59. Do You Even Know Your Employees’ Names? "Zina Sutch" w/ Favazza

Let's say we were talking to an, a classic old school CEO who just believes in nothing but hard work by the numbers. Like it's my way or the highway. How could you get this concept through.

I think for somebody like that, I would be going to the research, the organization, all the research that is done on organizational performance, that frankly there's research that will show that, that kind of top-down hierarchical. Um, you know, top down management and leadership do, as I say, because I say so, and be lucky, you have a paycheck that cripples organizations and they will stay stagnant. They will not grow, and they will not be able to compete with their, with other corporations, like.

We're tapping into surpassing expectations from the most successful people in the modern day and honing in on new foresight, methodologies and clairvoyance. You never knew this is your transformation station with your host, Greg Favazza

Zina Sutch welcome to Your Transformations Station.

Thank you so much, Gregory. It's such a pleasure to be here.

You have a spectacular, I don't know how that just kicked off. I have a, these lights behind me and for some reason they just kicked on. I'm like what? And they just kicked on strobe and that was kinda like messing with me a little bit. Okay. Let's try that again. Alrighty. Xena, such welcome to your transformation podcast.

Hi, Gregory. Thank you so much for having me.

Yes. So you have an enormous background. Done a lot. And I don't even know where to begin. Could you help me carry this off their introduction?

It's a short, um, I, yeah, I look back and I think God, I feel like a 70 year old woman because of everything that I've accomplished. I don't even know how I did it. Um, but I, I. I think I'm a, a very active person and that has made me be a goal setter and I set goals and I just try to accomplish it. But I started my career in education. Um, I then moved through public and private schools, uh, into leadership roles. I worked on my PhD while working full time, went to the federal government to be a leadership development special. And then grew in my career with the federal government public service is where my heart is. I believe that we all should give back and help support a country and doing it through the federal government is one way that I could do that. And then in the meantime, um, I teach I'm a faculty person for American universities, key executive leadership program, and I've taught at different universities, but I do that part-time and I author articles and just published a book with my partner, Patrick.

Wow, that that is awesome. Like that is really great for your achievements and doctor, I should say, thank you so much for coming on. Like let's really dive into this. So you coauthored this book, uh, leading with love and laughter letting go and getting real at work.

Yes. Love the title, don't you?

Yes, I do. I love that's like my mentality. Like I look at things objectively and also I just try to establish humor in everything. I mean, when, when you're funny. Well, I don't think I'm funny, but people think I'm funny. I don't know if they think I, so anyways, like it's all about enjoying the moment. Learning from it. I mean, everything is an opportunity. And within your writing, you're incorporating something that's very unique. And I don't think a lot of a leader, leadership and organizations really have this humor.

I think, I think you're right. I think that there comes some barriers that we carry with us when we turn on our corporate hat or our leadership hat. And we put that on and walk into any building, or even now in a lot of things are done virtually. You still wear this persona. You know, you've got this thing about being a leader or a supervisor, a manager. And I think that that presents that. From really getting to the root of who we are as human beings and the love of laughing with each other and connecting and, and even being able to love the people you work with. And, you know, I know we're going to talk more about that, but just the word love is so hard to say in any. Uh, official title. Like if you're having a staff meeting or they're talking with other professionals, it's even hard to come out of the mouth, right? Like even just saying the word love when you're talking business is really hard. You don't hear that much.

Uh, agreed. Um, with my military background love, I mean, it was second nature. I mean, I. Brothers and sisters to my left and my right that would always come out of my mouth just to reinforce the trust and the bond that we have built. And they always came before me, everything I did was for them. So I see where the transition is, is going into. Organizations into civilian culture to establish that bond and to build trust. But can you, can you help me take this a little deeper?

Sure. Um, so the book was written and I'll just give you a little bit of background as to how we even got to this point in all of the work that we have done with exactly. Um, and leaders and doing all of the developmental work that we've been introducing them to structures and models and certificates and books and, and all these people come to two different leadership programs are very good ones and they want to get better. They just keep saying, I want to get better. I want to get better. And everyone knows, you know, like he never stopped learning. So one thing we started to notice was that there were some leaders that you could. Tell them as they're growing and becoming more self-aware they start tapping into this something, and we didn't know what that something was, but we could tell almost immediately after a program ended or after we had class, or just talking with certain people that there were some leaders. Who were just exceptional. And then there were some who did everything. Right. You know, they read all the books, they went to classes, they had the check sheets and we're checking off all the boxes to do the right thing. And, you know, they did everything right. But there was something missing and they just weren't as successful. And so Patrick and I, um, We'll talk about this at length. And at one point I told him the story about one of my supervisors when I was just coming into federal government and I was moving up the ladder and I got to this point where I was leading people and I was struggling with some of my staff. And I was, I don't know if it was because I was like, oh, I'm the one in charge. Everybody listened to me. Um, you know, I got that title. I got that position. Um, and I just said, something's not, how do you like. Bonding my team isn't jelling. And she said, well, Dena, are you approaching this person with an open heart? And when she said that, everything in me changed because I thought to myself, no, I'm not. I'm approaching this person, not as a human I'm approaching this person as the super unused supervisor. And so, you know, the leader in charge and, and, um, it really helped transform the way that. I saw myself in leadership roles from that moment forward. And it changed everything for me in that team. It changed everything for that team. And so that was one of the things that we said, absolutely. We have to tap into as leaders. Is this idea that are you walking in or holding meetings or leading with an open heart or do you have so much protection over yourself? And so many layers of education and training and certifications and belts and everything. And, you know, you've got bookshelves filled with books, you know, great books with great ideas, but you're covering, you know, you're covering yourself and you're not. Getting to the human that you are, and then you're not getting to the humans that you are working with and that you are supposed to be leading. So that's how the love art.

Let me, let me pause you. That is fantastic. Embracing your vulnerabilities as your authentic self leadership needs to develop that rather than leading as an authority as a tyrant. Saying, because I said, so is the wrong mentality. It's understanding your workforce, understanding what motivates them, what drives them and looking at them as a human being, what do you need to work? Of course, I need affection. I need love. I need to know I'm creating a difference. I need a purpose and I just want to have a good time because work can suck,

right? Absolutely. Stressed. I mean, and that's where the laughter part comes in because when we were trying to figure out, it's not just loving, you know, it's not just that, you know, deep, rooted being vulnerable and, and, and loving your, your colleagues and loving the people that work for you and really understanding them and, and being authentic. There's more to it. There's that other part, which is the fun part, you know, are you giving yourself and others a chance to have joy in the workplace? Can you laugh at yourself? Can you, can you share stories about things you've done that, you know, kind of make you chuckle and maybe it something embarrassing, right. And it just connects us on a whole different level.

Go into that. When you, when you say that when you use. Relating stories. What is the reason behind that? Other than to personalize our stuff, to humanize ourselves, but isn't there a deeper meaning to being vulnerable with. Members of your team.

There is a huge, it doesn't only put you on the same playing field with them, but it allows for a safety, a psychological safety net that kind of gets created in that space. Meaning if you can be vulnerable and share funny stories. Uh, and you know, everything went wrong and yet everyone survived. Dave, you're sharing things about you that aren't so perfect. It all of a sudden allows other people, the people that are working for you to not have to hide and cover. They're imperfections. They see that it is okay. It's okay to make mistakes. It's okay to try something new and, and let it all go haywire because you can still, as long as it's not life and death, and we're not talking, you know, doing surgery, but you can read you relax. And when you realize. What the science shows us, just biologically our brains work differently. We become better thinkers that are decision makers. We're more focused, we're more creative, all we blossom and, and that, that all the hormones that get affected by just being able to laugh. It's amazing. There's the science behind it. You know, the endorphins that are created. Um, even, even the, you know, oxytocin levels increase, whether when you're feel love or when you exude love and when you laugh. So it's all good stuff, hormones, and don't, we all need more good stuff, hormones going around. And these stress hormones that, you know, kind of make us paralyzed sometimes just, you know, paralyzed.

So then how can executives instill levity in their organizations without upsetting the team power dynamic?

So the way that you do it is stop thinking about the power dynamics. When we lead people, we really don't have much power. Think about it. The only thing you have control over is yourself, your choices, your decisions, your behavior, everyone around you, everyone who's supporting you. Everyone who's in these positions that are, you know, supposed to fit into some perfect puzzle and make things happen. Um, there, there, there. And Julian what they want to do now, what your goal is, is not to have the power, but to say, I want to make this space so productive for you, that you will do your best and not only do it, but you will want to do it. And that's the biggest thing. When you can start laughing with folks, loving them and laughing with them and finding joy and making things more fun. The, that people are going to give you more, not because you told them to, but because they want to, they're going to go above and beyond anything that they've given you before. And they see you as somebody that they care for as well. You know, love is reciprocal when you love somebody and they feel genuinely cared for, and they feel like somebody, you know, has got their back, wants them to be successful, wants to see them perform optimum. Um, you know, they see themselves as part of something bigger than themselves, and we're all in this together. There's this, the there's a sense of belonging and, and you're you belong and that in and of itself makes you want to do better.

So if a later is just getting introduced to this new concept and wants to apply it. Okay. How can they use humor to view into the groups, norms and values and. Become part of that.

So one of the things we definitely caution people about is don't take this as a, you know, this idea of laughter in the workplace and start telling jokes. Don't become a comedian overnight. Don't buy a joke book and practice them on your family and see which ones get a laugh. The problem with joke telling is that you will always, or most likely. Somebody. And so, you know, if you're a standup comedian, great, you know, go do it on a stage where that is appropriate. When we talk about teams and we talk about laughter. What we're talking about is sharing that, that, that leader being self-aware enough to know what I, as a leader, find to be funny about me. Funny about some of the things I do, some of the ways I behave, it's kind of, self-deprecating humor. It's bringing out the real you, and that's why we say letting go and getting real, bring out the real, you don't. Don't try to put on some hat and say, okay, from now on, I'm going to be funny. It's also taking an opportunity, like something that might happen and you have a choice point. Point in time that you can say I'm furious because, you know, I just did a zoom meeting and my voice was turned into Donald duck or my, you know, we tell a story about a woman who's faced. She became a potato in her zoom meeting and she could have in that. Just gone crazy. He got mad at her technicians, you know, upset that she didn't have the help she needed to turn that, that, uh, potato head thing off, or she could have done what she did, which is choose to be like, oh, well this is, this happens. Uh, and we're just gonna roll with it. And he okay with herself enough to say this isn't going to ruin her career. This isn't going to make people not respect her. It doesn't matter. They might respect her more because now she has shown this side of her that, Hey, you know what, we've got a job to do. I'm a potato right now. Just listen to the potato head and we will get the job done it. And I think that's what we're talking about. Not, not becoming a joke, jokester or playing pranks or. You know, um, using another human being as the butt of something. And that's really the way we have to look at laughter in the workplace. Um, some folks do things like, you know, for laughter they say, you know, you have to wear your, you know, the funniest hat you can find in the house and people go around, you know, when put on different hats and they have a contest. I mean, that's. Humor and the sense of a joke, but it should just bring some levity to that group and people can laugh and get to know each other because of something you put on your head in the middle of a

meeting, I really liked that what you use for that example with the potato head, having occurred during the meeting and then her still writing and out to me that that shows the ability to work under pressure that shows resilience, that shows courage that she can face. This issue and do it with confidence. That's somebody I want to promote.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And she was, uh, she was a pretty high up level leader and had a large staff that worked for her. And. And, you know, she, the way she said it was, look, I had a decision to make, you know, do I just cancel this meeting until I can fix my laptop? Or, you know, do we know each other well enough? And do I feel confident enough in my skills and abilities to just keep going? And, and that's what we're talking about. We're talking about. Leaders who don't, it's almost like everything you do, you're doing it so seriously that you keep increasing that tension and increasing that tension. And no one has seen you laugh. No one has seen you with a genuine smile. No one has seen you relax. And so a lot of times we say. The first step for any leader who is wanting to become that exceptional leader is truly get to know yourself, know who the real you is without all those layers that you have piled on top of you and start to love yourself. One, I know this, we all know this. If you don't love yourself and you can't accept, you know, your faults and all the things about you that make you so beautiful, but yet imperfect, you won't be able to do that for us. And each one of us as human beings, we want that we want, we know what it feels like to be loved by somebody. Right. We we've all felt it. I hopefully everyone has smelled it and it feels good to love others. So there's, you know, there's both the laughter and the love and you need them both.

Wow. I can relate an experience in my past when I was in the military. I had that exact description of what you said as far as walking around and with this straight back, just no personality. I was just what the army trained me to be just right to the point direct. This is how it's going to go. No, if ands or buts. And it took me a long time to. Get through that after I transitioned out, but it came down to purging those experiences that I've had in my past that led to me having these guards up. But once I started to love myself, that's when my true character has finally starting to shine out. So I agree with you 100%.

And I bet not just your true character, but all of the genius in you, you know, all of those places where you have something to offer that no one has tapped into because they weren't looking for it. They weren't allowing for it. There wasn't a space for it, but once you were able to kind of work through it all, I, I seen people blossom and I've seen them blossom in, in their personal lives when we make their work life. Beautiful, you know, a place where they want to be, they want to connect with these folks. They want to work together. And, and you know that it's, I have never seen an organization that can have people keep their personal lives outside of their work space. It just doesn't, you just, you're asking for the impossible. And so this is one of the ways that we can say, you know, don't be afraid to. You know, show care and empathy and give your time to those around you who need you and who want to know that you care, and don't be afraid to let down your hair for that's a, for lack of a better way of saying it, but, you know, let it just, just take a breather, relax, you know, learn to be okay with you. That's one of the hardest things I think for people, we, we tend to say things like in our heads, you know, we should. Do it this way, we should be like that. And all those should usually come from our previous experiences. So we like to this person, so we should be doing things like this person. We didn't like this person, so we're should not, you know, we shouldn't be doing those things. And then at some point, all of those should become. In in, you know, the way that I would see it is they, they kind of paralyze you because you are now layering all of this. I should be like this. I should talk like this. I should lead like this. I should, you manage this way. And then you lose who you really are so that, you know, the buzzword of, you know, your authentic self, it's a strong word. And I love it. But we have moved so far from even knowing are, we're afraid even to know our authentic self sometimes where, you know, it's hard to look at yourself and say, Hey, you know, Yeah, this is where I'm, this is where I can do really, really well. But this is an area, you know, I've got these little pressure points and if you, if you, you know, pick on it, I'm going to react or, you know, I'm human

a little bit, but when you with those layers, okay. Cause now I, I wanna, I want to jab at this a little bit, cause I'm getting it mixed up here with. Identifying my future self. Like we all have this person that we desire to be as our future self. And we have these certain things that we identified, whether it's embodying these specific values that we want and how do we not get that confused with. That type of person. First is the person that is in the past that has experienced those issues. And now has developed a safety net to avoid further trauma.

Yeah, but you're asking a good question and it's not an easy, it's not an easy task to, to, to weave it all out, but I'm going to try. When we think about when I said the sheds, you know, where you, you pick up things that you really liked and a leader, there's different layers of that. So it's not, you should, it's the question you should be saying to yourself. Should I just use that word? But the question is, what about this person resonates with me? What about this person's behavior or the way that they handled the situation? Resonates with the me with the who, the person that I am, and you will adopt those things. And that's good. It's really good. Now, if you continue and put, put more and more of this on you would that you have adopted, but then on top of that in the back of your head, you keep saying, I should, I should, I should. Now you have locked yourself in to think this is the person that I am at will always be. So you, you put the words should on you as a pressure as, okay. You know, other way is going to work for me, but the truth is none of them. We all evolve. We all grow. So the person I was 10 years ago as a leader, quite different, and I had different skills and different things that I've adopted from other great leaders. But at this point I'm different. So, um, I, I I'm like putting, I'm putting, uh, what did they say? Tools in my toolkit that I pick up from other people, but they have to match me because what works for somebody else may not work for you. If we tell a story about, you know, a woman and it was based on a true story who was put in charge of a huge organization. And this woman was very, you know, very educated, um, considered a strong leader, you know, with everything she had the books, the certificates, all of it, and came in and really failed miserably and she failed. None of those things that she said to herself, I don't know, but I'm guessing, she said, well, I should do this. I should do this. The books, tell me this, the models, spell it out this way. Everything she did. I know she was probably saying, I should, I should, I should. And she didn't stop to say, wait a second, let me tap into me as a human. What do these people need now? What should I be doing? But what do these people need from me? And that's why I think she failed.

I liked that I really do. And, and you took my question. Could you relate another experience where you had an organization that failed to provide empathy or emotional talent?

I think, I, you know, you find pockets of that in all, all organizations, you find pockets of places where you have a generally, sometimes a, you know, an organization that is successful because of a very rigid, um, mindset. But what we say is, yeah, you might be, you know, you might be successful and all of these parameters you put into place and everybody's working like the organism, you want it to work. But what, what we haven't answered is how much better could that organization be if you removed all these parameters. Right? So we have, we, we see organizations, I won't name them. I don't want to put any organization under the scrutiny right now, but, and I guarantee that no matter what organization you go into, there's going to be pockets where there is no empathy, where there is a lack of understanding. And generally it's because of a couple of things. In my opinion, one is that there is pressure from above. To move the organization into a certain direction. And there is resistance from below to move it in that direction. And your leadership that's caught in the middle may feel. Oh, what the field, that exact same thing that the people below are feeling, but they have to still implement what they're being told and, you know, from external pressures to do. And so being stuck in the middle and being stuck in something that you have never experienced before is a new experience. I mean, I kind of look at, you know, what the world is going through right now. And a lot of people were caught off guard and a lot of leaders. Finding themselves not knowing what to do when they realize that people are experiencing, you know, horrific, uh, family events that are occurring daily or were occurring daily and supervisors didn't even know how to ask or how to say or how to empathize or how to deal with everything that the employees were dealing with.

Basic behavior. You just got to ask. I mean, the fact that you're not asking makes you an asshole. I mean, if you really cared about your people, I mean, that's, I mean, with back to my military, it's always, I mean, with the creative non-commission officer. In the middle, it would always be the accomplishment and the mission and the welfare of my soldiers. However, I would look at it, the complete opposite. It would be the welfare of my soldiers, then the accomplishment of my mission. Cause if they're not good, they're not healthy. We're not getting shit done.

It's just, yeah, it's true. People who say, you know, mission first people always like you, you just in that sentence put people's seconds. So, you know, even, even though you say it that way, you know, like, just look where you put mission and where you put people in that center. But, um, the, you know, the idea that your employee is the most valuable resource. We hear that all the time, people say it all the time and, and you've got leaders who say, Um, so how are you doing? But they don't really want to know how you're doing, doing that or saying that because they know they should. Um, and that's why we say, start with the self as a leader and, you know, hold that mirror up and really do some soul searching. Where is your heart when it comes to work? Um, where is your laughter? Do you, can you relax? Can you look at the world and just kind of shake your head and laugh a little, you know, see the humor in some of these situations. Um, we, you know, definitely take things seriously that need to be taken seriously. And we profess that, but yeah. There is space and there is room for joy and laughter and relaxing and allowing that safe space to, to evolve over time.

Now I just have a few more questions. Um, lastly, before we transitioned to closing, what inspired you to write leading with love and laughter.

I, you know, um, with everything that was going on in, in my life, the last thing I wanted to do was take on a project that was this big for us. Um, I just felt that it was so hard to when I'm teaching, when I'm in a classroom and I'm teaching and I'm teaching executives or I'm teaching, you know, high level leaders that are in charge of huge organizations. That I was even stumbling over using the word love and I could see people's faces almost, you know, people kind of sit back in their chair, puts their head down. Nobody wants to talk now because that word love was just spoken. Or when we talk about, you know, laughter it's so low on people's priority list because they've got all these other things. And so I saw that over and over and over and I said, this is ridiculous. Somebody needs to say it's okay. To use the word love. It's okay to use the word laughter and to laugh at yourself. It's okay to let go and be the real you in the workplace. And I just kept saying, somebody's got to say this, somebody's got to say this. And Patrick and I just looked at each other and, and he goes, why don't you say this? And I'm like, whoa, good point. If no one else, why me? Why am I looking for someone? I could do it. So he and I put our heads together and we just said, let's just do this. Who knows where it'll go? Um, we just hope that the word gets out and that people adopt the whole idea that it's finally. Okay. You know, it's finally okay.

I liked them a lot. That, that is awesome. I mean, w why not? You like that? That was always my troubling thing. I was always with looking for somebody else when. Somebody needed to rise up, but then I would look back and be like, Nope. Why not me? It's right. I can do this.

Yeah. And it was risky. I mean, when we were working with the publisher, we putting that word right on the cover. It was whiskey. And, and we love our publisher because they just, they just said absolutely. There isn't anything out there. Like. Yeah, there's the authentic self and it's situational leadership. And we talk about emotional intelligence and yeah. We've all avoided. We'd like skirted this whole love and laughter. Why not

agreed? I mean, that's the most important thing in life is those forget everything

else. I agree. I agree.

So now as we're closing up, Three more questions with organizational leadership. What, what are some action items? Some, some something they can do right now to start living by this new view on how we should be leading as leaders.

So I think some, a week we put this in the book, we always say, try. Because we don't want to prescribe anything for anyone everybody's unique, everybody's different. So the first steps for anyone is to sit down and start documenting and keeping track of how do I feel about my employees? Am I ask yourself these questions? You know, am I exuding love? Do I feel love if I'm not. Why am I not feeling loved? Do that self introspective kind of work that is really critical and work on loving yourself, taking care of yourself when you can start doing that for yourself, kind of like they say, in the airplane, you know, Put it on your, put the mask on first, take care of yourself too, as a leader, love yourself. And then it's going to be easier to just make that leap to exuding that and showing it and, and really feeling it, uh, and with the laughter it's the same thing. Find out, you know, where is it that you. Are like closed up. And what are you afraid of? You know, identify, start writing that down. What are you afraid of? What's the worst case scenario, you know, are you afraid? People are gonna respect you. Are you afraid? People are gonna see the real you, so what's wrong with the real, you, you know, why, why won't you let people see the real you? Uh, so we started working on those things, um, and then, and then slowly incorporate. Some joy into that workspace. And that could become something as simple as, Hey, we're going to have a meeting. And from now on, you know, everybody has to tell us one funny thing that happened to you over the weekend. Something simple where you, you can go first, always go first. We always say leaders go first. You have to be the one that tried. You know, as, as the most vulnerable in the room, you need to do it and you need to exhibit it and model it and you will see people loosen up. You know, people will see you open up and share a story that happened to you over the weekend. And all of a sudden, others are laughing with you and telling you their experience and you you've now connected on a whole different level.

I completely agree. That is spot on. How, how could you. Let's say we were talking to an, a classic old school CEO who just believes in nothing but hard work by the numbers. Like it's my way or the highway. How could you get this concept through to him?

I think for somebody like that, I would be going to the research, the organization, all the research that is done on organizational performance and that all of that research, you can draw a direct line from organizational performance, competitive markets. You know, the bottom line, maximizing profits, you connect it to the people who are working for you. You connect it to each individual person's performance, and then you, and then you, you, then you start connecting people to performance and you will see so much research out there about employees that are engaged and feel like they belong and feel like they're cared for. They out perform all the other organizations. They, their teams are stronger. They're more creative. They will come up with ideas. And, and share them and your organization, um, you know, leadership person would, would even skywalk and more than it has to this day, that frankly there's research that will show that, that kind of top-down hierarchical. Um, you know, top-down management and leadership do, as I say, because I say so, and be lucky, you have a paycheck that cripples organizations, and they will stay stagnant. They will not grow, and they will not be able to compete with their, with other corporations. Like there's.

Agreed. I mean that the army, like you could see people within the ranks when people are just yelling at somebody, you just, you don't get an effective soldier. You, you employ empathy. I, that, that, that was beautiful. That that was well put right there. How can our listeners get in touch with you if they want to learn more and purchase your.

So we have a website it's M such malone.com and the, our email and contact information is right there as well. So please just go to the website, um, and you know, you can find the book anywhere pretty much anywhere. So I encourage you. If you have any interest to go ahead and get the book, that would be great. Um, and if not, just contact us through our email address.

Beautiful doc, Dr. Such. Thank you so much. Coming on the show. I do appreciate your time.

Thank you so much Gregory for having me. This was one.

You've been listening to your transformation station, rediscovering your true identity and purpose on this planet. We hope you enjoyed the show and we hope you've gotten some useful and practical information. In the meantime, connect with us on Facebook and Instagram at @followfavazza we'll be back soon until then. This is your transformation state. Signing off.