. So you got to make sure that what you're saying is helpful, that. That you're saying it with the intent to help the situation, the problem, the person, whatever yours that you're discussing. And don't just say it, to say it. You know, sometimes you hear the expression that people are listening with the intent to come up with a response and not to really understand the problem. And that's part of it, is making sure that what you're about to respond with or initiate is actually going to be helpful to the individual individuals. [00:07:47] Speaker B: Yeah. So it's really thinking about your purpose behind what you're saying. What is your intent? What is your desired outcome? By saying what you're about to say. If your desired outcome is to go back to the last one with truth, if your desired outcome is literally just to spread gossip, well, that's not very helpful. And it's also potentially not true. You have to measure yourself against that intent. Why am I saying what I'm about to say? Right. Why am I bringing this up? What am I doing? What's my purpose? What's my intent behind this? And if it can't be answered within the helpful thing, then maybe it's best just not sad at all. [00:08:31] Speaker A: Right? Right. And often I'm that way. I would rather not respond if I don't know what to say. And so my parents said this when I was really young. You know, the wise old owl say, if you don't know what to say or you can't say something nice, don't say nothing at all. And I've always been that way. And sometimes it's just because I don't know the proper way to say it, or I'm emotional all the time, and I know if I'm gonna say, it's not gonna come out very helpful, so I wanna pause. The unfortunate time or unfortunate part about that is sometimes you forget to then bring it back up. Right. You don't deliver it. [00:09:11] Speaker B: I've been in many meetings with you where you've not reacted or said anything to a discussion or conversation that was going on. [00:09:20] Speaker A: Right, right. [00:09:21] Speaker B: Yeah, I've noticed that. [00:09:24] Speaker A: Sticking to our core value. [00:09:26] Speaker B: That's right. That's good. So let's talk about inspiring. [00:09:31] Speaker A: Yeah. So again, you ask. The question you ask yourself, is what I'm saying going to inspire the individual. Is it going to motivate, uplift in some way? You know, we talk about positive, right? Being more optimistic, more half full than half empty type of approach, because you do want to say things in positive tone, in an inspiring way, maybe some voice inflection, what have you, to just give some energy to what the communications you're trying to talk about instead of just being monotone or saying things in a looking past as opposed to looking forward. [00:10:14] Speaker B: Yeah, and this is really about the. The how we're gonna say things, right. And not everything we're gonna say is gonna be that I have a dream speech. But still, what we're trying to communicate, how we communicate it is just as important in what we're trying to communicate. And so we need to be careful in choosing the words we say appropriately. And a lot of this just still comes back to slowing down, taking that pause. Sometimes you might need to slow down in how you're saying something so that you can say it appropriately and that's okay. To not have to speak 50 miles an hour faster than your brain can comprehend what you're saying. Take that time to pause, go back and realize is the way I'm saying this, I know it's true. I know the person needs to hear it because it's going to help them. But is the way I'm saying it going to cause them to act the way they need to towards it or the result that we need from this, based on how I'm saying it, that's just as important. [00:11:22] Speaker A: Right. And again, going back to working genius, there are some people that need motivation, need inspiring messages to get to get the point across. There are other people that are just as matter of fact. You just say it and it's okay. I get it needs to get done. I need that feedback, appreciate it, doesn't need all the other type of flowery messaging with it. Doesn't need any examples of what it'll look like or what it takes to get to where you want to go to solve the problem. So, and again, getting back to the core value of this, you don't have to hit on all of these things. It's just, it's a nice way to. Especially when you're having what we call critical conversations or crucial conversations with someone, you know it's going to be challenging. You want to kind of pause before you have that conversation or think about it. You know, we've often used some tools that when you're having this conversation with someone using this core value in, especially, again, if it's a critical or crucial conversation. You might sit alone before you, you meet and say, these are things I want to talk about. These are things I might talk about, and these are things I will not bring up. I will not talk about. Right. So you have these three little pillars, and based on how the conversation's going, I want to talk about this. And if it's going well, I'll talk about that. But this is something I will not bring up. Whether it's an HR violation or it's just, you know, it's just not going to go in a place that's going to feed or inspire that. You just pull those things off. And even if it gets brought up, you just move on. You don't address it. [00:13:09] Speaker B: Right. [00:13:09] Speaker A: And I've often gone into some of those meetings, and I wrote it down. I wrote things down of what I will not talk about, and I just move on. [00:13:18] Speaker B: Yeah. It's okay to even say, I'm sorry. I'm just not prepared to talk about that topic, whatever that is. It's okay to say that. I don't think it's fruitful for this conversation. We can say those things to people. Talk about necessary. [00:13:37] Speaker A: Again, going back to, is it helpful? Is it necessary to talk about it? That's something you have to kind of weigh when you're having that conversation. Not everything you need to talk about is necessary. Sometimes, again, you get into extraneous things to bring up, and it confuses the message, creates a whole bunch of clutter. So you gotta be careful about, you know, what you're saying in terms of, hey, if I'm talking to someone about, hey, sales are down. That might be just enough to say that without getting into the weeds and having someone respond to, what do you think about that? Right. To ask those questions. [00:14:15] Speaker B: Sometimes you might have the right thing to say, might even have the right way to say it, but it might not be the right time to say it. And so it might be a necessary thing that you do need to say, but it might just not be right now. And so understanding that timing of everything, too, is important so that you're not just blurting out things in the inappropriate moments. Right. [00:14:45] Speaker A: Sure. [00:14:46] Speaker B: So you just have to be careful of that as you. [00:14:50] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think it's kind of a balance type of thing when you are talking about necessary is that you're providing either too much or too little information. And so as we just talked about me, sometimes I will just say the bullet. Right. And not get into all the weeds. Because sometimes I think that confuses the message. Right. Giving you too much information, as opposed to giving you way too much information. Now you get confused, and then you gotta pull back and you say, all right, what did you hear me say? Which I don't do nearly enough because I've been in many meetings, conversations, work personal, where I need to say, even to my wife, what did you hear me say? And mirror me back, because I'm not quite sure you got the message. And it's probably my fault in how I communicate that I didn't communicate it using the right language. Right. [00:15:51] Speaker B: Yep. Exactly. [00:15:52] Speaker A: So we've all been there. And also, it kind of goes back to working genius. When we talk about who they are. Right. You know, do they need a certain type of tone? Do they need more or less information? Some people, you can just say, climb that wall, and they'll climb that wall, and they don't need to know any reasons of why they're climbing the wall, what have you. So I, you know, it's a case by case scenario. But again, all this, this conversation that we're having today about think is just to make a purposeful communication and don't just be frivolous in how you communicate. Again, not just verbally, but in written style, electronic, all that. [00:16:39] Speaker B: Okay, let's talk about the last one. Let's talk about kind. [00:16:44] Speaker A: Yeah, it kind of goes without saying. Are you saying things in a respectful way? Again, not to use words that would discriminate or offend someone, you want to make sure you're saying it in a way that's somewhat positive and uplifting. [00:17:02] Speaker B: I really like the description that Patrick Lencioni gives about the difference between nice and kind. We oftentimes mix them up a little bit. We are nice, but in doing so, we tend to not bring up hard topics. And so he brings this up in multiple occasions. But as he's talking about conflict and how to have conversations with conflict, you can do it in a kind way. But we tend to think, and the example he uses is within church, we tend to think if we're nice, then we're being kind as well, and we're not always doing that. So what could happen? The example he has is you're in a board meeting at a church, and this is real examples from him. This person brings up an idea, and nobody really says much. They're just like, oh, okay, yeah, that's great. Right? Because they're in church and they're trying to be nice. [00:18:07] Speaker A: Sure. [00:18:08] Speaker B: And so after the fact, what happens in the parking lot after the board meeting? Is this other person brings up the conversation. Can you believe that? She said that that was her idea. Okay. If you thought it was a bad idea, bring it up at the time. You don't have to be mean about it. You can bring it up in a kind way, respectful to the person, but you're actually, by being nice, you're actually not being kind to that person because you're now talking about it behind their back, and you didn't let them either explain their idea further or improve the idea. And so you're not helping them to grow by not bringing up the information. And so we mix that up. What we're saying here is being kind doesn't mean just allowing people to go throughout their day. And when somebody does something wrong, just say, okay, you know, you did a good job, you tried. Right. It's bringing it up and talking about it and doing it in a constructive way that is respectful to who they are, but also letting them know that, hey, what you did here really wasn't right. Let me show you a way, or let's talk about it, or let's do right working together in a kind way to actually work through. The problem is the difference between what Patrick says is nice versus kind. [00:19:34] Speaker A: Right. [00:19:35] Speaker B: And that's really what this is about. But if you're following all the other core values as well, you will still be able to be kind in that type of conversation if it's all true, helpful, inspiring, and necessary. Right. It should follow right through. [00:19:49] Speaker A: Yeah. And we need to practice this more in general. As an example, I was in a session the other day, and so often you hear this when there's a speaker or a trainer talking about something. I had just asked a question, and she had answered my question. Then someone asked a question, and she said, oh, great question. And I thought, well, was mine a dumb question? Right. And so when you think about it, well, was that kind? Well, maybe she thought that was kind to give that kind of response. But then how do you make other people feel when you do that? Right, right. [00:20:33] Speaker B: And vice versa. If you say that on every question, then were any of them really great questions? [00:20:38] Speaker A: Correct. Right. And then you've heard people say, well, maybe I have a dumb question. And you're like, well, there are no dumb questions. No, there are dumb questions. Right. Just be honest. You don't have to, as you say, be nice, just be kind about it and try to understand the question. But also, I think that we tend to have meetings or conversations, especially because there's whatever, what if for whatever reason, there's hierarchy in any organization or any team, and you don't want to have any conflict. You don't want to bring up things. And the problem with that is you're being nice and you're not being kind to the conversation or the subject matter or the individual asking for feedback. And so they're actually looking for a little bit of conflict because they're looking to get things vetted out. Right. And so you want to be kind of how you ask the questions or how you engage with them, but you don't say nothing. Cause that's not being kind, that's cheating the person. [00:21:49] Speaker B: Right. [00:21:49] Speaker A: And I think we do that way too often. We'll be in a meeting and one person will speak, and then we'll just move on to something else. And that's not being kind of. That's hurting because you're not having a debate. And we all know that we, the company world synergy, we've grown through conflict. We've grown through having debates and discussions. And that said, we've had people that weren't using the core value think very sarcastic individuals, very toxic people, and we had to, unfortunately, either coach them out or let them go. Right. Because they couldn't adjust to that. And so that's, you know, again, I think that's a really important core value that we have. Because as much value as somebody has, you can't let them not communicate without thinking. They can't be a prima donna. And, you know, we've had them. I'm sure every company has had them at some point in time, you've been on a team that has been prima donnas. And as much as you like the result, you gotta deal with core values that really fosters the whole team to grow. [00:23:06] Speaker B: Yep. Absolutely. Absolutely. So let's think. Of course, taking all of it into consideration, it's really about what, why, and how we communicate. And we just wanna make sure that we are taking that moment to pause and communicate effectively, communicate well with each other. [00:23:29] Speaker A: Right, right. And when you. Again, when you distill it and you think about how you text and how you email, you know, we have a handbook that tries to moderate some of the communications to make sure that if you're going to say something that is negative or possibly going to be read or received as neutral, you want to make a call, you want to be able to talk to someone so they can hear your tone. And it's a challenge in this generation, as very few younger folks want to call, for that matter, even want to email now, they just want to text or they want to use some type of chat mechanism. Right. And so we got to be really careful about how we apply this because, you know, not just in terms of the tone, but also making sure that we're inclusive in how we say things. And as this generation unfolds and more and more things get addressed, I certainly don't want to say things that offend a certain type of group or belief structure or minority whatever based on the terms that we use. So we're always going to be cognizant of that as we grow. And hopefully people will be making us aware that those terms or whatever could be considered offensive. You know, it's enlightening to me to hear, to hear some of these things that we have to change. And, you know, sometimes we grow up and we hear certain terms or certain adages and we don't even recognize the fact that in some way that might be offending. [00:25:25] Speaker B: Absolutely. And that changes so fast. You're fortunate to have the younger kids to hear the words that are now offensive. That would not have been 30 years ago, five years ago. [00:25:39] Speaker A: Well, unfortunately, they're not all words. They're sometimes just characters and hand gestures and sounds. It's kind of a bizarre era that we're in, but we're in it. We're not going to get out of it anytime soon. [00:25:55] Speaker B: It's true. It's true. All right. Well, we are out of time for today. Thank you, Glenn. Appreciate it. [00:26:05] Speaker A: Thank you. [00:26:06] Speaker B: Thanks, Charles. [00:26:06] Speaker A: Thanks, Charles. No problem. [00:26:08] Speaker B: Absolutely. And until next time. [00:26:19] Speaker A: Thank you for joining us on Momentum today.