S5 E8: Featuring Dr. Marty Dubin

Tracie Edwards: All right, we are recording. Hello everyone and welcome to Traceability podcast. I am your host Dr. Tracy Edwards and my guest today is Marty Duben. Uh Marty is a clinical psychologist, a serial entrepreneur, a business coach and a trusted advisor to seuite executives and Silicon Valley founders. He has a new book blind spotting from Harvard Business Review Press and he explores the six leadership blind spots that can quietly derail leaders and how to identify and overcome them. Marty has founded multiple companies including a multi-million dollar healthc care enterprise where he served as CEO and he has coached hundreds of senior executives from Fortune 500 firms and high- growth startups. His work has been featured in Fast Company, Entrepreneur, Big Think, and more. Marty lives in Colorado and New Mexico. He splits his time between working with leaders and enjoying the mountains and desert landscapes. So, a gentleman after my own heart there. I uh live in Utah, so we have a we have country in common. Marty Dubin: Oh yes, we have competing ski resorts. 00:01:28 Tracie Edwards: That's right. That is so true. Um, so let's go ahead and just jump right on in and maybe talk about what really is a leadership blind spot and why they're so hard to see. Marty Dubin: Yeah, thank you uh for the invitation, Tracie, and looking forward to the conversation. Um, so I, uh, in trying to help leaders, it became obvious to me that after a while, what I was really working with and working on was helping them with their self-awareness. And, um, we aren't as self-aware um, often as we think we are. And those are the blind spots, those times when we're behaving in our normal way, our default personality that works 90% of the time. Um, but we're not aware those situations, the people, the kinds of problems when it's really calling for a different kind of response from us than our than our typical responses. And those are the times when often other people notice it, but we don't notice ourselves that uh the problem isn't with the other person or or the situation. The problem lies with us. 00:02:43 Tracie Edwards: So, how is it that we kind of identify them and then learn from and maybe adjust to them? Marty Dubin: Yeah. Well, it it is a bit of a catch 22. If they're blind spots, how can we know what they are, right? But there are some ways that we can become aware um within ourselves. And the easiest way, quite frankly, is when other people point them out to us. Um as a leadership coach, typical thing that I would do is interview other leaders. um that work with uh co-workers that work with the leader and ask them, you know, what are the uh you know, what really makes this leader great and when are the times when they're just not measuring up? And being able to go through that thoughtfully um as an outside um observer and person, I can help them begin to identify where um things that they're just not seeing in themselves. Um and the but maybe just uh a very quick way that to often lead often these problems show up with our traits uh that are really overutilized. 00:03:49 Marty Dubin: So uh there's a lot of research on leadership traits and the traits are our strengths oftentimes things we really um rely on and know that they serve us well. But those same traits um don't fit every situation. And so I tell leaders uh you know what are the strengths you like about yourself? You're decisive, you're organized, you're confident, you're creative. And what happens if you just put the modifier too in front of it? What happens when you're too organized? When you're too creative, when you're too smart, and you begin to start to notice that um there are times when your strengths tip over and become problems. Tracie Edwards: So, um, how is it that we sort of, um, adjust to some of the challenges that are presented by our blind spots? Marty Dubin: Yeah. Um it does require this kind of ability to look at yourself and be um not only honest with yourself but uh um showing a sense of kind of openness and not being overly defensive or overly critical. Um I think of blind spots as just errors in the system. 00:05:02 Marty Dubin: uh it's just uh part of who we are as human beings. We're pattern seeking organisms and we use that pattern recognition to solve problems. And again, it works most of the time. So when it doesn't work, it's not really you're at fault or you have your intention is off. It's really that you're just uh not aware that you know you really need to be doing something different. So kind of with that attitude of openness um then the first step is trying to identify um where the blind spots might be and I've got these six areas. So um they all show up for all of us at different times. Tracie Edwards: Right. Uh so let's maybe dive into those six areas a little bit. Um can you give us a a quick breakdown of the different blind spots? Marty Dubin: Sure. And uh it took me a while to uh I knew I needed kind of a graphic representation and quite frankly that was almost the most uh the hardest thought experiment for me. So if your listeners can visualize almost a target three concentric circles um and on the outside there are two of the blind spots and they're on the outside because they are the ones that we have most access to be aware of. 00:06:15 Marty Dubin: Um it's and it's our behavior and our identity. um behavior. We can see how we're behaving and maybe we notice that we say something and the room falls silent and uh we realize oops uh that wasn't right. And so there's an opportunity to try to figure out what what in our behavior was was missing the mark. Our identity are um kind of the name tags we wear and who we when we finish the sentence, who are you? um you somebody meets us at a cocktail party or a new employee at work, how we identify ourselves and we all develop brands um in the workplace and some and the blind spots occur when our when our role and our identity are misaligned. This often happens when you get promoted and you are promoted and you're still behaving or still identifying with your previous role um and now you need to shift. You were a subject matter expert and now you're a manager. you need to begin to shift that that role. Um as an example, then in the next layer are um the next kind of inner ring has three blind spot areas and these are things that are much more hardwired. 00:07:24 Marty Dubin: Our traits as I had mentioned earlier, uh our intellect um and our emotions um and then finally at the core is what is the kind of uh engine in the system. What drives us, our motives, our needs. And uh these are often the hardest things for us to become aware of. We're often aware of some of our our motives, but most things we do, we have multiple motives and our motives shift at times and we're not often aware of it. Often other people are. People will say, "Oh, you know, she's in front of the microphone again because she just loves to be in the spotlight." You know, when you know the leader thinking all they're doing is explaining, you know, something important to the uh to the company. um or he's only motivated by money and you know that's all that matters. So um other people do interpret maybe um incorrectly what our motives are. So it's again a really important area for us to become self-aware. Tracie Edwards: So why is it that motives matter in particular um especially as it relates to how other people react to us? 00:08:30 Marty Dubin: Yeah. I um there's a uh Harvard psychologist uh David Mlelen that identified at work three kind of core motives. Motive for power, motive for achievement and the motive for affiliation. And I think we can recognize all three of those usually in us and we all probably have different set points on each of those. Um and again um they all work well at different times and in different situations. You know, if we're motivated by if our strongest motive is affiliation, we like to be around people. We're social. We're outgoing. Um, you can certainly see where sometimes that is not the right motive. You're talking to everybody at work and they really would like to get their work done. and you know and uh they you know they're trying to give you signals about it and you're not picking up because you're not aware of your motive that uh um that clearly or somebody who's got a very strong power motive and you know is doing everything in every situation to kind of gain advantage over everyone else uh again when that isn't appropriate. 00:09:31 Marty Dubin: Um so um and then we all have lots of individual you know idiosyncratic motives that we develop just growing up in our own particular life uh histories. So being aware of those motives and just taking occasionally a bit of an audit like what's driving me right now. Oftentimes motives we can understand when we have a motive when we have a really strong feeling that is just a surprise to us. If it's kind of an anger or frustration that usually means our motives are being blocked. Um and that's a perfect time to say why am I so upset right now. What I it doesn't seem like this situation should be that upsetting. Well, it probably means there's some motive you're not aware of. And even on the other side, you feel warm and you know, happy and wonderful. And you're again not you're surprised what triggered that Tracie Edwards: Yeah, I I um think about motives quite a lot uh you know and it it's interesting how I I think that I can have say altruistic motives and uh but yet those can still be sort of misinterpreted kind of thing and so um you know being able to maybe receive that that feedback in a um in a non-threatening kind of way in a hey I expected this and I got this or or something. 00:10:54 Tracie Edwards: Um, when you're maybe trying to ensure that your motives are are coming from a place of good Marty Dubin: Yeah. You know, and it's true with all of these blind spot areas. You bring up such a great point that even if we're clear, sometimes other people because of their their own filters and how they look at the world, um they're attributing a different trait to us or a different motive or um a different identity. And yeah, that's where, you know, communication be becomes so so, you know, important and being able to be clear and help the other person be clear and try to kind of work that work those situations out. Tracie Edwards: Well, what about emotional intelligence then? Being able to sort of cultivate an emotional awareness and uh a perception of what's going on around you in a healthy emotional way. Marty Dubin: Yeah, this area um I've certainly seen a lot of variation in leadersh kind of comfort with emotion. Um, and I think of it very I think of a kind of almost like a five steps on each kind of step built on the foundation before. 00:12:08 Marty Dubin: And and the very basic one is just how how what's your emotional bandwidth? How aware are you of lots of different motives. Some people just kind of think in terms of mad, sad, glad and and other people see, you know, hundreds of color variations in between all of those things. and and the more you're able to stretch your bandwidth and become more astute at recognizing different kinds of emotions and being more articulate with them is is a first foundational step. So there's exercises and things to do to help people there. And then the next step is that awareness of your own emotions, being able to recognize what you're feeling. Sometimes you can recognize a physical reaction and then ask yourself, what am I feeling right now? And the more adept you are, the more adept you become in the moment, you know, and it's hard for all of us. You know, oftentimes we realize our emotions after the fact, um, as we kind of, um, get out of the situation and think about it. Um, and then the next level is being able to manage your emotions. 00:13:07 Marty Dubin: Um, you know, I've seen leaders, you know, on both ends of the extreme. Some that overmanage their emotions so much that people just don't know where they stand on anything. Like, I don't know what, you know, what excites them. I don't know if he's really going to defend our team or not because he just doesn't seem to show any passion. And then there's the person that's so unpredictable in their emotions all the time. So being able to u manage your emotions becomes really allows you to become very strategic as a leader and show you know as much as you can. You want to be authentic but you can also be strategic with that. And then clearly recognizing other people's emotions, being able to read the other person, read the room. Um and finally, um I think the final step is and I've seen some leaders that really are very effective thinking about the downstream effect of emotions. They may want to show emotion in a meeting that's a small meeting because they know, you know, he p, you know, I pound the table here to say how important how upset I am about the results and they know everybody in the meeting is going to go talk about that and and say, you know, Marty really cares about these results. 00:14:15 Marty Dubin: We really better get on it. Um and and doing that authentically, but doing that with a very thoughtful strategic intention. Tracie Edwards: That's a terrific point that I that I think uh sometimes as individual contributors maybe we don't recognize the pressure on leaders and uh maybe we're thinking a little more tactically than a leader might be and uh so that understanding that they're trying to think a few steps ahead. Marty Dubin: Right. Tracie Edwards: I I think can be can be very helpful. Marty Dubin: Yeah, it's you know just a separate point and this is I talk about this in the my intellect chapter. Um the whole idea of strategic thinking which is I think what you were just addressing is really key and I often help um individual contributors or people who want to move ahead you know in the organization and um being seen as a strategic thinker is really um key to that and I my kind of operational definition is exactly what you just said it's thinking about what's important to you the person you know in a role ahead of you or the leader And if you start thinking about what are they worried about and why is that important and what's going on and just start asking questions about that you start to broaden your framework. 00:15:36 Marty Dubin: You start to anticipate things in a different way and people start to see you as a more strategic leader. Tracie Edwards: So that leads us to sort of the topic of intellect and our ability to intelligently recognize uh what did what is happening around us kind of Can you maybe talk about the four types of intelligence that we should be trying to notice? Marty Dubin: Yeah. As a uh you know, I typically would get a a referral of can you evaluate this person, you know, for you know, we're looking at them as the you know, for a promotion. And often it would come with the comment of they're just wicked smart. And I always thought like that is a very odd combination of words. I'm not quite sure what that means. Tracie Edwards: Mhm. Marty Dubin: And but this whole idea of and I think uh of fetishizing intelligence and as a psychologist my um industry and my domain um is certainly guilty of that. Um, and most IQ tests, most measures of intelligence we get through school are really a certain kind of intelligence that really is highly correlated with academic performance quite frankly. 00:16:49 Marty Dubin: And I call that in my book horsepower. And that not to diminish it is it's extraordinary. It's very important. And it's the people who can just gather lots of data, have a great ability to analyze, crunch a lot of information, kind of want more and more, make connections. Um but that is just one type of intelligence and I think uh um all four of these that I'm going to mention are a team really needs to be made up of all of these and and leaders should select people that can have all these types. Another type is processing speed. Some people just can go through information very quickly. You know they don't need to go back to their desk and think about it some more and come back the next day with an answer. um and they can just take in a lot and make uh you know and be articulate about um a conclusion from that. And then there are the people that are just creative thinkers. Um they make connections that other people just don't see. 00:17:42 Marty Dubin: Oftentimes in meetings they're like a distraction sometimes like that's not what we're talking about. Why are you bringing that up? And if a leader took the time to say now that's interesting. Why what's the connection you're seeing there? Because I'm not seeing it. I don't think anybody else is. You can start to realize that there's often a lot of real value in those creative thinkers that are sparking some different kinds of ideas. Um, and the final is a bit of a catchall, but I certainly see it in business are people that are just street savvy. Their heads kind of on a pivot. They're just noticing everything. EQ is certainly a big part of that, but it's just they're noticing um all sorts of things. Their their vision is very wide. Um and those people uh again bring in information and problem solving abilities that the other three three types don't. Tracie Edwards: Well, and I can see um you know, as I think back to my career and the corporate the roles that I have been in, I can see how some of those intelligences are more successful in an organization than 00:18:47 Marty Dubin: Right. Tracie Edwards: others are. you know, the the street savviness sort of seems to understand um what's going on in the organization better than uh somebody who is a little more focused uh on what's in front of them kind of thing. Marty Dubin: Yeah, absolutely. That's exactly right. Tracie Edwards: So, what would you say is the blind spot that really causes the the most damage uh in our leadership? Marty Dubin: You know, I think all of these can at at different points uh in time. Um I I think the identity blind spot's kind of an interesting one to to the type of question you're asking. Uh um just to give a personal example. um as as a psy I was a psychologist and had a psychotherapy practice as a clinical psychologist and healthc care was changing and I got curious about the business parts of that and with a couple colleagues we started a um a managed behavioral health company where we managed the health benefit for large insurance companies and we were doing great for a while um and then we weren't and it turned out we had bid on a contract with a new insurer on bad data that they had given us um And I hadn't recognized that. 00:20:08 Marty Dubin: Um, and as I, you know, if I was more attentive, I would have picked up on that early and it really put us in a bad situation. And as I thought about it afterwards, um, I I realized that my identity I my identity was as a psychologist with a business. I always felt like, hey, if this business doesn't work out, I can go back to my private practice. I wasn't thinking that my role has changed and my identity needs to change. I need to be a psych I need to be a business person now with psychological knowledge. And so I think the uh where some of these blind spots like show up immediately. I think identity blind spots are kind of almost like the silent killer that they're in the background ticking along and you know you kind of are making little mistakes here or there and after a while because you really hadn't shifted your identity to the new role um then problems come up. I've had investors say about entrepreneurs, they were great, they were wonderful, and then all of a sudden everything blew up. 00:21:04 Marty Dubin: And I think that it was probably an identity blind spot in there that was lurking for quite a while. Tracie Edwards: I can definitely relate to that. This was actually some feedback that I was given a little while ago. Uh, you know, I thought of myself as a technology person. I've spent my career doing project management, business analysis, and I've I've thought of myself as that for so long and uh was sort of struggling with something a couple of weeks ago and a friend said to me, "Well, your identity has sort of changed now. You're an entrepreneur now and so you're reacting to things differently than you may have done as a technologist. So can very much relate to that. Marty Dubin: and I think I think all Those I all those identity shifts should come with a sense of loss. You like your previous I liked being a psychologist. I didn't really want to give it up and think of myself. I'm a business person now. And so there's you know there if if you've gone through a bit of a struggle and if you feel like I really kind of mourn my other identity then that's probably a good sign that you've actually moved on. 00:22:20 Tracie Edwards: Oh, that's that's great. Thank you for pointing that out. Uh, so let's maybe dive into some maybe some stories or examples and advice you might give for dealing with the blind spots. Marty Dubin: Sure. Tracie Edwards: So maybe talk about the five things a CEO can do to uh avoid maybe the prioritization blind spot. Marty Dubin: Um there was an article in uh Harvard Business Review Review maybe 20 years ago by AG Laughafley and the title of it was what can only the CEO do and it it's it's has stayed with me and it was a great article and he really focused on there are certain things in every role that only the person in that role can do. Um, and if and it's a small number. I think it's five for the for the CEO. And if you're not doing those, if you don't have those all checked off, you really need to do those first or at least make sure you're attending to those before you do other kinds of things, what you're good Tracie Edwards: Mhm. Marty Dubin: at or some particular strength and special ability that you've got. 00:23:26 Marty Dubin: So the five that I think of for the CEO and this is true of of every leader in a in in a leadership role. Number one is um only the CEO can pick their team. You know um I saw a new CEO come into a a company and he was very attentive to this point. He brought myself and other colleagues in to evaluate the senior team that was there to just help him decide who stays and who goes. And it wasn't as part of it was are they performing, but more of it was really like do they fit me and do they fit where I want to take the company and how I want to structure the Tracie Edwards: Mhm. Marty Dubin: company. And so knowing that you really need to be very thoughtful about that as the CEO or in any role. If your team's been picked by others, then you're operate are operating already with with a bit of a um a handicap. Uh the second one is around culture. Um and again this is true of every team leader too. 00:24:19 Marty Dubin: the the leader control is really the champion for the culture. People look to that person just in terms of your behavior, how you role model the culture and I think really good leaders, really good CEOs always have that in the back of their mind that they are always championing the culture of the company and and thinking about what is the culture, what do I want it to be and and how do I continue? Now it doesn't mean they they run programs that's HR and others to help them with but that they really see the importance of that clearly strategy um making those strategic uh decisions um and obviously it help with help from the board and others but at the end of the day it's up to the CEO and similarly the uh annual priorities um and being very diligent about these are our three or five priorities for the year here's where we're placing our bets for this year and being very, you know, thoughtful in owning that. And finally, there are some key relationships that only the uh CEO really only certain people only want to talk to the CEO. 00:25:24 Marty Dubin: Obviously, the board, some important uh customers, maybe regulators, government officials. There are v um press, there are variety of people. And again, if I've had CEOs um entrepreneurs that were a little bit u um you know, reclusive and and introverted and there were all sorts of uh sales opportunities. The sales leaders wanted the CEO there to help close the uh the sale and the CEO was finding all sorts of reasons not to be there or not being a keynote speaker at at really important events. And and when you're the CEO, you really your time and your schedule is really up to you. So, um, unless you're really managing that or have really good people to tell you when you're not doing that, you're you can fall into the trap of a prioritization blind spot. Tracie Edwards: Yeah. And I think um you know from what I've seen with CEOs just the schedule is so as as you know so jam-packed and uh I I think it's easy to get sort of caught up in whatever is the Marty Dubin: Yeah. Tracie Edwards: thing sort of right in front of you. 00:26:29 Tracie Edwards: And so you bring up a great point of CEOs need to be able to take a step back and um really respond to the things that are really in their purview as opposed to someone else's. Marty Dubin: Yep. Absolutely. Tracie Edwards: So what might be a a practical step for um being a being able to uncover our blind spots? Marty Dubin: Yeah. Yeah. And and I the thing I want to say is that what we do about them is really a small tweaks. Um this is not about transforming our personalities. I've never transformed anybody and I don't think I should or could or anybody should want to. Um so just maybe to give you one example I had and how to kind of recognize it and what to do about it. I had a uh um entrepreneur CEO who was uh very confident, very decisive. Um was a really engaging, interesting person. People um liked him. He was very curious. Um but people also described him as arrogant. Um, and when I did 360 and um, there's no way he would see himself as arrogant, but as we got into looking at the at what would happen, he would be sitting down with a team or a few or few people and being very curious, trying to solve a problem, trying to figure out a course of action, make a decision, and be asking lots of questions and, you know, really great interaction. 00:27:59 Marty Dubin: And then he then he felt like he would have the answer and he was ready to make a decision. And so he really at that point acted very abruptly kind of dismissive um with his team and and would move on. And so they saw him as being dismissive. They saw him as being arrogant. Um and now I could not give him that feedback, right? He would not it wouldn't make sense to him. But I could say, you know, your team is having problems with you. And you know, he was aware of that. A couple people had left and had told him that they couldn't work well with him. And I said, the trigger for you is when you stop being curious. When you stop being curious and you stop stop asking questions, you're then at the risk of being seen as arrogant and dismissive. And so the tweak, all we really need to do is don't shut things off so quickly. Why don't you just say, I think I'm nearing a decision. 00:28:53 Marty Dubin: Let me sit on it for a couple days. Let's meet again next Tuesday and talk about it a little bit more. Any way that he could kind of keep the conversation open. Clearly that makes people feel heard and makes people invited to bring in other information. And certainly there were times when he did get other information that added to his decision making um when he was being a little too hasty. So having that ability to quick to recognize when I stop being curious, I'm at the risk of being too decisive, being too confident, and people really reacting to that. And we could we worked on that. And that really was a great turnaround for him. Tracie Edwards: Well, and it's so easy when outside forces um without the organization are maybe reinforcing that arrogance a little bit. Marty Dubin: Yes. Tracie Edwards: So, Marty Dubin: Yeah, I mean, you know, positive feedback is, you know, from a systems point of view, it just says keep doing what you're doing. It's you're doing it right. So, absolutely, that positive feedback can have really an adverse effect of not telling us when to correct. 00:30:02 Tracie Edwards: So, do you maybe have a a success story of confronting a a blind spot? Marty Dubin: Yeah. I mean, so that was one small one. Another one maybe back to that identity blind spot. Um I had a leader who um I was involved in a company helping them pick the next president of a division and this one leader uh had interviewed her um collecting information and she came to me afterwards and said why why wasn't I even considered as a promotion to that role and I just don't know why. Um and she said I really want you to help me figure that out. maybe I'm maybe there's something I need to learn and or I haven't gotten to a certain kind of experience. And as we went through that, there was nothing. She was she was a number two and her career had been built on executing, getting things done. And as she said, I'm the invisible glue. I see problems before they happen and I fix them before my boss even knows they were a problem. 00:31:00 Marty Dubin: I said, oh, so you're invisible. Is that the reason why nobody saw you or thought of you to be promoted? of course you've been telling everybody I'm in the background I'm invisible don't so she had all the abil and that was fine for her for most of her career but now she wanted to be in the spotlight she Tracie Edwards: Mhm. Marty Dubin: wanted to move up to the to the more um demanding position and so we worked on how she could begin to do that in a way that was not you know obnoxious or overly ambitious but in a way she had all the ideas she was just meeting with her boss afterwards and sharing them quietly Well, were there ways that she could bring them up in meetings more in terms of a question. I wonder if we if we're thinking about everything here. Have we thought about this? Doing things like that. She literally was sitting in the back row at some meetings where she had a seat at the table and she could actually move up. 00:31:52 Marty Dubin: The advice I give people when they are ready to make a move is act as if as if you're already in that role. um you know within bounds but start to begin to like we talked about strategic thinking start to begin to kind of embrace the issues that are involved in that next role. And so she did that and uh fortunate circumstances about six to nine months later there was a a merger of the companies and there were some positions that were open in the new organization and she did get promoted with uh um into the um president's role that she was looking for. Tracie Edwards: That's a terrific example and I I think uh it's so easy to let ourselves become comfortable uh in uh the role that we have especially when we feel like we're we're meeting a need and we're sort of uh Marty Dubin: Yeah. Tracie Edwards: saving a a a situation or a leader kind of thing. Marty Dubin: Heat. Tracie Edwards: And so it's so easy for culture to to really reinforce those blind spots and and uh some of our own um internal uh sensibilities and and such. 00:33:08 Marty Dubin: Yeah. You know, and in that example, her motive to all to fix things for others was kind of had gotten exhausted or filled up enough. She really didn't want to do that anymore. So that that her motives had changed and which also allowed her to kind of move to that next level. She just needed to change her brand so other people could see it. Tracie Edwards: So, can we maybe uh go back to your journey a little bit and um maybe talk through some of the things that that you have bumped up against in your career as as uh you've been trying to uh understand these blind spots and and uh really um maybe talk about some your own blind spots as a founder and and how you sort of came to understand them better. Marty Dubin: Yeah. So I did give you that example of that uh kind of identity one. another one that actually with that same situation where we had uh um gotten into a a problem with the our customer, a very large customer, and we were losing money on the contract. 00:34:15 Marty Dubin: And if uh if it continued for too long, it really was an existential issue for the company. And my here's a trait blind spot that I recognized in myself afterwards, but um many of your listeners are familiar with the big five traits and and one of them um I I score pretty high on agreeableness. Um and it serves me well in in many situations. And so I started to approach this problem with our customer in that kind of a way. You know, hey, guess what? you know, you know, we didn't really have enough correct data to to to come to bid this contract, right? And and um I was getting, you know, they really weren't interested in that. It was like my problem. And um they and I was trying to get them to understand that. And in doing so, I really kind of gave away some of our negotiation leverage quite frankly. And my partner said, "We just have to sue them." You know, that's the only way. I mean, this is a contract goes for another 9, 12 months or something, and you know, we're just going have to get this renegotiated, we have to sue them. 00:35:20 Marty Dubin: And I was like, no, that's the last thing I want to do is sue a customer. Um, and I really realized, you know, in hindsight, and people talk about sometimes you need to be a wartime CEO and sometimes a peaceime CEO and I was being a peace time. Tracie Edwards: Mhm. Marty Dubin: I was agreeable and really the right and we did sue the client, the customer, and we did finally get to a a negotiated settlement. And that really was the right way to go and and I wasted time and I wasted uh money by just delaying that. Um, and so it was a real insight to me about my strength. It works most of the time. I need to be able to figure out when it doesn't work. And that has stayed with me. I now approach situations when I notice they're a little bit contentious and start to think about, well, wait a minute, what's the right response rather than what's my default response? Tracie Edwards: Yeah, I think so many of us are um nervous about confrontation and we want to we want people to like us and and um we want people to buy from us and and work with us. 00:36:18 Marty Dubin: Right. Tracie Edwards: And so often that is a that is a reaction I I think to those other those other goals that that we're looking for. So how did uh your ability to recognize your own blind spots sort of help you as you transitioned to helping people in other organizations address their blind spots? Marty Dubin: Yeah, just maybe staying with the current example and what you just kind of added on to um kind of difficult conversations and you know you can think about this for performance management conversations as well. You know there's one technique in communication and I talk about this in one of the chapters in the book is um there's a technique in communication theory called metaccommunication and meta means about so about communicating about the communication. So just that agreeableness I now realize when it is a little contentious or when um a little bit of conflict is is fine and I if I know that ahead of time I can say I think we're going to have a difficult conversation right now. There'll be points maybe when it might be difficult for you. 00:37:38 Marty Dubin: It might get difficult for me. So by saying that I've framed it that way. It takes some of the sting out of it and and I'm I'm commenting on the conversation, right? I'm it's where it's like frame around the picture right now. And then if we get into a difficult situation in there and I'm starting to feel the emotion like, you know, that I might back down or I don't like this or it might uh turn off, I can say, "Hey, I think we're at a really difficult point right now. I'm having a lot of emotion about this right now or this seems a little difficult. I think you might be too. maybe we can take a breather for a second here. Um or just by even saying that I've already lowered the temperature in the room for myself and for the other person. So that having that ability to comment on um talk about communication I found just really useful for myself to help me with that uh that agreeableness um trait blind spot. 00:38:34 Tracie Edwards: I love that point. I that's one that I'm going to to try and use in in my next sort of difficult conversation. I was I was in a a difficult client uh conversation here recently and uh I wish that we had had sort of a hey, you know what? Uh this is probably a tough conversation. Can we take a timeout for a minute? Um could could have been really helpful. Marty Dubin: You know, I I worked with one leader who was on the other extreme dream, you know, was fine with conflict and would like go for the conflict right away uh venture capital um investor and I had sent some people to him that you know were interested a possible investment for them and they came away with there's no way I'm going to work with this guy even if he likes and wants to give us money and I said to him I said you know you I think about I call the five acts of a conversation first is rapport building I mean it's you got to you know maybe that's 30 seconds or two minutes But you've got to develop a sense of of of that. 00:39:40 Marty Dubin: And then number two is kind of getting all the issues out on the table, you know, in a and then after you've built up enough now you could get to the more difficult part. And um it was a struggle for him to kind of pace himself and not just immediately go for those very difficult sit, you know, uh conversations which just was turning people off. Tracie Edwards: Yeah. So, how do you balance maybe um that uh cander is maybe a nice word for confrontation? Marty Dubin: Yeah. Tracie Edwards: How do you really balance cander with um not sort of going too far to uh abuse trust or or something? Marty Dubin: Yeah. So this this is how I look at it as a blind spot. So knowing where your set point is, where are you on that continuum more towards comfort with conf confrontation or or more the other way. Um and then thinking ahead of time about if you can about the situation you're going into and is it going to be difficult or or not. And then it's that self-awareness and being aware of the other person. 00:40:46 Marty Dubin: You know, is it you know, is this conversation going well or not? And so it's a clue, you know, that, hey, my default response I need to adjust from that. If if it means going one direction or the other depending on kind of what your normal default is. Tracie Edwards: So, as we wrap up today, uh anything else that you'd like to share from uh the book uh that you think would be uh helpful for our listeners? Marty Dubin: Yeah. I just to maybe a closing comment is that um leadership there's a lot of science of leadership there's a lot of skill leadership skills um but at the end of the day all of that gets filtered through who we are through our personalities and you and I could read the same book take away the same three lessons from it and we both apply it differently because of who our personalities are. So this book is about becoming more self-aware and with greater self-awareness you can become more strategic and deliberate with how you show up. Tracie Edwards: Well, thank you for that thought and uh I'm so grateful to have visited with you today. Again, the book is blind spotting uh and is available for purchase and I can't wait to dig into the book further. So, Marty Duben, thank you for being with us today. Marty Dubin: Thank you, Tracy. Really enjoyed the conversation. Tracie Edwards: And for our listeners, uh we hope you enjoyed today's conversation. And if you did, please uh go to your uh preferred podcast platform and leave us a review. We would love to hear from you and and know how we're doing. Thank you so much.