Caring Takes Real Courage

Mark Abbott

[0:00:05]

Marcel Schwantes, good morning.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:00:08]

Good morning, Mark.

Mark Abbott

[0:00:11]

How are you today?

Marcel Schwantes

[0:00:13]

Fantastic. It's a beautiful, late summer day here, but you know, the heat's coming out east and I'm in the southeast part of the country and we're going to hit nineties again.

Mark Abbott

[0:00:25]

Yeah. Yeah. I'm sitting at 67 right now, so I'm enjoying that. Hey, listen, I just want to say thank you for having me on your podcast. Um, I thought that was, you know, just, I loved your questions. I loved sort of talking about the, you know, various things that you were interested in. And for those of you who watch Founders Framework, you should go check out Marcel's podcast. You might even find our discussion pretty interesting. We're going to try to avoid the stuff that we talked about on that one. But, um, but just, I want to say thank you. And, uh, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll send people over there once we're done here. But, you know, one of the things that, uh, I'd love to know more about you now that I've experienced your podcast and, and, and, and your read a bunch of stuff and listened to a number of your podcasts. What's, you know, you asked me what's, what's my story. I guess I'd ask you sort of what's, what's, what's the origin story behind you and the podcast and the work you do.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:01:40]

Yeah, I would say I'm going to frame this with a kind of a before and after. I'm my own case study of living and surviving a toxic work culture. And so the short version of that is we're going back to 2005-ish. Being in this environment that was a pressure cooker, um, management style was top down, command and control, do as I say, you know, every day is like walking on eggshells. I don't know, figure of speech there, meaning that, you know, you gotta like, do I go left or do I go right? Because I got a manager that is sort of calling all the shots, so I don't, I don't have the freedom. uh, to make the choices that I want to own my work, because if I do, if I make a choice on my own, am I going to be reprimanded for it, for it, right? So that, that was the environment. And of course, you know, the research is clear. If you are in that kind of environment day to day, stress builds up, anxiety builds up. and all kinds of health issues will eventually occur. And the data, the data proves this and it leads to all kinds of health issues. And for me, the health issue was that, um, I collapsed, uh, on my bathroom floor when one morning, you know, getting ready for work and I was paralyzed from the waist down. So that was a, you know, a nice two months disability, you know, could not work, could not move. And finally I was able to regain movement on my back. Uh, but then you have the emotional toll as well, right? So that's the physical toll, the emotional toll.

Mark Abbott

[0:03:34]

Yeah.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:03:34]

I also had to recover from that. So the whole recovery process probably took me six months. It set me back. Anyway, so I left that place.

Mark Abbott

[0:03:45]

Yeah. How many employees were in that place?

Marcel Schwantes

[0:03:48]

Probably about 1,400.

Mark Abbott

[0:03:50]

Okay. Yeah. And what was your position there?

Marcel Schwantes

[0:03:55]

I was an HR guy moving up the ranks.

Mark Abbott

[0:04:00]

Yeah.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:04:00]

And, um, you know, working, working in HR and, uh, reporting to the HR director at the time, it was, I was young in my career, you know, moving up.

Mark Abbott

[0:04:12]

Yeah.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:04:13]

Um, and so after I left that role, I landed in another, uh, company that had a very, very opposite, completely opposite style of, of managing. And I'm not even gonna, call it managing, the person that I reported to who was a executive level person was a servant leader. And I didn't have the label at the time. So I, you know, but I put two and two together. And as I started to figure out, you know, what, what is it that makes this, this boss who is a high level, um, so effective because I was more engaged in my young career than at any point, you know, throughout my corporate life, you know, I did the corporate grind for 20, 25 years. And, and he was the best boss I ever had. And, uh, and his servant leadership style was all about putting the people first, right? Growing, developing them. And he had impeccable listening skills. He was always available, open door, mentoring, you know, he'd sit down and mentor me for an hour. Uh, and then he would stretch me and, and, you know, put me in the assignments that, uh, initially I felt, man, this is way over my head. But then you said, no, I believe in you. And I will hold you by the hand those first couple of days, and then I'm going to set you free. And man, that did something magical to my development. When a superior can actually say that to you because he believes in you, in your, in your, uh, not only your, your competence, right? Because, I mean, I, I knew that I could do the job, but there was, there, I've never been exposed to this element of the job. Uh, and, uh, and so he walked me through it. And anyway, so that's what, that's what a servant leader does. And, and so this is, so to answer your question, you know, coming full circle, as I ventured into my own practice as a, as a leadership coach, consulting and, and writing, et cetera, um, I realized that, there is way too much suffering in the workplace, and we need to flip the script on what an effective leader does and who an effective leader is, right? And so that began my work to sort of help leaders understand the people side of the business, that when they focus on helping people to flourish, the business is going to flourish. It's a simple equation. And, but that takes a kind of mindset, a kind of leadership style that is, that has a caring nature, right? So, um, and so I began coaching those that, that sort of prescribed this model of, of, of, of, of leading right through more of a human centered approach. And then that led to the podcast, uh, because, you know, if you're a human centered leader or working in a human centered workplace, there is love and care. in such a place, right? And it's, it's palpable. You can, you can feel it. People just they act differently. Um, the, the environment is, is one of respect and, uh, where people's dignity is, is, you know, looked at and, uh, there's kindness in the workplace, you know, uh, there's empathy flowing through decision-making and listening to various perspectives.

Mark Abbott

[0:07:56]

Right.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:07:57]

So, um, and so I decided I'm going to start a podcast to kind of spotlight these workplaces and these leaders. And I'm not going to shy away from the word love. And, and so I called it Love in Action. That was the original name of the podcast. It has since changed names, but, uh, and so I started to bring in world renowned thought leaders, authors, leadership experts that aligned with this understanding that if you are to lead other human beings, you're going to have to care for them. And, and so, and to, even to the extent of, again, you're going to have to love on them. And, and love in this sense is not the squishy emotion when you think about romantic love and familial love. No, I'm talking about agape love, right? Love that is backed by action that leads to results. And that's what we are missing in the workplace. And as we venture into this new era of AI and digital communication, where people are just communicating through texting and apps, we're neglecting the human relationships and we're neglecting the connection with other people. And so we need to bring that back. And I think that And AI is great. We need it. It's going to help us be more efficient, productive and all that, but not at the expense of human relationships. So that's my long answer to your question. And that could lead us in all kinds of rabbit trails. Right, Mark?

Mark Abbott

[0:09:34]

Yeah, we love rabbit trails. So I'm, I'm going to go back into the bit of the story. So Yeah. So you had, you worked for this toxic boss and then you had the good fortune to work for, you know, an exceptional bosses who you said, you know, you characterized as a servant leader. And, um, and so did you, what's, you worked for this boss for a while and then I'm just curious what happened there? What led you into going off on your own?

Marcel Schwantes

[0:10:12]

After I, after the, uh, servant leadership experience.

Mark Abbott

[0:10:15]

Yeah. Like, did you leave that boss or did that boss, what happened?

Marcel Schwantes

[0:10:20]

Yeah, that was, uh, a, it was a three year assignment and it came to an end. And so we parted ways, but we stayed in touch because, you know, he, he is part of my story. I always reference his name is Bruce. Bruce is still around and he knows that I, I always drop his name. in podcasts and in my book. So, um, yeah. So after that, Bruce sort of became the model. And, um, for what I believe is sort of, you know, the consummate, um, leader, if you were going to lead people and, and, and lead teams. But I needed the evidence.

Mark Abbott

[0:11:04]

Yeah.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:11:04]

And the evidence is clear. So I went into the research and of course, and then found all the tenets of servant leadership that leads to high performance. And in that began my, my whole coaching, uh, work and developing a course based on servant leadership principles and practices. Uh, and, and since I had the previous HR, organizational development, background, talent management, and all that. in my previous corporate world, I thought I was going to get back in. I'm going to fling my resume around to, you know, a few places and I'm going to find another job and, you know, life will go on. But nobody looked at my resume at that time. And so I think that, you know, the powers that be, whatever your faith persuasion is.

Mark Abbott

[0:11:55]

Yeah.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:11:57]

dictated that, no, you're not going back to the corporate world.

Mark Abbott

[0:12:00]

Yeah.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:12:01]

You have too much of a... uh, of an interesting gift to, uh, create mission around this, you know, this endeavor. So it became mission, it became calling. And so I started my own practice and went on my own, you know, and as you know, being an entrepreneur is, is not for the faint of heart, right? So those first three to five years, it was like, all right, well, how are we going to pay the, pay to keep the lights on in the house this month?

Mark Abbott

[0:12:29]

Yeah. How long ago was that?

Marcel Schwantes

[0:12:32]

Um, started my practice in 2013.

Mark Abbott

[0:12:33]

Okay. All right. It's not too long ago. That's the old man's perspective. And then, uh, so 2013 you, you hang your shingle and then, um, when did you start doing the podcasts?

Marcel Schwantes

[0:12:50]

The podcast came much later. Um, I started to do speaking engagements here and there and, uh, and then just kind of building a, a platform and then one thing led to another, uh, Inc. Magazine came calling, asked me to be a columnist. So I picked that up. And, and then along the way, you know, back then, um, all the cool kids are doing podcasts. So I thought I got to jump on this bandwagon. So the podcast came in 2000 and I believe 18.

Mark Abbott

[0:13:23]

Okay. So it was still pretty early on really. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and you had, uh, we were talking about this before we started, uh, you're at plus or minus 307, 306 or so. Right. Right. And you've had some amazing guests, right? Um, uh, at least, you know, I know a bunch of the names, um, and, uh, And I, I, I, I'm curious, do you have like three top podcasts or do you have just, you know, three of, three of those or three of the people that like, just, you know, it's, um, super special to you. It's just, you know, you just think it was, you know, was one of those moments where, you know, you, you had a triangulation of, obviously, hopefully you respect most of the people you bring on the show. So, uh, so respect, insight, some, you know, like, oh geez, pop, you know, idea or, you know, yeah, you know, just, you know, just revelation or whatever you want to call it that came from, from, from, you know, a couple of these different people, a couple of these different podcasts.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:14:40]

Yeah, I think three come to mind. You know, one for obvious reasons. I'm looking at the reason that this one stood out. was because of his, really, he's a legend. And that's, I'm speaking of Ken Blanchard.

Mark Abbott

[0:14:56]

Yeah.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:14:57]

And I've had him on the show twice. And, uh, you know, when you, when you interview Ken and you're, you're, it's, you know, it's Uncle Ken, basically. It's like, you're sitting at the feet of Uncle Ken because he has so many stories to tell. And, and every story has an imp, has a lesson for you to learn. Um, and, uh, and so that, you know, from a, from a sort of a renowned expert, you know, person of, that, that you admire who has just a, I mean, I think he's written or co-written up to 66 books, if I'm right.

Mark Abbott

[0:15:34]

And he's up there with Maxwell, right? Right. Right.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:15:37]

So he's, you know, he's up there, Mount Rushmore of leadership experts, management experts. Uh, so that, that one stood out only, only because it's Ken. Um, the other one that stood out is as I was doing my research on psychological safety in the workplace, um, I invited Harvard Business School, Amy Edmondson. to the show and she came. And, and it was, I had to chase her for a good six months because her schedule is crazy busy. So, uh, but yeah, Amy and I sat down. So that was a very enlightening conversation, you know, where she, she talked about her research and, uh, she's written other, other books since then, since that, that pivotal research came out, um, on psychological safety. So Amy was the second one. I think the third one, Boy, I'm going to, it's probably a tie, but I'm going to say Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic. He is an organizational psychologist. And he wrote a book back in, I want to say maybe six, seven years ago, called Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders and How to Fix It. And it was a, well, it was a fascinating book. I highly recommend it. So put that on your show notes, but I also, the, the conversation was fascinating because he's a fascinating dude that is, he's, he's a scientist.

Mark Abbott

[0:17:11]

Yeah.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:17:11]

And, uh, and so everything he's talking about, he's, you know, he's backing it up with the evidence. And, and he's, he was basically saying that we historically have identified the wrong criteria for who to promote into higher ranks. We look at things like charisma and confidence and, uh, you know, all, all of the things that you would, you would imagine, uh, you know, uh, if, if I'm going to promote somebody to a CEO or to a high level senior, senior manager, They have to have these external qualities, right? Air quotes, executive presence, whatever that means. I mean, come on.

Mark Abbott

[0:17:51]

Right.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:17:51]

And so Tomas just kind of blew that out of the water and he says, well, you know, we need to start identifying people. Um, to, uh, with emotional intelligence, humility, and he started to name off all of the, all of the softer sides of leadership, because that's where people usually miss the mark. You know, you got individual contributors who are technically they may, or creative geniuses, right? They're great. They're like just completely proficient in, in, in the, you know, with the tools of their trade.

Mark Abbott

[0:18:30]

Right.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:18:30]

And so they get promoted to management and then they fail because they don't understand what motivates human beings to, to, to succeed and flourish. Uh, so Tomas is, is really, I mean, I, I highly recommend that. I don't know what episode, I'll, I'll get back to you on that so I can, so you can put that in the show notes, but, uh, that, that would be a really good one for your listeners to, uh, check out. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic.

Mark Abbott

[0:18:59]

Yeah. It's, you know, it's, it's interesting the, Stereotypes around leadership. I mean, the fact is, is that to lead means people will follow. And so then the question is, you know, is what are the characteristics that generate followership, right? And, you know, we have a lot of examples. growing up in particular, right, where are the leaders as kids or, you know, they tend to be like the captains on, on sports teams, right? And the captains on the sports teams, you know, there's a lot of research on it and, you know, they're usually, you know, a little bit older on average. They're a little bit bigger on average, right? And people just, because of the little bit of the olderness and bigger, there's a, they also develop and there's kind of a catch 22 here, but confidence, right? They're, they're, they're, they're competent. because they're and they're a little bit old and so because they're a little bit older and you know there's a lot of Malcolm Gladwell stuff that I'm not a huge fan of but there's some good stuff there as well like on the outliers and the you know the kids that you know he talks about wrote about, what is it now, decades ago, right? That, you know, in the hockey in Canada, right, the kids who were born in, you know, almost at the beginning of the year, they were, you know, when you're five years old, if you're almost a year older than someone, you're a lot bigger than the rest of the five-year-olds, right? And so, you know, you start to get this reinforcement around, um, you know, you're good, you're a little bit better, you gain that confidence, right? And you throw that on with your, if you're, if you're a little bit bigger, because you are a little bit bigger, because you're, you know, when you're five years old, you think about it versus someone else, one over five is 20%, right? So you're 20% more mature, more developed, right? So it's, it's, it's fascinating, right? And then it just keeps to, you know, especially within the hockey system within Canada, you know, it persisted and, And that confidence and that competence just leads you to become, you know, just, uh, you know, you know, sort of, you know, a stronger player. Um, and, and so, you know, there used to be a lot of research, I haven't looked at it in forever and a day, but, you know, a lot of CEOs were two, three, four inches, you know, taller than, um, the average, you know, person, right? And then, you know, you had a lot of, Uh, of CEOs who did have some athletic background. So, you know, so there's this whole thing and, you know, we talked about charisma, et cetera. So, so there's a, there's some logic behind it. There's history behind it, developmental history behind it. But then, you know, I'm trying to remember which book it was, but Jim Collins, right. He, he brought that notion. uh, you know, challenged the notion, uh, that you needed to be this, you know, charismatic, hard driving. And I, I think, did he use the term servant leader? What did he use in, in, in, in which book was it that this came out? Was it Good to Great?

Marcel Schwantes

[0:22:30]

Yeah, Good to Great. He used a Level 5 Leadership from his research.

Mark Abbott

[0:22:34]

Yeah.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:22:35]

Which, which closely resembles servant leadership. Uh, and it's funny because I think he did propose that in the title and it got shot down.

Mark Abbott

[0:22:45]

that he proposed servant leadership as a title.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:22:48]

At least having the words servant leadership in, in either the title or the subtitle, but, uh, that was deemed as too soft and fuzzy at the time.

Mark Abbott

[0:22:57]

Yeah. But, but, and, and, and, you know, it's, it's interesting, right? Because I can see that, number one. It'd be fascinating to talk to Jim about that. In hindsight, you know, do you wish you wouldn't have listened to whomever gave him that advice? You know, now that, you know, and his, I'm just getting into his latest book, but, But I, you know, and I actually once had him speak to, like, a group of clients that I brought to, you know, to a resort and spent a few days with. And so I've met him and, you know, one of the most influential books for my career was Built to Last, right? That was like, and it, interestingly, it came after I went down this rabbit hole on Deming, right? And, uh, and Deming's like, I forget the name of his big book, but it was hard to read. Right. But I, I, I fell into Deming when I'm in my twenties and then Built to Last. you know, there was nothing in conflict between what Deming taught and what Porras and Collins observed. And, um, and so I've been, I've been a fan of, of, of Jim's literally since Built to Last, which I think has got to be, um, right at the end of the eighties, if not early nineties. Right. Right. Yeah. So, um, so back to your, you know, this, this whole notion of not every great leader is your classic, right? Yeah. Um, stereotype, heuristic, whatever you want to say. Um, you know, there's, there, today there's a lot of research that supports that. The interesting thing to me, especially today is I think a lot of leaders, and my sense is, in particular, founders, Right? Struggle with what I like to refer to, and we talked a little bit about this on your podcast. Struggle with, you know, high care versus high performance, right? And creating, you know, a really super healthy environment where what I like to refer to as ideal employees can thrive because, you know, different courses for different horses, not all people are going to thrive. And I'm curious, you know, now with 300 plus podcasts, are there some really good ones, conversation that you've had over the years around this particular topic? Because I don't think it gets enough airtime.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:26:32]

Yeah, that balance, right? That, that, and it's a fine balance. Um, we've had many discussions. I, I don't, can't think of, uh, the person that I've had it with because it's been multiple guests.

Mark Abbott

[0:26:45]

Yeah.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:26:46]

Um, and, uh, and, you know, the, the idea is that lots of leaders are caring leaders. But then people will walk all over them. Well, why is that? Well, simple fact that they don't set boundaries and then they'll hold people accountable for excellence and high performance. And so there is your country club leader that is a great cheerleader. and is prolific at creating celebratory moments. You know, when the team wins, then it's, it's rah-rah time, right? It's like, Hey, let's go have the tailgate party. But at the end of the, I'm not going to say at the end of the day, I'm going to say at the end of maybe the, the quarterly, uh, numbers come in, um, And you're underperforming financially as an organization and your metrics are down, then you need to look at, okay, who, what's going on with the caring leaders that they can't, um, generate the results that we need to thrive as an organization, whatever business you're in. And so there's the fine balance is that it's being a caring leader, but not at the expense of accountability and results. You know, I always say that great leaders, there's, they have to balance two sides of the scale, the relationship side and the results side. In fact, that is a slide in my PowerPoint deck for one of my speaking engagements. I put, I put the words relationships. And results. And the word and is very tiny. And I asked the audience, which word do you think is more important in this slide? And is it relationships? And, you know, half the room raised their hands, more than half. Or is it results? And lots of hands go up. And I said, all of you are wrong. It's actually and, because you have to have both.

Mark Abbott

[0:28:53]

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and, and it's interesting that you use the term country club because I used to, and I don't talk about it as much anymore, but decades ago, I talked about this, you know, it's easier, it's much easier, right, to create a culture where everybody gets along, right, or a warrior culture where everybody, like, is, it's all about performance, it's all about output, it's all about themselves and winning, right? And balancing those two things, which we now call, you know, balancing high care versus high performance, it's just hard, right? And I think I may have mentioned this on your podcast, but In my old world, the world of lending and investing, Honestly, it was much easier in terms of culture building, right? Because, you know, it was basically in my oldest, the sort of the first organization I ran, which was several hundred people and billions of dollars in investments and loans. It was, you had to be on track to become, you know, sort of the equivalent of a managing director. And every, you know, and, and there were steps, right? And, um, probably I've, I'm trying to remember, right? It was like, you know, associate and assistant vice president, vice president, and then a senior vice president, but something like that, right? Three, four, five steps. And to get to the MD level and at the MD level, you participated in all the upside associated with all of our investments. Um, and. It was every, if someone was going to get promoted, the conversation was, do they have what it takes to become an MD? And if they don't. then we need to say, hey, you know, we don't think you have what it takes. These are the reasons why. Um, and we were really good at saying, look, um, we love you, right? You've been great because, you know, we were very good at hiring good human beings, something we continue to, at Ninety, we're very good at doing that, right? But, you know, you just don't, you know, here are the reasons why we don't think you, you have what it takes. And, uh, and so, It is what it is. Um, you should start looking for a job. You can actually stay here, but just know and, and, and, and do your job search from your, from your, from your office, right? and we'll give you like three months, right? But within three months you gotta, right, make the move or, you know, you know, or, you know, you know, you'll just lose your office, right? So, um, and, you know, the good news was it didn't happen all that often. I would say, you know, it happened somewhere between, somewhere around 10-15% of the time that those people, you know, we had to have that hard conversation. But fundamentally, everybody knew the rules, right? And then everybody also knew that because of the nature of our business, you were dealing with a lot of different departments. teams within the organization. And so it was a combination of you were performing well and people enjoyed working with you, right? And so as an example, if no one liked to work with you, then you that's what's going to be an issue, right? Hey, you know, you're actually really good, you're very confident, you're technically proficient, you work your butt off, right? But people don't like working with you, right? And in our organization, you know, you need to understand that we come together and break apart all the time on a deal, right? There may be an expert on an industry, it, the deal needs to be syndicated or we're looking to an investment and our investment team's going to be involved or, or, or right. And so there's like four, four or five different groups that you're going to interact with and, and you just need to be aware that, you know, your ability to be a good team player is super important. So it was, you know, in hindsight, it was actually a really easy culture. We got really clear on the kinds of people who would thrive in it, and what we could and couldn't hire from. So we knew we couldn't hire from the Ivy League, but we could hire from the Big Ten, and we could hire people that graduated, you know, with great grades, and we tended to hire a lot of athletes, right? So it was like we had this whole formula. versus, you know, in a software business where you have a bunch of different types of people, a bunch of different departments, you know, client success, as an example, versus development, versus sales, versus, you know, product, it's just, it's much more complex, and it's not, you know, we don't have an up or out culture. If you want to be a great engineer and you don't want to lead anybody, that's awesome, right? So, You know, it's, it's, it's interesting. It's, it's, it's, it's that whole care versus, you know, high care versus high performance in an organization that has a bunch of different types of humans in it and doesn't have a simple system for, for, you know, for, for rising to the top. It's just, uh, it's harder, I think. Um, and I'm curious, you know, does this ring true to you? And, you know, as, as you, because obviously you're a great podcaster, but you're also, you know, someone who's worked with a lot of organizations over the years.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:35:07]

Yeah. I, every time, Mark, I can make the link between high care to high performance, because we're, we've been presenting it as, you know, you have to have both. I actually think that yes, you have to have both, but I think that one actually leads to the other. When you, when you're in a high care environment, people are going to be more motivated, more inspired to produce even greater work, right? To go above and beyond, as they say. And, um, and I've, and of course, high care means that you set the right, the right expectations for high performance.

Mark Abbott

[0:35:46]

Yeah.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:35:46]

And, and you create the conditions necessary for high performance. That's the high caring part.

Mark Abbott

[0:35:52]

Right.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:35:53]

Uh, and, and so that's why the high caring part is also very, uh, it's tricky because you have, we talk about, you don't want just country club cheerleaders, right? You have to have strong leaders that set the expectations for, okay, here is, here's where we are. Here's where we, we need to be. And here, and here's how we're going to get there. And you're responsible for A, B, C, D, right? So that's setting clear expectations where people have clarity, they know what their role is, they have expectations. And if they don't meet those expectations, The high caring leader says, all right, well, what do you need here? What's going on? How come you're pulling, you're not pulling your weight, you're not producing at the level we expect, et cetera, et cetera. Maybe they need a little more care or, you know, maybe something in the system is broken. They don't have the right resources. They are not having, they're not being exposed to the right networks. or whatever the case may be, right? So the high caring leader fixes that, looks at the system and says, all right, well, we need to tweak this because this contributor is really faltering and so we need to boost this area in their development. Okay, if that works, great, then that leads to high performance. If that doesn't work and you still have an underperformer who has really had all the support. He's got the resources. They have, um, clear lines of, uh, you know, of, uh, of what to do and, and, and all of the, uh, the signals along the way, the markers along the way for, for keeping them on track to high performance. And if they were still not getting there, The high caring leader now has to provide some tough love to say, maybe this is not the right environment for you.

Mark Abbott

[0:38:01]

Okay.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:38:02]

And have those honest conversations. that will actually benefit the person long-term, because if they are failing in your current organization, you want to set them free so that they can thrive in another organization. And the high caring leader says, I have a great contact at XYZ company. I want to make an intro. And, you know, help pave the way for that person, that person's next career move. So again, yeah, I think that, yeah, I mean, I think you're, we're on track here, high, high caring and high performance. But I believe that the high caring will lead to high performance when you have those things in place.

Mark Abbott

[0:38:50]

Presuming you have, you know, the person has what it takes to fit well within the culture and within the seat that they're in from a competency perspective. Over the last 13 plus years of your practice, Have you seen things change in terms of, yeah, I would say this conversation that we're having right now, this, this, this, this challenge of balance, has it been, is it the same old story or has, you know, for a host of reasons, um, I'm going to go, obviously we have YouTube now for people who are really interested. We have obviously AI for people who are really interested in self-development and or you know and and that includes both you know the individual contributors as well as the as the as the you know sort of the first-time team leaders and and and and and and then leaders of leaders. Has the nature of the challenges that you see your clients dealing with, has it evolved or is it same old story?

Marcel Schwantes

[0:40:05]

Yeah. Um, I could take this, the AI route, but I also, Mark, I have lots of clients that they don't even dabble in AI because they might be in manufacturing environments and they're walking the shop floor. Uh, in between these multimillion dollar machines that are, you know, 20 feet high. So they're not gonna touch AI. They won't even, they might not even touch a, uh, a computer screen most of the day. Um, and so in, in that scenario, what I have seen is a lack of having what I call, really, it's leadership courage. What I mean by that is there's lots of buzzwords around how to be more courageous in leading people, leading yourself, right? Some people call it authenticity, right? You have to be authentic. That's an umbrella term that can go a thousand directions.

Mark Abbott

[0:41:09]

Yeah.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:41:10]

Um, I think it's just speaking your truth and in those manufacturing environments that I'm finding there, there's more of a blue collar feel to these environments. Um, and, and I don't know if that's indicative of, uh, yeah, let's just kind of fly by the seat of our pants. You know, it's like they're wearing jeans and T-shirts. So it's maybe, you know, I don't know if they're not taking leadership as serious, uh, or they don't understand the impact that they must make on their workforce, um, through leadership. And one of the things that I see is that they don't have the courage to have hard conversations early on.

Mark Abbott

[0:42:05]

Yeah.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:42:05]

To avoid situations that they're going to regret later. And you can, you know, use your imagination what, what those worst case scenarios might be, sexual harassment, uh, you know, um, whatever, stealing, something unethical. And, and, and so I've been, I'm, I'm like forcing myself now to make sure that these clients of mine who are high level managers in these, these, uh, on-site environments understand the, the importance of communication, but not just communication for the sake of talking. It's basically having the skills to resolve conflict before it happens. Or if you're already in the middle of conflict, is to manage the conflict to get to the other side. Uh, and, and so I'm, I'm finding that that is, uh, that that's something that I'm really keying in on. And I don't know about your practice, if that comes up a lot, like, you know, where people are not having the right conversations, they're afraid of confrontation because nobody likes conflict. Right, Mark?

Mark Abbott

[0:43:18]

Right. Has that changed over the 13 years? I mean, it's interesting, right? I, I, I, you know, As people in my company know, I actually do not really love the term psychological safety. And it's because it asks one to be able to look into the mind of another. And that's like, I'm not a magician. I can't read people's minds. So, you know, there's, for some people, a conversation that seems like really straightforward. It's not about you. It's about behaviors and it's about, you know, or performance or something like that. Um, and we, you know, we've experienced in our company in the last, I want to say last, last year where it was just a, literally a conversation around some areas where, you know, someone could improve, um, their performance and the person Right. The, the reaction was, you know, just totally unexpected. Right. Just as if, like, if I'm not, you know, if, if, if, if I'm not deemed great at everything, then I'm, you know, I'm, I'm extraordinarily upset. I hate this, you know, I'm just being honest right now about an experience we've had in our own company. Has it changed or is it been the same this way for 13 plus years?

Marcel Schwantes

[0:44:48]

I think that human nature will continue to, um, we're, we're going to be seeing the same things over, over the course of decades because that's human nature.

Mark Abbott

[0:45:00]

Right.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:45:00]

And, uh, and you know, our tendency, the tendency for a lot of people is shirk, it's to shirk back instead of show up, right? Instead of rising to the occasion. You kind of, you know, you sweep things under the rug or you, you don't want to deal directly with, with problems. And, um, and so I, I think it's been around and it hasn't changed in 13 years that I've doing it. It's because Mark, when I look at exit interview reports and, and engagement surveys, The same stuff comes up all the time and, and 90% of the time are related to people issues.

Mark Abbott

[0:45:44]

Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. I mean, it's the old expression, you know, I, I think, or, or I think it's statistic, right? The number one reason someone leaves is because of their boss. Right.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:45:57]

And I have a related story, by the way, a couple, so. Um, so circling back and closing the loop on this one is that a high caring leader will have the courage to address the elephant in a room. And, um, and that's what I mean by rising up to the occasion. It's going to be hard maybe to address a team. who's underperforming. It's going to be hard to address a contributor who did some kind of wrongdoing. But in doing so, and in having the courage to have those hard conversations, you are protecting the culture from bigger problems down the line.

Mark Abbott

[0:46:44]

Right?

Marcel Schwantes

[0:46:45]

And, um, it's, it's one of my favorite things is a leader is, is the, the protector, you know, sort of the shepherd, right? The shepherd protects the sheep from predators. And unfortunately there might be some predators inside your organization and you need to protect your flock from those predators.

Mark Abbott

[0:47:07]

Right.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:47:07]

And, um, so that's, that's what, that's one, one thing I wanted to chime in on. The other one is, uh, is, uh, uh, gosh, uh, years ago, I, I did a exit interview and the, the number five reason as I gathered the data, the number five reason, uh, for people quitting. And by the way, this company had a, about a 50% turnover. Well, uh, what's zero, five, five, zero, 50% turnover.

Mark Abbott

[0:47:38]

Yeah.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:47:38]

And they were in the advertising space, uh, pointed back to the CEO. And, uh, and, and, you know, the CEO had everything we'd been talking about that people imagine is what floats to the top, right? He was driven, he was crass, he was, uh, results oriented, you know, just, he just looked at the bottom line.

Mark Abbott

[0:48:04]

Yeah.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:48:05]

Um, but he didn't have the high, the high caring side, right? He was, uh, in his mind, a high performer, uh, but you know, when you, when you look behind, there's nobody following them. In fact, everyone is following out the door. So, um, and, uh.

Mark Abbott

[0:48:23]

Was that a, was that a, out of curiosity, was that a founder or was that a, you know, a, a, a CEO who came in later on in the company?

Marcel Schwantes

[0:48:31]

A CEO with a, with a really good track record of driving results with, uh, Fortune 500 companies. And he came to this organization that was only about 80 people, um, and he asserted his positional authority right off the bat. And for a lot of people that it rubbed them off the wrong way, especially those that had been around for a while, like, Hey, this new CEO hasn't even had a chance to get to know us.

Mark Abbott

[0:49:02]

Right.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:49:03]

Um, and to understand how things operate, he just showed up and said, this is going to be, we're going to change this, this and that. Um, anyway, so yeah, two years later, 50% turnover.

Mark Abbott

[0:49:14]

And that was a client, right?

Marcel Schwantes

[0:49:16]

Mm-hmm.

Mark Abbott

[0:49:16]

So that CEO became a client. Is that true?

Marcel Schwantes

[0:49:20]

Um, the client was not the CEO. Funny, funny story there, right? The, the client was the, the, the direct report of the CEO. So somebody reporting to the CEO. And, uh, and so I had a, I had a nice line of sight to what was going on through the eyes of my, my, of my immediate client, my, you know, contact person.

Mark Abbott

[0:49:45]

And so how did, and, and did you end up ever having conversations with a CEO or how do you, how do you help a company where you're, you know, your client isn't the CEO and the CEO is the issue? I guess, how did you advise your client on how to handle all of this?

Marcel Schwantes

[0:50:06]

Here's the clincher and, and, and people are, this is going to blow you away. Um. I sat down with the report, I had the data and I sat down and with, with that CEO and I said, uh, you know, uh, I want to show you what's going on. And, uh, according to the data that has been coming in from all your exit interviews, I pointed out the fact that he was part of the problem, right? And his response was. I want the names of all those people in the exit interview report. And in my mind, I'm thinking that's confidential data. You don't share exit interview data with anybody that goes into, uh, into the employee file and, uh, you know, in, in, in the HR vault. I didn't even know. I mean, I try to keep everything anonymous, you know, and confidential.

Mark Abbott

[0:51:03]

Yeah.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:51:05]

Um, so I decided to part ways with that client.

Mark Abbott

[0:51:10]

Yeah.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:51:10]

Out of, uh, out of, purely out of my own integrity because I knew, okay, this client no longer aligns with who, who I am, what I'm about. And, uh, and this is unethical. So we ended that, that engagement, uh, soon after that. And, you know, and, and by the way, and then the company folded, uh, maybe six, seven, eight months after that.

Mark Abbott

[0:51:33]

I mean, literally folded.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:51:35]

They, they fold, they, they folded. They just, they went away. Yes. I, I, my phone was blowing up one day. I had left, you know, I had left and my phone was blowing up with employees texting me. It's like, they just let us go. And, um, and they, yeah, so. everybody got their walking, their, their walking papers and, uh, uh, and then they lost their funding and, uh, you know, and they could not operate as a business anymore. So that's that story.

Mark Abbott

[0:52:08]

Yeah. Guess, uh, I, I presume there were investors who brought that CEO in and probably.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:52:16]

That was the board.

Mark Abbott

[0:52:17]

Yeah.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:52:18]

And, and, you know, and the board, boards have their own, um, perception of what it takes for somebody to, uh, take us to the next level. And, and, and that's why this, this conversation is, is really important. And I go back to my interview on my podcast with Tomas, who basically said too many narcissists are rising to, to the top because we are rewarding these behaviors. that are more indicative of people that have large egos, don't, you know, it's all about them and, and, and they'll just drive the business into the ground. They may succeed and they may, um, you know, appease your, your shareholders. If you're a public company and they may, uh, appease the expectations of your, your, your board and, Uh, and your customers, et cetera, but the employees are the ones that are going to suffer.

Mark Abbott

[0:53:20]

Yeah.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:53:21]

And last time I checked, it's the employees that do the work for your business to succeed.

Mark Abbott

[0:53:27]

Yeah. I think, I think, you know, it's interesting. Um, you know, I, I've written a little bit about, sociopaths and psychopaths and narcissists and basically anti-social disorders. Right. And, you know, within certain environments, those are who win, right? And generally speaking, within any tyranny, whether we're talking about, you know, a company or a society, right? where it's all about like that, that strong person, right? And strong people getting to the top. The, I'll do whatever it damn well takes, personality, getting to the top and never releasing their, um, position because on the way up, right, they did a lot of things to a lot of people. And, uh, you know, and, and, you know, we can talk about Russia, we can talk about China, we could talk about Cuba, we could talk about Venezuela, we can talk about a bunch of different societies where, you know, the, and it's interesting too, because those are actually more relationship oriented cultures. But the, but the sociopaths, the antisocials get to the top and then can't relinquish it because if they do, right, someone's going to come along and just take care of them. And, and, and it's even, you know, it's even, there's really interesting, um, story behind, uh, a Nobel Peace winner who ended up becoming a very bad person, um, you know, society, uh, country leader, uh, because, you know, they rose to the top and they weren't willing to give up any authority and they, you know, took a, took down a lot of people to get there. So, you know, it's interesting too because if you think about that then, right, if you have a really good sort of high care, high performance culture, And I'm just thinking out loud with you right now, it's hard for those people to make it to the top.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:56:05]

Hmm.

Mark Abbott

[0:56:08]

Yeah.

Marcel Schwantes

[0:56:09]

Why is that? I'm really asking.

Mark Abbott

[0:56:15]

Because I think the, the win it all costs player, right? Who, you know, elbows, uh, you know, a bunch of people on the way up, right. And they're going to get called out for it because that's not part of the culture. Right. Um, and so whereas, you know, in a, in a, in a, you know, If you're, if you over, even if you over-index on care and relationships, right, the sneaky ones will make their way up, right? Um, but if you have both going where you really have to perform and you really have to be, you know, just a good human that people genuinely like working with or love working with, to use a term you and I are going to sort of close up here on, um, then I think it's, I think, you know, and if you have a good system where people are comfortable back to, you know, I don't like the term psychological safety, right? But psychological courage, I love, right? But, but, but if, if, if you have a culture where, you know, we have a, we have one of our guiding principles is succeed or escalate, right? So if there's an issue, right? I tell this, and I didn't do this on your podcast, right? But I've done this on, I've shared this a bunch of times. If, you know, I, I like to think of, of, of businesses like boats, big boats, cruise ships, right? Because we've got a bunch of people on here, right? Um, and we've got not only our employees, but we got our customers on this thing, right? And if you're on a cruise ship and you're an employee, right? And there's a hole in the hull and water's coming through it, right? What are you going to do? Right. You're either going to fix it because you have that capability or you're going to go get someone because obviously if you don't, right, really bad things happen. Right. So succeed or escalate. The big idea is if there's a hole in the side of the boat, if there's something that doesn't make sense, if there's something that's hurting us in terms of our performance or something hurting us in terms of our culture, there's something hurting us. in terms of being able to serve our customers, right? You are accountable, you're responsible, right? For either fixing it or elevating it so someone can fix it. And if that person who you elevate it to is incapable of fixing it, right? then it needs to be elevated. And if that person who's incapable of fixing it does not elevate it, then it's incumbent on you to let us know that, hey, I brought this up. The hole's still, like, there's still water coming through here, right? And so, you know, creating an organization, creating a culture where succeed or escalate is, you know, is genuinely embraced. And my perspective on this ultimately is if you can create a culture where people genuinely care about the company, right, they genuinely care about what's in the best interest of the company, then like so much else is easy. It's obvious, right? But if you don't care about the company, right, you just care about your team or you just care about yourself, right, then then, you know, it's inevitable that you're going to make decisions that actually are not in the best interest of the company because you're like, I'm just focused on myself or I care about my team and its health and happiness more than I care about what's good for the company. But ultimately, I think that really strong cultures at their core appreciate the company and what the company's trying to do. And they're good at balancing high care and high performance. And if you can do those three things, right, genuinely create a culture that cares, generally create a culture where there's high care, high performance, and help people develop the ability to have some courage and talk about things that, you know, that diamond I think is very strong.

Marcel Schwantes

[1:00:53]

Couldn't agree more.

Mark Abbott

[1:00:55]

Yeah. And it's easier said than done. I want to, I want to finish on one final word that you and I both use. And that's the word love. And you talked about it earlier. It's not, it's, it's, it's not romantic love, right? It's not familial love, right? Because sometimes there are going to be people who just don't make sense either because of competence, right? And they require to the C or because culturally they're just toxic. Right. Um, How do you explain the word love to your clients in the workplace?

Marcel Schwantes

[1:01:42]

Oh, easy. You have to back it with action that creates results. So in my book, I talk about, I have a framework of five core principles of love in action, right? And patience, kindness, which kindness is talking about empathy and compassion is under kindness, humility, advocacy. So you advocate on behalf of others and trustworthiness because nobody's going to follow a leader they can't trust.

Mark Abbott

[1:02:19]

Right.

Marcel Schwantes

[1:02:20]

And, uh, and so when you create a culture around the, around that framework, you're going to experience transformation. And, um, and I think that that's, that's where I would end here is my, is to look at love as a call to action, to shift, to look at what needs to shift in my workplace, in my business, um, so that people flourish.

Mark Abbott

[1:02:49]

Yeah.

Marcel Schwantes

[1:02:49]

Because when they flourish, you're going to get higher output, you're going to get higher performance, and that leads to really good business outcomes.

Mark Abbott

[1:03:00]

Yeah, I, I have a twist on it. Agree with everything, but back to my earlier point about care about the company, right? Um, you know, I focus, one of the things I, I, I teach and pontificate about is developing high trust relationships with all of your ideal stakeholders. And your ideal stakeholders are your ideal employees, right? So you'd have an ideal employee profile. Your ideal customers, so you have an ideal employee, ideal customer profile. You have investors, almost always, right? And there should be an ideal investor profile. And then we have partners, right? And then we belong to a community. And my perspective is we have to develop high trust relationships with all of those ideal stakeholders. And so everything you said, plus caring about the entire stakeholder set as opposed to just you and or your team, because ultimately Right. A company is a collection, a complex adaptive system. And I I've written something recently and, and we won't be able to get into it here and maybe it's another podcast sometime, but companies are humans too. Right. And just like humans, go through developmental stages, companies go through developmental stages. Just like humans need to be care and, you know, protected and cared for, companies need to be protected and cared for, right? And so it's a slightly more like It's just one more dimension where I think you put all that together and you create a place where people genuinely love working there, right? Genuinely understand that it's all about taking care of all of the ideal stakeholders, right? And in order to do that, it's almost impossible without trying to do your best to create a culture that has both high care and high performance. Cause it's a ship, right? And entropy is everywhere, right? Everything's rusting, but you know, if you take really good care of it and you succeed or escalate and you make sure that, you know, and there's some people that shouldn't be on the ship, right? And that's a hard, that's a hard thing to say. And by the way, it's not just your own employees, it's customers too, right?

Marcel Schwantes

[1:05:54]

Oh yeah.

Mark Abbott

[1:05:55]

Yeah.

Marcel Schwantes

[1:05:57]

Speaking of not, some people shouldn't be on the ship. Uh, I'll make this real quick. A client had an executive team of six. I brought on servant leadership, started to do coaching, put them on masterminds, workshops. Two of the VPs, they were kind of faking it till they made it, if you know what I mean.

Mark Abbott

[1:06:21]

Oh, yes.

Marcel Schwantes

[1:06:22]

They were just pretending that they were fully bought into the idea of, Hey, we're going to create a servant leadership culture. Well, That didn't last very long and, uh, and they resigned. So, it, obviously that two huge holes to fill, right? VP level, but the company was better off because of it.

Mark Abbott

[1:06:46]

Yeah.

Marcel Schwantes

[1:06:46]

Because those two, well, those two persons would have been a monkey wrench in the system for months, if not years to come. Um, you need to really have, the collective truly believe in this, this higher aspiration towards a better leadership model than what we have in most companies. Anyway, so they left and, uh, and I reached out to one of them. I said, Hey, I, you know, we just wanted to ask you what, what happened. And, and he was frank. He says, yeah, I just couldn't see myself, um, working as, as a servant leader because he wasn't oriented that way. It was more important for him to, uh, you know, meet his numbers and get his status and get his promotions and accolades and all that. So, so it's not for everyone.

Mark Abbott

[1:07:49]

No, no, no, it's not. Hey, listen, this has been awesome. Thank you for joining me here and having this conversation. I, uh, uh, you know, leadership is, I think it's a lot more complex these days than, you know, and we didn't get into AI and we could do that another time. But, you know. There's probably a good reason why like 50% of the people never want to be managers because that's not for everybody. But man oh man, if you can build a great team, be part of a great organization, you know, and 90% of the time feel like, you know, you just, you know, you love where you work and you love the people you work with, um, that's a pretty damn good thing. So, I, I, I, I, I super appreciate the work you do and, um, and, uh, just want to say thank you for it and thank you for joining me.

Marcel Schwantes

[1:08:57]

I appreciate it very much. Uh, this has been a, a really good conversation and hopefully more people will listen to it. Appreciate the invitation, Mark.

Mark Abbott

[1:09:07]

My pleasure. Thanks, Marcel.