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And the first task.
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I'll never forget this, like the executive coaching me.
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Okay, now he's going to help me, he's going to teach me how to run a business.
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We spent the first six months working on me and I wrote my life plan.
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So that's you know.
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Again that's 22 years ago writing my life plan for all the important areas of my life, not just my business, but my faith, my finances, my family, my friendships, my fitness and my health and what those things were going on in my life.
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And the first step in the process you want to talk about something that's very humbling was to write my own eulogy.
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And what were people going to say about me at your eulogy at some point in the future?
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And you're not being intentional at speaking with them, talking to them and building those relationships with them.
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How are they ever going to do that?
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So that's when I got started on that journey and, again, that's where I started to really embrace at my eulogy one day.
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But what really I want them to say, which is really what that was all about.
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And again, if you want folks to say things as an engineer, the process side of that as well.
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Welcome to the Speak With People podcast, where we believe that healthy communication is the key to unlocking your leadership potential.
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We are the go-to resource for leaders looking to greatly improve their communication skills, whether it's one-on-one interactions, team settings, public speaking or digital communication.
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By improving these skills, leaders can create stronger connections and drive positive change within their organizations.
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Each and every episode, we sit down with experts from various fields, from around the world just like you're grabbing a coffee with them to dive into real, practical conversations.
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Our goal is to help you transform your communication skills so you can lead more effectively, build stronger relationships and make a lasting impact.
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So go, grab your favorite drink, settle in and let's learn together.
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Well, how do you finally stop spinning your wheels, start living and leading with purpose Big question that we're going to tackle on today's Speak With People podcast?
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Listen, we all have good intentions, we all want to grow, but the truth is a lot of us sometimes we get stuck in mediocrity, not because we don't care, but because maybe we haven't built the disciplines that turn intentions into actions.
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Well, my guest today is John Gallagher.
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He is a values-driven executive coach, consultant, speaker, founder of Growing Champions.
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John has coached leaders at companies from IBM big companies.
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He's also passionate about helping people grow into the uncommon leaders they were created to be.
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I have followed him for a while.
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I'm so looking forward to this conversation because I know it's just going to be great.
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So if you're ready to break through the noise, ditch the overwhelm, lead with clarity and confidence, this episode is for you.
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John, welcome to the Speak With People podcast.
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Jason, so glad to be here and thank you for that kind introduction.
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You summarized it so well.
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I may have to just use that in my own bio on my website.
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Thank you very much.
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I love it.
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I sometimes guess, add if I can send them a reel so they can play it to their spouse or their kids.
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Exactly, there you go.
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We always need that.
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Well, before we hop into the conversation, wondered if you could just share with us a little bit of your story, let our listeners know who you are, what you do, what's got you to this place that you find yourself in now?
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Sure, I appreciate that and, again, your introduction was pretty well.
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You think about ultimately what led me into executive coaching and consulting.
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I won't bore you with the entire story, but as an engineer coming out of college, I knew pretty quickly that I did not want to be an engineer long-term and I found myself, frankly, in operational leadership roles that I really enjoyed in terms of working with people and making a difference there and, as a result, the relationships that I built and being able to connect with people.
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It got me early on in my journey some leadership opportunities that I built and being able to connect with people.
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It got me early on in my journey some leadership opportunities that I probably wasn't really ready for leading 200 people at a manufacturing facility at 28 years old and ultimately starting on this journey throughout in manufacturing, learning the Toyota production system, which was later on in my journey.
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But ultimately, those two things wanting to make a difference in the lives of others and wanting to make a difference in people's organizations through business process improvement that was done in a methodical way led me to my many different opportunities.
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Real estate led me to different levels of leadership in manufacturing home construction, different things that I did and I found myself in 2009, like many after the real estate fall, looking to get back into operations, and I had some friends in the business who ultimately said, well, we got these consulting things that we could do in lean.
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I'm like I still don't know if I want to live that life of a consultant and all that travel.
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I had two young kids and the third time they called me back and said, hey, let's do this in healthcare and hospitals and clinics.
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And ultimately, when they talked about that and helping hospitals and clinics improve the flow of patients and customer service, I was naive enough to believe that I might be able to make a difference.
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I said, okay, let's do that for a couple of years and I'll get back into operations.
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Well, that was now almost 16 years ago that I got started in consulting, coaching and haven't been able to work my way back out of it.
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I love it and just started my own five years ago.
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Wow, that's incredible, just incredible.
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When you talked about Toyota, I was thinking back.
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I grew up outside of Detroit, I grew up in the city and then later years lived in the suburbs and so obviously the big three are pretty important in Detroit for GM.
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My father-in-law lots of my in-laws worked at GM and at the time I owned a Toyota and it was.
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It was not a good deal to come into the family with a Toyota.
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Thanksgiving dinner was pretty tough, wasn't it?
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Like park that car down the street Don't be parking in front of the house.
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Yeah, I know that feeling Absolutely.
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My uncle worked with the V8 engine plant in Flint, michigan.
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Absolutely.
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Oh yeah, but that Toyota always started.
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I mean it could have been January and negative 10.
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I mean it always started.
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I mean it could have been January and negative 10.
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I mean, it started right up.
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Yeah, we're a four Toyota family now, so we've stuck with them pretty closely.
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I love it.
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Well, you talk about going from ordinary to uncommon.
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What does that transformation really look like in a leader's life?
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Yeah, you touched on this a little bit in the intro, which I find that pretty cool.
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I mean, ultimately, when I think about that track to uncommon from underperforming or ordinary, it's really a choice that leaders have to make.
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Oftentimes I'll talk about this in terms of change when I'm coaching individuals or, frankly, in organizations that people or organizations will change when the displeasure of remaining the same where they are today kind of status quo is actually greater than the discomfort of the change itself.
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Anytime you go through this journey to uncommon and you want to look to change, you want to implement leadership development, you want to make a change and have a bigger impact on your communities and on the world, it requires you to really step out, because you might be performing pretty well and in many cases that is just common.
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I'm doing pretty good, there's no real need to change.
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But it's those who can recognize that they were called to be something even greater, and that's when you start to think about something that's uncommon.
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It could be as simple as and I talk about this story returning the shopping cart to the shopping cart corral rather than leaving it in the parking lot to roll around and let it hit somebody else's car and not saying, well, it's not my job to get it, but just picking it up on the way in Very uncommon.
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When people say, what are you doing that for Just?
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I think it's something that you know is the right thing to do and I'm not worried about whose job it was or who left it there.
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Obviously, leadership differences are very different, but the metaphor of that shopping cart in the parking lot to me is outlining the difference in common and uncommon, absolutely.
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Wow, wow, wow, wow.
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I love that.
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When I first met my wife, one of the things that took me back from her is we were at Blockbuster Video way back in the day and we decided not to get a video.
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And young 20-year-old Jason just put it in the closest spot I could find and she said that's not where it goes.
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And she walked to the back of the and I knew from that moment on Okay, wow, all right she is.
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It wasn't like I didn't go into it as that's my test or anything, but she Right, but back to intention, right, I mean again, the intention was not a bad intention that you had, but it was just that discipline to really take that step back over there and put it back to the place that you found it.
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Absolutely, I love that.
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So many leaders, you know they start to make those decisions, to kind of have that uncommon leadership, make those kind of right calls and we're faced with lies, we're faced with negative thoughts, we're faced with, you know, all of these kind of destructive thoughts that you know kind of try to convince us not to go that route.
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How do you think that happens?
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How do you think we combat them?
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How do you think we rise above them?
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Oh, I love that.
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Well, you know, as a man of faith, jason, I know it's not about bringing that into this episode, but I really have read this book and it's behind my shoulder over here on my right.
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It's called the 4-8 Principle, written by Tommy Newberry, and it's based on Philippians 4-8.
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And he talks about whatever's true, whatever's noble, whatever's right.
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Think on these things.
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The reason I believe those negative thoughts exist is that evil exists in the world, and those self-deprecating or those thought limiting, limiting beliefs that exist inside of us are those that internal critic that exists for you in terms of your confidence.
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But I do believe that it's evil that exists that gets you to think that way, to try to keep you from reaching your full potential.
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Now I tend to look at it the other way, or another way, another step, as Philippians 4.9 says, and whatever I've taught you, take action on it.
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And so I think it's very easy for us to think on positive things not all the time or even negative things that will paralyze us.
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But thinking on positive things doesn't do anything for us either if we don't take action from it.
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And so the part about the discipline that is required good intention with bad discipline leads to excuses, but good discipline, with good intention, will lead to excellence, and that's the difference.
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That's that uncommon that we have to take action from those thoughts either way, whether they're negative thoughts or positive thoughts.
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We have to overcome those with positive thoughts and then take action from them.
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Wow, that is absolutely powerful.
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I mean, it's just incredible how I think sometimes we perceive nobody else struggles with that you know, and we're the only one walking around going how come I'm the only one?
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And wherever they come from, I mean it's just amazing how destructive they can be and how they can just thwart everything in our lives, Because if we start to believe them, it just slows everything down.
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I think, Jason, it oftentimes manifests itself in things that happened to us as a child, that just kind of hung with us for a long period of time.
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It says we're most powerfully positioned to help the person that we used to be.
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And so if we know that we suffer from some of those limiting beliefs or that imposter syndrome that many people think about with regards to being worthy of doing the work that they do, if we can help others to overcome that, that's the power of the coaching, that's the impact that we look for to make a difference in the lives of others.
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And when you can see that and when you hear that in others, that's frankly the fruit that I'm looking to bear in the lives of others inspire, encourage others ultimately to reach a place they wouldn't go on their own.
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Wow, wow, wow.
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So leaders, you know, pride ourselves on being productive.
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We've got stuff to do, we've got places to go.
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You talk about the 47 most productive minutes of a leader's day.
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Why is this so powerful?
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Why is this something we should grab hold of?
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I'm already so intrigued.
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Well, it's quite a discipline.
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You know, many times I'll hear from folks that say they are great at multitasking.
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Anyone who tells you they're really good at multitasking it's a myth.
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They may not know, they may really believe that they are good at multitasking, but the science shows that anytime we're working on more than one item especially when it comes to productivity in the workplace that when we start to move from one to the other, it takes us some period of time 8 to 12 minutes to be able to take the focus off of the one task we're working on and to turn on the focus Even some of those simple tasks that you may repeat, or some of those simple habits that you repeat at times.
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Look for me specifically.
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I know that I used to be able to listen to music and read at the same time.
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Now I know scientifically, as my brain ages, I'm not able to do that anymore.
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I don't have that ability.
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So the 47 powerful minutes, as many times folks think I got to be so busy.
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I got to have my phone on all the time in case I get that important text message.
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Or I got to have my computer open with the email on because I might get that important email about the deal that I was working on and I got to be in the mix or, heaven forbid, I might miss a like on my social media page that I can't respond to right away and understand it.
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But those 47 minutes there's nothing scientific behind the number, but it is scientific in terms of the going into airplane mode.
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Ultimately, as a leader Whether you try to do this one time a week or one time today you set a one hour appointment with yourself and then you set a timer in that one hour for 47 minutes and you just start working on one task, whether it's reading or a project that you wanted to work on, but you turn all the other distractions off and if you're working in a cubicle environment or office environment I've coached others you put a red stop sign on that door that says I am not available at this point in time unless the uncommon leaders.
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Hope you're enjoying the episode so far.
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I believe in doing business with people you like and trust and not just a company name.
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That's why a strong personal brand is essential, whether you're an entrepreneur or a leader within a company.
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Brand Builders Group the folks who have been helping me refine my own personal brand are offering a free consultation call with one of their expert brand strategists.
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They'll help you identify your uniqueness, craft a compelling story and develop a step-by-step plan to elevate your impact.
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So head on over to coachjohngallaghercom slash BBG as in brand builders group to schedule your free call and take the first step toward building a personal brand that gets you noticed for all the right reasons.
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That's coachjohngallaghercom slash BBG.
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Now let's get back to the episode Turning down.
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Please don't disturb me, but I'm trying to create something and I will tell you that most of the time, if you allow that to happen, it's hard to do.
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In the first two or three times you try it, you still want to go back and check things, but at the end of that 47 minutes, when that timer goes off, you are not going to want to stop.
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You're going to keep going, but I encourage you that, whatever it is at that end of that 47 minutes, stop the timer, come back into that real world again, all those distractions that existed, allow your email to come back on, allow your text messages to come back in at what came in in the last 47 minutes and maybe even take a bio break, because we are such a society even in the world of remote meetings right now.
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We go from meeting to meeting to meeting, hour by hour and never stop to even take a break to understand that I might need to go to the restroom and get ready for this and just take a deep breath and get ready.
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So those 47 minutes I found to be the most productive and powerful minutes in a leader's day, if they're able to shut that down because there's no distraction, and I believe that distractions that exist are the things that keep us from being productive in our businesses and in our daily lives all the time.
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Wow, that's powerful.
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Do you think there's hope for leaders?
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I mean busyness, such a badge.
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I mean we just you know how are you doing?
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Oh, I'm busy, I'm busy, you know.
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Is there hope at some point?
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Will a large majority of us get to that point where we go?
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okay, busyness is not a badge of honor.
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That's a great question.
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Look, I believe that there is hope, and I don't mean I mean leaders are dealers in hope.
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And I think those leaders again back to that decision they make that they want to be better it's got to flow through their organization.
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Ultimately, the leader has got to make a decision that they're going to grow, they're going to do personal development.
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Only at that point can they say now I'm going to develop my team to be better.
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The old analogy of when the oxygen mask comes down on the airplane, put your own mask on first and then help someone.
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It's real in terms of that space.
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But as a leader, if you don't develop yourself and you think your team's going to develop by watching your behaviors, it's not going to happen.
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John Maxwell refers to it as the law of the lid.
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You're going to put a lid on your organization based on your own personal development.
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So the hope exists inside of the leadership, and I don't just mean that by title, only I know it takes those that are having an influence inside of a group.
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So whether you're leading a parking ministry team at church or you're leading your home as a parent, those things that you do are going to be seen, they're going to be caught and they're going to be caught and then they're going to be taught again if you're able to model those behaviors.
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So the hope exists in leadership.
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Absolutely, If you have a leader that's a constant driver and believes that you should be on 24-7 and that you should be available all the time, including on your vacation, it's probably not an organization that I'm going to work with very much, because they haven't made the decision to know that they're putting a lid on their own organization's performance and, frankly, they're just being fools and disrespecting people that work their organizations.
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Wow, Well, kind of leading right into that, as you've coached leaders from all different organizations, everywhere from lower impact to higher impact.
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What are some of the common traits, the common patterns you see especially in high impact leaders, leaders who are maybe more on that uncommon side?
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What are some of those traits, characteristics that you're seeing?
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Sure, let's say some of the barriers that exist in terms of what happens.
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Again, I would talk about distraction as a big barrier right there, whether it's multitasking, or here's one of the things that I see the most inside of organizations.
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They work really hard to solve a problem, whether that's a sales problem that they have, or they have an operations problem or a customer service problem, whatever that is.
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And I use a picture of a ball pushing that ball up the hill to improve it and our performance gets better.
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Okay, and the leaders are pushing and they're even working really hard as a and they walk away from that rock and they haven't put the systems and processes in place to hold it there, to ensure that it doesn't walk backwards.
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So if they don't put those systems and processes in place as soon as they walk away from it, that ball is going to roll back down the hill.
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And oftentimes that ball doesn't just stop at the bottom where it started, but it goes back even further because people say here we go again, we're back on this wheel again of problems.
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We've seen this song.
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It's just a different page in the songbook in terms of what we've seen.
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And so leaders got to recognize after they develop their teams, they work on these problems is what is the system and process they're putting in place to wedge underneath that rock that will keep it in place when they walk away?
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Have they learned to delegate effectively to others to keep that improvement in place?
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Have they developed the management system to govern the change and recognize when it's starting to roll back down hill a little bit as well?
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So one of the things inside of the coaching we start with developing self and developing others.
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But the third thing is to help you and your business is to take a look at the systems and processes that you have in place and standardize those processes so that you can understand how to train others and know that it's not going to roll backward when you walk away.
00:19:00.474 --> 00:19:03.231
Wow, I was thinking about your story, you know, kind of going back.
00:19:03.231 --> 00:19:06.840
You're 28, you're overseeing, you know, a good amount of people.
00:19:06.840 --> 00:19:11.659
What you know, what do you think caused that?
00:19:11.659 --> 00:19:19.942
What did the people above you see, you know what kind of led them to put such a young leader, you know, in that type of leadership position?
00:19:19.942 --> 00:19:31.990
I talk to, you know, millennials, especially now, and maybe even Gen Zers, who don't want to really put in the time that maybe their parents did or other people that they see in the organization did before they get a promotion.
00:19:31.990 --> 00:19:36.420
And so you know, just curious from your own, your own, vantage point, you know what?
00:19:36.420 --> 00:19:38.311
What was your journey like?
00:19:38.633 --> 00:19:39.454
Jason, I love you know.
00:19:39.454 --> 00:19:41.319
The name of your podcast is Speak With People.
00:19:41.319 --> 00:19:48.634
Something I learned growing up and as one of the one of the tips that my mom gave me in term when I was growing up is, you know, killing people with kindness.
00:19:48.634 --> 00:19:59.861
We could talk about the difference in kindness and nice as we go through, but that was about the time that Tom Peters and his book was kind of coming around, the managed by walking around philosophy was really getting started and I just had.
00:20:00.021 --> 00:20:00.944
I had an ability.
00:20:00.944 --> 00:20:09.758
I may not have been as intentional as I wanted to being young at that time, but I had ability to connect with people in the space that they were, had the ability to meet them where they were.
00:20:09.758 --> 00:20:18.173
And I tell you in that in that specific time period, there was a survey that was done through the organization.
00:20:18.173 --> 00:20:20.098
They called it a blue slipping survey, where they had all the employees inside the building.
00:20:20.098 --> 00:20:25.117
The corporate office came down and said if you were going to pick a leader for this business, who would you pick?
00:20:25.117 --> 00:20:31.241
And oddly enough, my name ended up on a bunch of those blue slips and they took a chance on me as a leader.
00:20:31.241 --> 00:20:36.828
And I do believe that more than anything else because I was able to connect with them from a communication standpoint.
00:20:36.828 --> 00:20:48.550
I didn't know how to spell leadership at that point in time or know how important that was, but I certainly knew that it was important to connect with people and treat them with respect and listen to them, so good.
00:20:48.892 --> 00:20:54.403
Sometimes we think we're speaking with people and we're actually just informing them.
00:20:54.403 --> 00:21:02.835
We're actually just dumping information Sounds like you had a good grounding when it came to how to connect with other people.
00:21:02.835 --> 00:21:05.501
What have you learned over the years, especially as a leader?
00:21:05.501 --> 00:21:10.201
How to keep that connection strong, specifically through your communication?
00:21:10.369 --> 00:21:11.192
Yeah, that's a great question.
00:21:11.192 --> 00:21:14.618
I think the word that comes to mind immediately for that is being intentional.
00:21:14.618 --> 00:21:16.683
The word is intentional.
00:21:16.683 --> 00:21:19.118
We can't delegate relationship building.
00:21:19.118 --> 00:21:20.806
We've got to make that happen.
00:21:20.926 --> 00:21:29.374
One of the frameworks I like to use in today's Anaclaire as I teach folks to manage by walking around and they're like I really don't know what to say.
00:21:29.374 --> 00:21:33.321
Let's not worry about what to say in terms of going and walking around.
00:21:33.321 --> 00:21:34.544
Let's start here.
00:21:34.544 --> 00:21:41.650
3-2-1 is the methodology that I talk to folks about Three coffees, two lunches and a dinner each month as a leader.
00:21:41.650 --> 00:21:48.614
Go out and have three coffees with three different people, have lunch with two different people and have dinner with one of the people on your team or a customer or whatever.
00:21:48.614 --> 00:21:51.512
That is that's the start of being intentional.
00:21:51.512 --> 00:21:54.538
Put those things on your calendar to make that happen.
00:21:54.538 --> 00:21:56.020
That's the now.
00:21:56.020 --> 00:21:57.123
I have it on my calendar.
00:21:57.123 --> 00:21:58.464
The discipline has got to be there.
00:21:58.464 --> 00:22:02.993
I actually have to make that happen.
00:22:03.013 --> 00:22:05.708
Then we can start to talk about hey, what are the questions that you're going to want to ask when you sit down and get with that person?
00:22:05.708 --> 00:22:07.231
It's all depending on the theme that you want to have.
00:22:07.231 --> 00:22:10.498
Is it a performance related communication that you want to have?
00:22:10.498 --> 00:22:14.304
Do you want to get to learn more about their family, which might be very important as well?
00:22:14.304 --> 00:22:29.615
Or, in the case of a customer, what is it about the industry or the challenges that they face that you as a business owner might be able to help them with, but until you get intentional and schedule that time, somebody else is going to schedule your time for you and you're not going to get to that.
00:22:29.615 --> 00:22:32.280
Relationship building so intentional is one of the very first things.
00:22:32.280 --> 00:22:32.761
Love that.
00:22:35.710 --> 00:22:37.710
You kind of already kind of addressed some of this as you kind of been walking us through it.
00:22:37.710 --> 00:22:40.519
But speak to that leader right now who's just struggling.
00:22:40.519 --> 00:22:42.897
You know they have found themselves in a hole.
00:22:42.897 --> 00:22:52.381
Maybe it's through their own habits, maybe it's through their not, maybe life's just you know it's been a rough season of life and so they're just desperately trying to climb out.
00:22:52.381 --> 00:22:59.332
What is some advice that you would give them as they're trying to get back to a healthy place, a place of more uncommon leadership?
00:22:59.452 --> 00:23:04.654
Yeah, I love that and one of the things I think about is I love to tell that in stories as I go through.
00:23:04.674 --> 00:23:14.980
And the story that I love to start with with leaders and how my change came about is this performance review that I had about 20 years ago and I'm sitting in this conference room getting my performance review.
00:23:14.980 --> 00:23:19.613
I was the acting president of a division of a manufacturing company.
