Tales of Leadership
Tales of Leadership is a veteran-owned podcast designed to equip leaders with the knowledge required to inspire others through transformational leadership. If you want to grow your influence and become a purposeful leader, you have found your tribe. Become the leader your team deserves!
Tales of Leadership
E67 Michael G. Frino and Katie P. Desiderio
Michael G. Frino is a Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Beekeeper; Pollinating Your Organization for Transformative Growth. Michael has over 20 years of professional experience working for Fortune 500 companies in sales, leadership, and organizational development across the payroll/human resources, pharmaceutical, and med-tech industries.
Katie P. Desiderio is a Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Beekeeper; Pollinating Your Organization for Transformative Growth and counts her blessings starting with the people in her life, which guides her approach to work where her focus is on every organization’s most important asset – you! Along with her work as a Professor of Management and tenured faculty member at Moravian University, Desiderio is Principal Partner in Learning of Proximal Development, LLC, an authorized DiSC partner, specializing in leadership development and the advancement of performance through learning.
Connect with Michael and Katie:
- Website:www.leadershipfables.com
-Linktree: https://linktr.ee/leadershipfables
- New Book: The Beekeeper: Pollinating Your Organization for Transformative Growth: Katie P. Desiderio, Michael G. Frino: 9781394165261: Amazon.com: Books
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My Mission: I will end toxic leadership practices by equipping leaders with transformational leadership skills.
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Joshua K. McMillion | Founder MLC
You're listening to the Tells the Leadership podcast. This podcast is for leaders at any phase on their leadership journey to become a more purposeful and accountable leader what I like to call a pal. Join me on our journey together towards transformational leadership. All right, team, welcome back to the Tells the Leadership podcast. I am your host, josh McMillian, an active duty Army officer and the founder of McMillian Leadership Coaching. I am on a mission to create a better leader what I like to call a purposeful, accountable leader, or a pal, and my vision is to end toxic leadership by promoting transformational stories and skills, and I plan to do that by bringing on amazing guests, and today I have the coauthors of the beekeeper pollinating your organization for transformational growth Michael Freeno and Kate DiCettardo.
Speaker 1:This is a phenomenal episode because both of them have two distinct leadership stories that we kind of get into where Michael grew up through sales and Fortune 500 companies and then pursued his doctrinal degree, where he met Katie and Katie really grew up in sports, leading and becoming a collegiate soccer player and then the captain of that team and then taking a key leadership position, and how that kind of morphed and shaped her leadership, and how they both come together and they have strengths that are outweighed by each other's weaknesses, so they are able to cover the dead space from one another. So Michael's weaknesses happen to be Katie's strengths and I love kind of getting into that through this episode but then really breaking down their book, the Beekeeper. It's a phenomenal book and it was something that was instrumental in my leadership philosophy Before I even met these two. I have a bee leadership philosophy and I kind of get into that during the tell end of this episode. But, as always, guys, make sure you stay at the end and I'm going to provide you the top three takeaways from this episode.
Speaker 1:Let's go ahead and let on. Michael and Katie, katie, michael, welcome to the Tells of Leadership podcast. How are you both doing?
Speaker 1:Doing great, great.
Speaker 3:Thanks Josh. Yes, so great Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1:So we were talking about this before, but it's always exciting to get to talk to people who have a passion about leadership but also have, like that burning desire for continued education. But it's also exciting to have two people on at the same time, because this is a first for me. I filmed like 85 podcast episodes, but I've never had the privilege and honor to get to talk to two people at once. That's pretty awesome and I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 3:Thank you for saying that, Josh. It's actually something that we'll get into in the book. That is a strength of transformational leadership in thinking about how we rise together. So we'll get to that.
Speaker 1:You just planted the seed, so I always want to start off with maybe, katie, you take the time, introduce yourself to the listeners and then, michael, if you could take the time to just to set the stage for everyone who's going to be listening to this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, sure. So I'm Katie Desiderio. I am a faculty member at Moravian University in their school of business. I also run my own leadership consulting company, proxima Development, and so you know I really look to marry, you know, the scholar practitioner work in both the university and in my consulting space.
Speaker 2:And I'm Michael Frino and I've been working in organizational development now for the last you know, 15 years and I work in MedTech and so I run leadership development for a Fortune 500 medical device company and Katie and I together, you know, kind of got our doctorates together and organizational learning and leadership. That's kind of how we met and, to your point, we've kind of had a passion for ongoing learning growth.
Speaker 1:That is so daunting to me and I'll tell you like, just like a point of vulnerability of I finished my master's degree in systems engineering and I swore Congratulations.
Speaker 3:That's no easy feat.
Speaker 1:It was tough. And then now I already have that kind of desire where I want to go back and get my PhD in leadership studies, because it's something that's deeply passionate about, where I want to go in life and the reason behind it. So that's awesome that you guys had that, because a lot of people don't push outside of their comfort zone and really chase that level of education. So that's amazing. And I'd love to hear you both of you have PhDs in organizational leadership and your terms. I'm curious how do you define leadership, and maybe is that separate even between the two of you?
Speaker 3:So you know, leadership and we always talk about this it's really about your ability to work with and through others. And so, when we think about leadership, we really deconstruct leadership at the tri level individual, group and organizational level. And so, if we're defining leadership right, it starts with each individual. And so there's a space of turning the mirror to really understand yourself, right, unapologetically and authentically. Really get down to who am I, how do I show up, how do I impact people? And then, right, we could look at that effectiveness of working with them through others, because we have to first have that height and self awareness of ourself to be effective as we do this important work, to kind of inspire the way for others.
Speaker 1:Michael, you said the same.
Speaker 2:I would say the same you know building on the tri level. I mean, I think it's really looking inward to find out you know what type of leader you are and how you want to lead others. But, more importantly, building, you know really strong teams and groups that that you know create an environment for vulnerability and authenticity that allow people to just do their best work and you kind of let people do what they need to do to execute at a high level. And I think that's what you know leadership really is. You know kind of how I define it.
Speaker 1:I love that and you're going to learn. My wife always hates when she listens to the podcast because I say I love that all the time. But I see everything in the terms of leadership from my perspective of how I was raised and how I was learned is through the military. So I think of it in terms of different phases, just like battle periods, of different phases, and the first phase is self leadership and how you guys both identified that leadership really starts with ourselves. I think that's critical and I want to really highlight that point, because it doesn't matter who's listening to this or who gets a chance to read your book that we'll get into in just a little bit You're still a leader.
Speaker 1:You may not be leading a team or an organization, but you have to lead yourself and you have to lead your family and you have to leave the loved ones or your community. You're still a leader of something, but at the end of the day, you're a leader of yourself, and I think that's kind of a critical oversight that we never really focus on. We always try to focus on more of like leading organizations. So thank you for that.
Speaker 3:So well said, Josh, and we'll wait to get to it. But we kind of thread tenants of that throughout the book. But it's also a space in a lot of the public speaking areas and keynotes that we have to inspire an ability to lead from every seat. And so to your point, it's a big miss, right Societally, that people will say like I could lead, when you could actually start leading right now.
Speaker 1:Yes. So that is one of the biggest things that I see, especially in the military, is that you think you have to have a certain level of rank or you have to have a certain level of title to be able to lead, and I learned this when I was going through Ranger school is that a title and a rank doesn't mean anything Really. It's just having the courage, or being unreasonable, to stand up in those moments when others waltz and stretching yourself to grow, and I think that that's the critical piece of like understanding that and then being able to take that torch and then just move forward with it. But, michael, I would love to kind of start off, maybe with you, of where your leadership journey really began. Like, where did you get the creative spark to become the writer that you are today?
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks, Thanks for asking that. It's interesting. I've always been told I have a little creative, kind of creative mind and I do like writing. I think going on my academic journey really helped kind of fuel that fire. You know I didn't really do anything prior but you know, going through my doctorate there's a lot of reading, a lot of writing, a lot of putting thoughts on paper, a lot of philosophy involved in getting your PhD and a lot of like free thinking, and so I think that kind of sparked my interest in writing.
Speaker 2:And you know we'll tell the story, probably a little later, about how we got to the book. But you know storytelling is paramount and a lot, of, a lot of companies right now to make sure that messages are getting across and that, you know, strategies are being articulated appropriately and the art of storytelling keeps resonating, you know, out in the literature. And so storytelling became kind of a go to for us as we wanted to get our message out. How do we effectively tell the story? We want to tell in a digestible way that will out leadership principles to get out to the masses, versus a heavy academic, you know kind of writing style.
Speaker 1:I think that that might be an interesting question to kind of dig in a little bit deeper, because communication is critical and I've learned that as the farther you go and the more authority you gain, the larger your formation becomes, or the larger your organization becomes. And to clearly communicate is is pivotal to the success of the organization, and it's through storytelling. And I didn't really understand that until I have my second company command, where I had the privilege to likely, I think, over 200 soldiers how, how do you tell a story to capture and convey the message that you're trying to move forward, but also to inspire people to take that torch and and to pick up and start doing the work. Katie, you want to grab?
Speaker 2:this one.
Speaker 3:I think, mike, you know, illuminated a little bit about this and I'll say our publisher Wiley, I want to give a shout out to them. They've been incredible in helping us kind of craft an effective stable, and so we like to remind readers and listeners that it is a fable, right. So we had to simplify, we had to get right to the point. We had to talk about the concept and the action orientation right, really quickly and concisely. And I think that's a hard thing for for authors, right, because you could go on and on, right with you know you almost lose people in the process of writing too much detail to really be effective.
Speaker 3:In a fable, it's about the simple, transferable learnings, right, that can kind of pull people in. But and Josh, you mentioned this right in where, where you kind of struggled in the transition of, you know, overseeing your team is as we transition. I think sometimes we we get lost in the complexities of what we perceive as it is and if we simplify and think about the quick things that we could transfer immediately, right, it helps us get some of those wins and build the self efficacy of like, wow, I'm doing a good job, people are listening, or like people are you know here and what I'm saying, we're, we're making progress, and so we really kind of use that model, as we, you know, crafted the fable.
Speaker 1:I love that and you said one thing. So I'm an infantry guy by trade and so if you've had any experience with the military, I always joke that I'm one degree away from eating crayons, right. So the infantry is a different kind of different kind of background. But there was always a concept in life that I've adopted at very early age and, kate you kind of hit on it is, and I call it kiss, the kiss principle, and I know we've all heard it, but keep it simple, stupid, and that, that philosophy in life. I always find myself going back to it because that is the most simplest form to communicate. You don't have to get you know super articulate with your words. What is the end state and then how are we going to get to that end state with key tasks and what's the purpose, what, why, why, why are we doing this and if we can convey it. Okay, I'd love to kind of kick our you because I know sports played a critical role, I think, early on in your leadership development. Where did your leadership story start?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was. It was certainly on the soccer field and and really having, you know, strong mentors that help guide me to and it's what you're saying, it's like find my voice. And sometimes we make assumptions about communication that people know and we have to roll back and say like, how are we communicating right? And so that started on the field. And then, right as I, as I went through college and became the captain of, you know, the women's soccer team at the university, it was paramount that I was communicating right and it wasn't just communicating in words but in my actions and the things that I wanted to model more for you know, the team to see.
Speaker 3:But then I'll say to you know, as a, as a student and Mike really touched on this you know, going through my academic journey, I think I put so much emphasis on I was an athlete and I was an okay student that I didn't really believe in myself in the classroom.
Speaker 3:But, you know, pig melee and effect in full force. I had college professors that were like you're so good at public speaking, you're so good at, and I'm like what are you talking about? But from a leadership perspective, when people start to believe in you, you start to see things in yourself and then you lean in right, you're willing to be more vulnerable, you're willing to, and so those people still play an integral role in my life. You know they're people that I reach out to regularly and say, just say thank you. But they're also the ones that you know I kind of moved into my second career in higher education that, from a leadership perspective, I'm like I want to do this right. I want to focus my whole life around this to help people just discover themselves and and to kind of get out of their own way to just, you know, be their best.
Speaker 1:You've had a lot of firsts. I didn't know that you were the actual I guess I can't think of the term right now for your soccer team. You're the captain of soccer team collegiate collegiate league, but you're also one of the first.
Speaker 3:I think the role that you switched over into in your board or your business department yeah, so I was the first female chair of the, you know, economics and business department, which, was something that from a leadership perspective you know, mike and I talk about this all the time he is, you know he has daughters, I have daughters, right when we're thinking about developing, you know, young leaders to. There was a space for me as, like the first female chair at the sixth oldest college in America, right was I really had to kind of tee it up right that other women can follow, and you know that we can kind of help each other in that space of you know leadership development in an ongoing way.
Speaker 1:So you guys both go get your PhDs. Are you going through that process together? When? When did you link up?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's essentially we both went to the same university. I was on a one campus, she was on another, so we were kind of doing it together at the same time, just in different locations. You know, I run I think we were just talking about this story not too long ago, but you know, we graduated from our PhD program.
Speaker 3:we only knew each other as like this, like this on a camera.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's crazy. And it was like six years later, I think, that we wrote our first paper and got together after that where we met for the first time in person and decided to go to a conference and put a paper out there. And that was kind of our first dipping our toe into the writing journey together. So you know, ironically went to school together but we really didn't get to meet each other in person for for six years after.
Speaker 1:And that's really hard, I think, to establish like a level of rapport and trust. And maybe that would be very interesting to kind to get into for a second before we get to the book. Because I I, when I graduated from my systems engineering degree, I left the infantry and I switched into acquisitions, which is a functional area in the army, and my first leadership role was managing a team of highly educated and I'm saying highly educated civilians, brilliant minds from a virtual perspective, because cove, it happened and and to me like that was all that was daunting, that was like one of the biggest fears that I've ever went into into a role. How, how did you guys, you know, establish trust? I think not being able to work directly together but collaborating through virtual means.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so simply like communication, Right, I mean it's like being able to, you know, call one another and say you know, I just sent you a paper, can you? Can you review it? Right, what are you? What are you? What are you trying to establish? Right, and the the constant kind of open lines of I disagree with this, or why did you say, or why are we doing it like that, or why are we?
Speaker 3:And then it gets more to like the personal level and we touch on this a little bit in the book, when the bee goes behind the scenes of like just the different, you know, interpretations of employees, right, with Catherine the protagonist messages back to her company is we have these deep level diversity, differences among us, right, mike and I couldn't be more different and how we look at the world and how we right, interact and right our personality and behavioral attributes. But it's even identifying those and giving ourselves that space to be ourselves right and and kind of look at like, oh, I wouldn't have thought of it like that. But I think communication becomes a key there in in trust building. Mike, do you want to add anything?
Speaker 2:You know, no, I'd agree, and I think that we talked earlier about kind of looking inward, about kind of the lenses you're seeing the world through and understanding kind of your leadership style, and I think that's a big part of it, right, if you don't have that kind of understanding of who you are, what's important you, your core value system but, more importantly, understand the people in your life score value system, I think it becomes much easier to have those kind of relationships long distance, because you know, compromising someone's values or doing something that upsets them becomes kind of the inhibitor of growth in our opinion and and I think that's kind of the foundational- I think that's such a good point.
Speaker 1:All right, team, let's take a quick break from this podcast and I want to personally invite you to our private Facebook community that I call purposeful accountable leaders, or PALS, and PALS is a community dedicated to inspiring and developing servant leaders by sharing transformational stories and skills exactly what tells the leadership is all about. My goal is to build a community of like-minded leaders that can share lessons learned, ask questions and celebrate wins when it happens. And my mission in life is clear I will end toxic leadership by sharing transformational stories and skills, and you will find countless transformational leaders in this group. Many of them I have had the honor to serve with in the military. If you want to find a community that can help you grow both personally and professionally, we would love to have you. You can simply search purposeful accountable leaders on Facebook or click the leadership resources tab in the show notes to join. I am looking forward to seeing you guys and continuing to grow together on our leadership journey.
Speaker 1:Back to the podcast. Yeah, that is critical that that last piece there, the core values, because it doesn't matter how we communicate, because we're still going to be able to convey our message, but it's that trust, the glue that I think holds organizations together is core values the integrity of knowing that if I ask you to do something, kate, that you're going to do it, and I never have to second guess myself when I do ask, because I have faith in you, you have a high degree of integrity, you have a high character and and that is critical that was a great point. And another thing you said, I think, kate, you brought it up in terms of communication, of having healthy candor, that you guys weren't afraid to banter back and forth on something when you're collaborating on a document. And that's hard to do, especially, I think, in a more virtual world, because there's a level of like hey, you're attacking my writing, you can't be face to face and you can't pick up on all those different emotional cues that you have. But all all phenomenal points. And, as you guys are going through your PhD program and organizational leadership, what were some of the research kind of building blocks that you were learning that made transformational leaders and then help build transformational cultures?
Speaker 2:Kate, you want to take that first.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so. So first, josh, I want to say as a as a prelude to the learnings in our doctoral program you touched on, you know, being able to communicate with candor. And then you know something that Mike and I often say in an acronym is DWYSYWD, which is do what you say, you will do right. So there's a space of, just like you know, accountability and how we communicate, but we'll like just throw the acronym right as DWYSYWD and we hold each other to it, right. And so in that space of, I think this this threads from right.
Speaker 3:Our doctoral program is, you know, in relationship building, when we look at the tri level of leadership, you have to first know yourself, you have to know how you show up, you have to know your impact on others, and so you know from there. That stems into then how I communicate with Mike. But, more importantly than that, how does Mike interpret my message? And so intention and impact are different, and so my intentions could be Mike, I want to help you. I'm going to say this Mike's impact right of my message could be like I can't believe she just said that Right.
Speaker 3:And so there has to be alignment there to make sure on my end right of what I intended, right, that I'm making it right, you know, in impact, and I think so in a lot of the learnings, like fundamentally we're almost, you know, we're growth partners, but we're also accountability partners. To say, like we can't be a fraud, like if we're, if we're telling people these are important, like tenants of you know, leadership. We need to model these and the hardest space to do it is like interpersonally right you, when you're put to the test, to say oh, wow, when I'm stressed, it's easy for me to revert back to what's easy or what comes natural, right. But in heightened awareness, we have to be able to adjust right, to flex, to meet people where they are, you know, and have that social awareness to make it right.
Speaker 1:That is one of the most critical things that I've learned. That tells the true character of someone. You can say all the right things and I had a battalion commander say this and I've told the story many times but it basically sums up to deeds, not words. You can say everything on paper, but when the moment comes as your actions going to align with what you said you're going to do and are you actually going to model the way and I love how you say that is that because you set the standard within the organization, your family, whatever your team, by the actions and then your words, and they have to match, they have to align and that's that's an absolutely beautiful point. Another question that kind of popped in my mind is you guys have a very heavy focus on educational leadership, kind of like the science behind it. Did you learn anything as you were going through different jobs outside of an academic background about leadership that you didn't learn when you were going through your different masters and your doctoral programs?
Speaker 2:I think one of the it's interesting as we're kind of listening to the conversation about you know actions and words and kind of going through the educational leadership piece.
Speaker 2:So when I graduated college I started off in sales.
Speaker 2:I was a sales guy, was banging on doors selling benefits, human resources, payroll service and you know pharmaceuticals, all that stuff you know, and so my personality is one that was like execution mode, right, and I think what I learned a lot in the doctoral program shifted my personality significantly, right, I was always a very high on the disc map a, d, and over the years, after getting my doctorate and learning to kind of be more questioning and skeptical that's and philosophically, that's what they teach you to do like ask questions, ask more questions, you know, challenge, like think different, and and I become a little more questioning and skeptical by nature I think through that, through that program, and so I do ask questions as to why we're doing something, or trying to get to the root of the why something is what it is.
Speaker 2:And so I learned a ton that way and I think that does have applications in in business and when we're thinking about leadership you know whether, whether it's the military or not, because you mentioned earlier, josh. But understanding the why someone is doing something or why somebody wants you to do something, want you to do something, is really important, and I don't think we can effectively understand the why unless we're really asking questions seeking to understand you know, you know ourselves. But to the the, whether it's the organization or your leader, they create the environment for that to happen. And if you can ask questions and it's frowned upon, a lot of people can't get to that why and then it's harder for them to build trust, align and feel empowered to do to the rest work.
Speaker 1:There's a quote by General McArthur and I can't find it and I can't remember right now, but he basically talked about the art of leadership is distilling down what is facts and intelligence. Like when you get an intelligence briefing, 95% of that is not a fact, and being able to distill down to what are actual facts. So that that's that story kind of just reminded me of that. I'd love now kind of like just to transition into. You met each other, you started working. What inspired you to start the book the beekeeper, and where did the title come from? To, because I love that title.
Speaker 3:So Mike and I had been writing academic journals for over a decade and at the university I was going up for a promotion to full professor and part of that full professorship is to write a book, right, and so I had been, you know, writing. Over time, mike and I kind of got comfortable in the space of writing in our you know, academic journal space, really thinking about performance improvement and you know the scholar practitioner use. And so I came to Mike and said, like you know, what do you think about writing a book? And as we, as we first started to think about the book, we started to really think about it in the way that we had always written. And so we wrote out like kind of traditional table of contents, a traditional, you know, leadership concepts that we wanted to weave in. And it actually took some conversations with other publishers and actually write some like no, we won't accept your work from publishers to say, like you know, that's not a fit.
Speaker 3:Until Mike and I were actually traveling for business. And so Mike lives in Florida, I'm in Pennsylvania and we were both in Chicago for different reasons, about 30 miles away from each other. We're like well, we have to meet for dinner, right, let's talk about this book, about what it could look like. And so we sat down for Chicago pizza and, josh, we still have the pizza box where we mapped out on the back of the pizza box Like we started drawing like flowers and bees, right. But Mike actually in his creative mind was like Katie, we're talking about growth, right, and everything about transformation in leadership is about growth. Like what if we wrote about bees? And in my consulting space we were talking about how storytelling was really resonating, like post pandemic, specifically with people and in people's discovery of themselves, of you know how they were thinking about growth mindset, you know how they were moving out of their comfort zones. And so we kind of got on this topic of like talking about bees and pollination and you know what, if we wrote a fable, you know that was really a story. And we had a blast like kind of thinking about what this, you know the imagination of it, could be.
Speaker 3:So we leave Chicago and 18 days later Mike sends me a text message that it's UN World Bee Day and he's like Katie, like the universe moment, right, like I think this literally was meant to be pun intended. And so we were like let's put the pitch deck together and let's start to get by in, and so the beekeeper title came in. As we were writing, each of the chapters are what we call bee mindsets, and so, from the individual level of leadership, you get to choose who and how you wanna be, and so, similar to a beekeeper overseeing his or her hive. You'll see that the second E and B is dotted, because that kind of falls off at the end of the story and we're asking leaders to become beekeepers. B, e you get to choose who and how you wanna be as a leader, and so we made that akin to the lives of bees.
Speaker 1:It's funny I think it's destiny that you guys ended on this podcast, because at the end of this I always do a final show segment that I call the killer bees.
Speaker 3:Oh, my God.
Speaker 1:Yes, we're gonna get to it, but I don't want you to share everything about the book, because I understand that people need to go get that. But what can you share from the book in terms of the bee principles?
Speaker 2:I think one of the themes that is most important for the book is the art of being proximal. It's really kind of the foundation of our book, and so you know, katie and I talk about the word proximal and what it means, but it really means center and closest to the heart, right, and when we think about that in medical terms, that's kind of how it's defined, and so what we encourage through this story is really people to identify, you know, how they're going to be proximal, how they can inspire people to be proximal. And through all those chapters, josh, as you mentioned, there's lessons in their stories that Kath and the protagonist went through, you know, ultimately identifying how she is gonna place herself at the center of her organization's growth and how she focused on her own personal, individual growth.
Speaker 1:One of my favorite quotes from there is the beekeeper is responsible for all the bees, their growth and their ability to do their jobs that they were placed there to do, and I love how you were able to correlate stories around bees and then tie it into being a leader To me. You guys are blowing my mind because I'm not that type of or I'm not that creative in order to do that. But walk me through the book as much as you want to share in terms of the narrative, of how you convey the message of transformational leadership.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I'll touch on it, and I know Michael have a lot to add too is you know, there's a? I think there's a place for Mike and I in that space of vulnerability that we had never written in this way. And so, josh, like, talk about move yourself out of your comfort zone, talk about like being a subject matter expert, but really not being a subject matter expert when it comes to first writing a book, let alone a fable. And so what we decided to do was literally put on bee suits and go meet with beekeepers and learn what happens at a hive. And so, you know, we were like, if we're in, we're all in right and we're researchers at the core.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and we are researchers at the core, and so research always for us was in the traditional sense right of looking at academic, you know seminal works and kind of building on theory and the way that we can apply this. And this really took a you know hands-on you know let's get out there and see what these applications are. And so we had a lot of fun kind of learning about bees and beekeeping and the lessons, the leadership lessons, as you read in the book, are astounding and I think in so many ways we were like we had so much fun with it because there were so many natural threads right Of learning that I felt like we could have made it much longer, right, and we were like, nope, fables are a short, quick, concise message that you know make people want to take action.
Speaker 1:We go back to that model of kiss. We got to keep it simple, students.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 1:Not from that mindset of being clear and concise. So I think some of the more impactful principles when I was scanning through your book is be transformational, be curious and be growth-minded. Those really resonate with me because there's a concept that I have throughout, like my leadership philosophy, and I call it the three Cs be coachable, curious and committed and I think those all are tied together. It's like we always have to be committed to whatever we're doing, we have to be 100% in and we need to be coachable. We need to understand that we don't have all the right answers, but we need to be able to listen and observe and understand our surroundings. But the most important one is being curious. If we don't have a curious mind and a spirit, we're never going to be able to put ourselves in those abilities or those situations, that kind of stretch ourselves. Those three really stuck out to me and I would love maybe if you could, if you could kind of expand upon those.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. I mean, there's so many and I just want to reiterate for you and the listeners that we chose 15 or so B mindsets for our book, but they're really unlimited. Right, these mindsets are how you want to be, how you want to lead. But I love how you pulled out be curious, because I think that really is the impetus of leadership and self-discovery and growth. Right, if you are curious about others, if you are curious about individuals, human beings, if you're curious about what's going on in their world, I think you learn a ton.
Speaker 2:It's very easy to kind of tune out and just kind of be in your own space and own world. But when you demonstrate curiosity, I think you know exponential growth happens and the growth minded piece really goes back to kind of maybe the fixed verse growth mindset. You know work that's been published in the literature by Dweck and it's like it's very simple to say no, this is who I am, this is how I'm going to be, it's just is what it is, versus kind of taking a step back, saying you know, I have an opportunity here to be curious, to learn to. You know, get out of my own way and really kind of look inward to say where do I need to grow? But I don't think any of that happens if you don't have a growth partner that can help you.
Speaker 2:I think it's very hard to do as an individual If you don't have someone challenging you, someone that can help you see your blind spots, that someone can illuminate things that you may not be seeing. And so you know, katie and I've talked about it, but you know we're very different individuals on kind of the disc personality map, but we create a space where you know she can challenge respect respectfully I can challenge respectfully and kind of come to agreement. That's where growth occurs, and I think one of the leaders in my life who said it the best was you know, if you throw yourself in the deep end of a pool, that's where you want to live all the time, not in the low end, right, it's the low end. You're probably tanning and having a margarita, versus in the deep end you're treading water and that's where growth happens, right. And so we always try to put ourselves in the deep end so we can continue to tread water and get better.
Speaker 1:There was something you said right there and I've kind of harped on that throughout some of the blogs that I've written, and I learned it through the metaphor of the military. You talk about blind spots. Well, in the military there's a concept that's called dead space. So when we're doing a military operation, an offensive operation or a defensive operation, we always have terrain that we can't clearly see. We can't shape it with direct fire weapon systems or indirect fire weapon systems. We can't patrol that area because maybe it's too densely vegetated. Those are invisible to us.
Speaker 1:And the same is true in leadership is that we have natural blind spots within our own peripheral vision that we don't understand. But when we surround ourselves and I love how you talked about being in the deep pool when we throw ourselves into the deep pool, we jump off that 10 meter tower and we surround ourselves with people who cover our blind spots, because their strengths are our weaknesses. We have that multiplying effect. And there was a story I think Edmund Chung brought it up, it's a really good one about if you have a horse carrying a buggy, it can pull 4,000 pounds. And if you had two horses carrying a buggy, well, in theory you would think that they could carry 8,000 pounds, but really they could carry up to 12,000 pounds because there's a multiplying effect.
Speaker 1:And the same is true when you surround yourself with someone like Katie, because, katie, I see, our personality is probably very similar and I need someone like Michael in my life to keep me accountable, and I always talk about accountability for me as an accountability tree, someone that's deeply rooted, that can help me when times get tough but also hold me to the standard and unwavering in their resolve. I love that man. That was some really great nuggets Talking through the book. What are some of your favorite parts, I guess for each one of you, what is your one favorite part in the entire book, the favorite part of the story?
Speaker 3:I actually love the piece in the beginning when Catherine's children come to her and pitch like go into the farm, and she's like I need a spa vacation. Because there's a moment there and readers might not catch it right when she doesn't wanna go on this vacation. And so I love that piece in the book because so often as leaders we're put in situations where we already decide something's gonna be terrible before we experience it right. We already made a decision like that's gonna be awful and we fail to show up curious, to show up present, to show up growth-minded. But she shows up right and a lot changes when she meets Henry, and so I just think that's a. It's a real kind of learner's moment. I think in the book that if we're present right and we're able to kind of be present in where we are, I think great things can happen.
Speaker 1:Every time my wife wants to go do a social event, I always hunt the bad stuff. So yeah, I don't.
Speaker 2:Think. For me, I think, towards the end, where we kind of get a peek behind the curtain, you know, at the organization kind of the the be on the walls perspective, that was probably the the most fun chapter you know to to write through, because you are you're kind of exploring all the the ways people can interpret things, all the ways people can interpret messages, and allowing people to really kind of come to their own realization of you know, you know what those messages mean. But but I think, more importantly, that that chapter demonstrates that it takes courage for someone to stand up and go against kind of the status Quo of how people are feeling and create kind of a viral moment where you know that first person to do something creates Followership and that for those followers can then kind of really create momentum. You know, I do believe that that was a you know kind of one of the more fun chapters to write and I think Provides a lot of perspective and Mike, I love that you brought this up because it really is a demonstration.
Speaker 3:He's talking about the leadership guides who are thriving high and so, in full transparency and vulnerability, our, our editors, came back to us like Mike and I had just done like Editing, and editing like nights, weekends, right, like we work full-time job. So this is like you're adding it on to, like you know, late nights, right, I'm doing these at these editorial updates, and they come back and they're like we need another chapter. We were like what do you mean? And and we're in this, this kiss mindset, now, right, we're like it's concise, like we got the message we got. So then we were thinking about the readers, were like if we add something, it has to be meaningful and it has to be something. And it ended up to be to Mike's point, it's so much fun writing it, but it ended up to be a piece that, for readers, was like without it, we couldn't imagine now that the Vable without it right, because it makes such a profound impact of that be going behind the scenes.
Speaker 1:All right team. Let's take a quick break from this episode and I want to share a leadership resource with you, and that is the resiliency based leadership program. Rblp's vision is to create a worldwide community of practice committed to building and leading Resilient teams. So why do you need to build and lead a resilient team? Resilient teams are the key to individual and organizational growth, regardless of being in the military or in the civilian workforce. Building collective teams allows for exponential growth and the teams ability to overcome adversity, adapt and, most importantly, grow. And in bottom line, up front. Resilient teams are just stronger together and here's the fact 99% of the people who take that course Recommended to others, and I'm one of them.
Speaker 1:I would just completed my certification and I highly recommend this, and the great news is it's most likely free to you and if you're in the military, it is a hundred percent free to you. And if you want to learn more, you can look in the show notes for this episode and find the link and use the discount code J MCM. I ll Iow in and that is also in the show notes. Back to the episode. You brought up a great point and I think that's really important and this is outside the topic of the book, but you both have full-time jobs and you wrote a book anyway.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I I Understand the level of sacrifice that has to be made, but walk me through that. How do you do that? How do you manage your time to be so productive?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I think you know. So both of us have an eight drive Right, like we're both self-directed. To Mike's point, we love the deep end, like we need the like mind nourishment, that, like the you know, mental stimulation, the learning, like it's both in ingrained, I think, in both of us. So that's a, that's something that always aligns in the work that we do together, that we know that there's never a question of showing up to do it, but that the, the virtual space.
Speaker 3:And this is where Mike and I were comfortable because, remember, we started our academic journey In a virtual space with shared documents, meeting over zoom, like talking on the phone, and so we just used, like you know, really the strengths of what we had done right over a decade ago. That started, you know, started the journey to say, let's think about who's taking what, and we can, you know, pass things off for edits, review, additions, and it was, you know, just just as you opened, constant communication, right, making sure that there was alignment and then just the commitment of when, whenever we could fit it in, right, we both have really crazy schedules, crazy jobs, you know, travel, children, and so we had to give each other grace in the space of you know whenever you could do it with trust. That will get it back to the other.
Speaker 2:I think part of what made it so efficient and effective was like that level of trust. Like you said, like you know we, we were able to challenge respectfully. You know give feedback, you know pivot, make changes and not not have hurt feelings about it. Right or not say someone is like Implicating your writing or doesn't like the way you're writing, because, because we really have know that about each other, right, and if Katie says this is probably a good way forward, then then I'm saying, guy, let's do it right. I'm not. You know we'll collaborate, but there's an element of, of a, of a trust or the kind of moves thing forward quicker.
Speaker 1:So I know we were talking about this before we started filming the podcast episode, but it's funny again in a small world. The two correlations to bees one is I have my own Bee leadership philosophy and I really developed that through all the different leaders that I wanted to emulate when I was growing up as a young officer in the military Be present, be a problem-solver, be positive, be a team player, be humble, be brilliant and then be gone. So those were kind of like my bee leadership philosophies that I would always have as part of like my end doc, of like whenever I was taken over an organization. These were my bee principles and it's interesting that some of those correlate, I think, directly to the book that you guys written, but I love how you were able still to tease out that story of the beekeeper and correlate that to leadership, because that's such a beautiful metaphor.
Speaker 1:Again going back to the theme of, really, this episode of being able to clearly communicate a story, to inspire other people, to be Pun intended, their best and and I think, michael, you talked about this too is that the, the bee principles that are in this book. There's so many more that you can kind of elaborate on, so understanding, like how you want to lead yourself and lead others, what, what are your bee principles that you want to have? I Guess is there another book that you guys wanted to write, because there's all these other bee principles that you could, you could expand upon.
Speaker 2:Well, I think it's interesting. You know, we, we, we by design kind of came up with the leadership fables, kind of you know website and kind of that's kind of our mantra. So we definitely want to continue to write and we'll definitely have you know you know, other thoughts.
Speaker 2:You know, look the bee, the bee mindsets and bee statements, to your point. I mean, those aren't unique to this book. Right, they've been, on leadership, you know stuff, for many, many years. I think what the book does is is really focuses on, you know, looking at it through the lens of someone who is struggling to build culture at work. They're feeling the growing pains of a company and, and the beekeeper, somebody that they are curious to talk to, helps them illuminate Maybe some ways forward.
Speaker 2:You know, unintended, you know, and through the lessons that we give on how beekeepers trade thriving hives. I think that is kind of the impetus for the book and and we have a lot of people that have talked to us and we're super humbled that give us the same feedback, like it's really awesome how you pulled it together. It's a very inspiring story and you know it means a lot to us and we're using it at our organization, our, our school or whatever it may be, because the storytelling aspect of it, like we told the story through that lens and I think people are grasping onto it. So, so, yes, more books in the future, and so we'll see what those look like.
Speaker 1:Congratulations, because this is already a Wall Street Journal bestseller, right, that's amazing. That's not a small achievement. So first, first book that you guys collaborated on is already a bestseller. No, there's no pressure. Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 3:It's incredibly humbling. And to Mike's point, like, yes, you know we're talking about book two and we're excited about that. But, josh, I need to roll back for a minute because you unceremoniously shared with us that you have these bee Principles and your leadership philosophy and then kind of segwayed right into you know, mike, so you know universe moment. I think to your point. We were meant to connect and work together and who knows if there's ways that we could work together beyond just connecting here on the podcast. This is like the work that's meaningful to Mike and I. It's about just connecting with other people and and we say pollinators now that just our out, make the world and people better.
Speaker 3:And so, you know, in this commitment, you know I got the chills when you were sharing your leadership philosophy, because this is really what it's all about. Right, how do we just connect with people who want to just do good and help people be better and, you know, help the world around us grow. So it's really great just to be here and connect with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no. Well, thank you for that. That means a lot. I put a lot of time and kind of effort in Understanding who I am and it took me a long time to kind of realize that because I had to go through a coaching program and really like Distill down the facts of have some deep self-reflection and take some.
Speaker 1:It's not especially when you come from a combat arms alpha, yeah, lead world. I guess the best way to think of it is like when you do positive affirmations, you journal, you do those things that everyone would always say those are food things. We don't. We don't do that, we act. We keep going forward. But in order to grow we have to stop, and stop means silence your mind, take a tactical pause, observe your surroundings and then pursue with purpose. And it took me a long time to have that level of maturity. But I kind of get back to to you guys and this book. Where, where can people find this book? They want to buy a copy today.
Speaker 2:So it's, it's, it's out there on Amazon, barnes and Noble books a million, all all retailers. You know if you want to support local independent bookstores, you know generally they can order it for you as well. It's on our website, leadership fable, so there's a lot of places you can, you know, pick the book up and yes, or just wherever books are sold.
Speaker 1:Really, you, kate, you you answered one of my questions and this is going to be one of the last ones that I was going to ask. But Can you kind of, you know, share your why, why you're still pushing each day to grow, to master your craft of being a leader and trying to make a positive impact on this world?
Speaker 3:Yeah, go ahead yeah, and so I think I did say it, probably with a lot of passion.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you've got to play something up when what you said resonated.
Speaker 3:it really is about you know, helping you know people around us grow, helping people, imagine you know their best selves and in a lot of ways, that space of discovery is ongoing. Mike and I are modeling that, as we're not only wrote the book, but now the books out there. And now what do we do with it? Right, and so how do we model this? Like ongoing learning and growth and never ends. And how do we just rally people around us to come on the journey with us? Right, the why is like we're brighter, better, richer, stronger together, and so like, let's just surround ourselves with amazing pollinators, right, to just help people in the world grow.
Speaker 1:It's funny you say model the way always resonates with me. But me producing this podcast in a way and I think you guys write in that book, you put it out there in the world and now there's that pressure that you have to literally model the way. It's words and deeds aligned and I'm always talking about leadership. But I still lead and run teams and I always have that sense of you know, maybe imposter syndrome of like who am I to still talk about leadership? But I always have to kind of break through that mindset and kind of understand you know I I do have what it takes, I have a curious mind and I can continue to go forward and make a positive impact and be unreasonable, michael, kind of go back to one of your terms you say and have that courage to continue to move forward.
Speaker 1:It's time for our final show segment that I like to call the killer bees. These are the same four questions that ask every guest on the tales of leadership podcast be brief, be brilliant, be present and be gone. Question one what do you believe separates a good leader from an extraordinary leader?
Speaker 3:I think it goes back to what we've been talking about. You know, over the course of the last, you know 50 minutes, and that is that space of you know, vulnerability and curiosity. And you know you mentioned it, josh, and one of your Be tenants of being coachable. Right, we have to be able to listen, to understand, we have to show up to say wow, I hadn't thought about it that way, right, and be able to look around and listen and learn, regardless of how long we've been leading or who we're leading. I love that, and just just for me on that.
Speaker 2:I think that I think really good leaders Are they can be present, they can demonstrate being present for their team, available when they need them. But the really exceptional leaders are extraordinary leaders, I think, are vulnerable and they they're there and and they create an environment where they themselves let their guard down and allow other people to do that as well. You can be present in an environment, but really not vulnerable, and I think those are two different shaders.
Speaker 1:I'm breaking one of my rules of being brief, but I'm in the process of right now of reading several books and always put the books on the back that I'm reading. But vulnerability is one of the core characteristics that I want to learn and grow more in, because where I, where I was raised, in my leadership journey, vulnerability was a weakness and when. We do not portray that, but what I've learned is the greatest leaders that I've ever had were vulnerable and there is a way to make sure that we're vulnerable and there is a way to do that. Okay, I'll shut up Second second question. So and I think I know what this was going to be, if you could provide one resource to our listeners to grow their leadership, what would it be? Pun intended?
Speaker 3:So we of course want to say the beekeeper right, but but?
Speaker 3:but we want to take that further in. We want to invite listeners and readers to become members of the hive at leadership fables dot com. We have free resources on there that we call growth guides, and that's really the space that, like. We don't want it don't end with the book. Right, continue to put this into action. Right, pollinate, share the learnings with others, challenge people, have discussions, learn yourself. We talk a lot about, you know, unlearning and I think as adults, it's harder for us to unlearn. Right, then, it is to learn, and so in that resource, right, read the book, but then also, right, go on, become a member of the hive and use the growth guides.
Speaker 1:And accountability. I love how that models the way right like read the book, understand. In the military we have a concept crawl, walk, run, crawl, hate. Read the book, walk, start the model of the way run. Join the group, be accountable, yeah, and continue to make a positive change and all, all those will be in the notes, so can we use that?
Speaker 3:can we use that just?
Speaker 1:yeah, 100%, yeah, 100%. All right. So next question if you could go back in time and give your younger self a piece of advice, what would it be and why? They're really kind of house to both of you guys.
Speaker 2:You know, I think if our reflect back and give myself advice, I would say you know, you know, be curious earlier, right. I think sometimes he takes a lot of your shell and kind of identify you know what your natural skill sets are and I think curiosity kind of helps with that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, mine would definitely be vulnerability. I had a perception early on that if you're the leader, you should have all the answers. If you're the leader, you should know everything. If you're the leader and I think that's where imposter syndrome could creep in Right, but we teach now, how do we transfer imposter syndrome to confident humility? And so in my mature self now it's about like, well, that's a great question, I hadn't considered it before. Right, tell me more about it. And so I think there's a space of just allowing yourself, you know, to, you know, embrace ongoing learning and growth, regardless of how many degrees you have right, what your experience is, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:Confident humility. I love that and I see that in the military, especially with a lot of general officers. Doesn't matter the title that they make, they always have that level of humility about them. And the same is true, I think, in the academic world. With all the different certifications or degrees that you could obtain, you still have that level of curiosity and humility about you. Alright, final question how can our listeners find you? And then how can they add value to your mission? I know we've already went through some of those ways.
Speaker 2:I think so our website. We've mentioned a couple times leadership fables. You know we are at the Katie's point earlier. We're learners, here we are, we're not book marketers, so we've we're trying to create some social media. You know, instagram, facebook, so we just encourage people to follow us and share and we're doing our best to put content out. But you know, all that stuff that helps things go viral are really important and we need kind of our army of people to kind of support us and as we get out there and help us, you know, go even more viral, get the word out about how you can become a pollinator. We want to get the message out to as many people as possible.
Speaker 1:Katie Michael. This has been an amazing podcast and I to be vulnerable because that was one of the things with this when I was a little nervous about this is going to go with having two people on the same time, but this was a fire episode. You dropped so many nuggets and I'm really looking forward to reading this book and learning and maybe even helping collaborate in the future with you guys. Thank you for everything that you do and I look forward to seeing the growth. All right, team.
Speaker 1:It is time for our after action review. What are the top three takeaways you should have from this episode? The first one that I wrote down was communication, and one of the key acronyms that I used was kiss, keep it simple, stupid. That is something that I've learned throughout my life is, the more detailed you are often, the deeper you go into things, the more questions and the more resistance you're going to meet. It is best to be able to clearly communicate and articulate what you need in the simplest of terms, because then you are not burdening your team to all these unspecified tasks. When you are clear with your language, it gives your team the latitude to really control their destiny of how they're going to get to that in state, it begins to build momentum and after you get a win after a win, after a win, then we have that compounding effect. So the first key take away is in life, in leadership, keep a simple, stupid. Don't get so far into the weeds that you lose yourself. Remember, communicate clearly, be concise. Words matter.
Speaker 1:Number two key take away is confident humility. That was something that I loved and it was towards the tell end of this episode, and that is a theme that I've seen throughout this entire leadership journey is that great leaders Are humble but they're also confident, and that is a hard balance to strive. When you see someone who is a CEO that does not have humility but they're confident, well that's because they have too big of an ego. And the whole goal of the servant leader, of the transformational leader, what I'm trying to promote, is to check your ego at the door. Doesn't matter what your title is, doesn't matter how much authority, doesn't matter what your degrees are, doesn't matter what you've done, it only matters what you do right now. Always remember You're not here for yourself, you are here for other people. And when you are in a leadership role, it is not for you, it is for other people and if you're not willing to make that level of sacrifice and have that level of humility, then you should not be a leader. But you also have to be confident. Then you need to understand the rule three C's be committed, coachable and curious, but understanding that you are not the smartest person. And if you can have that level of healthy, confident humility, you are going to excel, because most of the leaders that at least that I've seen Don't have that balance and if you can learn to maintain that balance, it's going to be critical.
Speaker 1:The last takeaway is really up to you. What is your be philosophies? We talked about several in this episode. We talked about be transformational, be curious, be growth minded, and then I went through and I shared my be leadership philosophy be present, be a problem solver, be positive, be a team player, be humble, be brilliant, be gone. Those are mine. What are yours? What are the be principles in your life that are going to make you a better leader, that are going to allow you to communicate clearly and articulate and are going to allow the organization, your team, your family to start gaining wins and gaining momentum and being able to crush through any type of obstacles that you face. All right, team.
Speaker 1:Hey, if this podcast and this episode has brought you value, do me a favor. Make sure you share this podcast with someone who is a leader leader of themselves or family, it doesn't matter. Share this podcast, it would help me out tremendously. Give it a five star review, no matter what platform you're listening. However, you can leave a review. It would mean the world and then support. You can go to tells a leadership back, slash buzz sprout and you can support the podcast. That way, I can continue to bring quality content and help you guys grow your leadership. And then also go to go to mcmillian leadership coaching. Follow me on social media, especially on instagram and linked in, and check out some of the free leadership resources I have in terms of the blogs that I have on my website. As always, team, I'm Josh mcmillian, saying every day is a gift. Don't waste yours. I'll see you next time.
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