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.