Meghan Slaughter (00:10.158)
Hey guys, welcome to the Become the Leader podcast. We have a really fun podcast for you today. We are going to be talking as if we were someone else. So this episode is all about putting yourself into somebody else's shoes, seeing it from their perspective, and we're going to be talking as if we are our dads today. So I'm going to be looking at things from Jodi's perspective. Malia is going to be looking at things from Mike's perspective. So first, I just want to kick it off to Jodi here.
and ask him, why do you think it's so important to be able to put yourself into someone else's shoes?
Jody Holland (00:46.266)
So I think when you look at leadership and the perspectives that we're trying to gain, the challenges, we start off and we're really confident and we're really driven and we push really hard to move ourselves up. But if we don't start thinking, okay, I just moved into this new role. If I don't think about how the followers that I now have feel, then I'm never gonna understand how to actually lead them. So I do think switching places,
becomes a critical factor because you move into leadership and you somehow or another lose your brain to remembering how much your leader annoyed you and the things that annoyed you. And then you start doing the same daggum thing. And I think of it, I am going to say, just think of this like me and my dad. I love my dad. And I swore as a kid, there's so many things that he did that I was never, ever going to do. And then I did them.
So you end up doing a lot of those things because you forget your perspective. So I think going back and trying to reimagine it is really good.
Meghan Slaughter (01:54.702)
So from a leadership perspective, Malia, I just want to ask you, why do you think that it's important to step into somebody else's role?
Maleah Grigsby (02:03.916)
Well, I I think about my experience with being in the military and I think about how much the leadership and the rankings were so critical. And I think about how, you know, the different rankings determined what kind of experiences you went through. And, you know, I was told not to volunteer for anything. I was told just to sit quietly. But when I think about
The fact that the higher rankings were able to go through all of the same scenarios that I went through. They knew what it was like to be in every single person's position and out of that they were able to lead better by understanding more experiences.
Meghan Slaughter (02:50.67)
And I think that's really interesting because being able to take on somebody else's perspective is a critical leadership competency. And studies have actually shown that understanding a support in its viewpoint is strongly correlated with effective transformational leadership and better performance. And when you fail to do so, this can lead to misalignment with your team and you start to have tension and clash. And that leads to more problems down the road for you.
Jody Holland (03:22.67)
That was impressive.
Mike Grigsby (03:23.078)
Well, I can tell you that, you know, that I remember listening to my dad and listening to his stories and when he would meet people in just all over places, he couldn't go anywhere without somebody knowing him anyway. But I would hear the things that he would say and I would start to shudder in my skin. Like, why would you say that? That doesn't make sense. Or, or I would be super embarrassed. But what really, what really clicked for me was watching how other people reacted to him.
And he could find those ways to just meet people where they are. So I started doing the same thing and just meeting people where they are. And it's, I don't want to call it magical, but when you're able to, you might not be putting yourself in someone else's shoes, but when you're able to connect and meet people where they are, it's amazing how the conversation starts to flow from, from that point, as opposed to thinking you have something to offer and then, you know, trying to force something into them as opposed to just.
sharing stories and kind of going back and forth from there.
Jody Holland (04:26.34)
That's a really good point. Yeah. That's, that's excellent.
Maleah Grigsby (04:26.85)
Proud Papa Moment.
I
Mike Grigsby (04:31.324)
you
Meghan Slaughter (04:33.516)
And to that point, when you're able to consider another person's feelings or perspective, this raises their willingness to collaborate by 29%. And I know that Megan has strong opinions on being able to change your perspective. It's actually in her email byline. So if you want to just talk on that a little bit about the importance of perspective changing.
Jody Holland (04:56.208)
Yeah, so I was actually invited to speak at an event called GrowthCon. And this was back when I was in high school. And I remember talking about the lens of perspective. And this was when I was trying to figure out who I wanted to be and how I wanted to grow. And I was taking college classes while in high school. And I remember as I went through and prepped for that, I thought...
And you're getting on stage, you're trying to be in front of people. What is it that people need to hear in order to move their lives forward? Not what do I want to say? And that was the early kind of my early experience with figuring out if you'll just change from what is my voice and what am I trying to get across to the world? And what do I want people to think about me to what do people need for themselves? And how can I fulfill that?
that's shifting the lens of perspective, think of it like a camera. You're taking a picture of something and somebody could take a picture of a bee and you're like, cool, it's a bee. But somebody else that gets just the right perspective and they've got the depth of field and the blurred background and you can like see into the eyes of the bee, all of a sudden you feel like you know that bee's soul. You know what they're like, you know what the differences are.
Then fast forward from that, I was given the opportunity through the Scholars Program at Amarillo College to go to Peru, talk about learning perspective, to go to Machu Picchu, to meet people from another country, to realize all of my friends lied when they said they were fluent in Spanish and I had to be the one that translated for everybody for a week and a half. Even while I didn't feel good from eating some bad ceviche.
Meghan Slaughter (06:35.566)
you
Jody Holland (06:45.092)
That was, that was quite the trip, but I think it, it prepared me for what came next in life, which was in getting out of college, going to, to a bigger university, getting through that, then going and getting a master's and while working, moving up into management, the first time I went into management, it really changed my perspective because I finally understood not everybody just wants to work. Even though I love to work and I work hard, there is a lot of people that just
want to work hard at not working. And so learning to create accountabilities and keep the culture positive, all of that prepped me for going to work in the consulting field. And I think that was all really valuable. But that perspective thing, that all started with that speech at GrowthCon. How do you get out of your own head and get into the minds and the hearts of the people that you're serving? And that's what changes the world.
Meghan Slaughter (07:41.336)
So kind of what I'm getting from that is that it's not just about the work output, but it's also about the emotional connection that you build with another person or another culture by really putting yourself into their shoes and experiencing something from their perspective.
Jody Holland (07:59.728)
Brilliant, yeah.
Mike Grigsby (08:02.34)
You know, Jodie, what you were saying just kind of reminded me, you know, as you and I, our generation, we're just coming into the workforce and really starting to kind of get grounded in there. It's important to remember, and I think we're a little bit, we're in the small group, we're in the minority, we're not the majority, that what we saw our dads do and give us a perspective of like,
how work looks through their eyes is really starting to shape how we see work and how we begin to interact with people. And it's interesting and almost immediately apparent that not everybody in our generation had that same benefit of learning work culture through their parents or through their dads who are invested in it. And it's really helped shaped how we begin to see things. And it really has created some
I'll use an aeronautical term. It's created lift for us in our own careers and we'll start to see the benefits.
Jody Holland (09:08.109)
I agree.
Meghan Slaughter (09:08.878)
Absolutely. And also, I just want to say, know, Malia, you've had multiple experiences with different careers and you've talked very extensively about the difference between your work and your job. So how has having those different experiences in various fields helped you create your perspective on life and on the workforce in general?
Maleah Grigsby (09:34.722)
Totally. almost anyone who knows me, they know I introduced myself as a recovering CIO. And what started as a funny anecdote became quickly apparent that the public sector is clearly lacking in some real investment in culture at the both at the leadership level and all the way down to when you go to the DMV, what is anyone is like, I'm so sorry. Right. And so it started as a funny anecdote, but also
it allowed me to see the different perspectives between public sector work and private sector work and just how vastly different they are and just the hoops that you have to jump through are so very different. Not even one is better or worse than the other, but they're so very different. There's so many experiences that I walked through understanding as all the way down from just starting out in 06, I think it was, being on the streets with KCPD.
And there is a very different level of humility that you learn being in public service in that way, all the way up to now being a technology consultant and innovation consultant with other public sectors and other cities all across the nation. so talking about perspective and worldview, I definitely have a wide worldview, but that allows me like
You were saying earlier allows me to meet people where they are because I have a better understanding of where they are.
Jody Holland (11:09.008)
And I think the thing I would caution on is, you know, I've had a lot of friends that needed a lot from me. And then in work, there's people that need a lot from you. You think about, you do want to see perspective, but you don't want to get so sucked into their perspective that you lose the ability to separate from feeling sorry for a person and rescuing them to supporting them and building them up. And that's something that I've always worked on is
Just thinking how do I become the friend, the mentor, the leader, the coach that I need to be without owning other people's issues and setbacks. And I'm sure the KCPD experience probably honed that in you as well. But you got to always think perspective is important, but keeping perspective and the boundaries both directions becomes absolutely critical.
Meghan Slaughter (12:07.49)
Right, and your perceived self is not always identical to your actual self, and so that's why I think it's critical to be able to step into that role and sometimes even evaluate yourself because there's this gap that we're trying to bridge between your current state and your desired state. And so if you're able to evaluate yourself in the same way that you would evaluate someone else or step into their role to evaluate yourself,
Maleah Grigsby (12:27.584)
it
Meghan Slaughter (12:35.65)
then that can be really helpful in understanding what's lacking in your organization or your career path or sometimes in your relationships. So it's really critical to be able to shift your mindset and close that gap.
Mike Grigsby (12:53.872)
You know, that reminds me of one of the first times that, you know, I got to be of course with my dad, but it was one of the first times I really got to be in a business setting. I was in junior high and I was just going to have lunch with my dad at his, at his office. And he had had a meeting that was running late and they were working on a really, really big, extensive technology project. And I came in and sat in on the tail end of the meeting and
What was really interesting and you talk about or kind of we've started this conversation around putting yourself in the shoes of other people or putting yourself in someone else's place. When they were done with the meeting, they stood up and were a little bit arrogant and they looked at me as the young kid in the room and they were like, hey, you probably thought that was pretty cool and kind of gave me the, you know, the wink and the nod. And you said, or I said that, you know, I was like, actually I have some questions about what you presented.
And the guy asked me, he's like, well, what do you mean questions? And I asked him, I said, well, had you given thought to the youth and how your solution was going to help people dealing with transit situations and have you given thoughts? And everybody started to sit back down. They opened their laptops back up. They brought their notebooks out and they started listening and taking more notes and having a, you know, continue the conversation. And it was just a reminder that if you think that you are going to bring a solution based on what you think.
Maleah Grigsby (14:13.652)
Thank
Mike Grigsby (14:19.504)
the people need without ever talking to them, you'll miss wildly. Now, just because you sit down and talk to everybody doesn't mean you're always gonna do what they ask you to do, but you at least have a different perspective. You at least are able to add more context to the solution that you do bring just by finding out what other people are needing.
Jody Holland (14:24.35)
yeah.
Jody Holland (14:40.75)
I think that's so, so good. And you think about the confidence that watching your dad or watching my dad gave you, you still developed your own, but you noticed, speaking up is good. And they never said, Hey, just sit quietly in the back and do nothing. You know, it was always encouraging. Hey, I'd like to know what your thoughts are. Hey, I'd like to see where you're at. And I think about even like some of the summer readings when
when I was in private school, some of the summer readings I had, like the Alchemist, and coming home and telling my dad, hey, I'm reading the Alchemist. And my dad's like, that's one of my favorite books. And all summer we're reading the Alchemist and talking about Santiago and his adventures and the symbolic meaning behind learning to master the wind and become the wind. like this whole soul journey that you're on is the journey of figuring out.
What's my identity? Once I get it figured out, then I'm good. That's where your voice is, is in your identity.
Meghan Slaughter (15:44.706)
I think you can relate to this with how much you love to read, but there are powerful lessons in stories, even if they're not business books, but you can see the underlying lessons in each thing that you're reading because the character is going through this journey. And when you read, you take on this perspective of being the hero in the story. And that's kind of what we're doing with shifting our perspective is
Maleah Grigsby (16:06.049)
Thanks.
Thank
Meghan Slaughter (16:11.726)
placing yourself as them to understand their overarching journey. And I think that also plays into habit five of the seven habits of highly effective people, which is seek first to understand, then to be understood. So in every interaction that you have with other people, you're not trying to push your opinions onto them. You're trying to understand where they're coming from and either compromise or meet in the middle of somewhere.
and move forward in agreement together. So you're trying to understand their perspective and then that's where you can explain your side of it as well. And a lot of the time we're not in disagreement with one another. We just haven't taken the time to listen to the other person and really get the full grasp of where they're coming from.
Maleah Grigsby (17:06.058)
I would even argue that that's not even just through books. think movies are also a really big one. Thinking about what my daughter's childhood looked like, that it was almost every week we would have a stack of probably about 12 movies that we would get from the library and we would just work our way through and kick my wife out to the bedroom to do whatever she wanted to while we watched our movies, or shoot them up movies as she would call them. And I think about
Meghan Slaughter (17:34.35)
Yeah.
Maleah Grigsby (17:35.492)
One of your favorite movies when you were growing up was The Labyrinth. And I remember at seven years old, you were at, there's a video of it somewhere. You were at the dining room table and trying to figure out, like you were explaining what The Labyrinth was.
And then you went on this whole philosophical, who knows where your brain was going with it, but you literally went on this whole philosophical thing about how the labyrinth is just like life and that there's all of these twists and turns and people try to deceive us. Again, like second grade. But I think like the idea that you step into whatever it is, whether it's a cinematic piece or it's these writing pieces.
that you get to step into this and you get to take on another persona is, it's compelling. And I think it allows for a type of worldview and exposure that no amount of even travel or reading, writing, like all of that doesn't even tap into.
Jody Holland (18:36.292)
Yeah. And I like some of the quotes from books that I was exposed to growing up. My dad always liked Monty Python. And out of Life of Brian, there was a quote that said, all right, apart from sanitation, medicine, education, wine, and public order, what exactly have the Romans ever done for us? I think that when we don't get perspective, we get stuck in the, but I can't be wrong here.
Maleah Grigsby (18:45.759)
you
Jody Holland (19:06.064)
And being wrong is not just a skill set, it's a practice. And so I think it's okay to be wrong and it's okay to want to look at that. And Life of Brian, if you haven't seen it by the way, anything Monty Python, breaking character here just a second, but that's my jam.
because it's so philosophically relevant to the idiocy of the world.
Jody Holland (19:33.812)
So, all right, what do you think in there, boss?
Meghan Slaughter (19:39.99)
just want to reiterate how important it is to step into someone else's perspective. You do that by watching movies, by reading books. And something that I have always lived by is that which we perceive is our reality. And Megan has kind of adopted that a little bit too in saying that when you change your perspective, you change your reality. So going along with all of what we've been talking about throughout this.
You you want to be able to shift your mindset and step into somebody else's roles. So I just want to throw it out to each of you, get your parting thoughts, and we'll wrap this up here.
Jody Holland (20:19.96)
Just a quick reminder, I am answering as Megan, Megan is answering as me, Mike is answering as Malia, Malia is answering as Mike. So if you've been slightly confused on this, just remember we are the Knights who say, yee hee. Also, mind you, my final thought as Megan on this concept is you can't embrace the generations old or young if you're not willing to step out of your own brain and think about it.
Mike Grigsby (20:33.82)
That's right.
Jody Holland (20:49.07)
And being, being in the practice of stepping out of my identity into the characters in the books that I read and, into the people that I serve and the HR leaders that I advise. I think the idea of being able to step out of your own psyche and into the psyche of another person gives you the lens of perspective that actually makes you not just relevant, but really valuable to any organization.
or any team.
Mike Grigsby (21:22.3)
I'll just answering as Malia, I will say that it is overwhelmingly humble, humbling, overwhelmingly humbling. Yeah. She probably would say it better than I just did. So don't, dock Malia points on that, but it's, it's humbling putting yourself in someone else's shoes and really thinking from their perspective because
Maleah Grigsby (21:38.344)
You
Meghan Slaughter (21:39.31)
Thank
Mike Grigsby (21:50.129)
We already know what we know, but we don't know what other people know. And to understand what they're dealing with and what's kind of influencing their perspective, can be really sad, it can be really joyful, it can be really encouraging, but at the very end, it's just very humbling to come alongside another human, another sojourner on this journey called life and understand kind of what it's like to walk in their shoes.
Meghan Slaughter (22:20.706)
Malia, parting thoughts?
Maleah Grigsby (22:22.825)
Well, answering as Mr. Mike Grigsby, I think I'm going to go back to the story that you shared of attending the meeting. I think the biggest piece of wisdom that was gained after that meeting was never discrediting anyone's perspective. And I think that's what the rest of those employees also recognized after that.
Just because of how someone looks, just because of their age, just because of their title, that doesn't mean that they have any less to value. When I think about, I don't know, when you think of driving up to a corner and you see a beggar on the side of the road, you have no idea what their story is, you have no idea the things that they've gone through, and the chances are you have far more to learn from them than you do at any CEO or even leader of any organization.
So just remember not to discredit anyone's perspective and treat everyone like a human being.
Meghan Slaughter (23:24.494)
think that's great and just throwing one more statistic out there is Jodi before we go. About 95 % of people think that they're self-aware, but in reality only 10 to 15 % of them truly are. So not only does this have a huge impact on team success, but it's also damaging as the leader. So I challenge you to go out there and put yourself into somebody else's shoes before judging them.
But also take a moment and try to evaluate yourself through somebody else's perspective. How are you as a leader helping your team and what can you improve upon? Because when you become truly self-aware, you can accomplish significantly more. So thank you all for tuning in. If you have any ideas for future podcasts, let us know. We love hearing from you. Just a reminder.
I'm Megan, I was speaking as Jodie today. We also have Malia who is speaking as Mike. Mike was speaking as Malia and Jodie was speaking as me. So thank you guys and we will see you next week.
