Hello and welcome to This Is Not What I Signed Up For, the podcast that teaches you how to swim as a new manager so you don't sink with the new responsibilities that you have. Now today I'm very excited to have David Gouthro with me. David, hello. Hello, nice to be here, Ross. Thanks for inviting me. Great to have you. David is firstly a friend, but also a speaker with over 40 years experience. And he is sought after for his creative presentations, his playful demeanor, and his relentless focus on delivering value. Now the main focus of his current business involves working with individuals and groups who have no one else to point to as excuses for their own inaction. That said. His deepest personal passion is to help people discover the courage he believes they all possess and then inspire them to act on it. So this is gonna be tying in heavily to our topic today. David, welcome. So glad to be here. Still glad to be here. I'm so glad, let me know if that changes. So David, as an icebreaker that I do on every episode, I wanna hear from you, what is the worst piece of management advice you've ever received? Well, so I'll change that just a little bit because I haven't ever received any bad advice, but what I've seen modeled in some organizations I've been with is that you should support the most senior manager. Whenever there's a conflict between two people, trust that it's probably the issue is with the person who's underneath it, the manager is fine. So, you know, if someone were to say that you should really treat that top person with a... you know, the greatest priority, then I would say that would definitely be a very bad piece of management advice. I would tend to agree. And I've seen that go sideways a lot of times. Cool. Well, David, and for our listeners, we are going to be talking about the topic of the courage for tough conversations. And man, these conversations take courage. I don't think I've ever met anyone that relishes having a tough conversation. But as David has said to me before, the tough conversations that don't happen. are far more destructive than the ones that do. So David, what do you consider to be a tough conversation? How do we define tough conversations and what we're trying to do with them? Yeah, I think there's a couple of different ways Ross. think one is a tough conversation when the outcome is unpredictable. Right? So it's really hard to plan for, I think that makes it tough. I think another one is where I'm concerned about how I'm going to be judged in the conversation or how the other person's going to be judged, which comes back to the unpredictability and, tough ones. Sometimes what makes them tougher when there's time constraints. or there's no place to have the conversation. So there's a content of the conversation itself, then there's a context within which it operates that makes it tough too. But it's a conversation that needs to happen. And I think what also makes them tough is when you start to rehearse with that conversation, it's gonna be like in our own mind without actually having the conversation with the person with whom we want to have that conversation. Now that's when these great biases and things come in. I have a great habit of catastrophizing. It's something I've had to learn over the years to try and step back from and get away from that. David, like you mentioned some of the things there about there might be time constraints and things like that, and that makes things tougher. And I would imagine if you've got limited options and things like that, that's also going to make them tough. What are the main reasons why people would avoid these conversations? Well, you know, I think the one simple word that covers most of it is fear. So then the question becomes fear of what and fear of the consequences. So it could be, you know, as the outcome that if I'm in a unionized environment, there's going to be a grievance file that doesn't matter how right I think I am. I have to think about what are the consequences of that? You know, the consequences of of. Are people going to line up against me because I have this tough conversation? How's the person going to respond? Some people are not comfortable with fear coming back or aggression coming back or tears or some of those other things that make it really, really difficult. you use the term catastrophizing. Albert Ellis, I think talked about it as awfulizing. So they tend to spin it out and just, magnify it, make it much, much worse. think some people, think their primary driving value is to be comfortable. And the fact something is defined as a tough conversation, I think, implies it's gonna be uncomfortable. So then we tend to avoid or put off or hope that perhaps that person gets moved to another department and someone else has to handle it. There's all those other kinds of things that go on. Sometimes it may be that I'm just not feeling well, I'm not physically feeling up to it. I need to have this conversation, but I just don't have the energy. So I'll tend to avoid it. So I think there's a whole pile of different reasons that are very personal and individual as to why someone might want to avoid having a tough conversation. And past experience, like the last time I had it, it blew up. And so we bring that with us as well. Sorry, I interrupted. beautiful. That's like a perfect segue into what I was going to say. I actually, remember years ago dealing with someone and they were a very explosive personality. And that exact thing with like the first conversation we had was, was explosive. And every one after that, it took a lot of energy to deal with this guy and try and figure out how are you going to deal with him? And eventually it was just putting the right gloves on to actually. have the discussion with him. You mentioned the consequences of, that's what the fears could be, but what are the consequences on the flip side of that when the conversation is avoided? Well, typically they don't go away, they get worse or they go underground or the conversation that I need to have with an individual, they may, if I don't have that individual may have that conversation with his or her peers and start to build support for their opinion. It could create a really toxic environment. It can create an environment where there's a, you know, sense of entitlement, that lack of accountability and responsibility. So you know, a single event, maybe not so much, but if that becomes a habit, it can have huge impact. And then of course, it'll start taking up, you know, a crack at profitability and all those kinds of things. might see employee absences go up. You might find it hard to get and keep good people. It can really have a pretty negative impact on the culture. And my sense is people would rather have, have a tough conversation if they felt it was fair. And I think that fairness is a big part of it. So if it's not fair again, that influences the whole environment. Hmm. And I think it does have such a cascade effect. Again, I'm thinking back to examples that I had with conversations that some of the managers I was working with didn't have. it it spiraled out of control. And eventually it also came to the, at the end, the damage control at the end meant that the star performers that were fantastic weren't getting the attention they needed. And it just, it just degraded entirely. Now, you mentioned about strengthening opinions and things like that. In my book, I bring up conversations and debates and arguments with conversations being a of win-win situation where it's focused on kind of building up all sides, debates being potentially a win-lose where there's a single outcome that has to come from from all these various aspects. And then an argument kind of being lose lose because no one really feels great at the end of an argument. And there's a lot of losing and sour taste in the mouth after that. Because even if that outcome is reached, it could spoil the relationships. Now, you and I spoke previously and you brought up the concept of playing to win versus playing not to lose. So I'm very keen on hearing more of your insight around that and your thoughts on my views around those debates and arguments. I'm keen to hear you. Sure. And maybe just before I do that, I'll, you know, you talked about conversation debates and things like that. It's suggest another, and maybe it's incorporated when you say conversation, but as a dialogue where the purpose of a dialogue is to deepen understanding. It's not to come to agreement. It's to deepen understanding. And the only way you can fail or lose in a dialogue is if you fail to learn something more coming out of the conversation that you had going into it. So, so that being said, playing to win, you know, I tend to define winning. as a, and not a dictionary definition, but doing the best you possibly can using all the resources at your disposal and then a context of respect and support for others. So, so that's a bit of a different definition from winning when we normally think of it in a business context or, or sports context, competition. Competition comes from the Greek word, competitor, which meant to draw, to strive together. So back in Greek times, the notion was if we were to do the same thing together, our performance would be better than if we were to do it on our own. There wasn't the same sense of beating each other. That competitive environment where helping each other do better. So that's sort of a non-competitive definition of winning, doing the best you possibly can. And then a construct or a spectrum support for others. Doing your best to play to not lose is how do I avoid losing however I define that? So that's like playing it safe. It's, you know, not taking any risks. It's staying within the known. It's staying within an area that's totally predictable. It also tends to be an area of no growth because it's, you know, it's based on, on history and things like that. And it's not me growing, not allowing the conversation to grow. So I, you know, I think if you can create an environment where everyone plays to win, where it's not about beating someone else, but doing our collective best, you know, that's gotta be. That's gotta be great for productivity and increased profit and all those good kinds of things. I don't know if that distinction makes sense, but so let me give you an example. Walking into an organization, if it's a play to win organization, you walk in and there's kind of like a hum of activity. People are talking, they're getting things done. They may have a smile on their face, but they're being productive. If you walk into a play to not lose environment, especially if you're unknown to the people there, and perhaps you're wearing a suit or jacket tie or something like that. As soon as you walk in, a hush settles over the room. The screen savers with the Excel sheet on the background come up and it's just, you can feel it. You can feel it. A play to not lose environment tends to be characterized by a lot of blame. I wasn't me, was you. I didn't hire you. I inherited you when I came into the department. We're in a play-to-win environment. How can we share what we know for the collective benefit? Hmm. I can just picture the environments that I've been through with that. Your play to win just unrelated, but I found it interesting. And it's something that I think managers could look at and take something from as well. There's a show on Netflix called physical 100. And, and it's a, it's a, it's a South Korean show, I think where it's all around different athletes from different, disciplines and levels and all that, working together and well, they're competing, but the camaraderie that you see and how supportive everyone is of each other is just, it's such a different view to what we're used to. And it's actually something I'd encourage everyone to go and watch just to see this totally different take on the competitive nature. See, another example just came to mind when you were saying that Ross, and I could think of in a sport, playing to win has nothing to do with the score, because it's not about beating someone else. So there's been times when I was in university and playing squash, I'd play someone who is way better than me and just killed me score wise, but I felt I won because I played at a much higher level than I would have otherwise. So was kind of drawn up to that. So. I could go away looking at the score and say, don't really care about that score. I got so much better as a result of that. And I think sometimes the scoring forces us to play to not lose rather than encourages us to play to win. Yeah, that's a great point, a great point. If I look at my activities that I do as well, I love the experience of learning and that's why I do it. So David, with all of this said and speaking about the tough conversations, how do people prepare for these tough conversations? How do different personality and communication styles come into it? I know that's quite a big question. How do we do this? boy, that that's huge. mean, we could go looking at things like disc or social styles and how different people respond to the tough conversation, how we prepare. You know, I think it's way too much for this call, but I think part of the repair of the preparing is rehearsing what you want to say and say it out loud and record it. Because if we just tell ourselves what we're going to say and don't actually verbalize it, lands differently than the words actually come out of our mouth and into our ears. Another way to prepare is to get someone that you know and trust and it could be your spouse or partner, significant other, could be someone in another organization where you actually play it out. And a lot of people hate role playing, but I'm a huge fan of actually having that kind of interaction and get someone else's response to it. And just, you know, how did that land for you? What, you know, what, what work, what were some of the triggers? Because we all have triggers just. You may not know what the word is, but you sure find out when you've hit it because all of a sudden things flare up way out of proportion. So I think preparing for it that way. think another is really checking into what your values are, what's important to you. You know, one of the distinctions that sometimes made, I think it's a little artificial, that managers focus on doing things right and leaders focus on doing the right things. And so I think the right thing is a function of what your values are. So. I have to be clear that I am doing the right thing for the organization or whatever, as opposed to for me. And if you can count on that and your intention is good and your intention is clear, I think that makes it a little bit easier to deal with the discomfort because you know, it's the right thing. and, you know, another way of thinking about it is if I were to say that, have this conversation and looking in the mirror, what I feel good about the fact I had that conversation, regardless of what the outcome is. Absolutely. Right? That's what I want to be able to say. So being clear what my values are, being clear on what the right thing to do is, gives me the courage to have that tough conversation. That's great. Like just thinking what you say as well and what going back to what we said in the beginning, I almost, I feel like it's something that I do perhaps subconsciously after the years is, is what are the consequences of not having this conversation as well? I bringing that in for myself, but speaking, as you say, to role playing, I will often talk about these hard conversations with my spouse. How's my wording? I could say something that's gonna be inflammatory in a conversation where it's actually not what I mean at all. And we've had a few times where it's like, maybe a change in wording is better for me. So I think you bring up another interesting point, Ross, because sometimes, and I don't want to over generalize this, but I think sometimes men and women respond differently to certain things, to certain trigger words. And I think a woman is a much better position to think about how another woman, not all women, whoops, might respond, but how this person would respond. And I think that can be very helpful. Same sort of thing, like to have a conversation. you're thinking of having a conversation with a teen, having it with your spouse, not quite the same as having it with another teen, so a relative or something like that. So you're really trying to put yourself, I always like to think how might someone misinterpret what I'm saying? I tried to do that when I'm writing as well. And, and, and that's a, that's a really good check to ask how might someone misinterpret this and let's just take the time to get it right the first time, rather than have to say it five different times and end up with well, in other words, Because those are the words you should start with. Yeah, you've made me think that I need to go back to a chapter or two in my book and just see my definitions there. Awesome. David, we're coming up on time here. I think we could go on on this for quite a while. It's been fascinating and I feel like I could dive deeper and so much deeper in this. But David, as we close, what are some of the things you're currently busy with? Where can... people find out more about you. Your details will be in the show notes and the link, what is it that's currently exciting you? So what's currently exciting me is, you know, how we deal with surprises and surprises can certainly come up in a tough conversation to make that connection. And, know, when that surprise comes up, what quite often happens is our amygdala says, life threatening head back to the, you know, to the limbic brain and go into the fight, flight, freeze, all that kind of response. And so I'm trying to figure out a way to either short circuit that or get out of that. back into the front of her head, we can deal with things. And so what I'm recommending people do, as soon as they feel that little thing coming up that starts to tense up, and it could certainly happen in a tough conversation, the automatic thing to say to yourself before saying or thinking anything else is, I can work with this. No matter what it is, I can work with this. I can work with this. So I enter into that conversation now from a position of agency. I don't know what I'm gonna do, but I'm confident I can work. with this. So I get much more quickly get into dealing with what's going on at the moment, instead of being triggered based on the past, I mean, stuck in that limbic brain. And then that fight flight where I'm never at a good place to have a productive conversation. So trying to figure out how I can use that and use some of the skills of, of, of improv to get comfortable with the surprises. So no matter what it is, I'm not thinking about how good are going to look and how to be smart and stuff like that. But to start with, I can work with this and take it from there. But that's kind of what I'm excited about now. that's very, cool. David, thank you so much for joining. This has been great. Like I said, listeners, if you want to find out more about what David is doing, his link to all of his material and things like that will be in the show notes. David, thank you so much for joining us. This has been fantastic. My pleasure. Thanks for having me, Ross. I appreciate it. Great. To our listeners, keep swimming. Chat next time.