The quality of your personal and professional life comes down to the quality of your relationships, but don’t take my word for it. Harvard University has been running a study on adult development since 1938, and that is what they concluded too.
Successful executives know it all comes down to how well they manage relationships with themselves, their staff, and their stakeholders. Almost every challenge you have in life has to root cause of a relationship issue.
In this #jammingwithjason #internalauditpodcast episode we dig into some of the things you need to be proficient doing every day, and every week to manage your self, stakeholders and staff so you can be an effective leaders.
Listen in at: http://www.jasonmefford.com/jammingwithjason/
I’m so passionate about this topic that I even created a whole executive leadership program to give CAEs the skills they need to succeed as a confident executive leader.
Even though it’s specifically designed for Chief Audit Executives, the topics and skill taught in the CAE Briefing Executive Leadership Program is relevant for anyone.
When you are ready to become a relationship ninja, register NOW at: https://jasonmefford.mykajabi.com/caebriefing
Transcript
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Jason Mefford: Welcome to another episode of jamming with Jason and my friends. We’re back for a solo episode. Again, which means
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Jason Mefford: I just get to talk directly to you this week and I’m excited about this topic, you know, I’ve been coaching people for a long time.
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Jason Mefford: Executives chief audit executives business owners and, you know, almost every challenge that people have
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Jason Mefford: The root cause of it tends to be most of the time. Not all the time, but almost all of the time happens to come back to the same root cause.
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Jason Mefford: And we’re going to talk about that today as we get into our topic, but before we do that, of course, we have some things that we need to do I gotta do some shout outs to people that regularly, listen.
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Jason Mefford: So the first one. Allison rife Martin she actually wrote in and let me know. She said, I just started listening to your podcast and I love it.
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Jason Mefford: In the I am a CPA nerd who loves talking about and thinking about risks. Well, Allison. I’m a CPA nerd to of course, I’ve got a lot of other certifications. Besides that,
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Jason Mefford: But I love talking about this stuff too. And so I am glad that you are listening and thank you for reaching out another one that came in this week.
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Jason Mefford: Says, many business related podcasts are very dry. Believe me, I understand that. Right. But he goes on to say I like how you include humor to make it interesting.
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Jason Mefford: Also the solo podcasts that you sometimes use things like a book, the best of times, worst of times just listen to that one to teach the topic.
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Jason Mefford: One of my favorite guests, you have had on was Mike Jacka the two of you together were very entertaining. So that’s from john Hewitt john. Thank you.
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Jason Mefford: Do try to make it a little bit light here. If we can try to have some fun because my goodness, I, I totally hear you, brother.
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Jason Mefford: So too many of the business podcasts that are out there and too much of the business training in general is just dry and boring and wow, okay.
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Jason Mefford: So you’re not going to get that here on jamming with Jason So Allison and john thank you for sending those in. Now for everybody else who’s listening again I want to reach out to you reach out to me. If you’re not connected with me on LinkedIn already
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Jason Mefford: Send me a
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Jason Mefford: Customized request because honestly, I get random connection requests from people all over the world. I have no idea who the hell they are or why they would want to connect with me.
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Jason Mefford: So if you are a listener to the episodes. And if you’re following me. Make sure to include a personalized invite. So when you do when you do the Connect, make sure and do the add note to it as well.
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Jason Mefford: So that I know who you are. The other thing is, once you’re connected or if you’re already connected to me, send me a little message.
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Jason Mefford: through LinkedIn and let me know what you are enjoying about the podcast and you may be featured in a future episode.
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Jason Mefford: Now to go along with that. That’s kind of the normal thing that I say
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Jason Mefford: But I’ve got an extra little incentive for all of you that are thinking, oh, should I send it in. Maybe, maybe not. Oh, I don’t know.
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Jason Mefford: Well here’s, here’s what I’m going to tell you folks, I’m going to be doing some interesting things going forward.
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Jason Mefford: And one of those things that I’m considering is actually recording a Live podcast, which means that some of you. I’m going to invite
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Jason Mefford: To be with me on the podcast and probably go around the room. Let each of you ask a question or do some things like that.
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Jason Mefford: So you can have an opportunity to actually participate and be a part of future episodes as well.
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Jason Mefford: Now how I’m going to invite people hey guess what folks is people that have connected with me and people who have sent me testimonials.
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Jason Mefford: About what they like about the podcast, so that I actually know that you’re listening. So again, go ahead and send those in, because I’m going to be looking at scheduling that here.
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Jason Mefford: In the next few weeks. So if you’ve already done that expect that you might get an email or a LinkedIn message from me asking if you would like to participate.
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Jason Mefford: Okay, so that’s enough of the housekeeping to begin with. Why don’t we jump in and start talking about today’s topic.
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Jason Mefford: Which from the title. You know, it’s all about relationships. Now, I’ve been saying this for a little while. In fact, I’ve had some videos going around social media, lots of people liking it. Lots of people
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Jason Mefford: You know, listening to it, commenting positively on it. But of course, there’s always those few people
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Jason Mefford: That say Jason, you just don’t really get it. Okay. So I thought, well, let me just record a podcast episode. Let’s talk about it in a little bit more depth than just a two or three minute video
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Jason Mefford: Can be okay because, as I told you that when we started off. I’ve been coaching people for a long time, high powered executives business owners chief audit executives.
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Jason Mefford: And almost invariably all of the challenges that they’re facing with have the same root cause and that root cause is this, there is a problem with a relationship in their life.
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Jason Mefford: Now that relationship problem could come from a problem with stakeholders. So example, like, you know, a relationship issue with your audit committee or board.
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Jason Mefford: Or other executives that are in the organization. It could come from a relationship issue with your staff.
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Jason Mefford: And so you’re having issues, maybe with some of your staff. It’s a relationship issue is the root cause, usually of whatever it is.
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Jason Mefford: And the third one that most people don’t actually think about is their relationship to self.
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Jason Mefford: Now I know that might sound a little funny, but let me, let me explain, just briefly, and then we’re going to dig into it more as we go through the podcast episode.
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Jason Mefford: I hear a lot of people that are complainer’s and we usually refer to them as victims, people who believe or are blaming or denying or making excuses.
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Jason Mefford: For why they can’t do certain things. And so typically, it will come up. And again, I’ve
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Jason Mefford: Heard this over and over again. And I’m not going to repeat all of it because it’s just really frustrating when people get on the victim wagon.
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Jason Mefford: Of where they’re blaming everybody else. The problem is not everybody else. It’s usually you. Now I know a lot of people you don’t want to hear that.
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Jason Mefford: But a lot of your own challenges are caused by your own doing because you are not managing yourself and we’re going to get into that a little bit more later.
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Jason Mefford: Okay, but like, as I said, you know, the root cause of all challenges is usually a relationship issue. Now I don’t want you to have a relationship issues.
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Jason Mefford: I want you to be a relationship ninja okay because ninjas are cool. And so I want to become a relationship ninja. And I’m going to go through and kind of talk a little bit about that today.
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Jason Mefford: To be able to provide you with some practical advice so you can get started right away because, you know, let’s get these challenges and other things out of the way.
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Jason Mefford: Now what we’re going to talk about today relates both to your professional relationships and your professional career, but it also has a huge impact.
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Jason Mefford: On your personal life as well. Now,
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Jason Mefford: You know, as I said, some people have actually kind of come back and said, oh, Jason. You’re full of crap. You know, you don’t really, you don’t really that that’s too simplistic, it can’t all be about relationships. Okay.
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Jason Mefford: So, my friends, just like everything else. I’m not, I’m not gonna ask you to just trust me. Okay, don’t just trust me on this, let’s actually talk about
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Jason Mefford: Something that has been going on for a long time. That is also saying the same thing. In fact, this has been some of the source of the inspiration.
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Jason Mefford: For me to kind of look at how I’m helping people differently. And it actually is from a study that comes from Harvard University.
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Jason Mefford: Okay. And it’s called the Harvard study of adult development. Okay, the Harvard study of adult development. Now this is a study that Harvard started in 1938
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Jason Mefford: You get that 1938 now. My dad was born in 33 and I know he’s 87 right so that means they have been doing. They have been studying
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Jason Mefford: The same subjects, since the sophomore class of 1938 so every year they meet with these people, they go through. They asked him some questions. They do other stuff like that.
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Jason Mefford: Because they were trying to figure out, you know how adults develop in really kind of study, what is the key to a long life. What is the key to happiness and to health.
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Jason Mefford: And like I said, they started in 1938 and there’s some interesting resources. Again, you can go out and fact check me on this because I’m not feeding any bullshit here.
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Jason Mefford: But if you want to go out and look up the Harvard study of adult development, you can get some information there.
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Jason Mefford: The other thing. There’s actually the, the, the person who is kind of leading up that part of Harvard right now. His name is Robert waldinger Robert waldinger
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Jason Mefford: And he actually did a TED talk on this a few years ago. That’s actually had over 13 million views. Okay, so you can actually go out, you can watch a TED talk. It’s not very long. I think it’s between 15 and 18 minutes, which is what most
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Jason Mefford: Ted Talks are and actually you can search the title of his TED Talk is what makes a good life lessons from the longest study on happiness. And again, his name is Robert waldinger
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Jason Mefford: And so, again, to get into this. Let me, let me just read a little bit kind of from from some things, some research that I’ve done about this right
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Jason Mefford: And this is this is a quote from Robert waldinger he says you know we gather together everything we knew about them. At age 50
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Jason Mefford: It wasn’t their middle aged cholesterol level that protected how they were going to grow old.
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Jason Mefford: It was how satisfied they were in their relationships, the people who were the most satisfied in their relationships at age 50
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Jason Mefford: Where the healthiest at age 80. Okay. And again, like I said, it’s, it’s, they’ve they’ve done a lot of research on this. And the one thing that has the biggest impact on people’s health and happiness long term.
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Jason Mefford: Is good relationships. In fact, the flip side of that loneliness being alone being by yourself actually has as big of a negative health impact as smoking or alcoholism does
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Jason Mefford: Did you get that. So the opposite side. If you don’t have good relationships. If you feel alone or are lonely. He says loneliness kills quote it has as powerful, it’s as powerful as smoking or alcoholism.
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Jason Mefford: So again, I came across this study a little while ago. I’ve been following it for a while and just find it interesting. And again, as I pondered about this.
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Jason Mefford: For the last few months, really, you know, drives home the fact that almost every challenge or problem that people ask me to help them with.
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Jason Mefford: Comes down to a relationship problem. And so that’s, again, I told you I’ve been thinking about this for a while. And that’s one of the reasons
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Jason Mefford: Why, I’ve actually developed a whole executive leadership program to help people be able to better understand how to manage the relationships with themselves with their stakeholders and with their staff.
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Jason Mefford: Now why am I bringing that to you again from an internal audit perspective again, as I’ve as I’ve told you over and over again.
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Jason Mefford: It is, it is not following the standards, it is not following best practices. It is not your technical skills that actually will make you effective
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Jason Mefford: In fact, focusing too much on some of those areas can actually negatively impact your relationships and negatively impact your career.
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Jason Mefford: Now I know when I say that I get people who, who, again, they try to beat the drum of the AIA and say, oh, the I. The IPF has everything that we need to do. And of course relationships are a part of that. But here’s the problem. Folks, everybody who’s following them.
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Jason Mefford: Still has challenges. Right. And in fact, a lot of times, as I’ve seen and told you in some previous episodes.
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Jason Mefford: About certain individuals, of course anonymized not to embarrass them or anything else. But a lot of times, the people who focus on just that and do not do what they need to to develop relationships.
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Jason Mefford: They end up banging their head against the wall, they end up finding themselves in very precarious situations in their career.
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Jason Mefford: And, and, again, a lot of people say, well, no, if we just follow all these everything will be okay.
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Jason Mefford: But I’ll tell you if you’ve got strong relationships, some of those other things. If you don’t do very good, it’s still okay right
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Jason Mefford: In fact, you can write a really shitty audit report, but if you have great relationships with the people in your organization. They’re not going to care as much. Okay. Because you’re still going to be communicating the results to them. And so again,
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Jason Mefford: Relationships are the things that really matter to your long term health, happiness in both your personal and in your professional life.
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Jason Mefford: Okay, that’s enough soapbox for today. Right, let’s actually get in and talk a little bit about what some of these things actually look like.
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Jason Mefford: And as I told you it you know I’ve developed an executive leadership program that’s called the chief audit executive briefing or CA briefing.
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Jason Mefford: That goes through each of these areas in more detail. In fact, for just 30 minutes a week.
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Jason Mefford: You can actually go through watch a video actually have some some exercises that you can practice and things to focus on during that week.
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Jason Mefford: As your as you’re doing both your professional and your personal life. And then as little as 30 minutes a week, you can actually start developing and becoming a relationship ninja.
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Jason Mefford: And actually watch the quality of your relationships, improve every single week. Okay. And even though this was developed.
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Jason Mefford: For chief executives, it’s actually applicable to everybody. So even though the title says chief executive. If you’re not, you can still get in the program. Anyway, okay, if you want to
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Jason Mefford: Because it will help you as well. Whether or not you have you know a goal of becoming a chief audit executive someday or not.
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Jason Mefford: Whatever you do, and wherever you are adding your career, improving relationships with those people that you work with, with your staff with your stakeholders and with yourself will improve the health
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Jason Mefford: And quality of your professional and personal life. Okay. And your happiness as well.
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Jason Mefford: So let’s dig in and talk a little bit about these because again this is based on a leadership model that’s actually called the LP model.
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Jason Mefford: And in that model. You know, I know this is coming to your auditory over AUDIO So you’re just going to have to kind of close your eyes and picture, along with me here.
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Jason Mefford: But again, there’s really those three major areas. So think of them like three concentric circles or a Venn diagram.
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Jason Mefford: And everything that I’m going to talk about relates to one of those three areas. Okay, so let’s just go through, like I said, I’m going to give you a little bit more of the detail right now so you can get an idea.
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Jason Mefford: Of some of the the areas that you should be working on trying to think about. And again, you know, when you’re ready to actually become that relationship ninja get in the program because it helps kick your butt in gear. Right. You know, it’s just like
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Jason Mefford: If I’ve if I’ve actually admitted this over the air but you know I’ve gained some weight in the last year or so.
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Jason Mefford: And I know what I’m supposed to do to lose weight. Right. I know, but a lot of times it’s hard to kick myself in the butt and do it when I’m trying to just do it by myself.
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Jason Mefford: And so actually you know getting in a program having an exercise routine.
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Jason Mefford: You know, belonging to a gym hiring an exercise coach doing different things like that actually kicks you in the butt and get you to actually do the work.
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Jason Mefford: That you have to do every single week you know before I’ve told you, you know, when I think when we’re talking about
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Jason Mefford: Professional Development, I can’t eat for you. I can’t do your training for you. I can’t do your push ups for you either
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Jason Mefford: You know, if I hire a coach or a trainer my trainer can’t do my push ups for me either. I’m the one that has to do the work.
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Jason Mefford: I have to do the work every day, every week in order to be able to actually see the benefits. So let’s jump in and talk about some of these different areas. So when you think about managing yourself.
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Jason Mefford: There’s really kind of four topics and of course it goes deeper than this, but I don’t have three hours to talk to you today on the podcast. So I’m going to be brief and just touch on four of the areas for each of these three. So we’re going to kind of go through 12 different topics.
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Jason Mefford: For you to be thinking about. Now, the first one under self I call mindset. Okay. And again, that goes back to, I think I told you before, a little bit about you know people that end up getting into victim mentality.
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Jason Mefford: They’re blaming they’re making excuses, they’re denying that certain things are happening.
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Jason Mefford: And there’s a lot of stuff around mindset and making sure that we are in the right headspace
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Jason Mefford: For us to be able to, you know, have have a relationship, not only with ourselves, but with our staff and with our stakeholders as well.
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Jason Mefford: If you don’t start with mindset and really know some of the hacks to go along with that. It’s really hard to do any of the other stuff.
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Jason Mefford: Now the second one you know that relates to self is habits and I know that might seem a little strange for all of you.
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Jason Mefford: But again 95% of what we do every single day is a is a brain habit based activity.
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Jason Mefford: Because what ends up happening is the subconscious part of our brain is actually having us or we’re, we’re, we’re following and doing those habits.
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Jason Mefford: That we have developed both the good habits and the bad habits. Okay.
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Jason Mefford: And, you know, one of the quotes that I’ve that I’ve heard one of my mentors say that I really like is he says you know you don’t get what you want in life, you get your habits.
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Jason Mefford: And so, you know, a lot of times, again, if you’re not getting those things in life that you want most likely it’s caused because of some habit that you have that’s holding you back from getting what you want.
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Jason Mefford: So, understanding how to develop habits you know how to how to reprogram some of your, your brain based habits is important.
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Jason Mefford: So that, because again, that is such a big driver in what you are actually doing every single day. And again, I don’t have time to get into all the research, but trust me, just like everything else that I tell you there’s actually scientific research to back that up.
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Jason Mefford: Now the third one under self relates to emotional intelligence. And that’s a buzzword that a lot of people have been throwing out there.
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Jason Mefford: But it’s important for you to understand emotions understand how emotions work how thoughts lead to feelings that lead to actions.
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Jason Mefford: And how you can actually not only identify but manage your relationships and identify and help to to manage or respond to other people’s emotions as well. So again, that’s the third thing under self.
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Jason Mefford: The last one relates to resilience now resilience is a term that you know throughout life. We kind of have some ups and we have some downs.
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Jason Mefford: That’s normal part of life sometimes we’re very happy. Sometimes we go through some pretty challenging times
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Jason Mefford: Now what resilience is, is the ability to bounce back to your normal state quicker. After some sort of a setback.
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Jason Mefford: And so again, you know, we don’t go through life always feel unhappy and everything’s do do to do to do good all the time, right.
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Jason Mefford: Every so often you go through some pretty tough stuff. And when you go through that you have to learn how to raise yourself out of that and get back to your normal state.
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Jason Mefford: And so that’s why resiliency is so important because the quicker that you can get out of some of those down troughs, that the more productive. You’ll be the happier you will be as well.
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Jason Mefford: So those are the four areas under self again it’s mindset habits emotional intelligence and resilience
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Jason Mefford: So now let’s move on to the stakeholder area right because there’s certain things that you need to do to be able to develop and have good relationships with your stakeholders and the next we’re going to talk about staff.
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Jason Mefford: Now, especially since so many of you now are dealing in a virtual world these relationships and and actually being conscious about trying to develop and maintain these relationships is even more important.
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Jason Mefford: Because you are physically distanced from people. And so what that means is it’s going to take a little bit more work on your part.
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Jason Mefford: In order to develop and maintain these relationships and that’s why if you don’t understand how to do this and what you need to be doing each day or each week or each month.
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Jason Mefford: A lot of these relationships that you’ve developed and thought were okay before the pandemic and the virtual environment, those relationships are crumbling and going away because the problem with relationships.
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Jason Mefford: Is you have to constantly be nurturing them. And if you are not nurturing those relationships they slowly die. Okay.
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Jason Mefford: So under stakeholders. What are some of the things that you need to be, you know, considering or thinking about from a relationship standpoint.
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Jason Mefford: Well, the first one is really to kind of think about your strategy in and again this is talking kind of from a chief audit executive standpoint is
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Jason Mefford: What’s the strategy that you’re going to have for your internal audit department, you know, what are you going to do, what are you not going to do, how do you want to be seen in the organization because understanding and having a clear picture of that strategy.
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Jason Mefford: Is going to help you as you are dealing with those people either as peers across the organization or as you go up in the organization to the other executives, the audit committee and the board. So the first one is strategy.
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Jason Mefford: The second one that you need to understand is rapport now rapport is a funny sounding word, but what it really means is you know, again, that’s one of the ways of developing
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Jason Mefford: rapport with other people how to actually do that because there’s some, there’s some psychological tricks and how you do it as well.
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Jason Mefford: And and it’s it’s complicated, it’s a little complicated and how you kind of lead and follow and lead and follow and some of the things that go along with that. But again, it’s important for you to understand how to develop and use rapport with your stakeholders.
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Jason Mefford: Now, the next one is is around relevance when it comes to stakeholders and and again here with the stakeholders.
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Jason Mefford: You know, one of the best ways that I’ve that I’ve, I’ve seen where it really describes what relevancy is
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Jason Mefford: Is thinking about what the other person wants to talk about and what you want to talk about where those two overlap is what’s relevant for you to talk about. Okay.
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Jason Mefford: So to kind of paint, paint a picture for this on, you know, if, let’s say that you’re at a, at a neighborhood barbecue or you’re at a family gathering
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Jason Mefford: And you know Uncle Joe comes up and Uncle Joe loves, He has some hobby or some passion that you could care less about you don’t want to hear about it.
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Jason Mefford: If Uncle Joe comes up and if that’s all that he wants to talk about the conversation really isn’t relevant for the two of you and you’re going to find a way pretty quick to get away from Uncle Joe Okay.
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Jason Mefford: However, if you find some common ground. Some area that both that is relevant to both of you, you’re going to have a much better conversation.
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Jason Mefford: And actually develop a better relationship. And so a lot of times, again, that’s why through rapport building
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Jason Mefford: You’re trying to understand where some of the commonalities are so that you can move into that relevance and and and be able to know how to talk
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Jason Mefford: To that person and understand what it is that they need and what they want.
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Jason Mefford: Okay, so that’s three out of four for stakeholders. The fourth one is influence and you’ve heard me talk about this, and a lot of different avenues.
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Jason Mefford: But I will tell you, my friends, understanding the principles of influence is one of the biggest things that you can learn as an executive
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Jason Mefford: Because, you know, and again, this comes from work done by by Robert Cialdini from Arizona State, he wrote a book. Many years ago called influence
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Jason Mefford: Where he went back and actually scientifically kind of looked at what are the six things that need to be in place for you to be able to influence other people
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Jason Mefford: And if you don’t know what those six are if you don’t know how to use those six, then you’re probably significantly disadvantage in your relationships.
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Jason Mefford: And that’s probably one of the reasons why you’re struggling and maybe can’t get people to listen to you or can’t get things like budget because you haven’t really established influence in your relationship with other people.
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Jason Mefford: So under stakeholders, the four areas again strategy rapport relevance and influence. Okay, so let’s move on now to our last section which is around managing relationships with your staff.
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Jason Mefford: Now in this area again i can i can tell you from my own personal experience of having managed people for a long time.
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Jason Mefford: You know some of the the most
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Jason Mefford: Fun and satisfying parts of my career have been in managing and working in developing with my staff.
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Jason Mefford: Some of the most painful difficult things that I’ve had to go through in my career have also related to staff. Okay.
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Jason Mefford: So you know if it’s going good. It’s us. It’s often going really good if it’s not, sometimes it can be one of the most painful areas for us to actually deal with
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Jason Mefford: And, you know, especially in our profession we don’t get taught a lot about how to actually manage your lead people
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Jason Mefford: Almost all of our training is about, you know, the technical stuff. How to Follow standards, how to be ethical how to take a statistical sample, how to write a report.
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Jason Mefford: None of those things actually really help you in managing your staff or your stakeholders. Okay.
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Jason Mefford: Now understaffed. Some of the areas that you need to get that you need to understand that you got that you got to work on and that you really have to be proficient in
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Jason Mefford: The first one is on culture now culture in this area is very similar to swat strategy was under the stakeholder area.
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Jason Mefford: You need to think about the type of culture that you want to have within your team.
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Jason Mefford: If you don’t have that as a starting place, it’s going to be difficult for you to know exactly what to do to develop motivate and manage people in your staff. Okay. So, you first have to kind of start with that culture.
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Jason Mefford: The next area is on delegation. Now, again, a lot of us because our of our personalities. And the reason that we’re
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Jason Mefford: We’re often drawn to this field is where we’re kind of control freaks. Okay, just to say it clearly. Right. And we usually like to control. We like to be perfect.
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Jason Mefford: You know, because we like perfection as well. Now that is usually the enemy to a leader into managers, because you must be able to delegate and delegate effectively and efficiently.
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Jason Mefford: Or else you’re doing all the work still. And so again, as I’ve said, you know, often I’ll talk to people in there. You know, I’m so burned out. I’m so tired.
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Jason Mefford: You know, I’ve I’m staying late I’m working the weekends. I’m doing all these kind of things. And when we dig into it a little bit deeper find out that they could probably delegate 20 hours of work that they’re doing.
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Jason Mefford: Themselves. So you know it, but it’s a matter of understanding how to do it the best ways to do it, how to how to go along with that and kind of
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Jason Mefford: You know, help get some of the stuff off of your plate as well. So delegation important
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Jason Mefford: The next one is around coaching and training and these are kind of put together because they’re similar, but they’re not completely similar
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Jason Mefford: But, you know, how do you coach and develop and get the training for your people now maybe one of the reasons why you haven’t been delegating is because you don’t feel like that person.
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Jason Mefford: Maybe is competent yet to take that over for you. Well, you’re never going to delegate it unless you actually coach and train them how to do it.
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Jason Mefford: And so it’s important to know how to do that and and there are some subtle nuances to coaching as well.
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Jason Mefford: That you know in this area really kind of go through and and talk to, because it’s to coach, somebody is not just to tell them what to do. It’s, it’s, it’s a lot different. And it actually takes some persuasion and take some understanding of psychology as well.
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Jason Mefford: But to be a really effective leader you you have to understand how to coach people as well, and not just not just dictate orders had them. Okay.
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Jason Mefford: The last one in this area is motivation. And again, you know, this is brought in, because, you know, a lot of times
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Jason Mefford: We might think hey you know where they are. People have a job. They should just be motivated anyway. Right. You know, I don’t need to motivate them.
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Jason Mefford: You know if they don’t do their job. They’re not going to get their paycheck and I’ve literally heard lots of managers talking about that.
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Jason Mefford: But I’ll tell you that’s that’s actually a manager making an excuse and playing a victim and it’s a chicken shit excuse. Okay.
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Jason Mefford: You need to understand how to motivate people. And here’s the issue, not everyone is motivated by the same thing.
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Jason Mefford: And so you actually have to understand more about the people on your staff understand what actually motivates them because this same thing will not motivate everyone, and that’s why you can see in companies that have very good you know performance.
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Jason Mefford: HR functions they use a combination of different types of motivation, different types of bonuses, different types of rewards. Because everybody
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Jason Mefford: Is motivated slightly different. Now for me, I could care less if I am ever employee of the month. Okay, I don’t care to see my big
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Jason Mefford: smiling face on a plaque in in the lunch room, but to some people being Employee of the Month is very, very important to them. Okay.
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Jason Mefford: And so again, that’s why motivation is one of those areas where you really need to be able to get in.
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Jason Mefford: And understand because again, once you’ve delegated things you’ve got to motivate coach train your people to be able to get the most performance out of them.
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Jason Mefford: Now, if you’re actually a really good leader, you shouldn’t be having to work very much in fact you know some of the some of the best chief audit executives. I know.
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Jason Mefford: They kind of asked me sometimes, they’re like, should I be doing something different because
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Jason Mefford: I don’t really feel like I’m all that busy. You know, it’s like everything is just working right. Well, it’s because they’re doing all of these things that we’ve been talking about.
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Jason Mefford: There shouldn’t be a whole lot of work for them left to do, right, because everybody else is doing it. Everything else is getting done. They’re just worried about managing themselves, their stakeholders and their staff relationships as it goes through
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Jason Mefford: So, okay, I hope that has been helpful. And again, you know, as we, kind of, you know, come back to the beginning again, you know, what did we learn from Harvard University studying
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Jason Mefford: You know, soft these men as they’ve grown up since 1938, you know, we learned that the key thing or the the main driver.
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Jason Mefford: Of their health and their happiness and the ability for them to live a long and happy life gets back to their relationships.
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Jason Mefford: And so again, that’s why. At the beginning, I’ve told you I i’ve read the I’ve seen this study for quite a while now.
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Jason Mefford: I’ve kind of watched the development of it and it keeps coming out with the same information. And as I’ve gone back as I’ve looked at a lot of the people that I’ve coached over the years.
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Jason Mefford: The challenges that people have the root cause of almost every challenge that people have
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Jason Mefford: Is an is a challenge with one of the relationships that they have either with themselves with their stakeholders, or with their staff.
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Jason Mefford: And so again, you’re going to hear me talking a lot more about this. Like I said, that’s why I put through this put together this whole executive leadership program.
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Jason Mefford: For people to go through. So, you know, if you’re the kind of person that wants to become
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Jason Mefford: A relationship ninja and actually be able to learn how to do all these things, how to incorporate these into your life, how to practice them so that they just become second nature.
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Jason Mefford: And, you know, if you’re the kind of person that wants to improve the quality of your relationships, both professionally and personally, then this is really the information that you need. So what I’m going to do is, I know I think I told you before, and even though it’s called the CIA briefing.
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Jason Mefford: Because it’s it’s designed for chief audit executives, but I realized, because actually one of the one of the people that I know responded on one of my posts and said,
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Jason Mefford: Well, Jason. Isn’t this really information that’s relevant to all of us. And I thought, you know what, you’re absolutely right.
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Jason Mefford: This is information that relates to everybody. And so I’m not limiting it to only chief out of executives.
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Jason Mefford: You know, if, if you’re that kind of person that wants to become a relationship ninja then get in the program. And, you know, as we talked about before. It’s like me. I gained a little bit away. Well, guess what folks I’m getting off the couch. I’m getting back into my, into my exercise routine.
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Jason Mefford: And you can do the same thing when it comes to relationships because really, at the end of the day, it all comes down to relationships.
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Jason Mefford: So with that, my friends, I’m wrapping this week and I’ll catch you on the next episode of jammin with Jason. Have a great rest of your week
