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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Leadership strategy, generational differences, work-life balance, purpose, remote work, multi-generational teams, leadership signature, self-reflection, team engagement, strengths, weaknesses, adaptability, employee happiness, leadership development, Rapid Fire Leadership.
SPEAKERS
Shawn Richards, Damon Pistulka
Damon Pistulka 00:02
All right, everyone, welcome once again to the face of business. I am your host, Damon Pistulka, and I am very excited because we’ve got a repeat offender. Sean Richards from Blue Sky business consulting is with us here today. Sean, thanks for being here today. Oh, you’re welcome. How you doing? Damon, I’m doing great, and I’m excited to talk a little bit about leadership strategy and understanding what makes an individual a great leader. What makes you a great leader? Love it. Yeah. So let’s talk a little bit about leadership first, Sean, your leadership journey, how you got into teaching people, helping teams with
Shawn Richards 00:47
leadership? You know, I think for a lot of folks in the early days, it’s a little bit by experience. He kind of has some good leaders. He has some some not so good leaders. And over the years, as I’ve worked in business consulting and worked with a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of startups, as well as some more developed companies that are getting ready to exit. The consistent comment that keeps coming up is leadership, leadership, leadership. People wish they had better leadership. I was talking to a young lady just last week, and I don’t know exactly how old she is, but she’s roughly late 20s, and she’s looking for some new opportunities, and feels like some of the companies that she’s worked with in the past, great companies, but they don’t invest as much in her generation as she would like. And she led me to believe that others of her generation would like, they would like companies to invest a little bit more in the younger group, the younger crowd, the next generation of leaders, and so forth. But for some reason, we’re reluctant to do that. For some reason we like to spend a lot of money on the C suite, which is good. That’s not a bad thing. But let’s develop those younger leaders as well and help them get ready for future leadership roles. And so I see it across the board with Exit Planning, which I know you’re familiar with, there is, you know, some succession planning, and who’s going to take over and how are we going to make some adjustments when the previous ownership sells and departs? And there’s just, it just, is it permeates. And quite frankly, Damon, it does change from generation to generation. You and I are. I don’t know exactly how old you are, but I think we’re about the same age, and we kind of grew up in a slightly different environment when it came to leadership than what this generation coming up now is looking for. And so it’s a dynamic, ever changing effort to find out how we can help other people lead better?
Damon Pistulka 02:44
Yeah, I think that that is, and you bring up a great point, is that different generations want different guidance, different opportunities for for Leadership and Development.
Shawn Richards 02:58
Yeah, yes, absolutely. And some of the reasons why is because they have a different outlook, and they also have a different motivation. And of course, we don’t want to generalize and say that everybody in the Gen Z category defines this way, but generally speaking, you know, you and I in the 80s and whatnot, that was kind of the the age of Age of gluttony, in some ways, it was a pursuit of money. It was that it’s really all you cared about. And it was go get a good job and have the good benefits and the good retirement plan. It was really centered around money. There was some talk about finding something that you like and find that work life balance, but not a lot, and then you get your 90s and 2000s and now, especially these younger people, they’re not as motivate, motivated by money. It’s still important, it’s necessary. But they’re looking for work, life balance. They’re looking for purpose. They’re looking for some way to connect with the company. More than just, I’m a number, and I produce these results for the company. They want those connections to be there. So there’s some different things that we are learning from this next generation, and, quite frankly, the generations preceding them. So there’s different ways that we approach how we work together. And that’s really what leadership is about, is teaching people how to work better together.
Damon Pistulka 04:21
Yeah, the you bring up a great point. I think that a lot of companies fail to realize how much that connecting the the people, the the younger people, with the community the company, the whole purpose and mission of the company is is more important than it was, say, 1520, years ago.
Shawn Richards 04:44
Yeah, it really was. They really want a connection. They want to feel like they are part of something bigger than themselves. It can still be a profitable company, a company that’s for profit, but they want to feel like what that that company is doing. Whether it’s the product or the service they provide, or that there’s some type of a give back to a community or another nonprofit of some kind. All of those things matter to these people and these younger people, as well as some older folks. I think I know those are things that are important to me too, yes, and we’re just seeing that there’s a little bit more of a shift in where those line up on the priority list. So leaders today, the senior leaders, really need to keep that in mind as they are developing the younger leaders that they are going to be looking for different things, and they will lead their teams in different ways. And that sometimes is what trips us up. If you’re an older leader like myself in my 50s, you might think, well, this is the way to lead a team. This is the way to lead your department, or your your your group, or whatever it is, may not be the way that they feel to approach it, and that’s where we sometimes get tripped up and start causing some some chaos and mayhem when it comes to leadership.
Damon Pistulka 05:57
Yes, I can imagine the the challenges of leading multi generational teams.
Shawn Richards 06:04
Oh, very much so. And then we have other layers that we’re discovering here just in the last few years, that we’re all still learning about, which is, how do you deal with remote workers? How do you deal with workers in different countries? Now we have countries all over now that are able to contribute to a single team within a company. So that’s why leadership, and I use the word dynamic. That’s why leadership needs to be dynamic. It needs to be adaptable, and it just needs to be done differently than we’ve done it in the past.
Damon Pistulka 06:32
Yeah, that is interesting, because you bring up a couple good points. Not only did you know has remote in the last five or six years, gotten a lot more prevalent, or at least partially hybrid, whatever else you’re going to talk about there, but the global nature of the workforce, because that remote actually allowed us to consider, Okay, where is the best place for us to hire people at, and They don’t necessarily have to be in our time zone, or can we obviously be on the other side of the globe if it needs to be?
Shawn Richards 07:06
Oh, yeah. And that’s part of that’s part of what makes all of this challenging. Because now you’ve got not just one or two variables that you’re trying to manage. You’re now dealing with five or six, and whether it’s age, whether it’s their own opinions, whether it’s how they want to express themselves, the cultural background, the motivations, there are a lot of different variables that contribute to employee happiness and satisfaction and well being. And of course, we know that Gallup has done a lot of research into the workplace. I personally consider them the number one research company is performance and whatnot, and they’ve done so much research, research over the years about how to keep employees engaged and what happens worldwide when different things happen with the economy, or as we experienced a few years ago, worldwide pandemic, and now we’ve got tariffs and all these different things, and they’re constantly challenging the economics of business all around the world. And even if you feel like your business isn’t directly affected, more than likely, it’s indirectly affected by what’s happening with some of your clients or vendors or partners or whatever it may be. And so yeah, this idea of people performance is really important, and that’s where leaders have an opportunity to really shine. But quite frankly, Damon, they just can’t do the, what I call the one size fits all approach to leadership. Yeah, just be one dimensional anymore. Just can’t do it.
Damon Pistulka 08:35
That’s a great point, because you think about it now, and because of these factors, the multi generations, the remote work, the you know, out of the country, work, whatever you want to call it, and then the other factors, you said, the one size approach fits all doesn’t work.
Shawn Richards 08:53
That’s right. It just doesn’t. Quite frankly, it’s kind of this question, and you mentioned at the very top of the show here, we have this approach where we want to say to ourselves, what makes a great leader, and we start listing off those characteristics or those attributes that we feel contributes to great leadership success. But the better question to ask yourself is, what makes you a great leader? What is it about you that’s unique? What are your strengths? How do you connect with people? Are you typically more of a visionary kind of a motivator type? Do you like to excite people and motivate them and inspire them? Is that your style of leadership, or maybe you’re a little bit more in the implementer style, where you’re kind of like to create systems and just get things done, and that can be really effective, especially in, let’s say, a manufacturing setting where there’s just, there’s parameters that have to be met, and you cannot get outside of that. That’s not the time to get creative. So there’s there’s time, there’s a time and a place for that style of leadership. And then you may have a servant leader, someone. Is invested in developing the people on their team or within the company, and that’s how they like to effectively lead people, is to empower the person or the people that they lead to be better. And the fourth area that I like to kind of have encourage people to look at with regard to their leadership style is what I call expertise. Sometimes you have an individual that just has a lot of expertise in an area, or maybe they’ve been with the company a long time, and so they have a lot of familiarity with the company that has value. And people can lead in that way by simply being kind of that wise old sage, you know, kind of that person that’s all they’ve been around a long time. We need to go find out from him or her, what they Yeah, situation. That’s a form of leadership, and that could be really effective as well. So just, you know, explore within yourself. What makes me a great leader? What is it? What is it about me that can help others to be successful?
Damon Pistulka 10:55
Yeah, I think you bring us a good points there about they really need to look inside to see the characteristics that that help to improve their leadership abilities. And, yeah, keep going, No, when you say that, I’m just thinking about, what are some of the ways that that people can do this. Because we, you know, we’re we have a gazillion different things to consider. And how would you even begin a process like this? Oh, sure,
Shawn Richards 11:25
it is, or can be complicated. And the way that I like to approach it is to simply start with that really basic foundation. What drives you? Where is your the phrase I like is energy for impact. Where can you make an impact? What is your and this is your natural way of doing just about anything, not just in leadership, it’s anything in life. What’s your what’s your motivation? What’s your energy for doing something? And how do you feel most energized to make an impact? And so that’s kind of a foundational piece on top of that. We like to layer strengths. So let’s identify not just a few casual things that you’re good at, but really workplace environment and related strengths. What do you do that’s unique about you that you bring to the table? For me, for example, it’s consistency, it’s includer, it’s positivity, and some of those things that I get really involved with other people, and I want to see them, to see them succeed. And then the third layer is what I’d like to call the leadership dynamic. Okay, now let’s talk more specifically about the method in which you like to lead. What do you feel most comfortable leading when you put all three of those elements together? Now you have something that is a truly unique perspective on yourself that is your unique leadership style, or signature, as I like to call it, like our handwritten signature, which is unique to us. Your leadership signature is unique to you, and that’s how you can know. Okay, these are the kinds of roles I want to pursue and go apply for. This is how I can develop myself. These are the skills that most, most align with those kinds of that three dimensional signature that we’re talking about when you’re in that mode of thinking, Okay, this is what’s good about me. This is what’s positive. This is how I contribute. And you add the skill set on top of that, now you’re making a big, big difference in the world around you and in the lives of the people that you lead. And so that’s the approach that I like to take. There’s a lot of different ways. The biggest thing that I would suggest to anyone watching or listening is just to simply take some time to reflect on yourself. What are some things that you do really well? There’s some things that create a little more of a drag that you don’t do as well. Maybe there’s some friction there. You have some inner resistance to something. What is it about that that makes it difficult for you to lead in that way? And when you start to have some self reflection, and there are assessments out there that people can use, that’s what I like to use, because they ask really, really good questions and help pull that out of the person so that they have a really clear understanding of who, who they are and how they best lead and contribute.
Damon Pistulka 14:07
Yeah, that’s, I think it really comes back to understanding, as you called it, the leadership signature, our own leadership signature, yeah. And I come back to that again, because the, you know, when we talked about the complexities in leadership now, because of the remote the people working in different countries and different generations, I can imagine that understanding this leadership signature and the pieces in it, where my strengths are, and how I flex those In the different when I’m dealing with the different people on my team can make a big difference,
Shawn Richards 14:45
absolutely, absolutely, because it’s just a natural byproduct that when we start to focus on ourselves and understand ourselves, not in a selfish way, but when we focus on ourselves to understand ourselves, it’s a natural byproduct. We start to understand the people around us a little bit better, because we start to think, Now, wait a minute, I behave this way, but this other person does not respond to the way that I think that they should, because this is how I think, whether they’re coming at it from a different perspective. And when we start to understand the dynamics within ourselves, we start to see similar and different dynamics in other people, and that’s what makes us more effective as leaders, is we start to see the differences between us, and we don’t necessarily have to correct the differences or change the differences. We just need to recognize them and adapt so that we can work better together.
Damon Pistulka 15:38
Yeah. Yeah. Great. So one of the things I have to imagine is that hits a lot of leaders, both young and old, is the differences in the way people work around all these different groups of people. And what are some of the things that you think really understanding your leadership signature will really help in that, and, you know, allow them to continue developing high performing teams.
Shawn Richards 16:10
Sure, yeah, that’s a great question, because you’re going to find a distinct difference. And I’m going to be very, very general here, mainly because it’s difficult to get to two specifics, because everybody’s different, but I’m going to use software coders as one example. They tend to be the kinds of individuals that just kind of like to put the headphones on and zero in on their work and get it done. Take that or contrast that with maybe a marketing team, and they like to sit down and talk and have a rap session or bounce ideas off of each other, and it’s a lot more collaborative. Now, of course, the coders, they still need to have collaboration too, so it’s not like they’re without that opportunity to collaborate, but they’re a very different style of person that fits well within that kind of an industry or that kind of a business, or that kind of a role within the business, and those are just two very quick examples, but you may have somebody else that’s a little more introverted, a little more extroverted in certain situations, and a good leader will understand that about their people, the people that they lead, especially in those more intimate settings, like a meeting or one on one, and they’ll be able to celebrate those. They’ll be able to use those and help develop the person so that they know how to use their own strengths better at how they can contribute. And that is what makes it, makes it challenging, because again, you’ve got different cultures. If you’re a worldwide company, you’ve got different ages with different perspectives. And that’s why understanding these principles is so important, and it does make a difference to the people that you lead. When they can tell that you’re making a sincere effort to connect with them, even if it’s a little bit different than how you might normally want to connect with people, it still makes a big difference.
Damon Pistulka 17:54
Yeah, that’s a great point, because you have to communicate or connect with them on the way they want to be effective,
Shawn Richards 18:05
yes, and ideally, that person, the team member, is also making an effort to adapt a little bit. That’s part of where team engagement comes in. That’s where you get everybody kind of working together and understanding each other more powerful. They can’t always just be the leader, knowing all this information about their team members and not allowing them to understand that about each other and about the leader in reverse. So it’s important to have those dialogs and those conversations.
Damon Pistulka 18:32
Yeah, yeah. So as you’re helping people with this now, you you’ve come up with some ways to really help people assessments and other things. What are some of the some of the tools that you think can really help people start to hone in on their leadership signature and move forward that way?
Shawn Richards 18:52
You bet, yeah, I’m in the process right now of developing a software platform that will allow people to take some assessments, to understand themselves, and to really clearly identify what I call their sapphire leadership signature. And that’s really what that is about, is really clearly understanding who you are and how to communicate it. And then we can develop ourselves from there. If people are curious and want to learn a little bit more, they can go to the first 50 project.com and you can learn a little bit more and take a look and see if it’s something you’d like to engage in, but it’s something that’s really a lot of fun, because you’re learning about yourself, but it also empowers you. It builds confidence, it builds optimism, it builds hope that you can do some things to help make an impact in the lives around you.
Damon Pistulka 19:40
So as you’re doing this, that’s that’s awesome. First of all, so as you’re doing this, what are some of the things that you realize as you’re helping to go, Okay, this is a big challenge. Let’s develop something to help people with this.
Shawn Richards 19:57
Again, it kind of goes back to that idea that people come into. Leadership, thinking that there’s only one way that they need to do it, that there’s only one way to develop themselves, and it starts with understanding yourself and having the language, the terminology, to be able to clearly relate to other people. But it’s also developing in the way that you develop best. I tend to be a little bit more of kind of an implementer. I like to create systems and organize things and follow systems for expected results. But I also have a lot of servant leader. I love to work with people, and I love to see them succeed. And so I am a little bit more of that blend of those two. I do have kind of that visionary style where I like to encourage people to see a big picture. I don’t consider myself to be an expert in any one thing, and at the same time, I have a lot of knowledge and a lot of experience with these gray hairs that I’ve got here that signifies something. And so there is a desire to share with people what I have learned throughout my life. And so those are more supportive roles, kind of that visionary and expert type roles, but the implementer and servant leader are the two styles that I lean into the most. And it’s important for me to remember, if I’m ever leading a group of people, to recognize that other people may respond a little bit more to someone who has vision, and that I can help that person connect with the vision of the company or the team, whatever situation you’re in. And so that’s why it’s so important to understand yourself to a much deeper level than just scribbling out a few key words or phrases. It’s really understanding where it shows up, where you see it in real real life situations, in real leadership situations, and then training, or perhaps even retraining your brain to be more proactive and to act on that more often than just simply letting the things around you happen and then you have to react to it. It’s being much more proactive.
Damon Pistulka 21:52
Yeah, yeah, I think you’re right. That leadership strategy, when you get to the point that you’ve worked on it, you can, you can be proactive, yes and understand it. The other thing that that you talked about is, as you’re doing this, learning more about ourselves, we learn more about others. Talk about that a little bit, because I think that’s really important for people that haven’t really looked at different different leadership strategies, tried to develop their leadership skills and how that really as we see more about ourselves, how it allows us to see different things in other people and then respond to it?
Shawn Richards 22:30
Yeah, it’s a great question. I appreciate you asking it, because it is something that’s deeply passionate for me. Is to help people understand, especially the leaders, but everybody really understand that everybody has something to contribute, and an exceptional leader will help their team members identify those ways in which they contribute. Because we all do we all do things differently, and we all approach a problem differently, and that’s a good thing, that’s so that’s something to be celebrated, because that multiple perspectives can be really, really valuable. Think about if you’re trying to develop a new product for your company, you want different perspectives because they’re going to represent a little microcosm of your customer base. So it’s important to get different perspectives. So when you are learning about your strengths at the same time, you’re kind of learning about those areas that maybe you’re not as strong in, maybe you’re not maybe quite the communicator that someone else is, but there’s someone on your team that you feel like, yeah, that person, Jill over there. She’s a great communicator. I need to spend a little bit more time working with her so that we can work together and be more effective together, that synergistic approach. So when you’re studying and kind of learning about yourself, you start to understand, well, I’m not quite as strong in this area, but now you start to see other people that do have strengths, and that helps to increase your appreciation for your teammates, because that’s really you start to see each other differently now. And in some cases, you start to realize, gee, that that that perception that we had, that might have been a weakness, is actually a strength. I’ll give you one quick example about this. This was a revelatory, you know, process for me a number of years ago when I was first learning about this for myself, one of my strengths is includer. I love to include other people. So I’m sitting in a meeting, and this is years ago, and I am one that it depending on the number of people in the meeting, I like to hear from every other person. It’s like, what do you think? What do you think? What do you think? What do you think? And someone at you know, after they’re like, Sean, you just are so indecisive. And I was like, Oh, really? And they’re like, Yeah, you keep asking for everybody else’s opinion. I was like, oh, okay, I better be careful. Well, years later, when I started studying about strengths, I started realizing that that’s why I was asking for the input. It wasn’t that I was incapable of making a decision, it was I wanted to hear if maybe the the idea that I had. And the decision that I had already made, maybe there was a different perspective, or maybe I could approach it a little bit differently, or maybe there was even a better idea than the one that I had, you know, because we all think our ideas are the best, but there’s something to that, and that was that was really empowering for me to realize no sean, there’s nothing wrong with you wanting to seek out inclusivity from others and getting their input. Now it did help me to balance, because I then realized, Okay, well, I do want to express some measure of confidence when we make that decision. How can I do that so that I can still include people and get their ideas, but also be decisive, so that people have confidence that the leader, in this case, me, is moving forward in a confident way. So yeah, that’s how we can increase our leadership skills, is to understand about our strengths and to recognize others.
Damon Pistulka 25:53
Yeah, I really like that what you’re talking about there, because getting input, as you said, Some people can can take that as indecisiveness or something like that, but when you get feedback from everyone, you see different perspectives. And I think it’s really important to do that, because it’s just like example of parenting, right? If I if you have two kids and they’re in a fight, and you ask one, what happened, you ask the other one, what happened. It’s a completely different story, right? And it’s because of perspective. When we talk about something in the workplace or trying to solve a problem. You know, back back when I was running manufacturing facilities, people thought it was kind of odd that I would bring an accountant out, or somebody a customer service person, or somebody didn’t know anything about what we were doing, just to come out and give their thoughts. And it’s that perspective, that different perspective that you get from asking those questions, I think, is really important. I just, I just glad that you brought that up, because that can be the ultimate in strength, if you if you really use it the right way?
Shawn Richards 27:03
Oh, absolutely. And there’s so many other examples. You know, we have people sometimes that love to share their ideas all the time. And sometimes people go, here we go again. We got, yeah, yeah, we’re gonna share their ideas. But what people need to realize is that that can be a real strength, because oftentimes that person will also champion an idea that someone else has, and they’ll be the voice, that extroverted voice for someone else that maybe doesn’t have that, that natural ability to always be speaking up in a meeting all the time. But those are the kinds of examples where, if you, if you pull people together and learn about each other in a team environment that can be so incredibly powerful to recognize. Okay, we have Sally over here, we have David over here, we have Ernesto over here. What do they bring to the table? What do the three of them do together as a team? Really, really well. And that’s how you can construct teams. That’s how you can hire. You can look at all of these different things to help strengthen your team. And of course, as the leader, not that we’re interested in taking credit, but if you’re orchestrating this, you’re going to be a much stronger leader, and you’re going to be leading high performing teams. And that’s really what all of us are seeking in a leadership role,
Damon Pistulka 28:21
yes, and as a leader, then, if you’re like you said before, if you’re working on your leadership strengths and understanding those, you will see the strengths of others around you and really encourage it. Because you said a couple things, people like to share ideas. People like to get input on things before they move forward. I mean, those are real strengths in your team, when you have people’s people that do that, because you never know when an idea is going to be the one that we need, or you never know that when the idea we talked about, you know, a year ago, is the one that’s appropriate now,
Shawn Richards 28:53
absolutely so
Damon Pistulka 28:55
in your leadership work. I mean, we always talk about strengths and weaknesses. How much? How much do you really? How much you really focus on weaknesses? When, when you’re trying to develop yourself as a leader?
Shawn Richards 29:11
It’s a great question. Not very much. We need to be aware of them. We call them blind spots or weaknesses, whatever term you choose to Yeah. But it is important to be aware and that, you know, go back to that example I shared a minute ago about being an includer and wanting to hear from from everybody. It was, it was helpful for me to recognize, hey, this is how this is being perceived by others. It’s not what’s inside me. That’s not what I’m thinking or feeling as I’m reaching out, but that’s what people see. And sometimes we do things so naturally, it just comes out naturally for us that we don’t recognize that it may be perceived differently by somebody else. And so again, some of that self awareness is really important, but at the same time, I’m not one that feels like we need to correct weaknesses. Rather, we need to strengthen our strengths and make them even stronger, and use those strengths to manage the weaknesses, to kind of be careful about feeling like, Oh, I’m not good enough, or I don’t have this strength or skill, therefore I cannot do this job, or I can’t be a good leader, whatever it is I’m one that’s like, no, don’t think like that. Don’t think, Oh, I’m not a good leader. Don’t ever think that. Let’s find out what makes you a great leader, and then let’s focus and lean into that, because you are yes, there are some skills to be gained on top of those, those three layers that we talked about earlier, but that self awareness and recognizing Yes, I’m not as strong, or have a weakness or a blind spot in this area that is important self awareness, and you can also use that, especially in a team environment, to say, Okay, I struggle with this, but I know that Damon is really good at this, and together, we make a much more, much more powerful team. You brought up
Damon Pistulka 30:57
a good a good thing. I think that leaders need to understand that situationally, you might not be a good fit with your leadership strengths and where you’re at, and it doesn’t mean you’re not a good leader, but it just means that you haven’t connected your strengths with the right opportunity to really be the best leader you can
Shawn Richards 31:19
exactly I am in the process of doing some very light research that in the coming years will go much deeper. But I’ve been always fascinated, and I’m sure that many of us that are watching or viewing this are familiar with someone who has been very successful in a CEO role, especially as the companies get larger and more and literally, more public. Yeah, they hire and they they bring a CEO that was successful over here, and move them over into this position, and then they struggle. And I’ve always wondered why that is. I believe that a lot of it, it’s difficult to know for sure, because we’re not in the rooms there with the people, but I have a belief that a lot of that is because the type of leadership that was needed was not what that other person has. And so what they’re doing, that former CEO said to themselves, this is what worked here. I’m going to take that, bring it over here again, kind of that one size fits all, because it worked over there. It must work over here. It’s not how it happens. It’s a different dynamic, it’s a different team, it’s a different company, different product. Things are different, and we have to learn to adapt. And that’s why, when we talked earlier about understanding yourself and what roles you can pursue, that’s really important, because you may think to yourself, oh, I want to be the CEO, and there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong with having that ambition. Just understand that maybe that what that company needs in their CEO right now is not what your strengths are. And it may be tough to turn down an opportunity like that or to not even apply for it, but at the same time, if you’re not setting yourself up to really succeed in that role, it may not work out for either side,
Damon Pistulka 32:55
yes, yes. And the thing is, is that there’s only about so much you can adapt to a situation, and then you’re just too
Shawn Richards 33:04
far out of water. Exactly, exactly.
Damon Pistulka 33:07
Yeah, that’s awesome. So let’s talk a little bit about your book, rapid fire leadership, and it just came out recently. And let’s talk, let’s talk about what you know, what? What you know, what would How did the idea start,
Shawn Richards 33:20
oh yeah, I’ve always excited to talk about the book. Well, as you know, Damon, I have a podcast of my own. It’s called the team engagement podcast. I’ve been doing it for years, and as the name implies, I invite leaders from all around the world to come on and we talk about leadership and teams. And so the idea for the book was about a year ago. It was fall of 24 I thought, you know, I think what I would really like to do is create a book that’s based on the podcast and grab some of my favorite quotes, favorite concepts, favorite insights from all of these interviews. At that point in time, I’d done over 400 interviews and had over 400 episodes, and so that’s what I did. I went back through all of them. It took a long time, but I went back through and I picked out those that were that were exceptional for what I felt like leadership should be, because I asked the same five questions on the podcast of all my guests, and then every season, I changed the questions, but that allows for this idea of getting different perspectives on the same question. And so I went back through, and I just took all the questions that I had been asking over those first five years and put them into the book and the format for the podcast. It’s fairly quick. It’s about 15 minutes that we go over those five questions. So you’re only getting about two or three minutes to answer each question, yeah. And so it’s what I call a rapid fire format, which is how the book got its name, rapid fire leadership. It’s like, okay, we’re going to go fast. We’re going to cover some quick things. The chapters are not long, but they give you some really good insights on ideas, on how you can engage your people more, how you can energize your team, or how to handle conflict, all these different ideas. So that’s what the book is all about. I don’t know if it’s okay to show. As well. There we go. Rapid fire, leadership. It’s on Amazon. It came out at the end of August, so it’s out there. Feel free to grab a copy.
Damon Pistulka 35:07
Awesome, awesome. So as you’re writing the book, I gotta imagine going back through all the podcast episodes you you had, you saw some things that you completely forgot about, but went, wow.
Shawn Richards 35:21
Yeah, it really was a, just a great experience. I have to admit, I was feeling a little bit of guilt, because there were so many great comments from so many guests. I quickly realized, wow, how am I going to, how am I going to get everybody in there? Because I’m an includer, I want everybody to be included. And I realized I can’t, it’s just, it’s just not going to work. I just had to grab those people that said they answered the question in a way that I thought was clear, that they it was distinctive, it was decisive. It had good action items tied to it. And that’s ultimately what I did. I approached each question. I started with, how would I respond? And then I use different ideas to help supplement that. And so the book contains not just the quotes from all the guests that I’ve had over the years, but they include some of my own perspectives as well on how we can be better leaders. But it was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. But yeah, there was like, oh boy, I wish I could include this one, because they said it really well, but this other guest said it just a little bit better say it this way. It was tough, though it was tough. Oh, I
Damon Pistulka 36:26
bet, I bet. So what was one thing that you had completely forgot about that the book brought out question,
Shawn Richards 36:35
I think, how important people are, and that’s something that I shouldn’t forget, and none of us should forget. And yet that is kind of what happened. I realized when you when you go over that quickly, and, you know, quickly, it took me weeks to go through all of those podcasts, but it was still, it was just amazing to see how many people were talking about the importance of people. When you’re a leader, it’s about people. And that sounds like such an obvious statement, and yet we hear it over and over and over and over again that one of the biggest frustrations people have with the leaders that they report to is they don’t feel a connection with that person. And you don’t necessarily have to be best buddies with your leader or the leader with their team members, but you’ve got to find a way to connect. And so many of the leaders, regardless of what the question was that I had asked them, it’s amazing how many times it pulled back into about being about the person, and some consistent messages about kindness and patience and empathy and some of those things. And so that was something that was that was really neat for me. We had some fun questions in there too. I’m, you know, you can probably, for those who are watching, you can see my background. I love baseball. So for quite a few of the guests in the last couple of years that I was recording the the episode, I would ask a baseball question. Hey, share a fun baseball story, where I’d ask people about their first job, or something like that, and you get some really neat stories people that there’s two different categories of people when it comes to that first job, they find out what they love to do, and they found out this is not what I want to do. I remember one person, there’s one, one funny story. They lasted two days in their job, and they they said, Nope, this is not for me. And they never looked back. That was not something that they were going to do. We had, you know, entrepreneurs would come out of that and would realize, I want to be tied to something with water, and they would get into marine biology or something like that. So just a lot of great stories of people. So much fun about the podcast.
Damon Pistulka 38:50
Yes, yes. So as you look forward, I mean, your book just came out, you’re going to be working on your your platform later. What are some of the things you’re really excited about going into the fourth quarter of 2025 and and for 2026
Shawn Richards 39:05
certainly this first 50 project. I call it the first 50 project because I’m specifically looking for these high potential emerging leaders, some of these younger ones that we talked about at the top of the show they’re willing to engage in a process that we can identify what their leadership signature is, and then develop it using a software platform, which is what we’re building out. So that is what I’m really excited about as we head into q4 now, and I’m sure it will continue well into 2026 there will be more books coming out. I’m constantly learning and liking to share what I’ve learned. And so there are some book projects that I’m working on as well that I’m planning on having come out in 26 as well. So lots of good stuff going on.
Damon Pistulka 39:44
Awesome, awesome. Well, Sean, thank you so much for being here today. I really enjoy when we get a moment to talk about leadership strategy, and today you know specifically about understanding what makes individuals and you as. Be capital u, y, o, u, as we put in the title a great leader, and how that helps leaders to understand and lead better and be more successful.
Shawn Richards 40:09
Well, this is great. David, I always appreciate talking to you, whether it’s on camera or off. So thank you so much for having me on your show today.
Damon Pistulka 40:17
All right. Well, Sean, if someone gets a whole someone wants to get a hold of you and talk about leadership, talk about their leadership journey. What’s the best way to do that?
Shawn Richards 40:25
Sure, lots of different ways. I’m on LinkedIn, quite a bit. So LinkedIn is probably the best way Sean, S, H, A, W, n, and then the middle initial is J, and then Richards. And you can also go to that website that we talked about earlier, the first 50 project.com, or you can go to my general web business website, which is blue sky biz, B, I Z, blue sky biz consulting.com
Damon Pistulka 40:49
Very good. Well, thanks again for being here today. Sean, appreciate it. And I want to just want to say I can see though we got people out there listening. Thank you so much for being here. If you got in here late. Go back to the beginning and listen to Sean all the way through. He dropped a lot of golden nuggets about, you know, really understanding your unique leadership traits and how that can help you in your career, and then finding those so thanks again, everyone. Thanks again, Sean. We’ll be back again next week with another awesome guest. Hang out with me, Sean. Offline.
