Todd Davis
Appearances
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
I think the number one priority for everyone in this world, professionally and personally, should be relationships. I think nothing is more important than our relationships. And I think if you ask anyone, regardless of what part of the world they live in, at the end of the day, if someone we care about needs our help, we drop everything to go help. If there's an urgency, an emergency.
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
So I just think it's our nature as human beings on this earth that relationships matter. And the foundation of all foundations in any relationship is trust. Whether it's my professional relationship with my boss or my colleague, whether it's a personal relationship with one of my friends or one of my kids or nieces or nephews, it's the level of trust that we have. Right.
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
Am I someone that's trustworthy? Do they trust me? Do I do what I say I'm going to do? Do I have integrity? And can I trust them? Doesn't mean we're perfect. Doesn't mean I never make a mistake or they never make a mistake. But it means that our intent is to do the right thing and to build that trust. So I believe trust is at the heart of every relationship, every good relationship.
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
And the lack of trust is, of course, at the heart of every bad relationship. And so building that trust, just like the example we were talking about earlier, if I'm a leader of multiple generations and I'm busy and I've got a lot to do, but I still take the time to understand each and every individual and what's important to them as far as flexibility, as far as recognition.
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
That builds trust with them because they know that I care about them. And some people hear it and they think, okay, so it's about being nice. Yeah, it's about being nice, but more importantly, it's about getting results.
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
And if I take the time to make what we call it in the seven habits, deposits in the emotional bank account of others, if I take time to make a deposit in your emotional bank account, it raises the level of trust. In the EBA or the emotional bank account, much like a financial bank account, we make deposits. And sometimes because we're human beings, we make mistakes. We take a withdrawal.
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
But if we've made enough deposits in the emotional bank account of the people who are most important to us, then when an accidental withdrawal happens, we don't bankrupt that relationship. There's enough trust built up in there. So that's my take and my philosophy on trust.
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
Yeah, I like that analogy as well. And with the analogy we use of making deposits, I bet you've experienced, I know I've experienced those people who they're making deposits, but they're not sincere deposits. You can tell something's going on. They're trying to schmooze you, a word we use in the U.S., to butter you up or to make you feel good because they need something. They need a favor.
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
They need you to do something for them. Instead of just being open and honest and saying, hey, I need your help. Would you be willing to help me with this? They try and build up this fake deposit, I guess is what I'm saying. It's being sincere. It's a huge part of our trust accounts with people.
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
Yeah, that's a tough question. That is a tough question. And I've answered it differently at different times. I've been asked something similar. But right now, and maybe it's just based on how the last couple of months have gone, habit number three is put first things first. It's the habit of focus and prioritization. And again, all of the habits work together.
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
But I think right now, with everyone with so much on their plates and everybody's being pulled in different directions, to decide... In Habit 3, we talk about how do you prioritize? Because it's not like we're choosing between good things and bad things to spend our time on. We're choosing between a lot of good things. But how do we decide what are the most important things?
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
If we can never get everything done... What are the most important things? Who are the most important people? And where am I spending my time every day and every week? And I think about we teach the principle or the concept of weekly planning and spending a time at the beginning of your week, whether it's Sunday night for a lot of people.
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
Sunday night, I take about 30 minutes and I connect back, first of all, with my mission. It's a written constitution that we put together. What do I say I'm all about? What do I think is most important to me? And then I connect with the most important roles in my life. My role was chief people officer as a coach or a consultant, as a parent with my kids. And I list those out.
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
And then I look at my coming up week, the week coming up. And I say, okay, a lot of my time is booked up with business things. But am I spending time sometime during the week in those most important roles? And the reason, for some reason, Vince, when that came to mind just now is because I think too many of us, we think about, I'm going to do this someday.
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
I'm going to start being better at this someday. And all of a sudden, a week turns into a month, turns into a year. And all of a sudden, the time has passed. And so by planning your week each week before the week begins...
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
is such a satisfying thing the weeks never go perfect but you get to the end of the week and you really feel like you've made some progress on what you have decided is most important to you so that's my answer right now yes figuring out priorities planning ahead and making progress step by step of course things don't always go as planned life isn't always organized
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
I agree 100%.
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
I couldn't agree with you more. In fact, I was just trying to find it here. We just ran and used a study. It was done here in the U.S. of 290 organizations that use AI at least once a week. So they're high users of AI, and their leaders were given a survey of what skills are most important for their success of the organization.
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
And there were, they have 25, I wish I could find, they have 25 skills laid out there, but the top three skills were creativity, interpersonal skills that you're just talking about and creativity, interpersonal skills. And I think it had empathy. So which is one of the interpersonal skills. But their point was, these leaders were saying, AI is wonderful.
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
It's doing a lot of things for us, but it cannot replace these interpersonal skills. This very basic, like you said, this very basic thing that I learned growing up from my parents as far as just respect and thank you and would you have a few minutes and the way that we not just nice things, but things to really connect with other human beings. Right.
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
And maybe I'll be wrong, but I don't see AI ever replacing that. Even now, I've used AI to put together, I had to do a keynote for a couple of hours with an organization on generational leadership. And I worked in that field and I've done that, but I still, I use ChatGPT and I said, hey, here's the elements I'd like to include. And it put a straw model together for me.
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
I had to apply my piece to that, but I think AI can be a very useful tool. But I think that human connection is, It's a principle. It's always going to be needed. Even if I ask ChatDBT to write me a letter or something, I'm going to want to go over it and make sure it has my tone and saying the things in the way that I want it to come across to the other person.
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
Again, my style, I would just call it out with people. I would talk, we would do some mass training on it. You got me thinking about, there was a person that I coached a while ago. This happened to be a woman and she was, she had, I believe, I know she had her PhD. I think she had two PhDs, very intelligent, very intelligent.
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
And she had been with the organization for a long time, with our organization for a long time, but nobody wanted to work with her. And they found, and she was super organized, like one of the most organized people I'd ever met. But because she was so organized, our strength becomes our weakness, right? And when things didn't go as planned, she had a really hard time adjusting.
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
And things never go as planned. And so she was quite unpleasant to work with. And this is a really good person. And they couldn't see it. They were passed over for another job and another job. And they came to me and said, I just don't get it. I applied for this job and I wasn't selected. And I have way more qualifications, you know, from an educational standpoint.
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
And I finally got the courage to talk to her. I didn't want to offend her. And I said, you know, I think I have an idea of what I see going on here. And they said, please, don't hold back. I need to know. So we started talking about these things. And it's so basic. But yet there are many really smart people who don't realize they're lacking.
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
For example, I would go into her and I'd say, OK, look at the emails you sent me. And I said, your email, this last one said, hey, Todd, when are you going to get me that report? And she said, was that offensive? And I said, I know you. So it wasn't offensive to me. But most people would say, hey, Todd, I hope you had a nice weekend and everything's going.
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
Do you think you'd have time to get me that report sometime this week? And she said, I don't do that because I don't want to waste people's time. I just want to be, you know, I want to be respectful. So it's something that subtle that this person, based on the age they grew up in, they didn't realize. No, it's just common courtesy.
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
It doesn't matter whether you're in Asia or whether we're in North America or whatever. Those are common courtesies. And so that's what you caused me to think of that. I think I'm.
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
maybe it's because of my age i don't have a hard time i'm very diplomatic about it but i just call out with people i say hey i've noticed something that is holding you back and i want to bring it to your attention yes email manner is very hard to teach some people don't even reply to emails If they're willing, and this person is so wonderful, and they were starved for the help.
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
They said, please help me. So they would send me their emails. And it's something, Vince, that none of us should ever take for granted. Just because you and I were raised a certain way or learned certain things, we should never assume. And I did assume, well, gosh, somebody was a PhD. They've got to know all this stuff. No, they don't.
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
And so she would send me her emails and say, would you review this before I send it out? They really wanted to get better. And she started to change. And I'm not taking credit for that. She did all the work. But I think this gets to the point you're making or that I'm trying to make is that we have to want to we have to be humble enough to say, I've got something to learn. I want to be self-aware.
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
And while I've been very accomplished in certain areas, where are some areas that I could get better in and be open to talking to other people and getting feedback?
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
No, you flatter me. And a couple of things I want to clarify. You are much younger than I am. I'm not saying our generation. You're much younger than I am. But I did have the analog upbringing as well. As you talk about this and you said something up very front, we first started talking about my time in the people field.
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
Whether I'm a baby boomer, whether I'm a Gen Xer, regardless of my generation, this is my belief. And I've seen it play out and work well for me. Everyone wants to matter. We show up differently, but we all want to matter. We all want to be a part of something that matters. We all want to contribute. We all want to know that we're making a difference.
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
And so the leaders I've coached that have several generations in their teams, I have said, yes, you have to talk to Joe different than you talk to Vince. And you have to talk to Vince different than you talk to Susan. But Remember, human beings, we all have this in common. We all care. We all want to matter. We all want to feel valued. We all want to make a difference.
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
And as a leader, I've learned that if I keep those fundamental principles in my mind regards to the generation I'm dealing with, then I realize, okay, yeah, this person, they want more flexibility in their, I'm making this up, but they want more flexibility in their workday. This person, it's more important to them to be recognized in front of everybody. This person
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
doesn't like to recognize inferiority that's fine i can treat all those people differently we pay for results right so if they're providing me for the results what do i care if they work five hours late at night and three hours during the workday now different industries have different requirements and they some people need to be in the office and some people need to be facetime but i have coached so many leaders when they've said i think people especially after coven
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
A lot of organizations need people to come back to the office. And I would say, dad, help me understand why they need to be in the office just so I can see what they're doing. Okay, so did their productivity drop when they were working from home? No, in fact, one of them had actually increased. Okay, so why do they, if they don't want to come back to the office, What are you paying them for?
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
To see them at their desk or for what they produce? And again, I'm learning too.
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
I don't have all the answers, but if we can get back down to the basics of human beings and what's important and try and put ourselves in their shoes, we can not only treat them with the language and the way they want to be treated, they're going to be that much more engaged and they're going to bring that much more of their best selves to work every day.
Chief Change Officer
#246 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part Two
I went all over with that one, Vince, but that's my response.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
Absolutely. And I could. Yeah. And I know we only have an hour, but I and so I won't take all that time. But two things came to mind just now when you asked that, Vince. The first, this happened many years ago. We got a letter at Franklin Covey from a man who was in prison. He was incarcerated in prison. I don't know what crime he'd committed, but he had been in prison for about 20 years.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
And he wrote our company a letter and he said, I want you to know the seven habits of highly affected people has changed my life. It was in their prison library, and he picked it out, didn't know anything about it. And he said, as I started reading this, I looked back over my life, and I could see areas where I could have made a different choice.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
And he said, even here in the prison, and I don't know whether he has the lifetime sentence or not, but he said, even here in the prison, I am learning how to be much more proactive, how to think win, have an abundance mindset, Habit five, seek first to understand, then to be understood.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
And he talked about his communication with the warden and with other prisoners and how this book had changed his life, even in this very challenging and sad situation. And again, he was there because of some choices he had made, but that was really powerful.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
More specifically, so many of the situations I found myself in, helping leaders work a problem out between the two of them or helping an employee work with a leader better, We would reflect on all of the habits, but what I want to call out specifically is Habit 5 that I just mentioned. First to understand, then to be understood. This habit is based on the principle of respect and empathy.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
And so the point here is that as human beings, whether I live in the U.S., whether I live in Hong Kong, wherever, we have a tendency to listen to others with the intent to reply. Right. We're listening to someone and we may not be talking over them. We may be eye contact and nodding. But in our minds, we're already formulating what we want to say next. And it doesn't come from a bad place.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
We're helpers. We're fixers. We want to solve the problem. And so we hear just enough of what the other person is saying that we think, oh, I know how to solve this. Or I know what I've dealt with this before. I know what their problem is. And instead of continuing to listen to them, our mind is already working on the solution.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
And again, those aren't bad, but people who are truly effective, those leaders who are truly effective, they, I love the word suspend. I'm assuming it translates the same, but suspend is to not give up on, but to put aside for a minute, my thoughts, my feelings, my response, and truly hear the other person. as much as I can, put myself in their place.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
And I found a lot of people, they hesitate to do that because they think, gosh, if Vince is talking and I'm totally listening, they're going to think I'm agreeing with them. And people don't. If you just listen, you're not agreeing or disagreeing. You're just listening with the intent to truly understand. not to reply.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
That is one of the most effective tools any human being, certainly leaders, but can do. I'll bet you have people in your life, Vince, that are like that. They don't judge. They're not advising or probing. They're just listening to understand. And yes, they may say something like, so when you say that frustrates you, tell me a little bit more about that. They're totally in your space.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
It is one of the most effective habits we can develop.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
Thank you, Vince. Really appreciate your invitation.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
you said it perfectly. And I think you used a word a few minutes ago when you said, be curious, ask questions. In the course, in the book, and in my coaching, we talk about moving from I bet to I wonder. I bet Joe comes in late to work every day because he's probably as unorganized at home as he is here in the office. Two, I wonder why Joe seems so stressed out and hurried when he comes in.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
I wonder what's going on. I should maybe take some time and get to understand him better. So it's what you said, Vince, it's this natural curiosity, or maybe it's not so natural. Maybe it's this, but this mindful curiosity to have this active listening versus autobiographical listening. where we're listening through our own frame of reference.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
We're filtering everything through my past experiences or the way that I see that. And we think it's helpful, and it is helpful at a certain time, but not when we need to understand each other. Dr. Covey said, the deepest need of the human heart is to feel understood. And I have seen that prove itself out over and over again.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
And you think about it, whether it's two friends or whether it's two colleagues or two leaders or a leader and employee, when they truly take the time to understand each other, not agree or disagree, but really understand each other, they can solve problems that much quicker. You asked for a specific example that I'm remembering now.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
A person who came to me, they didn't feel like their boss recognized their talent. And I said, tell me a little bit more about that. Why is it that you don't think that your boss, it was a man? And why do you not think that he recognizes your talent? I just never hear anything. I don't hear anything negative, but I never hear anything positive. I never hear anything, you know, about that.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
And I said, have you talked to him about that? And they said, no. No, I haven't talked to him. I would think that they should realize that on their own. I said, I don't disagree with you. Let's think about what do you think would be important to him? And I did a little T chart. And I said, okay, so here's what's important to you from what I'm understanding.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
You'd like to be recognized a little bit more. You'd like to be given some more challenging work. We went through the list of the things and they said, yeah, that's it. What do you think would be important to him? And this person said, I don't know, I'm not him. And I said, I understand that, but put yourself in his place. What do you think would be important to him?
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
And this was a really seasoned, talented person, but they just, it didn't come natural to them like it might to you and me to think about empathy through the lens of the other person. So they said they probably want to make sure that they're recognized. And I said, okay, let's put that down. They probably want to make sure that the project we're working on is done on time.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
Okay, let's put that down. They probably care that they're seen as a good leader. So we came up with this list. And I coached this person and I said, what do you think about, what if you took this list to your manager, your leader? And you said, hey, and I'll call him Joe. Hey, Joe, I had some things I want to talk to you about.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
But I also, in my thinking, I wanted to make sure I'm thinking about what's important to you. And here's a list I've created. Can you tell me, am I off? Am I on? Are there things I'm missing? And that discussion opened up this wonderful relationship between this leader and this employee. And in that discussion, the employee then said, I work really hard.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
And the leader said, oh, I know you do a great job. And they said, I never know that. You've never told me that. And so this person helped the leader develop. Anyway, long story short, this all stems from Habit 5 and really taking time to understand each other.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
I couldn't agree with you more. In fact, we just, I was just trying to find it here. We just used, ran and used a study. It was done here in the US of 290 organizations that use AI at least once a week. So they're high users of AI and their leaders were given a survey of what skills are most important for their success of the organization.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
And there were, they have 25, I wish I could find, they have 25 skills laid out there, but the top three skills were creativity, interpersonal skills that you're just talking about and creativity, interpersonal skills. And I think it had empathy. So which is one of the interpersonal skills. But their point was these leaders were saying, AI is wonderful.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
It's doing a lot of things for us, but it cannot replace these interpersonal skills. This very basic, like you said, this very basic thing that I learned growing up from my parents as far as just respect and thank you and would you have a few minutes and the way that we not just nice things, but things to really connect with other human beings.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
And maybe I'll be wrong, but I don't see AI ever replacing that. Even now, I've used AI to put together, I had to do a keynote for a couple of hours with an organization on generational leadership. And I worked in that field and I've done that, but I still, I use ChatGPT and I said, hey, here's the elements I'd like to include. And it put a straw model together for me.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
I had to apply my piece to that, but I think AI can be a very useful tool. But I think that human connection It's a principle. It's always going to be needed. Even if I ask ChatDBT to write me a letter or something, I'm going to want to go over it and make sure it has my tone and saying the things in the way that I want it to come across to the other person.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
Thank you. Thank you so much. So, yes, I have been with FranklinCovey for almost three decades. Prior to that, I worked in the medical industry for about 10 years, and I was a recruiter. I recruited physicians and other medical personnel to staff hospitals and to staff clinics for a couple of organizations here in the western United States where I live. and did that for about 10 years.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
And then some friends of mine, they decided to form their own outsourcing company for human resource functions, for people functions. And so they had an attorney to handle employment law and they had a benefits person. And they asked me, because I had been in recruiting for so long, to join them and recruit for these various companies. And so organizations would contract with our group
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
provide these human resource services instead of hiring those kind of people inside their firm so we would contract with companies to provide those services and what was then called the Covey Leadership Center it was before Covey had merged with Franklin they were one of our clients and so they contracted with us and I was involved in finding their consultants to ironically to do what I do now finding their sales people and different things like that
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
And I had read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People about a year before I started working, being a contractor for them. And I was blown away by the content and how it was helping me already change my life. And this was 30 years ago. And so I loved being a contractor for them. And then they said... that they wanted to bring recruitment in house. They wanted to hire a recruiter.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
So I see my hat in the ring and interviewed and was selected. So I started my journey with FranklinCovey as their recruitment manager. And then if I'm going too long, you tell me to speed it up. But I worked as a recruitment manager. And then I had in a previous life, I had worked as a content developer, putting together training programs.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
So after I recruited for Covey for a while, we merged with Franklin Quest. Franklin Quest in the US here was the time management company. They have the Franklin Day Planner. And everybody over here in the US had these day planners. They were very famous for that. And Covey Leadership Center, as you mentioned, was famous for the seven habits.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
And so we merged those companies and I went to work for their innovations department where we developed our training, different training solutions. And I did that for several years. And then the CEO at that time came to me, this would be about 20 years ago now, came to me and said, we would like you to apply for the chief people officer role. The person that was in that role had left.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
And I said, that's great, but I don't have any human resource experience. I had recruited, but I didn't know anything about labor laws or employee relations or any of that. And he said, I know that, but you're really good with people. That's what he said. You're really good with people. So I applied for it and along with some other candidates and I was selected.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
And so I immediately surrounded myself with really talented people in the human resource area. And so that was about 20 years ago. And I did that. I was the chief people officer for 18 years. And then a couple of years ago, well, about three years ago, we started recruiting for my replacement because I wanted to move into the role that I'm in now.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
And so for the last year and a half, almost two years, I've been a full-time consultant where I go out and deliver our training. I do keynotes. I do podcasts, things like we're doing today. So that was probably a long-winded answer to your short question, but that's been my journey.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
It'd be amazing. You and I have had a couple of calls now, and I find you so fascinating. You understand human nature so well. You'd be really great at this, Vince. We have international partners. We're a global company. We've been in the leadership space for four decades, 40 years.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
And so, as you said, here in the US, we say this with humility, but we're touted as the most trusted leadership organization because we've been in the space for so long. But we have offices all around the world and we have licensee partners that also cover Hong Kong and China. And so anyway, yeah, let's for sure talk about that after.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
Thank you. That's a great setup and so many important topics you capture in that. So when Dr. Stephen R. Covey, who is the author of The 7 Habits, when he first wrote The 7 Habits 35 years ago, what he did prior to that is all of his research was around effectiveness, like you said up front. And we define effectiveness.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
People think of effectiveness as getting a lot of things done or being successful or whatever. We define effectiveness as getting things done, but not just anything, getting the right things done, the things that move you forward, the things that move your organization forward, your team forward.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
And not just once, but how do we get results today in a way that allows us to get even better results over and over again in the future? So that was the organizations and the people he studied, people that seemed to be able to do that. And then he identified the principles that were at work with these people doing that. And he put them into a format.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
He calls them the seven habits, put them into a format that we could talk about them, understand them, and most importantly, start to implement them into our lives. And so the reason that I have found that these have been as relevant, more relevant today than they were when Dr. Covey first wrote about them was because they're based on principles, principles of effectiveness.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
And principles, as we know, were as true a million years ago as they will be a million years from now. They don't change. Now, the application changes, the way we put them to work changes in this ever-changing world. But the principles themselves don't ever change. And so this book is timeless.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
And I have found in my space, in the people space, if I remember these principles and I treat others in a principle-centered way, we can solve things. We can move forward. We can get past issues and help everyone move forward and progress. That's been my experience.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
Yeah, great question. So it's been out 35 years. The book has, the book is, there might be a forward that's updated. There might be, but the principles haven't changed. The habits themselves haven't changed. We don't really rewrite the book, but about every eight to 10 years, we have a work session that goes along with the book. We have many work sessions.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
We have 29, 30 different work sessions in different areas of business. But the seven habits is our foundational piece. And the work session that is about two full days worth of content. And that can be taught consecutively. That can be taught spread out. There's an on-demand. You can self-paced. That changes.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
We update that about every eight to 10 years because the application and how we put these practices or these principles to work change. And so that's what we have just launched. And what has changed in this most recent version? We just continually make them more practical, more applicable, more inclusive.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
When I say simplify, anyone who's read The Seven Habits, it is a firehose of powerful information. And sometimes people just don't know where to start. They understand it all, but they don't know how to apply it.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
And so this latest version, we've made it very, I don't want to say simplified, but very practical so that I can go through the course and I can start applying these principles tomorrow or tonight in my personal relationships and certainly in my professional relationships. Could you give us one example? You bet.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
I'm happy to walk through all the habits, but let me just tell you, habit one is very foundational. It's habit one for a reason. It's called be proactive. And it's based on the principle of choice. The principle being that while there is so much you and I cannot influence or change, we can choose our response to any situation.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
In fact, when I have looked at your LinkedIn profile, Vince, and your background and history, And you've had some amazing experiences and some very challenging experiences. And I've thought about the choices that you have made, the way you have chosen to respond to those situations. You know, we can't always create or fix the situation, but we can choose our response.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
So that's the principle in Habit 1. And with the mindset, we look at a paradigm for every habit. And the paradigm in Habit 1 is... I can't change how things are, so I just have to go with the flow. That's a common mindset. It's not very effective. The effective mindset is I make my own choices and I'm responsible for my own happiness that comes from those choices.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
And that's what I mean you do when I think about you. So with that mindset, Then I learn, okay, what are the behaviors I want to model? There are three behaviors or practices that we teach in Habit 1. The first is to pause before we respond, to separate stimulus from response. We have to think about that because reactive response just happens. We don't have to think about it.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
But a proactive response, we have to separate stimulus from response and decide how we want to respond. What's the most effective way? That's the first practice. The second practice is to work within what we call our circle of influence versus our circle of concern. We can be concerned with everything going on in the world and problems at work and policies and things like that. But
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
Staying within that circle of concern actually shrinks our circle of influence. Effective people, they recognize these things that we're concerned about, but then they go into the inner circle and say, what can I do about this? Where can I start to make an impact or live differently? And then the third thing we talk about, the third practice, just in Habit 1, is using proactive language.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
And the science shows that it's not just talk positively and things will happen. It actually programs our brain. The positive language Proactive language opens up the creative portions of our brain and the synapses in our brain to come up with more solutions versus reactive language shuts down that creativity. There's an activity we do to get to your question. There's an activity.
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
One of the activities we do there is people. write a sentence, I may not be able to, and then they fill in the blank, but I can, and then they fill in that blank. So for example, I may have been in my role for a long time at my organization, and I love the organization, but I'm tired of my role. In that activity, they would put, I may not be able to change my role,
Chief Change Officer
#245 Todd Davis: 30 Years at FranklinCovey—7 Habits They Don’t Teach in Business School — Part One
But I can look at other opportunities within the company to, you know, change up what I'm doing every day. So it's training people how to actually use proactive language. I don't know if that's responsive, but that's... You've got seven habits.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
In fact, there's risk in relying too much on technology. For example, collaboration. There are billion-dollar collaboration tools But in some ways, they're actually dehumanizing the way we work together. So at the end of the day, it's not just about having the right tools. It's about keeping humanity at the center, making sure we don't lose the human touch as we build and use digital solutions.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
And that brings me to trust. You talk about trust a lot, and I agree with you, it's critical. But right now, trust in the workplace is fragile. Employees don't trust their employers, especially with all the layoffs, disengagement, and burnout. We see things like quiet quitting and mass resignations. So in a world where trust is fading, how do we rebuild it?
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
From your perspective, what mindsets or habits help strengthen trust in the workplace? What can leaders do to make trust real again?
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
I think the number one priority for everyone in this world, professionally and personally, should be relationships. I think nothing is more important than our relationships. And I think if you ask anyone, regardless of what part of the world they live in, at the end of the day, if someone we care about needs our help, we drop everything to go help. If there's an urgency, an emergency.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
So I just think it's our nature as human beings on this earth that relationships matter. And the foundation of all foundations in any relationship is trust. Whether it's my professional relationship with my boss or my colleague, whether it's a personal relationship with one of my friends or one of my kids or nieces or nephews, it's the level of trust that we have.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
do am i someone that's trustworthy do they trust me do i do what i say i'm going to do do i have integrity and can i trust them doesn't mean we're perfect doesn't mean i never make a mistake or they never make a mistake but it means that our intent our intent is to do the right thing and to build that trust so i believe trust is at the heart of every relationship every good relationship
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
and the lack of trust is of course at the heart of every bad relationship and so building that trust just like the example we were talking about earlier if i'm a leader of multiple generations and i'm busy and i've got a lot to do but i still take the time to understand each and every individual and what's important to them as far as flexibility as far as recognition
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
That builds trust with them because they know that I care about them. And some people hear it and they think, okay, so it's about being nice. Yeah, it's about being nice, but more importantly, it's about getting results.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
And if I take the time to make what we call it in the seven habits, deposits in the emotional bank account of others, if I take time to make a deposit in your emotional bank account, it raises the level of trust. In the EBA or the emotional bank account, much like a financial bank account, we make deposits. And sometimes because we're human beings, we make mistakes. We take a withdrawal.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
But if we've made enough deposits in the emotional bank account of the people who are most important to us, then when an accidental withdrawal happens, we don't bankrupt that relationship. There's enough trust built up in there. So that's my take and my philosophy on trust.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
Yeah, some people use another analogy, which is insurance policy. You keep contributing, and at some point something happens. And that's how you're supposed to draw on the policy to cover the downside of that situation.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
Yeah, I like that analogy as well. And with the analogy we use of making deposits, I bet you've experienced, I know I've experienced those people who they're making deposits, but they're not sincere deposits. You can tell something's going on. They're trying to schmooze you, a word we use in the U.S., to butter you up or to make you feel good because they need something. They need a favor.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
They need you to do something for them. Instead of just being open and honest and saying, hey, I need your help. Would you be willing to help me with this? They try and build up this fake deposit, I guess is what I'm saying. And being sincere is a huge part of our trust accounts with people.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
Hi, everyone. Welcome to our show, Chief Change Officer. I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host. Our show is a modernist community for change progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. Today, we are talking about leadership, trust, and why AI still can do what humans do best.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
Yeah, like you mentioned, so much of what we've talked about comes down to human nature, which is universal. It doesn't matter where you're from, your culture, your background, these workplace challenges exist everywhere.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
I like to call them human intelligence. We live in a world where AI drives the conversation every day. It's about artificial intelligence. But what I've noticed over the past 10 to 15 years is a huge decline in human intelligence. I don't just mean things like empathy or resilience. I'm talking about basic skills such as speaking, writing, listening. We have ears, we have eyes, we have a mouth.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
That's actually one of the reasons I created this show, to engage people from all walks of life, from different parts of the world, because burnout, disengagement, and workplace struggles aren't just happening in the US. They are happening everywhere. The difference? In some places, people just don't express it as openly as Americans do.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
They might not say, I'm quitting my job tomorrow, but that doesn't mean they aren't feeling the same pressure. That's why I've really enjoyed this conversation. These are real global challenges. So as we conclude, let's go back to the seven habits.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
Each of them is important, but if someone wanted to start with just one, the foundation of all seven, the habit that if mastered properly would make it easier to develop the rest. Which one would it be and why?
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
Yeah, that's a tough question. That is a tough question. And I'd answered it differently at different times. I've been asked something similar, but right now, and maybe it's just based on how the last couple of months have gone. Habit number three is put first things first. It's the habit of focus and prioritization.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
And again, all of the habits work together, but I think right now with everyone with so much on their plates and everybody's being pulled in different directions to, to decide in habit three, we talk about how do you prioritize? Because it's not like we're choosing between good things and bad things to spend our time on.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
We're choosing between a lot of good things, but how do we decide what are the most important things if we can never get everything done? What are the most important things? Who are the most important people? And where am I spending my time every day and every week?
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
And I think about, we teach the principle or the concept of weekly planning and spending a time at the beginning of your week, whether it's Sunday night for a lot of people, Sunday night, I take about 30 minutes and I connect back, first of all, with my mission. It's a written constitution that we put together. What do I say I'm all about? What do I think is most important to me?
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
And then I connect with the most important roles in my life. My role was chief people officer, as a coach or a consultant, as a parent with my kids, and I list those out. And then I look at my coming up week, the week coming up, and I say, okay, a lot of my time is booked up with business things, but am I spending time sometime during the week in those most important roles?
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
And the reason, for some reason, Vince, when that came to mind just now is because I think too many of us, we think about, I'm going to do this someday. I'm going to start being better at this someday. And all of a sudden, a week turns into a month, turns into a year. And all of a sudden, the time has passed. And so by planning your week each week before the week begins,
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
is such a satisfying thing. The weeks never go perfect, but you get to the end of the week and you really feel like you've made some progress on what you have decided is most important to you. So that's my answer right now.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
Yes. Figuring out priorities, planning ahead, and making progress step by step. Of course, things don't always go as planned. Life isn't always organized. But what matters is knowing what to focus on, where to put your energy, and what truly deserves your attention. Being effective, whether as a person, a leader, or in any role, isn't just about doing more or doing things faster.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
It's about doing the right things. And that brings us full circle to what effectiveness really means, putting your energy into what matters most. At the end of the day, it comes down to being human, practicing human skills, using our eyes to observe, our ears to listen, our voices to communicate, These are what make us unique as a species.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
Yes, AI is powerful, is an amazing tool, but it's just that, a tool. I actually spoke with another guest about this recently. How moving forward, everyone will need their own AI strategy. That's right. Not just companies, but individuals. We need to be mindful about how we use AI, when to use it, and what we shouldn't outsource to it.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
Because we still need to develop our own skills, our own intelligence, and our own wisdoms. AI can assist, but we are the ones who bring meaning, creativity, and judgment to the table.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
I agree 100%.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
That's where I'll leave you. We've covered trust, leadership, and why human intelligence is the real key to the future of work. The real question now is, what's one thing you can do today to build trust in your own team? Think about it. Big thanks to Todd for sharing his wisdom.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
Yet, so many people don't even know how to communicate like real human beings. Some don't even know when to say thank you or sorry. And now people are outsourcing their thinking to AI. Writing, which is so deeply connected to thought, analysis, and expression, is being handed over to tools like ChatGPT. I worry that if we continue down this path, we'll start losing the art of being human.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
What do you think? Is this a real risk? And if so, how do we stop it?
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
I couldn't agree with you more. In fact, we just, I was just trying to find it here. We just used, ran and used a study. It was done here in the US of 290 organizations that use AI at least once a week. So they're high users of AI and their leaders were given a survey of what skills are most important for their success of the organization.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
And there were, they have 25, I wish I could find, they have 25 skills laid out there, but the top three skills were creativity, interpersonal skills that you're just talking about, and creativity, interpersonal skills, and I think it had empathy, so which is one of the interpersonal skills. But their point was they, these leaders were saying, AI is wonderful.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
It's doing a lot of things for us, but it cannot replace these interpersonal skills. This very basic, like you said, this very basic thing that I learned growing up from my parents as far as just respect and thank you. And would you have a few minutes and, and the way that we not just nice things, but things to really connect with other human beings.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
And maybe I'll be wrong, but I don't see AI ever replacing that. Even now, I've used AI to put together, I had to do a keynote for a couple of hours with an organization on generational leadership. And I worked in that field and I've done that, but I still, I use ChatGPT and I said, hey, here's the elements I'd like to include. And it put a straw model together for me.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
I had to apply my piece to that, but I think AI can be a very useful tool. But I think that human connection It's a principle. It's always going to be needed. Even if I ask ChatDBT to write me a letter or something, I'm going to want to go over it and make sure it has my tone and saying the things in the way that I want it to come across to the other person.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
I am a Gen X. I'm 52, so I did not grow up in the digital world. I grew up analog. I was taught to write letters with pen and paper. If I didn't know a word, I look it up in a real dictionary, a thick one. That's how I learned English. No Google, no smartphone. Of course, as technology evolved, I adapted. I learned to use a calculator, then a PC, then Google when I went to business school.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
But the difference is, people like you and me had that analog foundation. We embraced new technology, but we already have those roles and core skills built in. So even now, when I use AI, I'm very mindful of how I use it. I still write my own emails. I don't just say, hey, generate this for me. I don't want AI replacing my skills. It's really just a tool, no different from a hammer.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
But I worry about those who never had that training, who never built those basic skills to begin with. If they're not careful and mindful, they will outsource everything to AI without realizing they're missing out on actual self-development. And that's a real problem in the workplace. We keep hearing how CEOs want employees with strong interpersonal skills.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
There was even an article the other day about HR leaders saying that they don't want to hire Gen Z because they lack social skills. So Todd, if you were still a chief people officer today and you saw this trend happening, where younger employees aren't developing and refining core human skills because they over relied on AI tools, what would you do? How would you approach this issue?
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
What can companies do to mitigate this before it becomes an even bigger problem?
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
Again, my style, I would just call it out with people. I would talk, we would do some mass training on it. You got me thinking about, there was a person that I coached a while ago. This happened to be a woman and she was, she had, I believe, I know she had her PhD. I think she had two PhDs, very intelligent, very intelligent.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
My guest is Todd Davis, former chief people officer at Franklin Covey, a properly listed leadership training company. Todd is the expert behind the bestseller, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. And I spent 30 years coaching leaders and managers on how to actually work well with people. In this two-part series, we get into the real stuff.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
And she had been with the organization for a long time, with our organization for a long time, but nobody wanted to work with her. And they found, and she was super organized, like one of the most organized people I'd ever met. But because she was so organized, our strength becomes our weakness, right? And when things didn't go as planned, she had a really hard time adjusting.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
And things never go as planned. And so she was quite unpleasant to work with. And this is a really good person. And they couldn't see it. They were passed over for another job and another job. And they came to me and said, I just don't get it. I applied for this job and I wasn't selected. And I have way more qualifications, you know, from an educational standpoint.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
And I finally got the courage to talk to her. I didn't want to offend her. And I said, you know, I think I have an idea of what I see going on here. And they said, please, don't hold back. I need to know. So we started talking about these things. And it's so basic, but yet there are many really smart people who don't realize they're lacking.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
For example, I would go into her and I'd say, okay, look at the emails you sent me. And I said, your email, this last one said, hey, Todd, when are you going to get me that report? And she said, was that offensive? And I said, I know you. So it wasn't offensive to me. But most people would say, hey, Todd, I hope you had a nice weekend and everything's going.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
Do you think you'd have time to get me that report sometime this week? And she said, I don't do that because I don't want to waste people's time. I just want to be, you know, I want to be respectful. So it's something that subtle that this person, based on the age they grew up in, they didn't realize, no, it's just common courtesy.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
It doesn't matter whether you're in Asia or whether we're in North America or whatever. Those are common courtesies. And so that's what you caused me to think of that I think.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
i'm maybe it's because of my age i don't have a hard time i'm very diplomatic about it but i just call out with people i say hey i've noticed something that is holding you back and i want to bring it to your attention yes email manner is very hard to teach some people don't even reply to emails If they're willing, and this person is so wonderful, and they were starved for the help.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
They said, please help me. So they would send me their emails. And it's something, Vince, that none of us should ever take for granted. Just because you and I were raised a certain way or learned certain things, we should never assume. And I did assume, well, gosh, somebody was a PhD. They've got to know all this stuff. No, they don't.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
And so she would send me her emails and say, would you review this before I send it out? They really wanted to get better. And she started to change and I'm not taking credit for that. She did all the work. But I think this gets to the point you're making or that I'm trying to make is that we have to want to, we have to be humble enough to say, I've got something to learn. I want to be self-aware.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
And while I've been very accomplished in certain areas, where are some areas that I could get better in and be open to talking to other people and getting feedback.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
The next question ties directly to what we just discussed. We had the unique opportunity to experience life before the digital world, which of course reveals our age, but it also means we understand both sides, analog and digital. Now we are in a cross-generational workforce, but it's chaotic. If you listen to the media, here's what they say. Gen Z doesn't want to work.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
Millennials are burned out. Gen X is getting laid off. Baby boomers are not retiring. Every generation gets labeled. Each has its own set of challenges. So I want to pick your brain on this. From your experience, how should companies approach the situation?
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
And looking at the seven habits, do you think any of them could help teams and organizations take better control of generational diversity in a way that is more effective?
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
No, you flatter me. And a couple of things I want to clarify. You are much younger than I am. I'm not saying our generation. You're much younger than I am. But I did have the analog upbringing as well. As you talk about this, and you said something up very front when we first started talking about my time in the people field.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
Whether I'm a baby boomer, whether I'm a Gen Xer, regardless of my generation, this is my belief. And I've seen it play out and work well for me. Everyone wants to matter. We show up differently, but we all want to matter. We all want to be a part of something that matters. We all want to contribute. We all want to know that we're making a difference.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
And so the leaders I've coached that have several generations in their teams, I have said, yes, you have to talk to Joe different than you talk to Vince. And you have to talk to Vince different than you talk to Susan. But Remember, human beings, we all have this in common. We all care. We all want to matter. We all want to feel valued. We all want to make a difference.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
And as a leader, I've learned that if I keep those fundamental principles in my mind regards to the generation I'm dealing with, then I realize, okay, yeah, this person, they want more flexibility in their, I'm making this up, but they want more flexibility in their workday. This person, it's more important to them to be recognized in front of everybody. This person
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
Why most leaders think they are clear in communicating and giving instructions, but they aren't. How trust is built like a bank account. and why human intelligence is still the biggest competitive advantage. Oh, there's a wild story about these seven habits changing someone's life in the prison. Let's dive right in. A lot of what you talk about in your book, you call them skills, human skills.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
and doesn't like to recognize inferiority, that's fine. I can treat all those people differently. We pay for results, right? So if they're providing me for the results, what do I care if they work five hours late at night and three hours during the workday? Now, different industries have different requirements and some people need to be in the office and some people need to be FaceTime.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
But I have coached so many leaders when they've said, I think people, especially after COVID, A lot of organizations need people to come back to the office. And I would say, dad, help me understand why they need to be in the office just so I can see what they're doing. Okay, so did their productivity drop when they were working from home? No, in fact, one of them had actually increased.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
Okay, so why do they, if they don't want to come back to the office, What are you paying them for? To see them at their desk or for what they produce? And again, I'm learning too.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
I don't have all the answers, but if we can get back down to the basics of human beings and what's important and try and put ourselves in their shoes, we can not only treat them with the language and the way they want to be treated, they're going to be that much more engaged and they're going to bring that much more of their best selves to work every day.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
I went all over with that one, Vince, but that's my response.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
I completely agree with you. In the digital world, we've become so used to relying on technology to solve problems. And yes, technology is powerful, but at the end of the day, it's just a tool. The other day, in another interview about AI, I said, it's not just about AI. Before AI, we had apps. Before apps, we had software. But to me, apps are no different from a hammer or a screwdriver.
Chief Change Officer
#388 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part Two
We live in a tool economy. There's always some tools to fix something. And sure, tools are useful. I need a screwdriver when I need to fix something, but it can't fix everything. Now we're entering the era of AI agents. By the end of this year, we'll see even more AI solutions, both for businesses and individuals. They will solve some problems, but they won't solve everything.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
Absolutely, and I could, yeah, and I know we only have an hour, and so I won't take all that time, but two things came to mind just now when you asked that, Vince. The first, this happened many years ago. We got a letter at Franklin Covey from a man who was in prison. He was incarcerated in prison. I don't know what crime he'd committed, but he had been in prison for about 20 years.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
And he wrote our company a letter, and he said, I want you to know the seven habits of highly affected people has changed my life. It was in their prison library and he picked it out, didn't know anything about it. And he said, as I started reading this, I looked back over my life and I could see areas where I could have made a different choice.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
And he said, even here in the prison, and I don't know whether he has the lifetime sentence or not, but he said, even here in the prison, I am learning how to be much more proactive, how to think win, how about for us to think win, have an abundance mindset, Habit five, seek first to understand, then to be understood.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
And he talked about his communication with the warden and with other prisoners and how this book had changed his life, even in this very challenging and sad situation. And again, he was there because of some choices he had made, but that was really powerful.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
More specifically, so many of the situations I found myself in helping leaders work a problem out between the two of them or helping an employee work with a leader better. We would reflect on all of the habits, but what I want to call out specifically is habit five that I just mentioned. First to understand, then to be understood. This habit is based on the principle of respect and empathy.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
And so the point here is that as human beings, whether I live in the US, whether I live in Hong Kong, wherever, we have a tendency to listen to others with the intent to reply. We're listening to someone and we may not be talking over them. We may be eye contact and nodding. But in our minds, we're already formulating what we want to say next. And it doesn't come from a bad place. We're helpers.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
We're fixers. We want to solve the problem. And so we hear just enough of what the other person is saying that we think, oh, I know how to solve this. Or I know what I've dealt with this before. I know what their problem is. And instead of continuing to listen to them, our mind is already working on the solution.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
And again, those aren't bad, but people who are truly effective, those leaders who are truly effective, I love the word suspend. I'm assuming it translates the same, but suspend is to not give up on, but to put aside for a minute, my thoughts, my feelings, my response, and truly hear the other person. as much as I can put myself in their place.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
And I found a lot of people, they hesitate to do that because they think, gosh, if Vince is talking and I'm totally listening, they're going to think I'm agreeing with them. And people don't. If you just listen, you're not agreeing or disagreeing. You're just listening with the intent to truly understand. not to reply.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
That is one of the most effective tools any human being, certainly leaders, but can do. I'll bet you have people in your life, Vince, that are like that. They don't judge. They're not advising or probing. They're just listening to understand. And yes, they may say something like, so when you say that frustrates you, tell me a little bit more about that. They're totally in your space.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
It is one of the most effective habits we can develop.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
Thank you, Vince. Really appreciate your invitation.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
you said it perfectly. And I think you used a word a few minutes ago when you said, be curious, ask questions. In the course, in the book, and in my coaching, we talk about moving from I bet to I wonder. I bet Joe comes in late to work every day because he's probably as unorganized at home as he is here in the office. Two, I wonder why Joe seems so stressed out and hurried when he comes in.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
I wonder what's going on. I should maybe take some time and get to understand him better. So it's what you said, Vince, it's this natural curiosity, or maybe it's not so natural. Maybe it's this, but this mindful curiosity to have this active listening versus autobiographical listening.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
where we're listening through our own frame of reference, where we're filtering everything through my past experiences or the way that I see that. And we think it's helpful, and it is helpful at a certain time, but not when we need to understand each other. Dr. Covey said, the deepest need of the human heart is to feel understood. And I have seen that prove itself out over and over again.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
And you think about it, whether it's two friends or whether it's two colleagues or two leaders or a leader and employee, when they truly take the time to understand each other, not agree or disagree, but really understand each other, they can solve problems that much quicker. You asked for a specific example that I'm remembering now.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
A person who came to me, they didn't feel like their boss recognized their talent. And I said, tell me a little bit more about that. Why is it that you don't think that your boss, it was a man? And why do you not think that he recognizes your talent? I just never hear anything. I don't hear anything negative, but I never heard anything positive. I never hear anything, you know, about that.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
And I said, have you talked to him about that? And they said, no. No, I haven't talked to him. I would think that they should realize that on their own. I said, I don't disagree with you. Let's think about what do you think would be important to him? And I did a little T chart and I said, okay, so here's what's important to you from what I'm understanding.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
You'd like to be recognized a little bit more. You'd like to be given some more challenging work. We went through the list of the things and they said, yeah, that's it. What do you think would be important to him? And this person said, I don't know, I'm not him. And I said, I understand that, but put yourself in his place. What do you think would be important to him?
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
And this was a really seasoned, talented person, but they just, it didn't come natural to them like it might to you and me to think about empathy through the lens of the other person. So they said they probably want to make sure that they're recognized. And I said, okay, let's put that down. They probably want to make sure that the project we're working on is done on time.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
Okay, let's put that down. They probably care that they're seen as a good leader. So we came up with this list and I coached this person and I said, what do you think about, what if you took this list to your manager, your leader, and you said, Hey, and I'll call him Joe.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
Hey, Joe, I had some things I want to talk to you about, but I also, in my thinking, I wanted to make sure I'm thinking about what's important to you. And here's a list I've created. Can you tell me, am I off? Am I on? Are there things I'm missing? And that discussion opened up this wonderful relationship between this leader and this employee.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
And in that discussion, the employee then said, I work really hard. And the leader said, oh, I know you do a great job. And they said, I never know that. You've never told me that. And so this person helped the leader develop. Anyway, long story short, this all stems from Habit 5 and really taking time to understand each other.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
I couldn't agree with you more. In fact, we just, I was just trying to find it here. We just used, ran and used a study. It was done here in the US of 290 organizations that use AI at least once a week. So they're high users of AI and their leaders were given a survey of what skills are most important for their success of the organization.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
And there were, they have 25, I wish I could find, they have 25 skills laid out there, but the top three skills were creativity, interpersonal skills that you're just talking about and creativity, interpersonal skills. And I think it had empathy. So which is one of the interpersonal skills. But their point was, these leaders were saying, AI is wonderful.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
It's doing a lot of things for us, but it cannot replace these interpersonal skills. This very basic, like you said, this very basic thing that I learned growing up from my parents as far as just respect and thank you. And would you have a few minutes and the way that we not just nice things, but things to really connect with other human beings.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
And maybe I'll be wrong, but I don't see AI ever replacing that. Even now, I've used AI to put together, I had to do a keynote for a couple of hours with an organization on generational leadership. And I worked in that field and I've done that, but I still, I use ChatGPT and I said, hey, here's the elements I'd like to include. And it put a straw model together for me.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
I had to apply my piece to that, but I think AI can be a very useful tool. But I think that human connection is, It's a principle. It's always going to be needed. Even if I ask ChatDBT to write me a letter or something, I'm going to want to go over it and make sure it has my tone and saying the things in the way that I want it to come across to the other person.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
Thank you. Thank you so much. So yes, I have been with FranklinCovey for almost three decades. Prior to that, I worked in the medical industry for about 10 years and I was a recruiter. I recruited physicians and other medical personnel to staff hospitals and to staff clinics for a couple of organizations here in the Western United States where I live. and did that for about 10 years.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
And then some friends of mine, they decided to form their own outsourcing company for human resource functions, for people functions. And so they had an attorney to handle employment law and they had a benefits person. And they asked me because I had been in recruiting for so long to join them and recruit for these various companies. And so organizations would contract with our group
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
provide these human resource services instead of hiring those kind of people inside their firm so we would contract with companies to provide those services and what was then called the Covey Leadership Center it was before Covey had merged with Franklin they were one of our clients and so they contracted with us and I was involved in finding their consultants to ironically to do what I do now finding their sales people and different things like that
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
And I had read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People about a year before I started working, being a contractor for them. And I was blown away by the content and how it was helping me already change my life. And this is 30 years ago. And so I loved being a contractor for them. And then they said, that they wanted to bring recruitment in-house. They wanted to hire a recruiter.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
So I threw my hat in the ring and interviewed and was selected. So I started my journey with FranklinCovey as their recruitment manager. And then, if I'm going too long, you tell me to speed it up. But I worked as a recruitment manager. And then I had, in a previous life, I had worked as a content developer, putting together training programs.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
So after I recruited for Covey for a while, we merged with Franklin Quest. Franklin Quest in the U.S. here was the time management company. They had the Franklin Day Planner. And everybody over here in the U.S. had these day planners. They were very famous for that. And Covey Leadership Center, as you mentioned, was famous for the seven habits.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
And so we merged those companies and I went to work for their innovations department where we developed our training, different training solutions. And I did that for several years. And then the CEO at that time came to me, this would be about 20 years ago now, came to me and said, we would like you to apply for the chief people officer role. The person that was in that role had left.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
And I said, that's great, but I don't have any human resource experience. I had recruited, but I didn't know anything about labor laws or employee relations or any of that. And he said, I know that, but you're really good with people. That's what he said. You're really good with people. So I applied for it and along with some other candidates and I was selected.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
And so I immediately surrounded myself with really talented people in the human resource area. And so that was about 20 years ago. And I did that. I was the chief people officer for 18 years. And then a couple of years ago, well, about three years ago, we started recruiting for my replacement because I wanted to move into the role that I'm in now.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
And so for the last year and a half, almost two years, I've been a full-time consultant where I go out and deliver our training. I do keynotes. I do podcasts, things like we're doing today. So that was probably a long-winded answer to your short question, but that's been my journey.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
It'd be amazing. You and I have had a couple of calls now, and I find you so fascinating. You understand human nature so well. You'd be really great at this, Vince. We have international partners. We're a global company. We've been in the leadership space for four decades, 40 years.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
And so, as you said, here in the US, we say this with humility, but we're touted as the most trusted leadership organization because we've been in this space for so long. But we have offices all around the world and we have licensee partners that also cover Hong Kong and China. And so anyway, yeah, let's for sure talk about that after.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
Thank you. That's a great setup and such an important, so many important topics you capture in that. So when Dr. Stephen R. Covey, who is the author of The 7 Habits, when he first wrote The 7 Habits 35 years ago, he would, what he did prior to that is all of his research was around effectiveness, like you said up front.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
And we define effectiveness, people think of effectiveness as getting a lot of things done or being successful or whatever. We define effectiveness as getting things done, but not just anything, getting the right things done, the things that move you forward, the things that move your organization forward, your team forward.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
And not just once, but how do we get results today in a way that allows us to get even better results over and over again in the future? So that was the organizations and the people he studied, people that seemed to be able to do that. And then he identified the principles that were at work with these people doing that. And he put them into a format.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
He calls them the seven habits, put them into a format that we could talk about them, understand them, and most importantly, start to implement them into our lives. And so the reason that I have found that these have been as relevant, more relevant today than they were when Dr. Covey first wrote about them was because they're based on principles, principles of effectiveness.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
And principles, as we know, were as true a million years ago as they will be a million years from now. They don't change. Now, the application changes, the way we put them to work changes in this ever-changing world. But the principles themselves don't ever change. And so this book is timeless.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
And I have found in my space, in the people space, if I remember these principles and I treat others in a principle-centered way, we can solve things. We can move forward. We can get past issues and help everyone move forward and progress. That's been my experience.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
Yeah, great question. So it's been out 35 years. The book is, there might be a foreword that's updated. There might be, but the principles haven't changed. The habits themselves haven't changed. We don't really rewrite the book, but about every eight to 10 years, we have a work session that goes along with the book. We have many work sessions.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
We have 29, 30 different work sessions in different areas of business. But the seven habits is our foundational piece. And the work session that is about two full days worth of content, and that can be taught consecutively, that can be taught spread out. There's an on-demand, you can self-paced.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
That changes, we update that about every eight to 10 years because the application and how we put these practices or these principles to work change. And so that's what we have just launched. And what has changed in this most recent version? We just continually make them more practical, more applicable, more inclusive.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
When I say simplify, anyone who's read The Seven Habits, it is a firehose of powerful information. And sometimes people just don't know where to start. They understand it all, but they don't know how to apply it.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
And so this latest version, we've made it very, I don't want to say simplified, but very practical so that I can go through the course and I can start applying these principles tomorrow or tonight in my personal relationships and certainly in my professional relationships. Could you give us one example? You bet.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
So I'm happy to walk through all the habits, but let me just tell you, habit one is very foundational. It's habit one for a reason. It's called be proactive. And it's based on the principle of choice. The principle being that while there is so much you and I cannot influence or change, we can choose our response to any situation.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
In fact, when I have looked at your LinkedIn profile, Vince, and your background and history, And you've had some amazing experiences and some very challenging experiences. And I've thought about the choices that you have made, the way you have chosen to respond to those situations. You know, we can't always create or fix the situation, but we can choose our response.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
So that's the principle in Habit 1. And with the mindset, we look at a paradigm for every habit. And the paradigm in Habit 1 is... I can't change how things are, so I just have to go with the flow. That's a common mindset. It's not very effective. The effective mindset is I make my own choices and I'm responsible for my own happiness that comes from those choices.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
And that's what I mean you do in your, when I think about you. So with that mindset, Then I learn, okay, what are the behaviors I want to model? There are three behaviors or practices that we teach in habit one. The first is to pause before we respond, to separate stimulus from response. We have to think about that because reactive response just happens. We don't have to think about it.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
But a proactive response, we have to separate stimulus from response and decide how we want to respond. What's the most effective way? That's the first practice. The second practice is to work within what we call our circle of influence versus our circle of concern. We can be concerned with everything going on in the world and problems at work and policies and things like that.
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
But staying in that circle of influence actually shrinks, excuse me, staying within that circle of concern actually shrinks our circle of influence. Effective people, they recognize these things that we're concerned about, but then they go into the inner circle and say, what can I do about this? Where can I start to make an impact or live differently?
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
And then the third thing we talk about, the third practice, just in Habit 1, is using proactive language. And the science shows that it's not just talk positively and things will happen. It actually programs our brain. The positive language
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
proactive language opens up the creative portions of our brain and the synapses in our brain to come up with more solutions versus reactive language shuts down that creativity. There's an activity we do to get to your question. There's an activity. One of the activities we do there is people
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
write a sentence, I may not be able to, and then they fill in the blank, but I can, and then they fill in that blank. So for example, I may have been in my role for a long time at my organization, and I love the organization, but I'm tired of my role. In that activity, they would put, I may not be able to change my role,
Chief Change Officer
#387 Todd Davis: Inside 30 Years at FranklinCovey—What Most Leaders Still Get Wrong — Part One
But I can look at other opportunities within the company to, you know, change up what I'm doing every day. So it's training people how to actually use proactive language. I don't know if that's responsive, but that's... You've got seven habits.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
And so how do we learn to prioritize and determine what are the most important things? I can't do it all. Nobody can do it all. So how do effective people decide what am I going to accomplish this day, this week, and what am I going to be okay with not getting to? In this age of technology, that's one of the most important questions I think we can figure out for ourselves.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
that might take anywhere from three months to a year. One person I was working with, they have this goal of running a marathon, and they were set on that. And so they visualize, and I'm sure your listeners are familiar with visualization exercises, but they visualize the day they accomplish that goal. They just crossed the finish line of the marathon.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
Or this one gentleman, he was building an addition to their home, and he had never been a general contractor before, but he just finished cutting the ribbon, so to speak, on their new addition. And they visualize every detail and they partner up and they tell their partner, they talk for 10 minutes each about what it feels like.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
I just crossed the finish line and I'm getting all these cheers and people are handing me roses and I pick them up. And it's just this defining our outcomes before we act, beginning with the end in mind. And people come out of that and they go, wow, I can do this. I know I can do this now. I'm super excited to get started. So anyway, sorry, I get passionate and I talk too much.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
No, tell me.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
Yeah, I love that example. I'm going to borrow that from you too, because to your point, music. For most people, it's such an inspirational element in a visualization exercise. So that's, yeah, that's very cool. Same idea for sure.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
To be open to AI. I would tell any of them. Now, I don't think AI will ever replace the interpersonal skills that we're talking about and the emotional intelligence. But I can't tell you how many times I've had to, we'll get a customer assignment from a client. I was just teaching a course on leading generations. And while I've done a fair amount of work in leading different generations,
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
I'll use chat GPT and say, hey, here's the elements I want to add and here's what I want to talk about. Boom, it'll pop out a pretty sophisticated skeleton or framework that of course needs your element now, your personal touch. But I usually get the question, how do we make sure that AI doesn't, is there still a need for seven habits because of AI? I usually get the opposite.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
We just did or participated in and read the reviews of a study of 290 business practitioners that use AI on a regular basis. And they were asked in this survey, what are the most important skills, even with all that AI can do for us, what are the most important skills that are needed to grow your business? And the top three were integrity,
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
But to your question, Heather, it is the seven habits are based on principles of effectiveness. Dr. Covey, Stephen R. Covey, who made the point who wrote the book and made the point always that he didn't invent the habits. What he did was.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
creativity and interpersonal skills or human skills, things that AI can't really do. I don't know that AI will ever be able to listen to you or me empathically and reflect back to us what we're really feeling, but boy, I would embrace it. I apologize that I'm not the expert on telling you all the ins and outs of AI, but I just know from a practical standpoint,
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
how much it's helped me to get my creative thinking going by asking a question or saying, help me develop a framework for such and such. And then it's a great starting point for me to take off from.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
Yeah, well, in our 7 Habits, we have a learning platform at Franklin Covey that all of our content, not just 7 Habits, but all of our work solutions are on. And we have a platform for that so that it measures, in companies and organizations, it measures the learner's progress and growth. And in the seven habits portion of the platform, there is an AI tool to practice empathic listening.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
And so you can set up a situation in this tool that we have through AI on the platform, and you can put together a scenario. Okay. This person, I'll go back to the friend that didn't like you or the person that didn't like you. Okay, I work with someone, and for whatever reason, we are not syncing. And everything I say, she criticizes or he criticizes.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
And so you can feed that information to it and say, I'd like to have a conversation. How would you begin the conversation? And AI will say to you, I would start by saying, Joe, I'm really hoping that we can get to a great working relationship. And I want you to know my only intent in bringing this up is to see if we can figure out how to improve our communication skills.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
You know, it'll tell you things to say. You're going, oh, wow, that's a really, and you're writing down notes. I'm going to say that. I'm going to say that. So, I mean, that's just one example of AI out in the world, but how we use it on the platform to practice communication. seek first to understand, then to be understood.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
watch individuals like heather and other people who were so effective in their roles and teams and organizations how effective they were and watched what do they do on a consistent basis to get not just get any results but get the results they're really seeking and then he put those principles into a context that we could discuss them and talk about them and so all of that is to say because these are based on principles of effectiveness they are as relevant today if not more so than they were when dr covey first wrote about them
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
Thanks for calling that out, Heather, because that is why, while this was written 35 years ago, it's based on principles that are true. Gravity was true forever and will be true forever. These are principles. So they don't age out. Now their applications age out. The way we use them, we have to change all the time.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
And so to your well-stated point, the way we use those now in this world of technology and all of the being proactive, putting first things first, how about three? Boy, putting first things first has always been difficult. But now when we have so much information coming at us, you know, in every minute, I mean, think about that.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
I can't imagine your email piling up right now while you're taking this time with me. And so how do we learn to prioritize and determine what are the most important things? I can't do it all. Nobody can do it all. So how do effective people decide what am I going to accomplish this day, this week? And what am I going to be okay with not getting to?
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
In this age of technology, that's one of the most important questions I think we can figure out for ourselves.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
Yeah. In the 7 Habits course, in the work session, we go into workshop activities where people use very real situations, and they have to pick a situation they're comfortable sharing with somebody. And then people have reps that they can only ask questions. They cannot comment or advise or probe. They just have to say, well, gosh, so how did that make you feel?
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
And of course it feels scripted and it feels a little bit uncomfortable, but it gets people understanding that how much they didn't even realize they kind of respond autobiographically. You know, it's human nature to listen with the intent to reply. I'll bet everybody that's listening right now
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
if they're being truthful, would say, yeah, there are many times when I'm face-to-face with someone, they're talking and I'm not talking and I'm looking at them and I'm nodding my head, but in my mind, I'm already formulating my response. We all do it. And I think it comes, I believe it comes from a good place. It's not helpful, but it comes from a place that we want to help. We want to solve.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
We want to fix. And so I hear just enough of what you're saying to think, oh, I know how to solve this. As soon as she stops talking, I'm going to jump in and And while that sounds helpful, because my brain is focused on what I'm going to say, I'm missing out on half or three-fourths of what you're saying. And so habit five, based on the principle of respect, we're saying suspend those feelings.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
Don't throw them away, but suspend your thoughts, your response long enough to really hear the other person to the point where when they finished, you say, gosh, help me understand more about that. Or when you said frustrated, tell me what about that. And I'll tell you, when you start to listen with empathy to someone, they are shocked, but shocked in a good way because so few of us do it.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
And so you have that person, those people, and when we do it – when I was the chief people officer for 18 years, this is very true. I can't tell you how many times I'd be in my office with two leaders that didn't get along or even just one-on-one with someone that were trying to work out a problem. And if we were there for an hour, I would talk maybe I'll bet eight to 10 minutes of that hour.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
They talked the rest of the time. And so we'd finish this session and I would almost start laughing because they would say, God, this was so helpful. Thank you so much. I can't believe you are just so wise. And I'm thinking, well, I didn't say much of anything. I just listened. But that is the power.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
of really listening with empathy, not trying to have all the answers, but helping others really be reflective of what they're feeling and what they're thinking. I mean, I loved your example of the interaction you had with this person who you realized, and hopefully it was unintentional on her part, but where she was just kind of manipulating the whole conversation with this marionette puppet.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
And a good listener can help somebody come to that realization and saying, so help me understand why you respond like that. Well, because she says this thing and it triggers me. Okay, but do you have to be triggered? Is that something you could, you know, and I'm not trying to get into therapy here. I'm just saying empathic listening.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
We care about these relationships at work and in our personal lives. We'll truly seek first to understand.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. So someone will say, I will change the names to protect the innocent. But someone was frustrated that they weren't getting any recognition for the work they were doing. And they were on this project team, and they said, you know, and I'll just use Joe as the leader. Joe never calls me out.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
I helped put together that whole third hour of this work session, or I helped put together that spreadsheet. And when the executive team was congratulating themselves, Joe never said anything. well, I want you to know that Sam did a lot of this too, and she was great at this. And I say, okay, so do you think Joe was wanting to make them think that he did it all?
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
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And this person, Joe said, no, I don't think that. I said, you are obviously a very thoughtful person. Do you think Joe is even aware that he's doing that? I don't know. I said, have you ever had a conversation with Joe? Have you just told him, not in an angry way, but just say, hey, Joe, maybe I'm being too sensitive, but I kind of felt like when we met... No, I've never said that.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
Would you be willing to say, I mean, I don't want you to feel uncomfortable, but is that something you'd feel comfortable doing? And this person would say to me, well, how would you say that? And I'd tell them. So that's just an example, just helping people come to their own, realizing that there aren't tons of bad people in the world. Well, I don't know. Maybe there are.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
But I think most people have good intent. They just may not be as self-aware people. as they'd like to be. So I will get out a T-chart all the time and I'll say, okay, so in listening to you, here's what I understand is important to you. What do you think is important to Fred? And so many people, mature, educated people would say, well, I don't know. I'm not Fred. I know that.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
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But if you were in Fred's role, what do you think would be important, Fred? Well, He'd want to make sure that the project's done on time. Okay, let's put that down. What else? Well, we probably want to make sure that we do this with excellence.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
And it's so interesting to coach people and get them in the mindset of thinking about the other person, putting themselves in the place of the other person. So those are some very real outcomes of taking time to understand each other.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
You bet. Happy to do that. One other thing that you just brought to mind when we talked about irrelevancy, I was out delivering a keynote two weeks ago now, and a gentleman came out to me after. He was probably in his mid-50s, and he said, Todd, I got to tell you, my son just graduated college in Portland. And he called me two nights ago and said, Dad, I just read the most amazing book.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
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I couldn't agree more, Heather. And you just caused me to think of, I remember somebody, a senior leader, when I was coaching this person on this, they said, well, my concern is if I just ask a couple of questions, let them talk all the time while they're talking, I don't agree with them, Todd. And so if I keep letting them talk, and I said, that's the part you got to be comfortable with.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
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They're not thinking you agree with them. You're just creating this safety, this space for them to express their opinion. But really listen, don't be thinking the whole time, I don't agree with you, be really hearing them out. Ask some clarifying questions. So I bring that up because I know a lot of people think, well, if I don't talk, they're going to think I'm agreeing with them. They're not.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
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They're just appreciative that you're hearing them out. And if you've truly heard them out and you say, OK, so you see it this way. Gosh, I really respect that. My take on it is this, but I heard you, and I understand why you're seeing it that way.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
I want to think about this, but even in the end, if you end up going against the fact that you heard them out, you're going to have so much more buy-in and so much more of an engaged employee by doing that. That's been my experience.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
I love that because the whole thing about building effective relationships, I mean, you think about the most meaningful, impactful, effective relationships in your life. I think about it in my mind. Trust is kind of the foundation of those things. And trust doesn't mean we see everything alike. Trust doesn't mean that you always agree with me. Trust means that I hear you. I respect you.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
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I respect your opinion. I don't sugarcoat things. I talk directly or talk straight with you. But I balance courage and consideration. And so I think the greatest relationships, both in professional life and personal life, have this near perfect balance of courage and consideration. I can say anything to you as long as I say it with respect, true respect.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
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And I also can listen and ask you questions and have this considerate consideration as long as I'm doing it respectfully. So balancing courage and consideration, I think, is the key to building trust in our relationships. And there's a really cool exercise we do in 7 Habits. It's called the emotional bank account and thinking about our emotional bank account with others.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
Have you ever heard of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People? And the gentleman's name was Ross. We both laughed. But in addition to laughing, I just thought, isn't it amazing how timeless these are? You know, this recent college grad is reading is going, wow, this is going to make a huge difference in my life.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
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Much like a financial bank account, in our emotional bank account, we make deposits and we take withdrawals. But unlike a financial bank account, We should never be making deposits in the emotional bank account of others with the intent of taking it all.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
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I had this experience I wrote about in one of the books you cited where this long lost friend I hadn't talked to him for I can't remember how many years. And he called out of the blue. It was so awesome. We've been such great friends. And he was talking for like 45 minutes. And we're just connecting. We ought to go to lunch. And towards the very end of the conversation, he said.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
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Hey, oh, by the way, do you guys still get discount tickets to that ski thing? And it was so funny, Heather, because I thought you took 45 minutes. I would have been okay if you'd called and said, hey, Todd, I feel so bad we haven't connected for years, and I'd love to do that. I wanted to find out if you still get discount tickets, and I also want to set up lunch, but instead we did this dance.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
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So that would be an example of making not a very sincere deposit emotional account with the intent of taking a withdrawal. In the course, we do this activity that's really powerful.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
You think about an important relationship in your life, professional or personal, and then you go through on this document and you document the last five interactions you had with that person, whatever it was, the last five interactions. You've got to really think about it, and then you've got to think about how you think that person felt. Well, for mine, I picked my spouse.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
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Many people pick professional relationships. I picked my spouse because I had been traveling a lot. I'd been gone a lot. And the last five interactions were like quick phone call, quick goodbye. And how did she feel? Dismissed, rushed, whatever. And boy, you look at that.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
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And then we ask the question, this important relationship, what if we were to multiply those last five interactions, say 50 times or 500 times, what would be the impact of
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
on that relationship and so we talk all about this with you know the level of trust you have in a relationship and kind of putting the brakes on things and saying i'm going to be a little bit more thoughtful about the interactions i have with the most important people in my life so trust is really i think the key to every one of the habits that we're talking about here
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
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Exactly. Exactly. We follow up by that. I don't want to be giving the whole course here. I mean, I know we don't have time for that, but we follow that activity by in the class. We say, OK, we're going to take five or 10 minutes right now. I want you to make a deposit in the emotional bank account of someone important to you. It could be the person you just did the last five interactions.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
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And so people take time with their smartphones and they'll send a text or an email to someone. And this happens every time somebody in the class will say, okay, I just got a text back from my partner. And he said, has someone stolen your phone or who is this?
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
So to give a quick overview, we'll do the Reader's Digest condensed version for those who are new to Seven Habits. The seven habits, the whole intent of the seven habits is to become even more effective than we are right now. And to become effective, we want to reach this maturity level of interdependence. So they're built around a framework we call the maturity continuum.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
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It's terrible and it's kind of humorous as well. But it's the wake up call for a lot of us, whether it's a colleague at work, whether it's someone in our personal lives, to just make sure we're being a little more meaningful with those most important relationships in our life.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
Yeah, the book is the book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, one of the best-selling, if not the best-selling business book of all time, 40 million copies sold. The course is two days worth of content. So it's taking each of the habits.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
First, we start with some foundational principles, which we talked about paradigms, and we dive deep into our paradigms and how they shape everything we do. And then we go into the habits and we take hours, a couple of hours on each habit with understanding the habit, how to apply it in our current situations at work and at home. And it's taught over two days. It's taught.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
concentrated you know like i said it can be two full days back to back live and in person it can be two full days virtually online like we're talking right now we'll have a whole class of you know 20 i just finished a class with 34 people for two days it can be dot spread out sometimes people take a habit a week we get together every week there's an on-demand version so there are modules where i can just do it self-paced every which way
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
So organizations, we work primarily with organizations of really any size. When I'm thinking of organizations I've worked with, we have about 70 consultants that do what I do. We also have... a certification program where we will certify your own trainers, people in your company, employees of yours that can then continue to roll this out.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
A lot of people make it part of their orientation program because seven habits is really can be a great framework for the culture of any organization. So people will usually choose to say, okay, I want to have this team go through 7 Habits and we'll pilot it here and then we might roll it out to other teams within the organization.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
So there's a lot of different ways that people decide to deploy this based on what they're trying to accomplish. An organization may have a lot of turnover going on and people are understanding really the value that they contribute to the organization. 7 Habits is used a lot for that because we understand our personal worth and what we're doing for the organization.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
So it's all about individual effectiveness. We have a role called a client partner. We have people in the organization that can work with your organization to determine, you know, what is the best solution for what you're trying to achieve.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
It most, you know, seven happens is a great starting place, but it might be the speed of trust, which is another work session, five choices to extraordinary productivity, the four disciplines of execution. We're big on numbers here. So we have a lot of, a lot of numbers in our titles.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
Yeah, thank you for asking. If they'll go to just our website, which is simply our name, www.franklincovey.com. There's a search engine there. They can look up anything and everything. And there's a whole All Access Pass Care team that will respond to them and make sure that they get routed to the right people to find out what they want to accomplish.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
And we start out in the world as dependent. You know, we have the mindset of you're responsible for me. Tell me what to do. It's not my fault. That kind of mindset. And that's fine. Of course, when you're a newborn, you're dependent on everybody to take care of you. But have you ever worked with an adult who's dependent and tell me what to do and it's not my fault? Yeah.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
Thank you for inviting me. And thanks for those great ideas you shared that I'm going to start using now if they're not copyrighted.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
I will do that.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
And so the goal, of course, is to move from that stage to becoming independent. And the first three of the seven habits are what move us from being dependent to independent. Habit number one is to be proactive. And to your point, these are very simple, but says easy, does hard is what I have found out. So to be proactive is all based on the principle of choice.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
There's so much we can't change or even influence, but we can choose our response to any situation. And so in habit one, being proactive, we learn how to be more thoughtful in our responses. We don't just let a stimulus or a response crash into the stimulus. We separate stimulus from response. We learn to work within our circle of influence. versus our circle of concern.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
And we learn to use proactive language, the science that shows the words we use shape the creativity or open up the creativity in our brain so that we can come up with more effective solutions. So that's Habit 1. Now, I could ramble on all day, so I want to pause after Habit 1 to see if you have any questions or if I'm talking too much.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
Yes, foundational, because I mean, if you and I give up our freedom to choose what our life's going to be like or, you know, well, then there's no need to even go into the other six habits. So it's foundational. This be proactive, say, wait a minute, I'm in charge of my life. I'm not going to give up that choice to the outside circumstances or other people.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
Well, if I'm in charge of my life, that leads me to habit two, which is begin with the end in mind. And this habit is based on the principle of purpose. I like to think of it as habit one, I've decided I'm the captain of my ship. So habit two, begin with the end in mind, I got to chart my course. I got to decide what is it that I'm going to do with this life of mine.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
And then habit three is to put first things first. And this is based on the principle of focus. I'm the captain of my ship. I chart my course. Well, now I got to set sail. I got to take action. It's where the rubber meets the road. And these three habits, like I said, move us from dependence to becoming independent. And they help us attain what we call the private victory.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
It's where we become trustworthy. People who do those three things, you think about them in your life. You can count on them. They do what they say they're going to do. They're trustworthy people. And that moves us up to independence where we're now ready to start building trust with others. And that leads us into the next three habits. Habit number four is to think win-win.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
And this habit is based on the principle of abundance. You know, how do we all win together? I want to find out what's a win for Heather, and I want Heather to know what's a win for me. Well, if we're really having this mindset or this attitude of win-win, that leads us to Habit 5, seek first to understand, then to be understood.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
I want to make sure we have a win-win relationship, so I'm going to take time to understand what's a win for you. And then you hopefully want to learn what's a win for me. And habit five, seek first to understand, then to be understood, is all based on the principle of respect. I respect you enough.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
It doesn't mean that I have to agree with you on everything or whatever, but I respect you enough to really understand your point of view. And once we've done that, we have this mindset of win-win. We've taken time to understand each other. Then we can easily move to habit six, which is synergize. This is based on the principle of creative collaboration.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
We may not always get to synergy, and we can talk about what synergy is, but synergize, creative collaboration.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
If we have a win-win mindset, you and I, and if we take time to understand each other, we can leave our egos at the door now and start to really brainstorm and come up with third alternatives, which is what we say synergy is, an idea that's way better than yours or mine, but something we can create together.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
Those three habits form what we call the public victory because we're winning with others now. We have this trust that we're building with others. And then surrounding, if just picture a circle around those six habits is habit seven. Habit seven is sharpen the saw. This is the habit based on the principle of renewal.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
I liken it to the instructions we're given when the plane's taking off and the flight attendant says, if cabin pressure drops, you're to put your mask on first. And I bet when I was a little kid and I first heard that, I probably thought, well, no, my mom told me to put everybody else's mask on them first. But the principle in Habit 7 is to sharpen your own saw.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
Put your mask on first, not because you're selfish, but because by doing so, you can do then so much more for everybody else to be that much more effective. So sharpening the saw is Habit 7, and it's really the gas in the engine for all the other habits.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
That's a great, yeah, such a great question. So obviously reading the book, this book has sold over 40 million copies. It's just, it blows my mind. It's translated into, I think, 38 different languages now around the world, 40 million copies, and continues to sell thousands of copies every month. So we can read it. But to your point, okay, I can read this and say, gosh, this makes sense.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
How do I become this? In the work sessions, and we update the work session, the seven habits, it's called the seven habits effect. We update that about every eight to 10 years. We just launched our newest version, seven habits 5.0. And so that's why we appreciate you inviting us on the podcast and why I'm out traveling the globe to do overviews of what we're talking about here.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
But in the work sessions, we dive deep. It's two days worth of content that can be delivered, concentrated over two days back to back, spread out, virtual, on demand. And in the work sessions, we go in and study a particular habit. Let me back up here. The most significant thing about learning any habit is But particularly the seven habits is something we call the see-do-get model.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
It's our paradigms. The way we see things influences everything we do. And of course, we know what we do gives us the results we get. But what is so powerful about developing any habit is backing up and saying, wait a minute, am I seeing this situation, this person, this relationship accurately? Or am I seeing it how I'm just convinced myself that it is?
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
For example, if I'm a micromanager, I bet people are familiar with micromanagement. If I'm a micromanager, how do I see my people? Well, I probably see them as incompetent. So I got to do everything for them or I got to criticize, hover over, triple check. And if that's what I do, what kind of results do we get? Poor, mediocre at best. And then I see those poor results.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
And what do I say to myself as the micromanager? See, they are idiots. I got to micromanage even more. It becomes this self-fulfilling prophecy all driven by an inaccurate or an incomplete paradigm. So to your question, with each habit, we start out with a paradigm. Habit one, be proactive. An ineffective paradigm might be, hey, this is just the way things are. There's not much I can do about it.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
And I've been there before. I think we can drift into that. But a proactive or a highly effective paradigm is I am free to choose and I'm the one responsible for my choices. And if we take that paradigm on, then in Habit 1, there are three specific practices that we dive deep into with activities and rinse and repeat, as you say. We learn ways to separate stimulus from response.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
We talk about what's the last time you were reactive and what did that feel like? What would be some better ways to respond? How do we learn to pause before we respond? And it might be as simple as I count to 10 or I do box breathing or whatever.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
Or it might be something that I look at my last week and I look at those times I was reactive and I write down because those things are going to repeat themselves again and I want to be prepared. So there are activities like that that we do throughout the days. And they are – and I know I sound dramatic here, but I'm telling you from my experience – they are life-changing.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
They are powerful where all of a sudden – I've got a long ways to go, but I think about just in that one habit how much more proactive I am today than I was when I started with Franklin Covey 29 years ago. So – They are tried and tested and true. I mean, let's stop and think about having the right undergarments.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
Well, thanks for the invitation. And maybe we could just read that over again. That felt really good. I love being introduced.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
Well, you're very gracious. Thank you very much. And thanks for inviting me.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
How could someone not like you, Heather? What are you talking about? There are a few people out there.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
Oh, that's a good visual. Yeah.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
I'm not going to participate. I love that example. I'm going to borrow that if you don't mind. I love that. Please put it in the course. I'd love for you to do that. You just reminded me of one of the other activities. It sounds so simplistic. It is so powerful. We do this. We have participants write a I may not be able to statement. And so they have to write a statement.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
I may not be able to, and then they fill in the blank, but I can, and they fill in the blank. So for example, someone's in a company they really love, but they're kind of burned out on their role. They've done it for so many years and they just, they want to stay at the company, but, and the company's not going to change their role.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
So I may not be able to change my role, but I can explore other areas of the company where I might be interested in looking. And people, again, it sounds so simple, but people have these real aha moments going, Wait a minute. I can make a choice here. I have more influence than I think I do. One lady, though, I got to tell you, she wrote this table was laughing. This is about a month ago.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
This table was laughing. I went over. I said, OK, what's so funny here? And this woman said she hated her house, by the way. And she said, I wrote, I may not be able to convince my husband to move. but I can make his life miserable for the rest of our marriage. I said, okay, not quite what we were going for, but I guess that is being proactive.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
Yeah, thanks for asking. So as you mentioned, I've been with FranklinCovey. I've been with them for 29 years now. And I first read Seven Habits about 31 years ago. It was first published in 1989, so about 35 years old. And if I were new listening about this and never heard of seven habits, I might think, OK, well, that's great. But 35 years old, what am I going to learn from that?
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career with Todd Davis, Author, Senior Leadership Consultant, & 7 Habits Content Expert
So in each of the habits, we have a series of activities and exercises, and then they make commitments to themselves. There's of course a workbook, everything they go through and inhabit to begin with the end in mind. There's one of the activities we do is called backcasting. This is super powerful. Backcasting is they partner up and they think about a goal that they would like to achieve.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
What I have found, Ryan, is once everyone understands the mission of your company, it's easier to get them excited and highly engaged in doing whatever part they have to move that mission forward.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
I bet they just want an increase because they've been given awards their whole life and they're this, you know, explore a little, get whatever. To I wonder, I wonder why they're, I wonder why they're not more engaged in the business that we do and the work that we do. I wonder why they're not more inspired.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
And so it's taking the time and a lot of leaders, I don't say don't like this answer, but they realize, okay, I've got to slow down and I get, I've got to get to know my people.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
what's important to you Jim what's important to you Sam what's important to you know what motivates you and if honestly if I talk to a Jen or a Sam and they say all I care about is money making money well then they're probably not the person for my team because I want to find out what part of what we do excites them and make sure that they understand how critical they are to that so I'm kind of going back to what I said a minute ago but when the pendulum is way over there to your point
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
I think you have to slow down. Dr. Covey used to say with people, fast is slow and slow is fast. Take time, understand what excites them, what motivates them, what energizes them about the business. And then make sure that they have enough of that going on so that they feel this ongoing connection with the work that you're all trying to do to move your organization forward.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
That is what you just shared, Ryan. That is the foundation for the seven habits. Before we even get into the habits, we talk about our paradigms or our mindsets. And if I, for example, if I'm a micromanager, okay, everybody can relate to that. But if I'm a micromanager, how do I see my team? We call this the see-do-get model. Well, if I'm a micromanager, I see my team as incompetent.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
And to your point, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. If I see my team is incompetent, well, then what do I do? I do everything myself, or I hover over and criticize everything they do. And if that's what I do, what kind of results do we get? Well, we get pretty poor, mediocre results at best. And then what do I say to myself as the micromanager? See, they are incompetent.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
I've got to micromanage even more. And to your point, it just becomes this self-fulfilling prophecy of what I'm seeing versus if I see people as capable and talented... Well, then what do I do?
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
Well, then I take time to get to know them and what's important to them and what inspires them and how do I motivate them and make sure that they connect with our larger mission and then it goes on and we get greater results. So, sorry, I'm passionate about this.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
Thank you. Well, the seven habits have been around for 35 years, like we mentioned, since Stephen first wrote about them. They are all based on principles of effectiveness. For example, habit one is to be proactive. And it's based on the principle of choice. You know, and going back to your see, do, get, you're never going to forget now.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
One way to see it is, hey, I can't predict how things are going to turn out, so I'm just going to kind of go with the flow. That's a common paradigm. But a more effective paradigm is, wait a minute, I can choose that I'm actually responsible for my own choices. So I can choose the life that I want. I can choose the career that I want. I can choose the outcome that I want.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
And I'm responsible for those choices. Now, there are a lot of things I don't have control over, but there are things, many things I can influence. And most importantly, we learn in this habit, I can choose my response to any situation. And that, I remember when I first read The 7 Habits 30 years ago, I can still see that sentence on the page. You can choose your response to any situation.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
In a world when there's so much we can't influence or control, to know that we can choose our response. So, habit one's a habit for a reason because it's up to us to decide if we want to take control of our lives or if we want the outside world or influences to control our lives. And I won't go deep into each habit, but habits two and three work together with that.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
Habit two is begin with the end in mind. It's based on the principle of purpose. So if I'm going to take charge of my life, well, then what do I want to do with my life? And then habit three, put first things first, is based on the principle of focus. Okay, if I've decided what I'm going to do with my life, I've got to start prioritizing whether I've got to be first, second, and third.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
And these first three habits surround what's called the private victory. It's where we become trustworthy. If you know people, and I'm sure you do, that take responsibility for their lives, they know where they're going, and they prioritize and focus on the most important things, they're pretty trustworthy people. And it helps move us to being independent.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
We're independent and ready now to collaborate with others. And that's where the next three habits come in. Habit four is to think win-win. It's a mindset based on the principle of abundance. Habit five is to seek first to understand. That's based on the principle of respect. And then habit six is to synergize. based on the habit of creative collaboration.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
And those are where we build trust with others. And those move us to what we call interdependence. And then the seventh habit surrounding all those habits is habit seven, sharpen the saw, based on the principle of renewal. It's where we take time to invest in ourselves.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
Your listeners that are taking time out of their busy schedules to learn, because they learn from Brian all the time, they're investing in themselves, not because they're selfish, but because by doing so, they can do that much more for everybody else. So that was the Reader's Digest condensed version of the seven habits.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
And each decade or so that we reimagine it, we don't change the habits or the principles, but the applications, we update them based on life's current situations. Sorry to take so much time. No, that was perfect.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
Well, you know, Ryan, that's a really good point. And they are copycats, but Stephen said he was a copycat. And let me clarify, Stephen made the point all the time. He did not invent the seven habits. What he did was. And I had the great honor of working with him for many years before he passed away about 12 years ago.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
But he clarified what he did was he identified those people and those teams and those organizations that seemed to continually be getting ahead in a good way, getting the results they sought to get.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
And he studied what they did on a consistent basis, and then identified those principles that had always been at work, but that, you know, he just identified them, named them as habits, and put them in a construct that we could talk about them and start to implement them in our lives. So he even made the comment that he didn't invent them, he discovered them.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
And so I think all of the iterations that different people use, they are just yet different ways to look at these lifelong principles that will always be in effect. Yeah.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
It really has. It was Dr. Stephen R. Covey wrote the book about 35 years ago. It has sold over 40 million copies to date and continues to sell thousands of copies every month. And I had just real quick here, I had an interesting experience two weeks ago. I was in another state.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
I couldn't agree more. I will be asked often in the leadership space, we've been in for 40 years now, Frank McCovey's been around for 40 years, and I will be asked often, so what habits are most critical for a leader? Well, after saying all of them, for me, if I had to whittle it down, it would be habit one for all the reasons you just said. coupled with habit five.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
Habit five is to seek first to understand, then to be understood. And it's not just about being a nice person, but it is truly, and I'm sure you've experienced this, I have so much greater influence, not power, but influence with someone if I take time to understand them first. Seek first to understand.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
Going back to the earlier example, we were talking about the pendulum being swung too far sometimes. So, first of all, if I realize I have a choice, okay, I can tell myself I'm a busy CEO, I have time to meet with people, or I can say, well, wait a minute, people are my business. Our organization is made up of great people. So, all right, that's my choice.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
And now, how about five, I'm going to take time to sit down with Joe or Susan and say, hey, tell me what's important to you. Tell me why you do things this way or that way. And then really listen. Don't listen with the intent to reply. We teach the and have it fly because we are all programmed and you might be doing that right now. Maybe you're not even looking at me.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
You really think that's what you're going to say. I'm teasing you. That's how we all are. We listen but we're already in most cases formulating a response. And I don't think it comes from a bad place. I think we're fixers. We're helpers. And so we hear just enough of the conversation to think, oh, I know what to say. I know how to fix this. I know how to help.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
And the deepest need of the human heart is to feel understood. Dr. Covey said that, and I couldn't agree more. The deepest need of the human heart is to feel understood. So when you're truly trying to understand someone, just suspend your opinion. Don't throw it away. Suspend your opinion long enough to just hear the other person, really understand where they're coming from.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
And leaders who do that... They have so much more information now to help move their teams, their organizations forward. So habit one, be proactive and then habit five, seek first to understand then to be understood. There's no stopping a leader who models those habits really well.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
And working with a client and a gentleman came up to me after and said his – and this gentleman was probably mid-50s – said his son who had just graduated college in Portland called him the night before and said very seriously, hey, Dad, I just read the greatest book. I'm going to send it to you. It's called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Yeah.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
I think about countless times when I would be meeting with a leader or an employee who was upset about something in my office and I'm not kidding they'd be there for an hour I probably spoke out of that hour I probably spoke 10 minutes at most they spoke the rest of the time and then they would get up and they would say Todd, this has been so helpful. Thank you so much.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
And I'm thinking, well, I didn't do much. But to your point, if you really take the time to understand, people are pretty good at solving their own problems if they have a sounding board. If they have someone who will really listen.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
It's so rare that when we find someone who will do that, we can kind of come to our own conclusions, including the person, the employee who has kind of been in it for themselves, you know, with that pendulum swung too far. If you really listen to them, they will start realizing on their own, oh, I've kind of been all about me and what's in it for me.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
And I haven't really been thinking about how do I contribute to the organization I'm a part of. And so you couldn't be more right, in my opinion, in my experience.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
Yeah, so just the practicality, it's always been in our courses, they've always been practical, but even more so, this development team that put this together, they have focused intently on, okay, you learn this fire hose of information in two days, and it can be spread out, or it can be taught concentrated, but regardless, you have all this information, it's so amazing, what do I do with it?
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
what do i do with it and so just the practicality this this seven habits 5.0 there are things that i can take away that afternoon or that day and start applying them this this may sound uh too simplistic but there's an activity we do in habit one you know be proactive i can choose my response and they take these statements around they think of a situation in their life that is challenging right now maybe it's a relationship maybe it's a project and they write a statement
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
I well I can't dot dot dot I can dot dot dot so well I can't change the project that I've been assigned I can look for some additional resources that have expertise in this area to help me so it just tries to start training our mind to think of yeah I can't I can't change but there's always something I can do I can influence so that's just one example of the practical nature
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
of the activities that they're doing and I've had I've been teaching this for a couple weeks now it just launched October 28th I've already had email upon email from participants coming back saying I cannot believe how helpful this was I was able to overcome this big obstacle I was able to get the team thinking about this differently so it's just it's just the practicality I would say is the most insightful thing of this newest version just the relevant application and how I can use it in the challenges I'm dealing with today
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
But we both started laughing because, to your point, the book's been around forever. But this young college grad was just finding it so empowering and so useful today. And so, yeah, it's a timeless classic, if you will, because it's based on principles of effectiveness.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
I don't want this to be a flippant answer, but we're not industry specific by any means. I said my flippant answer would be any organization that has people. Right. Yeah.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
We have, I mean, and we do work, I was going to say we don't work with really small companies, but we actually do, but we tend to work with those organizations that have 500 or more employees, but I'm thinking of some examples right now of some organizations that have less than that, so I don't want to rule them out.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
People, I guess I would sum it as this, organizations, and then I just did a keynote for an organization last week that has 20,000 employees, so organizations of all sizes, but organizations But I would sum it up as this. Organizations whose top leadership realizes that it starts with the people. And if you're a CEO listening or a senior executive listening and you...
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
totally buy into because it's true that it all starts with the people regardless of what your organization does you know interesting AI you know which is taking over our jobs we just looked at a survey 290 large businesses around the world not just the nation around the world that use AI on a regular basis they still had in their top three needed skills that they didn't have interpersonal skills emotional intelligence AI doesn't teach emotional intelligence now
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
Franklin Covey's Seven Habits, we call it the Seven Habits Effect. If I had to summarize, okay, what, Todd, what skill does it develop more than anything else if people apply it? It is emotional intelligence. It's interpersonal skills. And those are everything we've been talking about here. So organizations that recognize that are the organizations that we work with.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
We used to have seven habits for home and family.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
I'll tell you. Well, my fifth wife, she told me that I had begun. No, I'm kidding. But you're right. We have betterment family division. But even without that, and this is selfish on my part. I've been here 29 years and I've got a long ways to go. I'm a working project. But the way the seven habits has impacted me personally as a partner, a husband, as a parent, as a grandfather personally.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
As a neighbor, as a friend, as a son, as a sibling, it's profound. And so I say that when I say selfishly, yeah, I've been paid and I have these great positions and I've had these great roles. But the personal development, just being around this content, and obviously I work for Franklin Kevvy, so I'm proud of this. But I would tell you this even if I didn't work for them.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
It has had and continues to have a profound effect. And I've got a long ways to go. But but to your point, absolutely. It impacts every part of your life, both personal and interpersonal and organizational.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
Easy to remember. If they'll just go to www.franklincovey.com, that's C-O-V-E-Y, V as in Victor, franklincovey.com, they can find, there's a search engine there. They can find anything they want there, including more of me if they're a glutton for punishment.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Again, I appreciate the invitation.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
It's so true. I like to explain it as if you visualize the compass over the clock is how we get effectiveness. In other words, yes, it's important to get a lot of things done, and it's important to get things done within a timely manner, but what are the things we're getting done?
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
And are we getting those things that are really going to move our lives or the lives of our team or our organization forward? And so it's the compass first, you know, the direction we're headed over the clock. Clock's important. Got to have deadlines, but let's make sure we're heading in the right direction first. And that's how I think of and how we define effectiveness at FranklinCovey.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
Yeah, it's another quick story just because it's happened in the last couple of weeks. We are just launching, you know, we update the content or the course, not the book itself. We don't change how many habits there are, but the application of those we update in the courses we teach about every 10 years. And we just launched our new Reimagine 7 Habits course.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
And I was in another city in a hotel delivering an overview event. And this woman, her name was Sylvia, a worker in the hotel, she came up when she learned we were from Franklin Covey. And she said, I'll be right back. And I thought, okay, did we not pay our bill last time we were here? What's going on? And then she came back with...
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
With the Spanish version of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, it had been weathered and used up, and she carried it around in her purse, and she went on for, I'll tell you, 10 minutes, telling us, my colleague and I, how this book had changed her life and how she lived. led her family with it. Now it helped her in her career. And it was just it was inspiring.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
I almost thought I was being set up for a minute. It was so inspiring.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
No, not quite. I'm starting my 29th year.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
Yeah, you bet. Thanks for asking that. So I was in the medical industry for many years. I was in a recruiting role. I recruited physicians and medical personnel for about 10 years. And then some friends and I formed a small human resource outsourcing group. So we would contract with companies out here in Utah where I live to provide their human resource services.
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Now, I didn't have human resource experience, but I have recruiting experience. And then we had another friend who had done employment law, who was an attorney. We had another friend who had done benefits. And so we would contract. And what was then called the Covey Leadership Center was one of our clients.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
And so I would recruit for them and find them consultants and salespeople and things like that. And they said one day, hey, we want to bring recruiting in-house. And I thought, and I had recently read The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. This was like 30 years ago. And I thought, well, dang, I think I might want to look into that.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
So I joined Covey Leadership Center as their recruiter or their recruitment manager. And then we, long story short, we merged with Franklin Quest, which was the beginnings of the Franklin Day Planner that some people might remember your parents having or whatever. And we merged those two companies about 28 years ago, 27 years ago, which became Franklin Covey.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
And I was in various positions and then Covey, shorten this up, our CEO came to me about 20 years ago and the head of people services or human resources had left, said, we'd like you to apply for this position. And I said, well, that's great. I don't have any HR background. I've recruited, but that's it. He said, I know, we think you're really good with people. So
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So they didn't give me the position, but they had me apply. And I applied with several candidates, and I was really honored to be selected. And so I surrounded myself with really talented HR people and for 18 years ran the human resource structure of the company.
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And then the last couple of years now, I've been out teaching others how to implement all of these things that I had seen work so well for our clients and for our department and for other clients that I'd worked with.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
Yeah, that is great. That's great context setting. You should do this for a living, Ryan. You're really good at this. No, it's your point. So a few years ago, when I was still in the chief people officer role, one of our... Our publisher, Simon & Schuster, who published Seven Habits, they thought it would be a really cool idea to have the chief people officer of the people company write a book.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
So I wrote a book, became a bestseller, not because anybody knows who Todd Davis is, but because this topic was so profound, and it's the question you asked. The book is called Get Better, 15 Proven Practices to Build Effective Relationships at Work.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
And my whole premise in the years that I had almost two decades experience as the chief people officer was that as Jim Collins, the leadership guru says, you got to have the right people on the bus. That's true. But it's actually, or and I should say not but, and it's actually the nature of the relationships between those people. that makes teams and organizations effective.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
And so in my role as chief people officer and anybody who's head of their human resource function, I view this as you're more or less, sorry for the sports analogy, but you're more or less the quarterback of the culture. Everybody, it takes everyone to form the culture, but you're the person who really reminds people, helps to set the vision for where you want the culture to go.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
including what we call things. Like you said, we can put a marketing spin on things, but I was adamant that we not call it human resources, that we call it people services, because I wanted the team that I led to be reminded every day as they came to work, they were in the business of serving people. the people at Franklin County. They're clients for all of our associates.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
And then I wanted the role to be chief people because I wanted to be the grand poobah, but because I wanted to remind myself, is this about the people? Sometimes people equate the term human resources with kind of the policy wonks or the necessary evil we have to have to keep all the human resource laws and guidances and all that.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
And those things are important, but it's really about partnering with people your team, your colleagues to move or grow the business and be, as you started out, be effective in what you're doing.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
Hey, how are you, Ryan? Thank you for the invitation.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
Yeah, no, I appreciate the question. I think you just nailed it. And so in my experience, what I have viewed is that first and foremost, deciding what, you know, you've led, you've had many companies. What is the mission of that organization? What is the mission of your organization? I think it starts there. Is it, is it,
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Are we doing something that's adding value to the client, to the world, to our society? And most companies are. I haven't met a company that isn't. But it's then refining that mission statement. and that mission and vision for the company so that our associates, these employees that we want to serve as well, that they're as excited and as on board as you are as the CEO or as the leader.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
So what I have found, Ryan, is once everyone understands the mission of your company, You still have to do a lot of other things, but it's easier to get them excited and highly engaged in doing whatever part they have to move that mission forward.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
And so it really doesn't become, in my experience, a question for the leader of do I serve the client, do we focus on the client, or do we focus on our employees? We are all focusing on the client because our employees are so excited to know, hey, I'm a piece of this. Whatever I do, I see how it links to that bigger mission of the company. And so I make a difference.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
And when leaders can focus on communicating to their clients.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
associates their worth and potential so clearly that they come to see themselves then then we have one focus and that's serving the client but but my team and the associates know they are a critical component of that and they find value in that they find excitement and yes they have to be paid well and they have to have the right working conditions and have the right benefits but then their incentive and their motivation is to be a part of something that matters
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
I'm not perfect at it, but I at least have the instruction manual.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
No, I think that's a great question. And I know what I'm going to suggest takes time. but this is what we work with our clients with and I've seen it produce amazing results over and over again.
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Achieving Results: Todd Davis on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leadership
We have a client or a situation where in their minds the pendulum has swung too far and they've got a group of people, good people, that are more focused on what's in it for me than what do I need to do to serve. It's taking the time to understand those people. It's moving as a leader. It's moving your mindset from I bet