Smells Like Team Spirit: Leading Across the Generational Divide

Cale: ⁓ hey, all right. So Mindy and I are back. This is episode three of our ⁓ That I Know podcast. This we are going to try our to fly our Gen X flags at the same time we talk about the reality of leadership gaps that the you know we hear so much in the press and elsewhere about the different generations and their work styles and things like that. We want to take a look ⁓ at the the what we think of as the leadership gaps that we've experienced as leaders, ⁓ both to and from us with with the folks who work for us or work with us. you know how that so called feral upbringing of ours and the idea of implied knowledge may have created in some ways a disconnect between what we think of as executive intent. and h how things actually happen in reality and operations just and in life. ⁓ before we kind of dig into dig into that, Mindy, anything you would would add to that intro?

Mindy: Whatever.

Cale: Whatever. perfect, see? And the as the as the more astute among you or who are looking may notice, she's got her she's doing a little Gen X representation herself there that, you know, little Star Wars, and of course her Wookiee was just right off camera her Wookiee George. Yeah. Yeah. And of course, ⁓ I'm I am representing Ferris you know, Ferris still needs to be saved, I guess. The cute little anecdote I'll share about this, and Mindy, you remember this? Mindy and I were in wine country well yeah, yeah, it's wine country. We were in wine country in Texas. gosh, I think it was probably six, seven years ago, something like that. And ⁓ were walking through this little this little idyllic downtown, you know, town there in Texas, and I had this exact shirt on, and there was an older gentleman who crossed paths with us as we were going down the street and he stopped us and he was very sincere and he said he says, I don't know who this Ferris fella is, he says, but ⁓

Mindy: Meh. Mm-hmm.

Cale: You know, I've got twenty bucks in my pocket if it'll if it'll help. And I and he was what can I do to help? And this man was deadly serious, deadly earnest. And he was probably I he was seventy-five if he was a day, and ⁓ maybe maybe a bit older. so he obviously didn't know anything about Ferris Bueller. And I felt I felt so bad. it's like, no sir, it's a movie. I I apologize. No, please keep your wallet in your pocket, it's okay. And ⁓ we've been laughing about that, you know, naturedly now for like I said for six, seven years.

Mindy: Wait, what can I do to help? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Cale: But it just goes to show you that gap, you know, as much as we like to to think that our culture is everyone's culture and and all that. He was just a pretty good example of that of that gap between what we experienced as ⁓ adolescents and so forth, young adults, and how we've brought that into our our work lives and and so forth, right? You and I as as people who are of the same age, our references you know

Mindy: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Cale: pretty aligned. They're getting older, but they're still aligned. ⁓ we don't have that. We don't have that even with our kids or the the folks who are in the workplace now who are frighteningly enough younger than our kids to to some degree, right? You know, five, six, seven years, something like that. So this today I think is a good opportunity for us to kind of talk about how we are still navigating those gaps between our Gen X sensibilities and experience and what's happening in the in the modern workplace. Right.

Mindy: Yeah. Yeah.

Cale: And so if you don't mind, Mindy, what I'll do is I'll I'll go through these questions. We'll go through them together. I want to throw the first one out here to you. And it says, hey, you know, and you knew this one too. It's you know, how does our Gen X just it out mentality, you know, that we were raised with? How does that hinder our ability to provide useful explicit for our team members who are in a generation or so ⁓

Mindy: Mm-hmm.

Cale: behind us. You know, how do how do we do that?

Mindy: Yeah. Well, think that's just, I think you kind of answered it in the question. I mean, that's just it. We are so used to being autonomous. And what we do and the way we do things comes from being given a fairly broad set of guidelines, a high level category, maybe a goal. This is what you're trying to achieve, but not really any any tasks in between or any instructions and we're used to just kind of taking that and running with it and we've kind of done that our whole lives. I going as far back as you know, you come home from school, you know, you're 10 years old, you come home from school, you know that you're hungry, you figure out how to make yourself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, right? You've seen your mom do it enough times, you know there's bread, there's peanut butter, there's jelly. You do it enough times, you figure out it's better to put the peanut butter on one side, the jelly on the other side, and it comes together better. Nobody told you specifically to do that, you just figured it out, right? it just came from having to, right? Both your parents worked, or you were the child of a single parent, so you didn't have any other options, you were home by yourself. And that just translated into kind of how we did things.

Cale: Right, right.

Mindy: in the workplace, just learn to do it. the younger than our kids, like you mentioned, they don't operate that way and need more specific instructions than what we thrive under. They need things be a little bit more broken down. And so when you tell them, I want you to make me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, that's not necessarily ⁓

Cale: Right.

Mindy: something that's going to help them thrive. To make them thrive, you have to tell them, I want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I want crepe peanut butter, strawberry jelly, and this is how I want you to do it. ⁓ is not necessarily better than the other, ⁓ in order to help that person be successful, you have to learn to speak your language. So that just figure it out doesn't work for everybody. And so you have to think about what is the way that

Cale: Right.

Mindy: can provide instructions to this particular individual person that helps them be successful and helps them deliver the results that I need and do it in a way that I don't break them.

Cale: Yeah, let me so let me for the for the two for the two people who are about twenty years old who might be listening to this one of these days, we are purposefully speaking in generalities. Of course, we know stereotypes and all that sort of thing. we're we're speaking in general terms because and this is again based on our experience in the the not so much, you know, popular culture, right? So we know that there are are people on either end of the spectrum who don't fit that

Mindy: Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right. Right.

Cale: descriptive mold we're laying out for their age group. But the idea is we're saying, hey, generally speaking, this is the experience and this is how we have begun as as Gen X leaders to navigate that that gap, if you will, and not even so much a gap in experience, but a gap in experiences, right? And when they were formed and the and the basis around which they were formed. Like you said,

Mindy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Cale: ⁓ you know, n latchkey kids and you know, the term that you and I have been hearing more the last I don't know, year or two is that is I'd they went from latchkey to feral and we're like, yeah, that's us. We're we were feral and to s to some degree some to some degrees we might still be. You know. and so I I think that's a I think that's the to me that's the beginning of of a good answer is that we just have to ⁓ we to take a moment as leaders to recognize that what we take for granted

Mindy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I'm to Yeah. Yeah, we're feral. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Cale: in that just do it, just go get it done angle. a lot that's implied there, which is we assume that they have the tools, we assume they've got the basic knowledge, we assume they've got the basic intuition and round to it's if you will, to to try that. And then if they don't get very far, got enough sense, quote, to come back to us and ask for more help or ask for direction or whatever.

Mindy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Cale: And it's that and what you'll hear there is a series of assumptions. We assume A, B, B, B, C, and D, that they've got all these things in row. I think that's those, I think you what you and I have learned is those are unsafe assumptions to one degree or the other per individual. ⁓ yeah. And so I the you know the the question that we came up with that sort of stems from that is, you know, worked or what works. We talked about what we have to do, I think, to tailor our just.

Mindy: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Cale: just figure it out mentality. There are certain of that just figure it out mentality that you and I have found that does work. ⁓ and let's talk about what does work there and how we try to capture that successful part to extend it for other people. Do you have any

Mindy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So I think just figure it out if you kind of break it down to the basics, it really means out what works for you and figuring out how to ⁓ solve. And that's really we should trying to do, not necessarily going out there and saying, okay, This is what I need done. Here are all 75 steps of this project that I need done because nobody has time for that. And we don't want to baby people, right? We don't want to infantilize people. ⁓ No, because that's not fair either. But I think just figure it out to me means how do we provide them the tools the skills to be able to problem solve?

Cale: No. We c we can't we don't want to, you know, right. No. No.

Mindy: and say, OK, I am in this situation, and I need to get this result. How do I get to that result with these four sets of instructions that I have, knowing that there are probably 17 more in between? OK, how do I get that? So just figure it out worked for us, because we didn't have any choice.

Cale: Mm-hmm.

Mindy: Right? We didn't have the internet. We usually had an incomplete set of encyclopedias. ⁓ You know, there were some things that we could find out on TV. We could ask our parents and they'd say, go look it up in the dictionary or the newspaper or don't you read? ⁓ know? Or like the two of us, we read a lot of books. And we read a lot of books, we ⁓

Cale: Right, right. Yeah. Or the newspaper or the card catalogue. Right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right.

Mindy: You know, we had some basic knowledge and we had that thirst for learning and we had that, that... Right. Right.

Cale: we knew how to we learned how to learn. We learned how to learn from from of various from varied sources. Yeah. Yeah.

Mindy: Right, you were going to say my thing. You were going to say various different, yes you were.

Cale: I was not. I I refuse. I refuse. Now I'm gonna what I will do is I will take the I will take this opportunity to to before I forget to say it, y what you were just describing there in in broader terms are us is us telling our our what success looks like. Right? We're we're letting them know whether you want to call it a KPI or again just criteria.

Mindy: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Cale: results, whatever whatever t term you want to use in the in the organization you're in, we're telling them what success looks like. So at the same time, what we're not doing is we're not giving them step by step. We're not infantilizing. We're not right, we're not setting them up. At the same time, we're not setting them up for failure by them not having an attainable clear goal. so to me that I've seen I that is one of those pieces that you bring to bear that I know works. And another one ⁓

Mindy: Mm-hmm. Right. Mm-hmm.

Cale: Ironically enough, is and it began I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna confess here, it began this impulse I'm gonna share began almost it was a calculated step on my part years ago and it became part of my habit and part of my DNA and then relatively soon it just bec it made sense and I just do it by default because it's the right thing to do. And it was simply this go of my way to ask the person. what it is they wanted to do in order to complete the job. Right? Get their heaven forbid, get their input instead of telling them what to do and when to have it done by, invest them into the plan. Hear how they hear how they attend to it to attack the problem. because it's of course, dil. It gets them invested. And you know what? Even even us Gen X dogs can learn some new tricks.

Mindy: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Cale: And pretty soon it became a situation that's like, man, I didn't think of it that way. And so all these lessons we learn from just being humans to other humans, goes back to, I hate to say this, it goes back to no matter what school we went to, no matter what training we had, no matter what experience we had, a lot of those things they weren't taught to us to do that with other humans because, again, speaking in general stereotypes, our bosses were boomers. ⁓

Mindy: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Cale: Or maybe even some of those silent generation type folks. We had people who were twenty or thirty years older than us when we joined the workplace in full force in let's say the early nineties, right? Or you know, in late eighties in high school, whatever. So we were not, not taught ⁓ those humans how to do things. ⁓ know, they said, do it, ⁓ don't ask any questions. If I want anything from you, I'll I'll tell you.

Mindy: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Cale: ⁓ why aren't you done yet? I mean, these were the of that theme, right? And don't burn yourself on the french fries, stupid. You know, you know ⁓ know, right? ⁓ we yeah.

Mindy: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. This is the break room. This is the bathroom. This is your desk.

Cale: Right. Any questions? Yeah. Right. And so ⁓ forbid we Yeah.

Mindy: Yeah, yeah. Shirley will train you. by the way, Shirley doesn't know how to use the computer, but you're gonna have to use it.

Cale: Right. Right. Teach and then teach Shirley, you know. Yeah. Yeah.

Mindy: Yeah, and then don't ask me any questions about it because I don't know how to do it. Six months later, we're teaching Shirley how to do an Excel formula.

Cale: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And so we didn't you know, so to to to put us, you know, to to tell any g tell that that twenty year old who might be listening, forgive us for learning on the fly as as part of our DNA to show us now that we know, now that we've learned over the last say ten, twelve, whatever years, working with people in the workplace now who are larger numbers, and they are, you know, what, ten, twenty years younger than us, okay, we ⁓

Mindy: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and they're smarter.

Cale: And they're sm and they are of magnitude smarter. Let's just make sure that that gets in the transcript. I mean, period. Right? ⁓ I'm gonna flip the script a little bit here in in that sort of confessional And we've we've talked about as leaders how continue to strive to be better. We're putting this playful Gen X label on it, but the truth is we're still learning how to be leaders every day. Okay.

Mindy: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Cale: I've I had the opportunity a year or so ago, year and a you know, almost almost two years ago now, to in twenty twenty-four join a company that the position I took, my leader was years younger than me. So the script was flipped. Right? We've been talking for the last you know ten, fifteen minutes about What do we do with a generation of people who are younger than us, and how do we how do we lead them, train them, support them, help them be successful, and so on? I found myself in a situation where this person was my boss, he was is years younger. and so I had to sit down with myself and ask myself, what how was I going to navigate that? Because Yes, I'm a leader, but in this particular context, he he was the leader and I was the the the IC, okay. he didn't ask me to come on board in that particular role and exert overt leadership, right? I was a silent silent leader by you know reputation and reference and all those other ways as an IC might be. but I had to ask myself, what was I going to learn from him? How was I going to learn it? And so forth. I had to put my student hat on for the first time in quite a while. I'll say here to anyone who's listening who cares, I learned a great deal about the modern, ⁓ how I say this, the modern management culture or training methods or what they're in grad school these days about leadership compared to ⁓ How I learned how to be a leader and the books I read and the and the methods, and I think and to you to a to a same extent. I will say that I'm still working through and unpacking the disconnects between the approach, this mod this modern management approach he appeared to inhabit compared to ⁓ I wouldn't yeah, go ahead.

Mindy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, well, I was going to say, don't, I'm going to, I two different sides here. So this ⁓ may a little disjointed. So one, the the I understood and the way I heard it coming from you wasn't really a leadership approach. was, and that's all I'm going say on that side. It was, ⁓ I don't think that was taught anywhere. I think that was personal decision. On our side, I don't believe, or I recall, that we were actually really taught leadership. We were taught ⁓ management, right? that's different. We were taught boss, and that's different. ⁓

Cale: Ye we were taught boss. Yes, yes. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Mindy: learned leadership because we didn't like management. We didn't like boss because as Gen Xers, as as feral latchkey kids, we did not like authority. We didn't need it. We didn't want it. We don't like being micromanaged. We don't like people, people looking over our shoulder. We do not like being perceived. And so

Cale: Huh. We didn't need it. Yep. Right. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mindy: anybody who comes in and tries to exert authority is going to make us angry or at the very least frustrated and annoyed. And so the last thing that we wanted to do take that boss management that was foisted on us and put it on someone else. So ⁓ we of tried to drift into leadership because we didn't want to be that.

Cale: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, think the phrase that we hear now is we would see something that gave us the ick ⁓ you know, frankly, frankly that hey, that just sucks. It's like we yeah, we are not going to do we're not gonna do that. Right. ⁓ you're you know you what you're absolutely right. and that's why I I and I you and I've talked about this a lot. That's why the leaders that I still

Mindy: Yes. That sucks. That bites. Yeah.

Cale: try to this day to pattern myself after if they were let's say they were older boomers or even younger boomers and they were just almost Gen X or they were just just slightly older X than us. And there again it's it's it's we're s we're speaking in generalities, but those two those two or three people happen to be, or three people happen to be in my military career and they

Mindy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Cale: had an impact and an imprint on me that had nothing to do with them having been in the military. It was how they led men and women. They didn't lead with their stripes or with their bars or with their clusters, right? They led with they led with their minds and with their empathy and with their understanding of how human dynamics work and and what that young 18-year-old, 19-year-old, 20-year-old needed in order to be successful. Right?

Mindy: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right. Right.

Cale: And I I got to be led by those folks either after they had already been leaders for a long time and had it down and were going to retire within you know a few years, or they were or they were their third, fourth or fifth year of leadership if they were new, but they had some they had some experience and some inborn leadership that had nothing to do with their authority. Right? ⁓ I I still to those people today as you know, whether

Mindy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Cale: Overtly or covertly in everything I implicitly or explicitly everything I do when it comes to leadership. So I I'm glad you mentioned that you what you were s what you saw me experience with that younger leader, if you will, was more was more manager than leader. I would I would ag I would agree with that assessment and as as as as that was, what it allowed me to do was it allowed me to say, you know what?

Mindy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Cale: There are two or three things that came out of that. One is I'm just absolutely not going to do that. And sort of parentheses, where did he get that? W who is teaching them that this is the path to success, right? If anybody, you know.

Mindy: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I don't think that, I think that comes from, that came from a particular club. That's all I'm gonna say. That one of those hallway conversation type arrangements. ⁓ reason I say that is because that is outside the norm. And watched you in roles where had good leadership. Your previous position, you had good leadership.

Cale: Maybe so. That may be yeah. ⁓ yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Mindy: very good leadership. And that's still somebody that comes up now. And you had good leadership in one of your roles at if we can say that. I don't know whether we can say that. ⁓ Yeah.

Cale: Yeah, I've still you know. Yeah. Yeah. We can yeah, we can s we have we've all we've all had good and bad spots throughout the and this ⁓ yeah, and I and I Yeah.

Mindy: Yeah, right. I didn't, yeah, I personally didn't experience good leadership till I was in my ⁓ was managed and bossed until I was in my ⁓ And ironically, my first good leader was a millennial.

Cale: Mm. You talked about that, ⁓ yeah. Before I I would I want to unpack that, but before I unpack that I want to make sure that I don't end that learning experience I was just sharing with you there on on that holy what we might call negative note, because that experience, that experience again, in in two fundamental ways reinforced the the to my mind, the validity of the approach I take as a leader. And it also made me aware you know what,

Mindy: was not, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Right. Mm-hmm.

Cale: I had the right approach going in with an open mind and going in and and being willing to learn and to challenge my assumptions as a leader and be and and frankly be led. Okay. ⁓ the the lesson I learned also, though, too, was there was a point when I began to take too much of a back seat and let my experience and my and my skills be subsumed or subverted by that other style. ⁓

Mindy: Mm-hmm. You did. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Cale: I should not have done that. the reason is not even so much personal, but if was ever going to have an impact on an organization like I want to do and leave positive impact in in some number of years later, you have to exert your experience and your authority and say, No, what you're talking about ⁓ does not I've got twenty and please don't feel like I'm I'm I'm making you feel bad about you, dude, but I've got twenty years of experience on you.

Mindy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Cale: I've done what you're about to do and it sucks, it's wrong, and it's not going to work. Stop. I'll encourage you right now to stop. And I won't go any further out of respect for the fact that you outrank me or whatever, but don't do that. I never I never had that conversation with that person like I should have. ⁓ and it's gonna it's gonna be to his detriment, not mine. I I learned that lesson years ago, I don't care. But he's not going to have applied that.

Mindy: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, right. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Cale: That lesson. ⁓ and you know, anyway, you were saying that one of the you know, and I think it's our role as leaders, whether we are servant leaders or you know, whatever stack part of the stack we're in, ⁓ it is our job as leaders to lead by example, lead by experience, or be like Callie and just do what you want to do. Yeah, ⁓ us there, you know. ⁓ cat cat, right? So we have to remember we have a role and we have a responsibility.

Mindy: Yeah. And that's unfortunate. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's just wonders around being a chatty Cathy.

Cale: And I I'll leave it at that. You were talking about something I wanted you to unpack and that was your best leader in the past ten years or so has been a quote millennial. Tell you know, tell the tell the listeners about that.

Mindy: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. That was the first time I actually experienced actually for somebody who who ran a team like that that had never been an experience I had before. I spent most of my career working in jobs where women pitting themselves against each other. And if were in any type of position where you were considered Potentially intelligent potentially Promotable everybody above you was beating you down and There was no leadership. It was always backstabbing and and shoving each other and I mean it was terrible I was constantly unhappy never wanted to go to work and I mean kale can attest this at this particular job. I'm talking about

Cale: Yeah. Yeah.

Mindy: ⁓ I was there until the business was sold and closed down. I did not miss a day of work unless I was violently ill. And even then I tried to work from home. Because I mean, I just, I didn't want to let her down. That's what leaders do. Right? It's not that it's not that they force you to do the work. They don't you don't want to let them down. Because

Cale: Mm-hmm. Right. Right. Right. Yeah, let's yeah, let's say her name. Let's say her name. We can say her name out loud. We'll say Lisa. ⁓ Okay, well that's fine. Well that's fine, we'll edit that out. Okay.

Mindy: Yeah. No, I don't want to say names. I don't want to say names because I don't want. But I mean, yeah, well, I want to just make sure that people understand that just because we're talking about how we as Gen X lead and that we're talking about how sometimes we have to figure out how to work with younger generations Kale had an experience with a younger generation that wasn't great. There are great leaders out there who

Cale: And that's the key. And that ha yeah.

Mindy: are younger than us that are wonderful. There are leaders that are our age that are great because my next boss after that was awesome. My next Gen X boss was awesome. ⁓

Cale: And the kicker though, I don't mean to interrupt you, but what I want I think what you're saying, and I want to make sure people hear it, ⁓ we are saying, hey, as much as again, this is about we're we're saying the whole Gen X thing tongue in cheek and we're using it as a point of reference, but we leaders value leadership no matter where it comes from. Older, younger, age, peer level, we don't care. We like good leadership and we like things that we can steal, repurpose, borrow.

Mindy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. I want, yes.

Cale: Right? And and share with whoever. Right. And so don't take away, don't take away that we're somehow framing people or saying if you're under thirty, you suck, or if you're over sixty, you're dead. Nothing could be further from the truth. We are leadership sponges. And I think that and to to to go back to where we kicked this off, we came up at a certain a or we came up in a certain era where we had to absorb information. It wasn't

Mindy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right. Right? Right. Mm-hmm.

Cale: Flying at us at a constant rate where we had to disregard it. We had to go get it. It was as ubiquitous and as constant and as frequent and as varied. Right? We Yeah, we had to be intellectually hungry in order to get any food at all, right? As it were. So yeah.

Mindy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, it's much harder to come by. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Remember, we were reading horror novels when we were 10.

Cale: That's true, true. You know, or or or you know, what if if in the case of me, my mom was a a nurse, so I had anatomy and all sorts of stuff. So we're learning just w the oddest collection of things ⁓ that people, you know ⁓ Yeah, right, right. So ⁓ know, we got a little bit off topic here to somewhat, but I as I look at our I look at the things we wanted to hit, one of the things that that I think we could talk about here then as we're

Mindy: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, medical encyclopedia. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Cale: Talking about the different styles of leadership and the different abilities and different are you a leader or a manager? All these kind of things. I think they in some way contribute to this question that you that you put in the in the box here. In what ways does it does executive intent get diluted or lost before it reaches the floor? Right? So yeah, ⁓ it was your question you put in the thing. So I don't want to try to mansplain the question. I'll I'll leave it to you to tell me. ⁓

Mindy: Mm-hmm. ⁓ You can chaos plane if you want. ⁓

Cale: I'd rather not. I know we'll we'll cut that out too. Do tell you know, talk to me about that one.

Mindy: Well, there's a couple things. So one thing, think sometimes it's like the old game of telephone. I don't know if anybody even remembers that. You tell somebody, and then by the time it goes through three or four different people, the message has changed. And then, yes, right. Right. Right? And you'd whisper in somebody's ear. You'd say, you know.

Cale: We would sit like a now we'd sit in a little circle of like we're like eight, nine, ten years old. We sit in a circle in at school or in the playground or whatever, right? Or at a s at a party. Right, right.

Mindy: Kale has the world's tiniest ears. then it'd go around the circle. And by the time you got to the last person, it'd like, Kale doesn't have any ears. ⁓ yeah. it that message. So that's one thing. The other thing too, it's like there a lot of knowledge.

Cale: Right. And we're gonna edit that out too, but yeah.

Mindy: that just lives in somebody's head. And so sometimes that intent doesn't actually make its way down. And gets So let's just say I said to, you know, Director Smith, hey, I need this dashboard made for this particular goal. I need a dashboard for this. And she's like, ⁓ okay. And it goes no place else. so the time, you know, I, she's out, let's say she has to be gone. She breaks her leg, has to be out. And I get that information that I need because the person that she's managing doesn't know anything about it because she's never shared that message. got, it stopped there because that, it didn't cascade.

Cale: Right. It didn't cascade, if you will. Yeah.

Mindy: So that's another way. The message doesn't get shared with everybody that it needs to get shared with. So it either gets broken somebody puts a blocker on it and it doesn't go past a certain level.

Cale: I'll I've got one that I think will supplement what you were just saying and it ties directly back to some of the cultural and time based aspects were talking about as well in terms of communication barriers that we as leaders need constantly be aware of and and think through and frankly hate to say this word, manage that gap and it in the sense of solving it, right?

Mindy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Cale: And I the the the thing that kind of popped into my head when I saw this question from you and as you were uncovering it there from that ⁓ what I might call that operational perspective, ⁓ I go back to ⁓ and cultural information. And so if a lot times if if we're talking, let's say we're working with a person who's of a of that younger generation, we have to sit and think about

Mindy: Mm-hmm.

Cale: the term we use, not that the term itself is necessarily controversial, but the term has changed. The meaning of the term is no longer the same. Like if we ⁓ gosh, what's the you know, you know, Netflix and chill, you know, I we're gonna go chill out. Well ⁓ I

Mindy: Yes. Right. Yes. Right. Well, even something so simple as a couple.

Cale: ⁓ yeah, yeah. I mean the the definition of the word couple, you know, for from our from our perspective, couple means two. We've run in I, at least it especially run into situation where I say I need a couple of something and personal just look at me and I'm like, two. You know, and I and I was floored and somewhat a coarse in my response. I'm like, what? It's it's ⁓ shoot, it's two.

Mindy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, how many is that? Mm-hmm. He was mean. Yeah. Yeah.

Cale: It was me it was a little mean, it was a little mean. But all that to say as we and you and I have this we this little shorthand where if we feel like we're you and I as a couple are miscommunicating, ⁓ we we came up with a shorthand, we'll just say the word ⁓ red one another. And that stemmed and for the folks who were like, what are they talking about? For the longest time Mindy and I would be having a conversation. She would say something, and it was in plain English. I would say something, it was in plain English, but the other person was just not getting it.

Mindy: Mm-hmm. Red. haha

Cale: And we finally figured out we were both trying to describe the color red to each other. We we we know what red is in our minds, we see where it's like, well, that's red. And she's like, well, no, that's red. And if we were ever trying to describe red to one another, we might describe it in two different ways, but by God, we're talking about red. And so rather than fight about the word how to think of the word red, we just say red, and we're like, okay, let's do a reset. Same thing with same thing in the workplace.

Mindy: ⁓ huh. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Cale: Right? We're talking about the same thing as this other person, but they are coming at it from a completely different, frankly, newer reference point. And so learned, and this is hard, I've learned to sit back and listen and re-listen to what they said and go, okay, I think they may have meant this way, not the way I think of it. And it's ⁓ word that's different, or one phrase, or they're talking about.

Mindy: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Cale: some pop culture, you know, s singer or that I really don't follow, and I'm yeah, I I don't know what that means. And what goes that is making ourselves vulnerable as leaders and saying, you know what, having to admit I don't know what that is. ⁓ I'm not a you know, you you don't want to look old, you don't want to look out of touch, but at the same time if you try to bull if you try to BS your way through it, you lose your credibility as a leader.

Mindy: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right.

Cale: And and frankly, you're losing that bit of respect from that person because you're not meeting them where they are and and and that kind of thing. So just think ⁓ all that to say the disconnects come from communication, getting information from here to here. It also comes when you've got two people in the room and they are just not on the same page because they're using two different you languages.

Mindy: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. you're speaking two versions of the exact same language and they're just not, like you're going like this, it You ⁓ may okay, so here's a good example. So I used watch a lot of MASH. don't know if anybody, who else remembers MASH? I used to watch a lot of MASH. And one of the things that Hawkeye Pierce used to say about

Cale: ⁓ right, right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Mindy: pain sometimes is it was exquisitely painful. And I love that phrase, okay, exquisitely painful. So, Kale give me a hard time. He's like, that means something like really good, like exquisitely beautiful. I'm like, but it can be bad also. It has to do with how sharp and how, you know, intense it is, right? And so somebody could say something was exquisite and they mean something really good.

Cale: That's because you're a weirdo.

Mindy: but I might be saying it's exquisitely painful and not communicating, right?

Cale: Well, as I and the w and the worst part is is that that exact conversation comes up and we were both both literally grew up watching MASH and we've watched MASH many, times since then, all the way through recently, sometimes independently, sometimes together, and we will go to our relative graves disagreeing. It's like, yeah, I understand the denotation of exquisite, but damn it, that word does not mean bad. You it doesn't it it goes with good, right? You know

Mindy: It happened. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. and...

Cale: That that experience was exquisite, not ⁓ that hurt so exquisitely. No, it was t it was odd no. But y anyway, but that's an example of even if you've got the same

Mindy: It was exquisitely painful! It was a capping. It was it was too

Cale: If you've got the same frame of reference, you can still be disconnected. And Mindy and I have gone off the rails a bit ⁓ to prove the larger point though, which is again, that communication gap can come from so many different sources and so many different angles that we as leaders, we as people, whether it's with our our wives and husbands, it's with our children, it's with our peers, it's with our subordinates or our bosses, we have to really kind of have our heads on a swivel, I suppose, all the time.

Mindy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Cale: To be a to be aware of ⁓ some sort of a a bias that prevents us from understanding the information being passed on. And it could be something as minor as the word exquisite, or it could be something as major as, hey, there's a particular result or a particular strategy deliverable that we're gonna miss or be late on because we didn't get the the message one way or the other. Right. So

Mindy: Mm-hmm.

Cale: Gen X, Boomer, Zoomer, whatever you want to call yourself, we all have that responsibility to be plugged in, right? even if it's a like this like that word, right? Yeah. I'm ⁓ you're gonna get you're gonna get yours in just a moment. We're gonna ask, we're gonna go through one more question and then you're gonna pay for that. so how we as and I may have answered this question here in that

Mindy: even if it's exquisitely painful.

Cale: in that ⁓ wrap up but I we'll throw it out there anyway. What can we do? Again, we're putting that Gen X label on us. What can we do as Gen X lab Gen X labels, Gen X leaders? Build how can we build systems that don't rely on our grit and our just it done? What are ways that we can build systems that benefit from that experience but don't don't ⁓ frankly alienate

Mindy: Mm-hmm.

Cale: the folks who come after us and have to work for us. How do we extend very valuable learned Okay. how do we make that portable for others? Is how I would phrase that.

Mindy: I would say that the most important thing that a leader can bring to a team is to remember that your team is only as good as its weakest member. that weakest member should be you. And you surround yourself with people who are smarter than you and take their advice.

Cale: Yes.

Mindy: and build your systems on advice from those people who are smarter than you and better at building them and you execute on them. And let those members of your team do their ⁓ and do well because that's what you hired them to do. if that's the one thing that can take away,

Cale: Right. And do the way they know how. Right. Yeah. Yep.

Mindy: from all of this is remember that you are your team you are reflection of that team. And if they are better and smarter than you, you are always gonna look good and they are always gonna give you the best that they can give you. And you're gonna put out there ⁓ is be incredible. So that is where those systems get built on those team members that are better.

Cale: Yeah. Yeah.

Mindy: and smarter than you.

Cale: Yeah. I think in some ways what you've described is again it it's ⁓ almost the antithesis of how we were raised and trained by the folks and again we're speaking in generalities, but generally speaking, those folks didn't train us that way. It was command, you know, d a top down, okay, authoritarian do it because I said, you know, I'm your mother. ⁓

Mindy: Mm-hmm. Mm-mm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you're dumb, do what I say.

Cale: Duh, you're dumb, you know, you're your your your French fries eye management, whatever. everything everything you said I agree with. If you if you as a leader are the smartest person in the room, you've got one of maybe two problems at the same time. You have got a team that you you hired the wrong team and you need to fix that and train them and make them better, or got the wrong impression about yourself and what you're supposed to be doing. if you as a leader are the smartest person in the room, you've got one of maybe two problems at the same time. You have got a team that you you hired the wrong team and you need to fix that and train them and make them better, ⁓ or you've got the wrong impression about yourself and what you're supposed to be doing.

Mindy: Mm-hmm.

Cale: And you don't know your people very well, if you think that you're the smartest person in the room, you better reassess, right? let those people be successful and watch them, coach them, mentor them, ⁓ serve them. That servant leadership thing. It's not like it sounds. Your job as a leader is to get things out of their way and live in service of the men and women you've been made responsible for. Their success is your success, period. ⁓ and then the other thing too would be ⁓

Mindy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Cale: empathy. And this is one of those things where ironically enough, coming from me, it's it's taken me a long time to learn what to to practice empathy. But once I got a handle on it, I was able to copy it, if you will, into a lot of different facets of my of my life. she's laughing. She she'll you know, she's gonna exquisitely find out. But no. ⁓ no, I it it it's true. And so ⁓

Mindy: I like the copy paste. That was funny.

Cale: Some of the best success I've ever had as a leader is putting myself in that person's shoes saying, okay, what's driving them? What's their motivation? What's their almost like sort of like the the method actor, you know, in some ways. You know, what's what's their motivation? You know. And so that really does help because I'm not worried about it from, hey, I'm the leader, I've got it's like, okay, what's my person's need? ⁓ Or are they here today? Why are they not here today?

Mindy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Cale: Why when we're having a one-on-one is it a one-way conversation? You know, whatever the particular situation is. So it goes back to what you said. Empower your people, lead them. Don't boss them, lead them and help them be who they can be. ⁓ they're going, you know, people are gonna come and go, but ⁓ if you if you care and feed for those people, while they're there, they're gonna be productive and you're going and you're gonna be a good leader. I that's it. That's it. And that that

Mindy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Thank you. Mm-hmm. for them, feed for them, remove obstacles.

Cale: That personal grit. I think the other thing that I truly do believe is a a superpower of ours that comes again from that called a generational blessing, if you will. no, I mean, you know, it's it's it's if you think about it, there was none of that, none of that, you know, you can't go outside by yourself. It was be home by dark, right? If we have to come get you, you're in trouble. Don't we don't eat dirt, be home by dark.

Mindy: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Don't eat dirt. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Cale: If you hear if you hear your dad whistle get your ass home and every dad's every dad's whistle was different, you knew you know and if you went and if you rode your bike further than you could hear your dad whistle, you were in trouble. Yeah you there were just these boundaries that were part of the DNA. ⁓ but within you yeah. Within that boundary though there was a lot of latitude and it it allowed us to learn and grow and be stronger, I think, in some ways, earlier.

Mindy: Yeah. It was. Yep. You knew Dad's whistle. Yep. I could go pretty far. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Cale: Than we might have been elsewhere. So we need to, we I say that that we need to as much as we can impart the of that to the men and women we're entrusted to lead. If you you know, in my opinion. Now, ⁓ is something I told you you were going to get it. you know, so we're gonna wrap, we're gonna wrap up. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. We're gonna wrap up that ear comment is what got you, sister. We're going to wrap up.

Mindy: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. ⁓ What did I do?

Cale: the ⁓ podcast today with a a a little thing that demonstrates one of Mindy's superpowers. and we'll see how she does. Years and years ago, I discovered one of her one of her party tricks is because she is a music nut, she loves ⁓ for its she loves all kinds of music. She's just into every sort of music. She to have a really deep passion and love

Mindy: Mmm.

Cale: For what we might call eighties hair metal, you know, pre-grunge before, you know, before Eddie Vetter, you know, killed good music, or however you want to, you know, before Nirvana, you this sort of thing, right? So we'll call it 80s hair metal, glam metal, right? Okay. So different ⁓ variations on that theme. She's got this ability, I found out, you ask her, so okay, so who are the band members of so and so? And I started teasing her one time, I said, Okay, all right. I know that. these bands over the years have replaced people like most bands do. You know, who was their second guitarist? Or, you know, who or s she can even go deep with you sometimes on who produced the damn record. I mean, we're talking she read the liner notes, she memorized them, she, you know, may have r may have, you know, her last name, you know, as their last name 'cause she was gonna marry so and so, you know, yeah. Yeah. The point is

Mindy: ⁓ I did not do that. No. I'm not a weirdo.

Cale: The point is is she's got this power. So we're gonna see if we can stump the chump today here a little bit. We're gonna try to test her out. All right. And so I've been racking my brain about this one, trying to see if I can get one over on you. All right. So of the places where, you know, she and I as music lovers, we have a lot of overlap, and yet there are several bands we don't see eye to eye. And and probably the one good example I can come up with is I'm a fan of of Guns N' Roses, and she is largely not. All And so I'm no means a rock historian, so I really don't know a whole lot about the origin story of Guns N' Roses to if maybe to the extent she does, and we're gonna test that. I recently was told that there was a g person who auditioned to be the lead guitarist for ⁓ Guns and Roses and he didn't get the job. Splash got the job instead, if you will, right? And so my question to you, Mindy, is do you know who that who that that guy was who didn't get the gig?

Mindy: CC DeVille.

Cale: C C Deville and he's the the lead guitarist for Poison, the blonde headed right right. So ⁓ I'm sure people go ahead.

Mindy: Yeah, I The reason why he didn't get the job if I remember correctly was because he wore too much makeup

Cale: He worked him at well, I mean, he just he just he wasn't slash. I mean, I think the answer is he didn't get the job because he wasn't he wasn't a fit. It was a cultural fit thing, right? so I wouldn't have been able cultural fit, culture cultural fit. He he had the skill, he just didn't have the cultural fit. He wasn't, you know, he wasn't gonna bring I don't I don't either. I don't either, to be honest with you. ⁓ so ⁓ had the skill for poison.

Mindy: Yeah, yeah, it was a cultural fit. It's what we would call a cultural fit. Yeah. Well, I don't know if you have skill either. He had the skill for poison.

Cale: Now so how you know, so that that little thing there, we'll we'll try more of that over the weeks to see if we could have some fun and maybe you stump me with something else completely different. But ⁓ that was sort of an example of the things that she and I have in common as two people who who love each other and and share a lot of things. and there's one of those things that's different, right? and I wanna share one real funny s what I think of as a f as a funny story that goes with that. you know One of the things that we do in this podcast is we talk about, you know, the fan or the three or four people who might be listening at any given point. a fan of the band XTC, and she's been teasing me for years and years that I'm one of like five people on the planet. And I'm like, ha ha ha ha ha right. Okay. All right. Well, a year or two ago now, I guess it was, I got tickets to see Ingve Malmstein. And if you know, you know. And if you don't know, you don't know. and her his record, she's one of his records might be within eye distance. She might be able to put it in front of the camera or not. Not sure. See? She's ⁓ she's about to. So there you go. So I bought her I bought her tickets. We went to a local place here in Oklahoma City and saw Ingve, you know, like yeah, what a little over a year ago, something like that, I forget when it was. Anyway, ⁓ show. is one of those ones where I knew who he was, I knew his music, but I wasn't really a I'm not a big fan. ⁓ but I went because I wanted to be with her, support her. She was, you know, just exquisitely pleased from start to finish. Right? So we're we got to the gig early, we got to the venue early, we're sitting, you know, we are, I don't know, ⁓ one of those ones where it's part G A, part portable seats, right? You know. And so I don't know, third row from the front, something like that. And we're early. So we're sitting there waiting for the place to fill in. And there was a guy who ⁓ Sat in the row next to me. If I remember he sat on my s he sat on my side first. And he starts just kind of talking like you do. And he was saying, Hey, you know, you know, this is like my third time seeing Ingve, how about you? And I'm like, first time. Right? And he goes, really? And he goes, I figured a fan likes a he started talking to me, fanning me up. I said, No, no, it's her. And this guy's just he was godsmacked, right? He's like, What? I said, ⁓ no, she's the fan. I'm here, I'm here to learn, I'm here ⁓ my time, you know. And so

Mindy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Cale: That I say that to say stereotypes are a bitch ⁓ are even worse. And so if find yourself in that situation, you're sitting next to Mindy at an Ingve Maumstein concert, she's the fan. You know? Yeah. Now, having having said that, she has she's been a good sport. she's been to two or three Owl concerts with me now, and she is now she is now a fan. She's she's seen Elvis Costello with me twice.

Mindy: Me! Yeah.

Cale: so forth and so she's gone she's gone to see bands with me that weren't her first choice, but we've had the pleasure, the exquisite pleasure of going to see bands and artists that we both adore to the same level. you know, whether it be Howard Jones on on one side, Buddy Guy on the other that we're gonna see next month in Tulsa, you name it. So all that that to say as Gen Xers, we will we will read anything, listen to anything. And make fun of everybody who doesn't. You know, that's g so anyway. That's right. That's right. Would do you would you like to leave any last wisdom to with anybody, maybe if you know any tango and cash level of wisdom, you know, that's weird. Foobar, yeah. Yeah. b all over the yeah, Foobar, big time. Yeah. ⁓ And maybe what I'll ask Minnie to do before we publish this is she could leave links

Mindy: Mm-hmm. Yeah. If you don't like it, you suck. FUBAR, big time. Mm-hmm.

Cale: And in the show notes she can leave some links to Ingve and she can leave leave some links to Tango and Cash, you know, any any reference that we've made any reference we've made for people like, What is that? ⁓ we're gonna assume you know Mash, we won't bother with that one, but we'll leave some links to some other ones to to share some things we were talking about today.

Mindy: ⁓ yeah. Mm-hmm. Leave some links to some of our favorite things.

Cale: That's right, that's right. And you know, the four or five people who who ⁓ who like those things. The last thing I'll say about that Yngve no that the last thing I'll say about the Yngvei is is I've I've two women in my life and they were both Yngve fans. And that that I don't know if that was coincidence or it's a type. I don't know, but there's something to unpack there. Is that taste? Is it is that what it is? They have good taste in men, is that what it is?

Mindy: Mm-hmm. Don't judge us. It's taste. music.

Cale: I see, I gotcha, gotcha. All right. Well on that note, folks, thank you for sticking with us and ⁓ we'll see you next time. Thanks. Bye bye.

Mindy: All right, bye.