Turning Adversity into Opportunity w/ Whitney Faires
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In this episode of Relationships at Work, Russel chats with executive coach, keynote speaker and leadership expert Whitney Faires on how to turn adversity into opportunity.
A few reasons why she is awesome — she is an internationally recognized executive coach, keynote speaker and leadership expert. She’s the founder of Whitney Farris Coaching, Speaking and Development, empowers high-achieving, impact driven leaders to reach new levels of success and unlock hidden potential. And she’s set four NCAA Division 1 records in volleyball at the University of Virginia.
Connect with Whitney and learn more about her work…
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“Even when you’re in a really bad spot, I encourage people to first separate the emotion from what’s actually happening. Once you can set it aside, then you can say to yourself, what is actually the problem here? What’s the setback, the challenge, what am I actually solving for? From there, then you can ask yourself, what is the true impact? How much do I need to put into a solution for this? And then I always encourage people to look for multiple options as a way forward.”
Whitney Faires
Russel Lolacher: And on the show today we have Whitney Faires, and here is why she is awesome. She’s an internationally recognized executive coach, keynote speaker, and a leadership expert. She’s the founder of Whitney Faires Coaching, Speaking, and Development, which empowers high achieving impact driven leaders to reach new levels of success and unlock hidden potential. And just not for nothing, she set for NCAA Division one records and volleyball at the University of Virginia back in the day, and I think that drive is still pushing her forward. Just saying, hello Whitney.
Whitney Faires: Hello. Thanks for having me today.
Russel Lolacher: Thanks for being here. Super interesting topic ’cause adversity. I was gonna say the word, I was gonna use the F word. I was gonna say failure, but I think that’s, we’re gonna dance around and dig into that a little bit too. Super interesting for leaders, whether they’re allowed to be sometimes or not.
But before we do, I have to ask you the question I ask all of my guests, Whitney, which is, what is your best or worst employee experience?
Whitney Faires: Yeah. So, I could give you my worst, but I actually think my best is so much more fun. So, when I made the transition from sales to commercial operations, I was launching this new function and I had a leader who was completely out of the ordinary compared to leaders I had previously had. His name was Nick Santor.
I can tell ’cause it’s my best, right? I can say his name. But one thing that I noticed very early on, even in the interview process, and I thought, oh, he’s just really taking time to get to know me because he is trying to, compel me to take this job. But what I noticed consistently was that when I would call him, whether it was my one-on-one call or because I had a quick question, he would say, Hey, well first, before we jump in, like, how are you doing?
And he’d ask me really personal questions in a good way. How’s your son doing? I know he is, an infant, did you get any sleep? And he, and he would really invest in just talking to me about me, how I was doing, how my family was doing, what’s going on, how, how’s, how’s my stress level at the end of the quarter?
And I thought this eventually will kind of taper off, but it didn’t, he, he made such an effort to invest in who I was as a person. And what that did was it build tremendous trust with me, and it made me realize he actually cared. It wasn’t just about what I produced at work, although he had high expectations.
It was about who I was as a whole person. And I think so often, in the, the business world or whatever profession you’re in, that’s seen is soft. But it actually had such an opposite effect where it was, it was actually, I believe it was genuine, but it was a multiplier for what I was willing to do for him, the organization, because there were so much that was poured into me.
And the other thing that I noticed that made it such a great experience is he was a very empowering leader. And what I mean by that is he encouraged us to take to take risks and to make our own decisions. Similarly, when I called the phone, I’d say, I’ve got this, got this problem. Here’s what I’m thinking.
Here’s how I wanna solve it. He said, okay. Yeah. I mean, have you thought through this? Have you thought through? Okay, go do it. And I’m like, when you say that there’s a better way that you would do it, so you tell me how you would do it. He’s I’m not gonna tell you that. And he’s because I want you to do it your way.
If it was gonna fail, if, if it was going to, create, real risk to the organization or the people, I would tell you. I want you to do it your way forever. It drove me crazy. But what I realized over time was he wanted us to to, to start gaining confidence in our decision making, to be able to learn from maybe a, a solution that was less than optimal, but still us there.
And he wanted us to know that he was open-minded, that he didn’t know it all, it wasn’t about doing it his way. And he is, is a leader that has developed such a brand of connecting with people of driving exceptional results as someone that people would run through walls for. And it was because how he showed up for us, right?
And his ability to give us that space to be us, to learn to grow in the job, in in, I think his superpower is having trust that it’s all gonna work out. Like he knows it can’t be messed up so bad, he can’t fix it. So he is gonna give us that runway to go.
Russel Lolacher: I, I think it’s, I feel like it’s two pieces of caring, right? The first piece you talked about, and I, I really wrote this down he actually cared. Here’s what scares the crap outta me, Whitney. Is that stood out to you like that? It was a, an anomaly based on experience with other quote unquote leaders, bosses, managers, where that’s not the norm, which you would think would be, but for that to stand out, for you to be a story that was immediately off the top of your head. That is like we have, we have a problem with leadership. I, I believe we have a huge problem with leadership, but the solution is leadership and that is such a great example of that and on, and I, I have my own experience with managing a team.
I had the same team for 12 years and the retention was probably the highest in the whole organization. But you hit on something that was so important was getting employees to care, failure or win, but having that skin in the game actually makes them wanna work harder. It motivates them because they feel like they’re a part of a system instead of a cog in a wheel to somebody else’s means to an end, Uh, in that whole relationship. Yeah. How do, what did you take, what did you, what’s one thing you took to yourself in your own relationships moving forward from that?
Whitney Faires: Well, I, I think definitely that you need to give people the, the space to be themselves and, and the opportunity to, to fail like it’s going to be okay. I’m a very, I’m a, I’m a high achieving perfectionist. I don’t even call myself a recovering perfectionist. ’cause let’s be honest, you never recover.
You manage it, right? I mean, I wish I was, I wish it didn’t exist, but it does. It’s who I am. You always, it’s like it should be a hundred percent, it should be the best possible result you can give. And you, you can’t hold that expectation of people. It’s not realistic and not everybody wants it that way.
And so it was real confidence for me that you can give people space to, to do it their way to be themselves. And it’s all gonna be okay. If I’m a good enough leader, I will make sure it’s all okay. I will be there to support them. You said one thing about how it’s, it’s kind of sad that like I was, I highlighted that he actually cared.
I think that, and I’ve made this mistake, I’ll be honest, as a young leader, it’s the result, the result, the business, the goal. And every time you’re on the phone with your people, you’re in front of your people. It’s it’s, it’s mostly all business, like 90%. And I’m not saying none of those things matter, but what I am saying is leadership is actually not that hard.
It, it’s, it’s, we miss the, the ability to just be humans. And when we are humans that connect and, and are real with people and listen to people, that’s where leadership becomes much easier because we create a dynamic where it’s open and people are willing to share and, and come to us and, and tell us the hard things versus we’re just driving into the business all the time and they feel like it’s just all about the numbers and then the action items. So that’s one of my learnings in, in my experience as a leader.
Russel Lolacher: I, I hear you. One of the, it’s funny you say that because I think one of the, one of the pivots for me, oh, eight years ago to go more down the employee path, was that I had talked to all these leaders and business managers at these huge conference, and I brought up employees and the glazed eyes, you would not believe, because I mentioned customer.
Customer equals money. Customers quick. It’s easy. We, the employees are a means to an end to that customer that we have to love and covet and make money from. But the minute you talk about employees and retention and humanizing them, it’s all about, well, how do I make money for that? Is that a cost center?
Is that a like it was again, I think the world has shifted a lot since then. I mean, COVID actually made us more human and more aware of these things. But to your point, that was the way it was for a very long time was bottom line, bottom line, bottom line. I’m like, but if you treat people like human beings, that bottom line will actually be a lot better by the time you get to it.
Speaking, and you’ve kind of, you’ve also given me a beautiful segue into what we’re talking about today was like, failure. I’m like, yes, that’s what we’re talking about. So Whitney, let’s kick it off by first again, I, I do this regularly on the show, is defining what, singing from the same songbook here, how would you define adversity or setbacks when it comes to workplace?
Whitney Faires: Yeah, I mean, adversity is any obstacle that that pops up, that derails, slows down impedes the initial vision or plan that you had. Adversity can be really small. It can be just, you’re, you’re trying to, to, to get ahold of someone, to, to move a project forward and they’re not responding to you.
Or it could be really big, Hey, the budget’s been cut. You now need to do it with half of the resources. So adversity is really anything that, that creates a speed bump on our pathway to achieving whatever it is that we want to achieve.
Russel Lolacher: Are we getting into a semantics exercise? We start throwing other words in like challenge, obstacle. Is it, are they different or are we kind of talking about the same thing?
Whitney Faires: I, I mean, you could, you could split hairs on it and maybe they, maybe they’re different, but I, I think they’re mostly the same. I, I’m, I try to simplify things so, any, any challenge, any obstacle, any of that, that, that slows you down, that makes you stop and go, ugh. Now what? Is how I would define adversity?
Russel Lolacher: Is there, before we get into sort of how do we lead through it, I kind of need to understand too, is there a range to this? Because what one person might be an adv, adver, an advi adversity might not be to somebody else or, and I, and I went down this where, and I, I hate when leadership does this, where they do exchange words and say it’s the same thing.
For example, somebody’s drowning at work. And they’re like, that’s just a setback. I’m like, no, they’re drowning. That is not a, oh, it’s a great opportunity to learn how to swim now. That’s not what this is. But I’ve seen leaders throw words in to sort of like minimize it. So how do you approach when people ask those questions?
Whitney Faires: I, I, I think anytime someone is struggling. When you gave the example of of drowning, you immediately have to hop in and help, right? Because I mean, they’re people and they’re our most valuable resource. In my opinion. People are our most valuable resource. You can have the greatest product, service, technology, you name it.
It’s not going anywhere without your people. So to, to me, if somebody is struggling, then you immediately should step in and at, at a minimum check in and do some discovery on it. So I, I dunno if I answered your question. You, you mentioned though also, is there a range? Absolutely. There’s a range. And here’s what’s tough for leaders.
That range is gonna be dependent on each person. So it doesn’t matter what I think about, oh, this is just a small little setback. What matters is if I am leading my people or I’m working with a business partner, whoever it is. Is, how does it feel to them? Because, and, if we are guiding based on how we perceive it, that’s a miss.
Right? It’s how it feels to them, how big it is to them. What they do from, from there. So it, it reminds us that we have to constantly be seeking to really understand, and we have to truly listen without judgment about their perception of the adversity or the setback.
Russel Lolacher: Yeah, I, I love that you talked about it, where it’s it’s a personal thing, so drowning. We almost have to address that at a mental health, human level first before we can go, go, okay, well obviously now we’ve addressed this. Where can we now look at, at as a, as a setback or adversity or a challenge?
We can’t even get to there if mental health-wise, they’re drowning. They can’t handle it. They are in a, and these could be from external pressures too. This might have nothing to do what’s happening in the workplace. It could be things that are happening externally. But if we’re not leading and understanding that situation, we’re not helping.
Whitney Faires: Yeah, I, one of the principles I live by as a, as a leader, but also as a person, but I really, it came to me first in the business world is the principle is I assume best intent. And, and the reason why is I can look at someone who’s quote unquote drowning and think, I, I don’t know how that would be. I mean, they’ve got the resources.
I feel like they don’t have a lot on their plate, like they’re doing what the job description said, but it, I, I assume I hired if I, if I hired the right person, then there’s a reason. There’s something I don’t know. So I’m gonna assume that they’re doing their best and they’re really struggling. And I’m gonna, I’m gonna try to find out why and how I help.
Because at the end of the day, it’s not about being right or wrong, it’s about the person and what I don’t know and how I get them on a path where they’re in a good spot. So assuming best intent is just so helpful because, even when it’s something small, like this person missed a, a deadline and it’s not really significant, but it just irritates me as a leader.
I asked myself, okay, I’m sure they wanted to hit the deadline, so what is it that got in their way versus me being frustrated and, and emotional about it and shooting off an email that says, Hey, why is this not done? Assuming best intent helps me decompress that emotion and actually come from a place of curiosity.
Russel Lolacher: And living in a world of assumption is horrible as a leader because again, curiosity is absolutely a cure. So what are other misconceptions that leaders may be having when it comes to adversity in the workplace or setbacks?
Whitney Faires: Yeah, I, I think, one of the misconceptions is people will figure it out. Like they, they, they came to me, they told me, even when they say, I got this, I, I know the solution. I’m gonna figure it out. I just wanna give you a heads up. I, I don’t think you ever as assume that they do. I think that’s an opportunity to say great. Let me hear what you’re thinking. And it’s always an opportunity for coaching. If they’re a really proficient, high achieving employee, maybe they just say, they, they say, tell ’em, tell you their solution, and you’re like, sounds great. I think you have a great plan. Or maybe watch out for this. So I think it’s not just letting them run with it because you never know, especially when they, they fear that this could impact their brand or, their performance at work. Are they just trying to get your way so they can go figure it out? And you don’t want ’em to do that. You want ’em to be able to, to talk to you about it. I think that’s one of the big ones. I think the other thing is making sure that they’ve really thought comprehensively about the impact. So I, I always think that there’s different levels of thinking as it relates to problem. There’s like the micro level, like how does this affect me and my team? Or the immediate project we’re working on. Then there’s macro level, the organization, the broader people, our customers, and especially our younger professionals, they aren’t gonna have macro level thinking.
So maybe they’re not actually considering the true impact of the adversity. And it’s our job to use that opportunity to teach them how to process that through, through maybe stepping up and leading through that solution.
Russel Lolacher: You mentioned it a few times there in your, I believe it’s called the excellence equation, you frame adversity being a opportunity. And that’s kind of what I want, why I wanted to reframe things earlier about drowning is not an opportunity to learn, to learn how to swim. So bringing it back more of that workplace adversity, setback, challenge. How do you reframe that in the moment? If we’re looking at these adversities as opportunities.
Whitney Faires: Yeah, so, you may not be able to in the moment, go from. Oh my gosh, this is a career limiting issue to, oh, this is great. That’s not realistic. But the idea is, is your mindset and how you approach it. So even when you’re in a really bad spot, I, I encourage people to just first of all, separate the emotion from what’s actually happening.
Now I wanna be clear. I am not saying emotion is bad. I think that’s said too often in the workplace, that emotion is bad. People are so afraid of the stigma that they’re emotional. Emotion is bad when it causes us to act or show up or do something that is not in, in the best interest of, of us and others, right?
That’s when emotion is bad. We have emotion, so when adversity hits, it’s natural, we’re gonna have some emotion. So we have to know what it takes to process that in the moment enough to set it aside. I don’t mean bury it, set it aside so we can come back to it, but we’re not paralyzed by it. Once you can set it aside, then you can say to yourself, what is actually the problem here?
What’s the setback, the challenge? What, what am I actually solving for? Because emotion often muddies the waters and it makes us feel like we’re solving for our career being over. We’re not. We’re solving for this thing that we are working on, that we are the owner of going sideways and, and we have to define what that is.
From there, then you can ask yourself. What is the true impact? How much do I need to put into a solution for this? Does it just impact me? Does it impact the organization, my team? So you have to define that impact. And then I always encourage people to look for multiple options as a way forward. And that way ’cause, ’cause sometimes our gut response is the easy thing or the safe thing.
So if you brainstorm out five to seven solutions, probably two or three of ’em are, are pretty out there. But you can find pieces of a variety of the options that make up your best possible way forward. But as you’re going through that, the question is what can I learn? How can I grow? What’s the value I can derive from this adversity?
And sometimes you can identify it right up front, right? Other times it takes you some time and space. But what I know going into it is my mindset is I will be stronger on the other side of this, and I truly believe that. I didn’t believe it 20 years ago, but I believe it now from experience. And it’s a mindset I try to instill in my clients and those that I’ve, I’ve led.
Russel Lolacher: Well, perfectionist. I’m gonna ask you another question. How do you process failure when you think it might be a personal flaw? Like it’s great to feel like you are removing yourself from a situation, and you sound really analytical, but when you’re in it, and we’ve already stressed the humanity of all this.
People take things personally. People think, what did I do wrong? What? They really own the failure and that gets in the way. It can get in the way of that process that you’re talking about. How do you overcome that?
Whitney Faires: Yeah, I think you gotta sit in it for a minute, to be honest. And the best thing you could do in that moment is truly reflect and you have to ask the question like you have to ask, ask yourself a lot of questions. Okay. Why do I think that? First of all, what is the, the personal flaw or the miss of mine that led to this?
And you have to truly be willing to hear the answer, which, which may be, yeah, I totally missed. That was a blind spot. I handled that incorrectly. And, and then I think from there you’re just asking yourself, okay, how can I, how would I have done it differently? What is the learning from this?
What’s the real impact of it? And it, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. I mean, if, if you, if you actually did make a mistake that caused the adversity, first of all, it’s life, it does happen. But the second thing is, is like you, you, you have to own it and then move forward. And a lot of times it’s it’s probably gonna take someone as a sounding board to help get you through it.
A friend, a mentor, a leader where you just say, Hey here’s, here’s how I perceive what happened. I think I really messed up. Here’s what I own about it. Here’s what I’m unclear about. Help me, help me with your perspective. Don’t just tell me what I wanna hear. Help me through this. And usually that type of dialogue can get us to a place where we can at least move forward.
But it’s one of those things I always say, like there’s a lot of learning that happens when you get a little space from it, when you could not see the, the emotion, the pain and you can actually just see it for what it was and understand what led to where you to, to where you took the, the misstep.
Russel Lolacher: Emotional regulation. You kind of mentioned it earlier as well, that, that we, emotions are good, but it can stop. So when I ask, I asked the question off the earlier about what’s your best or worst? Most times outta 10, I get the worst and most times outta 10. It’s from 30 years ago, so it could be this horrible, but it’s this trauma that people have carried with them for decades. This failure either of themselves or the leadership that they had back then. So working with emotional regulation and being kinder to yourself, which I think is that human piece before we get into the analytical curiosity piece is so essential, but that emotional regulation is not something a lot of people are… get the tools. How many leaders go into leadership positions and, oh, emotional regulations. We just care if you do the job or not. How do you, how do you take that first step into understanding emotion regulation?
Whitney Faires: Yeah, well, the easiest way to answer that is if you don’t have a deep understanding of yourself before you need emotional regulation. It’s really hard. That’s one of the reasons I have a job as a coach is because I, I, I try to help people understand that the, the deeply rooted behaviors, issues that drive the symptoms because as leaders often we treat the symptoms, we’re not gonna go deep into, something like, what, what is it that’s making you feel that way, that’s causing you to show up that way?
We’re just like, Hey, why do you communicate like this? We need to, we need to fix it. Here’s some ideas. Let, let’s talk through it. Can you do this differently? Are we good? Yes. Okay. So. It’s a long way of saying that you have to understand your tendencies and how you’re gonna show up where your mind is gonna go in those moments where you’re not at your best, where when you make a mistake, because oftentimes I can talk myself down and regulate my emotions by saying, Hey, I know when I make a mistake, I get very upset at myself. I go to worst case scenario. I think, I, I’m, I’m, I’m going to spiral into all the things that are probably gonna go wrong and what people think of me. And I know that’s not true. But if you don’t do that reflection upfront of knowing yourself deeply, understanding your tendencies, and knowing what is true and what is not true in the moment, it’s very hard to, to have that regulation.
Russel Lolacher: I’ve noticed you talk about a thing called a magnetic mindset when it comes to getting more opportunity or collect, could you define what that even means in relation to adversity to opportunity.
Whitney Faires: Yeah. So, adversity is, is part of that. So essentially a magnetic mindset. I have eight components in there that if you do these things like authenticity, finding your power zone it, it’s a, it’s a an acronym. Then you’ll be able to attract more of what you want and, repel more of what you don’t want.
And I say that because magnetic mindset is all about things, things that we do that will enable us to be at our best and make it… I don’t wanna say easier, but it’s going to feel easier to accomplish those big goals, to show up in a way that best represents us to be influential and to, to feel really good while doing it.
I think that’s something that’s so often missed. I, I think back to myself or people I’ve led and on the outside they’re like, wow, that person has got it together. They’re executing, they’re confident, but inside. You don’t feel the same way that you’re showing up, you’re anxious, you’re nervous, you’re beating yourself up.
And let’s be honest, like it’s way more fun for your outside to match your inside versus it looks good, but you walk outta the meetings still going, here’s all the things I did wrong. And that’s what magnetic mindset is about, is adopting different practices that anybody can do at any level so that you can, you can crush it and feel good doing it essentially.
Russel Lolacher: So from a personal standpoint as a leader, going through and establishing a magnetic mindset establishing any sort of mindset to be more curious with ourselves, have that self-awareness. How do we know we’re being successful in flipping through that adversary and setback into an area of opportunity and advancement?
So you’re in it. How do you know you’re on the other side of it?
Whitney Faires: Yeah. I think first of all, you’re gonna know how you, based on how you feel. So, I always in the case of adversity, when I look back and I say, gosh, you know, used to, I would, I would be stuck for a, a day or two. Even if I was moving towards a solution, I would be very emotional. I would maybe be, irritable and it would just stick with me and drag me down.
Now, I, I like had this process where I feel like, okay, I’ve worked through it. I’m moving forward, and I’m, I’m kind of at peace with that. So a big part of it is how you feel. I’d say the second thing is get feedback from other people. I’m a big proponent. Of when there’s something that you’re working on.
We all have a trust tree at work and at home or in our personal lives where we say, I’ll say to somebody that I trust in that meeting who I have a, a, a close relationship with. I’m really working on navigating objections in a meeting and not appearing defensive, not speeding up my pace of how I talk, changing my tone, but just being me.
Tell me how I’m doing. Well, you can do that with adversity. I, maybe someone that works for you that that is someone you’re developing to do more. Hey, tell me how I’m showing up in these situations when it pops up on a team call, when it pops up in our business. And getting that feedback as to how you’re coming off to other people.
I think those are the, the two best ways is how you feel and how it’s manifesting externally. You’ll know, I think you, you people definitely know. It’s one of those things that it just feels different and it feels more process oriented than emotionally driven.
Russel Lolacher: How do you take everything we’ve talked about and translate it to your team? Because a team can have adversity, a team can have setbacks, but they, your team might not have the leadership training the self-regulation, they’re also feeling the energy of other team members. So as a leader, we have to come in and sort of, I don’t, do we regulate it? Do we acknowledge it? Like how do we approach it when it’s in a team setting?
Whitney Faires: Yeah. I, I, I can give you, I’ll give you an answer, but I will say it is highly dependent on the team and, and the people, right? As I look back, I’ve led numerous teams. I don’t know if I could say it’s exactly the same way for every team, but here’s what I would say is one is I think you have to normalize adversity.
So it, it’s, it’s something that, first of all, we have to emotionally regulate ourselves.
Russel Lolacher: Mm.
Whitney Faires: When that adversity pops up, we don’t lead by example, that is the number one thing that we have to do for it to be successful. Otherwise, we’re saying something, but we’re doing something else and that’s gonna be no good for our people.
So we lead by example, we normalize it. Hey, like this is, this is a, a doable problem. Let’s talk about, here’s the process we’re gonna follow to get through it. So I think you teach them the process to follow and now if someone’s coming to me one-on-one on my team, then obviously I’m, I, it’s that, it’s that one-on-one dynamic.
But one of the things I used to love to do as a leader is have my team bring really difficult problems to our team calls because it gave me a chance to, lead the team through a problem that they’re often all going to face. And if nothing else, help start instilling how to work through adversity, just the basic principles of it. And, and I think that in those moments, our job is to be able to help them keep that perspective. So when someone’s super emotional about that, about something, and you can tell they’re, they’re like really fired up. It’s hold on. Let’s just, let’s pause for a second.
What’s truly the impact of this thing that we’re facing? I know it feels big, I, I know it, it feels like we’ve messed up or whatever it is, but what’s truly the impact? Is that so bad? Can we overcome this? And you have to kind of bring him back and give him some perspective along the way.
Russel Lolacher: You touched on something I like to bring up quite a bit on the show is that we don’t have teams. We have groups of individuals and to address it as to your point where it’s a one-on-one, a lot of leaders will go, I have a team I have to address. I’m like, no, you have seven to 30 individuals dealing it and with processing it in different ways based on experience, geopolitical, like everything.
So to have those one-on-ones actually will help the health of the individuals, which will bring it back to the larger team. So I love that you highlighted that because we look at it as this homogenous team. I’m like, no, there’s diversity within the diversity and it has nothing to do with skin color or capabilities.
It is the individuals of it. But when we address that, I’m curious, do we address it differently based on the scope of that adversity? For example, we just. Sucked at a multimillion dollar project launch versus you didn’t send an email when I asked you to. Now somebody, an executive is pissed at us. There is what, do we approach it in the same way or do we look at it ba differently based on scope?
Whitney Faires: Oh, I think you have to look at it differently based on scope. Certainly the, the urgency, the magnitude, all of that is gonna be different if we didn’t send an email versus we, we, failed at a product launch and, and we lost a lot of money. Again, I think the process is generally the same in the sense of you kind of have to feel the emotions, but be able to separate them, scope it out, understand your impact and your way forward.
But I certainly think there’s a lot more when there’s more complexity or more impact, there’s a, a much. Greater debrief that’s happening to really understand the cause and effect because I, I’m not proposing that we, we just wanna get through it and be like, oh, it’s all okay. We got through it.
We’re good. No, I mean, it’s, it’s learning and as long as it feels a productive learning moment then I, I think we’re okay. I, I don’t wanna do the debrief and be pointing fingers at everybody, but also you don’t, you don’t wanna say oh, well we did our best. So you have to, you have to be able to help people say, see, how will we do it differently?
What led to us making that decision? Where could we maybe jumped in sooner? And so our ability to ask those questions in a way that helps people understand and learn versus points a finger is really critical.
Russel Lolacher: And you’ve led me directly into the next question I was kind of curious about was communication. So I mean, I’m hearing tone, I’m hearing gravitas, gravity or gravitas based on the scope it, how are we communicating with our teams trying to be transparent without avoiding panic too when it comes to some of these… because we talked about emotional regulation and as leaders, if we can communicate in a way that doesn’t trigger some of these things, how would you recommend that we communicate? Hmm.
Whitney Faires: So, it’s very dependent on the people. And when you’re in a team setting, you, obviously, you can’t say it six different ways if you’ve got six people on your team. So you, you gotta, you gotta make that judgment call. I’m gonna say, let me, let me back up and say, one of the questions I ask everybody when they join my team, I ask ’em a couple questions.
One is, how do you like to receive feed feedback or, or what’s the best way that you like to communicate? I can ask him those two things because that way in the moment, I know in advance how this person likes to, to be communicated with, especially when it comes to feedback or a tough message. And I always tell ’em, I appreciate that.
I’ll do my best to do that when I can. Sometimes I won’t be able to. Sometimes it’s gonna be, I’m gonna have to flex to a different style, but I appreciate knowing that. So that enables me when I’m one-on-one to be very thoughtful about how I’m communicating it. And I think as a leader, when you can flex to meet that person’s needs, style I, I do it. In a group setting, I think the best thing to do is you gotta check your emotions. There can’t be emotions and a lot of times, and I learn this personally ’cause I’m a very high energy person. It’s not about what you intend, meaning, well, I didn’t intend that to be intense in, in, in, and very, be jumping on, jumping on top of ’em with how I said that.
It’s about how you actually make them feel, right? So when I say you gotta check the emotions, it’s not just how you’re feeling, but it’s, it’s how you’re communicating the emotion. So be sure that your tone is, is, calm, your pace isn’t too fast. You’re, you don’t wanna be monotone, you wanna be yourself, right?
But be very mindful that the way you say it isn’t artificially. Increasing the emotions. That’s, that, that’s being perceived by the team. And, and I think, like you’re gonna know how they respond. You gotta read the room, look at their faces. If it’s quiet and they’re all like, oh, then you, Hey, let me make sure you’re hearing what I actually was intending to say.
What did you hear me saying? And then you can course correct if you need to. Does that answer the question?
Russel Lolacher: It does, it does. ‘Because I mean, it, it’s everything. So my three huge ma my huge, major things, wow, Russel, way to speak. Self-awareness, situational awareness, communication, I think are the cornerstones to any great leader. And you’ve touched on all three of those. Absolutely touched on all three of those.
My curiosity is the resilience piece of it, because you’ll get these high performing success after success after success teams, and then they have that big failure and the motivation is shaken. That preparation for that next setback, that gun shyness, that risk aversion starts sinking in. How do we navigate that?
Whitney Faires: Yeah. I, I tell people that you are your single greatest champion or enemy. I mean, it’s the truth. And I think it comes down to a mindset is I often take people back and I say, okay. So, so we had this big miss, like we had this epic failure. It is what it is. And I’ll tell, I’ll tell it like that.
I, I’ll be totally transparent. But at the same time, I want you to go back to the last five years of your career, and I want you to tell me all of the wins you had and all of the failures like this. Because history typically repeats itself and they’re gonna have some other quote unquote failures or misses, but they’re gonna have a lot more wins.
And I’m like, you can choose to live and die on this one scenario. Or you can choose to believe in the history of your performance. What, what do you want it to look like? How do you wanna go forward? ’cause it’s all about you. It’s not what I say. It’s about you And, and that’s good because it’s not me blaming you, it’s me saying you are empowered.
To to decide how it goes next. I believe in you. Do you believe in you? And that mindset piece is pivotal to resilience and how they go forward.
Russel Lolacher: I like that you’re inspiring self curiosity in them as a leader going, oh, I’m being curious as a leader, but you need to know you as well. Self-awareness is something you also need to own, and you’ll understand your resiliency and what motivates you personally to get through that next obstacle.
Sounds great, Whitney, but we don’t work in a bubble.
Leaders can control what they can control, but we will sometimes work in organizations that say we embrace failure, which is crap because they say it, but don’t follow it. So when we are, we’ve got our team, the team’s working well, we’re doing all the work that we’ve talked about already, but then the culture around it might have a very different perspective of adversity and failure, and how do you get through that?
Because that’s hard to ignore.
Whitney Faires: Yeah, it, it is definitely hard to ignore, ignore. Which is why I think company culture and where you choose to work, there’s some limitation as to how that’s gonna go based on where you are. I’ll tell you my belief as as our role as leaders, which is we are ultimately accountable for everything that happens on our team.
So that means if someone on my team makes a mistake, it’s not their fault, it’s my fault. And I think too often we as leaders have this mindset like, well, when they call me, I’ll be like, that person, they, they, they did a really great job at all these things. They kind of had a couple mistakes. I got ’em course corrected for the future. Don’t worry about them. That’s not my message. My message is, listen, this is on me. Here’s where I coached them. Well, here’s where I was able to oversee what was happening. Make sure we’re on time. Here’s where I missed. Here’s what I’m gonna do differently next time. Blame me. And so I, I try to take that pressure off my team because ultimately I’m accountable for everything that happens in any business that I own. So I, I make sure that I demonstrate that to my team and that they know that their failures kind of stay at my level and not go up. And then it’s my job to create the change that needs to happen for my team to be successful.
And so, yes, you’re gonna take some heat at times and there there’s going to be situations where you should have done better. But I’ll tell you what, like when I’ve had those instances where my team has missed and, and I, it’s sat on my shoulders, it’s either I’m gonna get better. Or I’m gonna be be moved out, so I’m gonna find a way to get better.
And that’s truly to me, a sense of motivation.
Russel Lolacher: What are you communicating to executive who may not see it that way?
Whitney Faires: Well, ultimately, if, if they’re firm in their position, I will tell ’em, listen, I, I respectfully disagree that the, the failure is on this person. Yes. Like they carried out the plan. They own part of the responsibility in it, but you hired me to run the business. So, it, it’s, it ultimately falls on me to ensure that person is prepared to execute what needs to happen to derive the result.
So it’s, there’s shared ownership. I’m not saying that the person was perfect and, and I just messed everything up, but, I’m the person that’s accountable just like that executive is a person that’s ultimately accountable for hiring the right people and training them to, to drive the results of the organization.
Russel Lolacher: And I don’t think a lot of leaders understand the benefits as well of doing that and of having a high functioning team that embraces, embraces that failure and moves on from it, and then has that next success, navigate or, or to varying degrees sort of thing. Because if you’re doing this well, if you’re modeling this, well, there’s other business areas going, what are they doing right? Why, why is that… I wanna be on that team as opposed to getting regularly punished for every little thing micromanagement over here. It is, it’s showing how work can be, and I don’t think we see that enough. We just see it of going, it’s an other situation as opposed to the ideal.
Whitney Faires: Yeah, I mean, I definitely think that it. I tell people all the time when you go into people leadership, a lot of people think oh, I’m moving up in my career. It’s more money. It’s this. It is, it is a complete change in what you’re doing in the, the amount of responsibility and accountability that falls on your shoulders.
You’re dealing with people, that means all of their issues personally and professionally. That means all of the wins go to them and the losses go to you. And if you do that. If you take extreme ownership of your team and their results, then you will have a team that will run through walls for you.
And when I said leadership isn’t that hard at the beginning, I mean, it’s hard of course, but it, it’s, we overcomplicate it. It’s like just be a human being, right? Be there to support people, get to know people, take ownership for, for putting them in a place to be successful with their plan, with their skills, and then, protect them to the extent that they need protection when things go wrong. When they’ve done things into your guidance and it goes wrong, then you know, stand in front of them, take the heat, help them grow, and guess what? They are going to run through a wall for you. They’re gonna have more trust, more loyalty. They’re gonna have increased motivation, and that’s what creates that environment where people are like, gosh, like I wanna go work on that team. And I say that from a place where I definitely did it wrong as a 20 something year old leader. And 20 years later I’m going, gosh, like why did I overcomplicate this? But a lot of times it’s, you gotta learn through experience and that’s how it works.
Russel Lolacher: On the flip side of this, I, I mean, I talked about organizations not treating failure as well as they should, or at least as well as they say. But then there’s the flip side of it where we get into toxic positivity where everything’s great, all time and, oh, these aren’t failures, these are butterflies in the wind.
It’s just sort of these things that we minimize. I feel like how can we address that while encouraging some sort of perseverance?
Whitney Faires: Yes, I, I, you hit a, a nerve that drives me insane, which is we do nobody any good if we pretend that everything is great all the time. And so I, one of the things I teach in my leadership courses is how do we give feedback in a way that is constructive, actionable, and does not feel personal? Because otherwise we don’t wanna hurt people’s feelings and we, we don’t wanna discourage them because they’re trying really hard, despite they’re not getting the result. So we’re just like, Hey, good job. Maybe try this. And then they think, oh, I did great. They didn’t even hear the try this part. They just heard it was great. I’m gonna keep doing it like that. And then it bubbles up and it gets really bad eventually. Right? That’s how it usually goes.
So I think it’s, first of all, you have to have, you have to build trust with people. I like when, when I have teammates that are, that are maybe, I can tell they had that toxic positivity, but then they’re telling me something behind the scenes. I’m like either you can handle this or I can, you don’t want me to step in because they’re gonna know you came to me and said, they really frustrate me when they do things like this, so how can I help you have that conversation? And as leaders, we have to teach how to give the feedback. We have to set the standard of excellence, and we have to drive accountability to it. Which means, you’ve gotta go handle it yourself before you elevate it to me.
If you don’t, I’m gonna ask you why not in a very nice way out of, in spirit of wanting you to be at your best and help others be at their best. So part of it’s kind of that tone that you set up front of this is who we’re gonna be as a team, whether it’s with me and my peer group, me and those report to me, my leader and I, my business partner and I. Expectation setting starts that foundation of, of how we’re gonna operate together.
Russel Lolacher: You touched earlier in our conversation about you wanna work in the right environment, the right culture, so make sure you’re working in the right place to begin with. Before you get into any of this. What should we be looking for? What should HR and executive be doing to put guardrails up that embraces fail failure, that embraces adversary adversity for somebody on the outside looking in that may not know what to look for.
Whitney Faires: Yeah. Well, I, I would say from the outside looking in, first of all just like you show up at your best when you’re interviewing, I mean, you, you have all the preparation done, you’re, you’re saying the right things. Probably the company is as well, and those that are representing the organization. So I think the questions that you ask are really critical.
You can’t, you can’t be afraid to ask the question if your gut is wow, this is a really intense results driven place, which may mean there’s no tolerance for missing a number, missing a goal. Ask the question, and you can ask it in a way that’s not like what happens if I miss my quota?
I mean, that’s kind of a red flag. But to say, listen, like I know you have big goals. How do you empower people to be successful? Well, what would happen if that person actually missed?
Russel Lolacher: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Faires: What’s the process for how you, you help them from there? Read between the lines. It’s not always what they say, it’s how they say it.
It’s what they don’t say but their, their body language and tone communicate that. And then just know what you’re stepping into. You’re not gonna know until you’re in it, truthfully, but you can ask the questions to understand and if, if leaders are too busy to meet with you, if you said, Hey, I, I’d love to meet with your leaders for 20 minutes to kind of get a feel for how they lead in the company culture, that that tells you a lot right there. As an organization, I think that. What tends to happen is as you go up the ranks from not your frontline people leaders, but let’s maybe your directors, your senior directors, your VPs, like that higher level leader the tendency is we assume they got to that role because they were excellent frontline leaders.
Not true. That’s a misconception right there that I should have listed earlier, right? Not true. So whether you’re a C-level person or SVP or a VP, those in your ranks, you have to validate how they’re handling these situations, right? And a lot of times it’s super easy because when it comes to you, you can see how they’re reacting, how they’re representing the situation, and, and then just ask them like, well, tell me how are you leading your person through this? And so it’s not like HR. I love HR. They can put all the guardrails around it as possible. You have to know how your people, and their people are doing this in their, in their teams. And ask the questions, sit in on a debrief and make sure that you have confidence that they’re doing in a way that makes you feel as productive.
Russel Lolacher: So anybody listening to this, they want that curiosity. They want that self-awareness. They want that understanding of control. Where do they start tomorrow? What’s that baby step in the right direction?
Whitney Faires: Yeah. I would say, first of all, you have to do some deep reflection. What are the areas within myself that are my weak spots? Like I don’t have to tell anybody about it, but when adversity hits, how do I feel about that? What, what do I associate that with? Does it make me feel like, oh man, I’m not good, or I’m, I’m not gonna make it.
When I’m in a room with higher level leaders, how do, how do I show up? What am I feeling? First, start with knowing yourself because you, you can’t fix all the other stuff until you know what’s happening in your head and in your heart. And then from there you can put a plan together, mentors, or work with your leader on development plans to start to build the skills that you need, but I think that reflection is work only you can do, and it’s so important that internal self-awareness.
Russel Lolacher: That is Whitney Faires, an executive coach, keynote speaker, and leadership expert, and she’s the founder of Whitney Faires Coaching, Speaking, and Development. Thank you so much for being here, Whitney. Really appreciate it.
Whitney Faires: Yeah. Thanks for having me. It’s been a pleasure.