Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:00:04.160 - 00:00:44.410
Leaders tend to think that all they have to do is go in a meeting and share the idea.

But of course, to your point about change management, they realize I really have to intentionally go about communicating the idea, but also coming back and saying, let me share with you how I think we can go about doing this and then inviting everybody to co create those steps.

And then now all of a sudden things are starting to look more concrete because we're thinking through the different impacted groups and we're thinking through what that change means. We're also hopefully going to come up with a phased approach to make it happen.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:00:46.650 - 00:01:38.430
Hi there and welcome to the Step Up Expert Voices for Leadership Growth. I'm your host, Kent Knievel. Every week I talk to experts who focus on helping leaders step up their leadership game.

If you're new to the show, then on whatever platform you're using, I encourage you to subscribe so you never miss an episode. One last thing.

As a leadership development consultant and executive coach, I have a particular interest in supporting recent internally promoted leaders.

If that's you, or if you support a leader who has been recently promoted, I encourage you to visit my website at Kent Coach Playbook and download a free copy of my 90 day blueprint filled with practical advice for you or the leader you support in hitting the ground running and truly stepping up to their new leadership level. Without further ado, on with the show. Welcome everyone. Today we're here to talk about storytelling as a strategic tool to drive commitment.

Did we say Ash?

Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:01:38.430 - 00:01:39.830
Commitment and conviction.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:01:39.830 - 00:02:03.650
Yes, and conviction. Thank you. So with me today for this conversation is Ash Siddiq.

Ash is a Leadership in Communications advisor, speaker and coach to Fortune 100 executives, founder of the Executive Greatness Institute Institute, and creator of the Chief Excitement Officer philosophy and the Free Up, Think Up, Speak Up Framework. Ash, thank you for joining me today.

Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:02:03.650 - 00:02:05.250
Thank you so much for having me, Kent.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:02:05.890 - 00:02:14.930
Well, before we get into the topic du jour, I'd love to hear just a little bit more about you and your career story and whatever your how wherever you want to start that.

Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:02:14.930 - 00:03:29.840
Absolutely. Yeah. So I, I actually came to the US on a Fulbright scholarship. I was going to become a linguist. Okay.

Years ago and long story short, I got into corporate settings, worked for Schwab, Deloitte, a number of high tech companies, most recently Cisco.

And Cisco's experience was the the top experience in a journey that led me to pay attention to how language was such the main channel for leadership effectiveness and ended up essentially leaving Cisco in 2015 and becoming a leadership communications coach. As you mentioned.

And it's been a really wonder journey to see how much difference it makes when leaders are able to speak with conviction and then help build that up within organizations, because conviction is wrapped up in building desire. And once people believe in something, then we see amazing things happen.

And now there's so much that's happening in organizations where with AI, everybody's trying to build a vision for the future and how AI fits into that and how we can get everybody moving in that direction. So it's been a wonderful journey to see how we can help leaders do exactly that.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:03:30.400 - 00:04:22.160
That's awesome. Well, and so we're going to talk about storytelling today. And you know, I feel like it's come up a number of times in my career, right.

And particularly in my time in hr. You know, when I was most recently I was with. With General Mills, right. And we talked a lot about.

And they're obviously a giant, you know, brand forward company, right. And so storytelling sort of at the heart of a lot of what they do.

But even, even as I was talking with another leader recently at a much more quiet brand, right.

They're not necessarily a brand forward household name, but even he was talking about, you know, this element of storytelling, even in his role and how important is. So I feel like storytelling has come up more and more in recent years for me. And so, you know, how did you get into storytelling and what gives?

Why is it so important?

Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:04:22.720 - 00:05:46.520
I think what's happening today, especially with the fact that there is shortage of attention, I think across the board, we are getting so used to a lot of these digital devices, the phones in our hands, the social media, the YouTube shorts, that grabbing your audience's attention has become such a hard thing to do these days.

And when you start with a story, you have much more likelihood of grabbing that attention because all of a sudden you're talking about something that has intrigue. All of a sudden they want to know what's going to happen next.

And with that in your hands, you're able to then say, and let me tell you why this story matters, and you're able to then bridge over to the initiative that you want them to work on, the call to action that you want them to take. So I think that's really.

I think there is a lot more interest in storytelling because of the fact that humans are so much inclined to latch onto what happened to the story, what happened to that main character. And they want to figure out how do they.

They fit into that story so they can hopefully play a role in helping Bring about the change and the vision that the leader is talking about.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:05:47.080 - 00:07:19.810
Yeah, I love that.

And I bet we're going to talk probably a lot more about where does storytelling come in with probably change management, so to speak, and how do you get people on board.

But before we even kind of go down that road, interestingly, some of the work that I've been doing in talent management, we, we kind of, we kind of ran into this issue with employees at multiple companies that I'd worked with, worked for, where there was sort of this myth for employees of like there's some secret plan that HR has for you and your career. There was always this like, you know, what's my career path? What's my, you know, tell me what my career path is.

And one of the best tools we had to bring in to help sort of showcase, it's all individual. There's no, you know, hidden plan we have for you was actually leadership.

Storytelling was actually bringing leaders in and having them tell their career stories. Right? Just that aspect of career story of that aspect of storytelling, having leaders come in and just tell their own career story.

And interestingly hearing these weird left hand turns and right hand turns and unexpected opportunities when, when people kind of in their mind already had their own assumptions around, you know, that this person must have had this perfect step by step by step. So I think there's so many pockets where storytelling is really important. So where has your focus primarily been with storytelling?

Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:07:20.690 - 00:09:11.450
I think you're totally right.

For me, the focus has been around how leaders tend a lot of the time to come up with ideas and then they show up on a Monday morning and all of a sudden they are talking about this idea and that idea.

So as I'm coaching leaders at Cisco, for example, I discovered that of course this is the tendency when you auto leader a lot of the time you have a vision, you want to change things. Sometimes these ideas are popping up much more frequently than we could imagine.

And leaders tend to think that all they have to do is go in a meeting and share the idea.

But of course to your point about change management, they realize I really have to intentionally go about communicating the idea, but also coming back and saying, let me share with you how I think we can go about doing this and then inviting everybody to co create and those steps.

And then now all of a sudden things are starting to look more concrete because we're thinking through the different impacted groups and we're thinking through what that change means. And we're also hopefully going to come up with a phased Approach to make it happen.

Because of course, as soon as you mention the idea, some people in the room are already having anxiety about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, because of course it's going to change the fact that they have buil expertise in a particular area.

And now you're coming and saying, we're going to change that deck of cards. And as soon as you change the deck of cards, it's going to go up in the air, and then we don't know where it's going to land.

So they want you to show them that there is a conscious process for protecting and honoring the past, celebrating the present, and then thinking about how do we create a solid future.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:09:11.930 - 00:09:18.260
Yeah, yeah. You're giving me this feeling like everybody needs to become a TED Talk speaker.

Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:09:21.380 - 00:09:23.460
Very important skill set to have.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:09:23.860 - 00:09:24.420
Yeah.

Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:09:24.500 - 00:09:53.600
Because to your point, a lot of leaders find themselves in this place where I have to energize the organization behind that future vision. And a lot of the time, the daily grind is in the way. How do we take care of the business now as well as build the future business?

So there's always tension, especially among the leadership team, between where do we are today and where do we want to be? And it's something they struggle with all the time.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:09:54.240 - 00:11:04.930
That's. That's a really good point because I've been talking a lot about leadership transitions.

It's a big focus of my own work in terms of people being promoted. And how do you make that transition from one level to the next?

And what, what is in my head right now is especially like, people going from individual contributor to a leader kind of the. The metaphor being, you know, we. We promote people for their skill in one job and say, right. So the best salesperson. Right.

And the sales leader has moved on, and we're going to take the best salesperson. You get to become the manager. Right. So we hire them for their sales skills. Right. So I'm.

I'm betting when you start to work with people that you get a bit of this, like. Well, I was hired for this expertise, not storytelling. Right. So I would bet even in getting people and working with them on.

On storytelling skills that you're. You probably initially get a little bit of pushback, maybe. Or is that changing also? As I think maybe.

Maybe people are understanding more and more how important storytelling is. But so you tell me. I guess I would. I would. I would wager maybe earlier in your work more pushback, or do you still.

Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:11:05.810 - 00:11:31.640
Right. I think, I think this really. This really channels into the idea that to Your point?

Once they make that transition, there's so much that's being asked of them.

And then being able to tell, to strategically tell stories is another skill set that some may have, but a lot more that we can imagine probably need to develop. And then all of a sudden it's like, oh, my goodness, now you're adding this to the list.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:11:32.760 - 00:11:35.160
Yeah, you know, I've got to learn this too.

Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:11:35.480 - 00:12:16.620
Exactly. Yeah.

So I think we can definitely empathize and I think we can say to our listeners, give yourself grace, because I love, I love how in your business you give them like a 90 day plan. And within that 90 day plan, they can definitely take care of the essential priorities.

And then at the end of that 90 day plan, we can then say, you know what, now we want to take a deep breath and think about developing a vision for not just running today's business, but what does that future business looks like? And they can essentially again allow themselves to say, I don't have to do everything they want. Yeah, I can start to build on what Kent is giving me.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:12:17.020 - 00:12:27.580
Yeah, well, so where do you tend to start with people when you start to work with folks on storytelling? What's the kind of foundation for you? Where do you start with folks?

Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:12:28.139 - 00:14:40.470
The foundation is to start with a vision by having them think about your strategic contribution to the business would be not about running the business as it is today, but looking and finding pockets where we could find incremental improvement in the business and then maybe another bucket where there is a step change and how the business is getting done. And it's an opportunity to increase their own relationship capital.

Because in order for them to develop that vision and do it in the proper way, it's not going to be by them going off to a mountaintop and thinking.

We encourage them to do that, but we also encourage them to come back and say, I have some ideas, I'd love to socialize them and maybe have people shape things up with me. Because that's the magic way of making sure that as we are building the ideas, we're also building support and conviction to those ideas.

So that's really where we start.

We start by saying, if this moment in time is an opportunity for you to do a reset on your leadership journey and the team that you're working with, let's think about where are things today versus where they need to be. His or her boss must have told him, we need to do this, we need to do this, we need to do that.

There's already tension building up in the air on where things are at and where things need to be.

So all of a sudden, this leader, in addition to managing a team of people, is also being asked to manage a transition in how the business is done, which creates to. To your point about change management. It creates this idea that we need to lead change and manage change. And there are two different things.

One is emotional. It's about building desire. It's about building conviction.

It's about realizing that people would resist the change and working through that emotional aspect.

And then managing is more about, okay, we, we need to have a release plan, and we need to think, how do we cascade that out and make sure all the people that are impacted by it understand why and all that stuff.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:14:41.590 - 00:15:00.880
Nice. So let's dive in a little bit more, too. Right.

So I know that you have done a lot of thinking in terms of kind of how you conceptualize storytelling, framing, you know, so let's. Let's dive in a little bit. I'd love to hear a little bit more about kind of where you're aiming people and how you're focusing them.

Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:15:01.280 - 00:17:35.860
Absolutely.

So one of the key concepts that you'll find me talking with clients in the very early coaching sessions is to, again, invite them, as we think about that reset, invite them to see themselves as the chief energizer for the organization, because energy is, again, one of those things. In addition to being short on attention, we're also short on energy. A lot of us are overextended.

So I invite leaders to realize that we're going to have to get selective. We're going to have to get selective on activities that we do on a daily basis.

We're going to have to get selective on initiatives that we're going to take on and really cascade things out so that we can have a reservoir of energy. Because as a leader, it's almost like you're the host of the party.

If you are sitting in a corner and you know you're tired, you're exhausted, people pass by you in that party, they can see you. It doesn't feel like a party. I mean, it feels like, you know, this is like a week or something.

So in order for us to energize the organization, we're going to have to start with a few individuals in that organization. And one of them is definitely the leader of the group. Whether that's a he or she, we want her or him to be the chief excitement officer.

And the excitement here is not about taking care of sustaining today's business, which we have to honor. And respect and protect.

But it's a lot more about the fact that you've been, as a leader, you've been to the promised land, you saw how things could be much better than today. And you are energized by what you've heard from people, what you've heard from your boss, what you've heard from the customers.

And oh, my God, can you just imagine what would happen when we actually get there? And then you spend some time explaining to people how beautiful life is when we create that new reality.

So that's where then all of a sudden, storytelling becomes table stakes.

Because if you want people to be energized about what you're talking to them about, hopefully the story gives you the opportunity to say, let me show you where things are now, where things could be.

And oh my God, I'd love for you to work with me and I'd love to work with you to make it happen so it gets a whole lot more interesting and inspirational because of the idea that you're building excitement towards a better future.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:17:36.500 - 00:17:57.780
Yeah. So I know there's, there's really good backing for what you're talking about.

I can't remember what it was exactly, but I know I read something some time ago now, and this person was. They were dissecting some of Martin Luther King Jr's speeches, in fact. Right.

And kind of talking about how he would kind of go between talking about the past.

Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:17:58.410 - 00:17:59.170
Yeah, exactly.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:17:59.170 - 00:18:18.650
Current situation, the struggle, you know, struggle. How great things could be in this other potential future. Past struggle. Potential future. Right.

And how he would kind of build momentum and build a story. So that's kind of what I'm hearing here is you're kind of. Absolutely.

Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:18:18.650 - 00:18:51.200
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Right on point. And there's a lot of Harvard research on this whole idea of energy and how much it affects everything else.

Because again, just by thinking about that party that I was describing, you can definitely tell it will be a whole different party if the host of the party is all over the place and excitement, showing people where the drinks are, showing food is, showing people where they can go out and hang out by the pool. I mean, it's a whole different vibe than the vibe where, oh, my God, our boss is so tired. Don't even mention this, though.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:18:51.270 - 00:19:01.070
So, yeah, so. So if I'm following you, I feel like maybe you're already tapping into, you know, the, the free up space of your model. Right. Free up. Think up.

Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:19:01.070 - 00:19:02.310
Yeah, speak up.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:19:02.310 - 00:19:04.710
So what, what more can you tell us about the free up?

Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:19:04.950 - 00:20:53.720
Definitely part of that model. So. So that.

That model and simply we basically call it the strategic leader model, whereby we're inviting leaders to free up in order for them to think up, in order for them to speak up.

And freeing up, to your point, is about realizing that we're going to have to manage our time, we have to manage our energy, and we need to make sure we have about 15 to 20% of our time dedicated to thinking about what the future could look like. And that's what gets us to that second stage of thinking up.

Thinking up new ways of getting customer service done, thinking up new ways of preparing our financial results, thinking of how can we prepare a much better dashboard for our leaders to understand where the business is at.

And spending some time thinking up, not just by yourself, as we mentioned before, but also hopefully with your stakeholders, your team members, so they feel like you're really making sure that they are shaping this with you. Yeah. And then speaking up is.

Is the idea of chief excitement Officer where you're going and you're energizing the organization about, yes, we have to honor the present. We've worked so hard to get here. I appreciate everything you've done.

I see an opportunity for us to use AI to get us to much higher levels and open up windows for us where we can do amazing things for our customers. I need you on that journey.

I need you to shape it up with me so you feel like you have to do this on a constant basis and it doesn't happen once you've seen that happen a lot in organizations where as a leader, you have to spend a lot of time going around. It's almost political canvassing. You have to go to every town, meet the mayor and talk to the people.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:20:54.360 - 00:21:15.660
Yeah, yeah. Well.

And so I think what I love so much so far about what I'm hearing is where this connects with a fair amount of executive coaching, to be quite honest. Right. Like, I think some of the starting places in some of my own coaching has to do with.

And some of the, I know, critical conversations that I've had with multiple people that I'm coaching is how are you spending your time?

Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:21:15.660 - 00:21:16.060
Right.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:21:16.140 - 00:23:06.850
So are you, you know, and maybe even starting with the vision of, well, how do you want to be spending your time? What should you be spending. Spending your time on? What are you accountable for? Because even with.

And I would say this is true of directors, VPs, even CEOs, is oftentimes people become victim of lack of intention. Right. And you know, you ask them even to just do a scan of the previous 30 days in their calendar.

And you compare that against, well, how do you want to be spending your time? And the lack of alignment, you know, is. It's. It's almost ubiquitous, right. This lack of alignment that.

That leaders have between where they know they should be spending their time and how they are spending their time currently. Right. So even in your model here, what I mean, and I think you kind of honored this earlier by saying, I'm not just giving you a new thing to do.

Like, let's not just. Just become good at storytelling. It sounds like you're even, you know, whether.

Whether or not to borrow from, you know, Karate kid from the 80s, right.

You're kind of doing the, the wax on, wax off here of, of probably also getting them to be more strategic about how they're spending their time in order to.

And I like what you said here because I, you know, I remember talking with a VP even back in my consulting days, who was just said, like, I'm so busy, I don't even have time to think about, you know, I'm supposed. I'm supposed to be creating the new assessments, you know, for the world. Right. Or what have you. And I don't have.

I don't even have time to think about that. I'm so busy. Right. So I like how part of your model here seems to be it goes beyond just storytelling. Right.

It is also, and I like the language you're putting behind it, too. That is like creating space for strategic energy. Right. Where are you actually putting your time and energy?

Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:23:07.410 - 00:24:16.880
Absolutely. And one of the, One of the.

I love what you're saying because I think that what we would want leaders to think about is there is a difference between running today's business and creating tomorrow's business. And I usually put questions in front of people.

I basically say, if the company today went out to hire somebody to run today's business, how many applicants would they get? And highly likely they're going to get a ton of applicants. But let's say we actually want someone to come in and create tomorrow's business.

And we put the same job description out.

The chances for us getting somebody who is going to come and think and envision and create something totally new, higher likely, the number of applicants is going to be much lower. Because it's very easy to say we need an accounting manager, we can look at the title and actually know exactly what's that about.

Whereas said, we need an accounting manager that can build the next generation of how we provide services for our client. I Mean that person at the beginning is highly likely to say, I don't know where to start. And that's unsettling. That's unsettling for a lot of people.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:24:17.280 - 00:24:48.680
Yeah, well, and I'd imagine, right, because we're bringing people up through certain functions. Right. So, you know, with the exception of maybe the finance side. Right.

I mean, there's, there's always, you know, there's enough stories of CFOs becoming CEOs for sure.

But when you, I think when you look at other functions, we never hire, with the exception of marketing, perhaps, and maybe, maybe depending on industry, we're rarely hiring people for storytelling ability. Right.

Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:24:49.480 - 00:24:50.640
Yeah, exactly.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:24:50.640 - 00:24:51.240
Exactly.

Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:24:51.240 - 00:26:11.240
You want them to be so good at what they do, so they do it so well and manage the team so well and, and, and storytelling becomes a vehicle, specifically when you are trying to help people envision something that's going to be coming up into the future. In my mind, that's, that's usually where it's going to be best helpful, is to help people in vision.

Oh, you have a new process improvement that you want to make. You know what this, what this would actually sound like, this sounds like we want to increase our freeway lanes.

This is going to be the fast lane for a select segment of our customers. So not only stories, but as I just did now, I used a metaphor to get the point across that we already have four lanes.

This is going to be the fifth lane, and it's not like any other lane. It's going to be for our VIP customers because we're finding out that they're actually willing to pay more if they can get better, faster service.

And then I basically look around the room and say, who feels that this is something we should do? And everybody's, oh, my God, I heard from this customer, I heard from that customer.

And this is going to give us an uplift on our margin, about 15, 20%. You know what that means? This coming December will highly likely have a bonus for everybody.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:26:11.880 - 00:26:28.200
Yeah. Yeah. Love it. Yeah. In my own head, I'm going to like my HR days of like, all right, we're rolling out a new annual performance review system. Boom.

Like that's, you know, versus, you know, how painful the annual performance review is.

Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:26:28.280 - 00:26:29.000
There you go.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:26:30.440 - 00:27:16.730
Right? You know, like, like there's, there's, you know, how do you, how do you grab people? So I have a question for you, right.

Because I would wager, particularly in our over connected world, I'd wager some of the advice when it comes to storytelling is maybe Be more personal, Right. To tell more of your personal story or your personal narrative. But I bet that. So I'm guessing, right, that that's part of.

Part of, you know, in your space, so to speak. But I'm also guessing that still gets a fair amount of pushback because, you know, I know at least with.

We'll pick on LinkedIn for a minute, which I know you and I are both active on. Yeah, it's something like 1% of LinkedIn users who actually, you know, are posting. Create content.

Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:27:17.050 - 00:27:17.530
Yes.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:27:18.810 - 00:27:39.140
So I'd wager you get some of that pushback from people like. Like, nobody wants to hear my story. Or I don't have a good. I'm boring. I don't have much of a story. So how do you.

How do you work with people on their own? Those things that make them kind of stuck and resistant to more storytelling is.

Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:27:39.140 - 00:30:28.150
That is absolutely true. In the beginning, they are wondering if they. If they have any stories.

And of course, what I encourage them to do is create almost like a story bank a number of stories that are part of how they grew up. A very simple example.

I might ask one of the leaders I work with, and I would basically say, when you were growing up, did you at some moment get a bike? And they might say, yeah, yeah. And I. And I say, what was that like?

And they may have this exciting story about how they have been waiting for one for so long, and then one Christmas they woke up. They, you know, walk downstairs, and right next to the tree, there was this big wrapping, and it looks like a box. Maybe it was a TV or something.

I don't know what it was, but I remember meticulously opening up that box. So you can see the story. Right.

There is a story here about building aspiration and building intrigue and building surprise and then finally getting what you want, and then you can immediately leverage that story. And it's. And it's. It doesn't have to be like.

I know in the coaching world, sometimes you hear people saying, you know, you have to have an origin story. Maybe you were depressed and got better. And those stories are real. When we are trying to lead others, we're going to get selective again.

And the story about depression may also be helpful at some moment if it has relevance to the situation. And I may be talking with one of my employees, and they can see they are struggling with something, and I might tap into that.

I might say, you know, I've had some down days and I wanted to check in, but otherwise, if I'm trying To inspire a larger group of people, I might tap into a different story. So to your point, I think you have to get them.

You have to get them to believe that the simplest story may actually be good enough for us to create something around it. Because one of the.

One of the frameworks I have, it's a dramatic treatment framework where we do a little bit of almost like Hollywood style, where basically we take the same story. We say we can actually tell this story in two seconds. We can actually tell the story in five minutes.

We can make it a 15 minute talk, and we can essentially then, like an accordion, maybe either compress it or expand it. So depending on the situation, you can really dance with it. Yeah, you have to be really clear on what point are you trying to make? Like with the.

With the bike story, Maybe I want to build the desire for something and waiting for that day. And then you say, you know what? I don't want our customers to wait for that day for too long. That's why we're building that fifth lane.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:30:28.550 - 00:30:42.030
Oh, I love that. See, that's nice. Yeah, I see that. Okay, well, so I'm gonna. I'm gonna lie to you and I'm gonna say, I think my listeners want, like, give us two.

But it's me. It's really me. Because that was a very valuable, like, ooh, how do I want to work my. My bicycle.

Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:30:42.030 - 00:30:42.350
My.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:30:42.350 - 00:30:54.690
My first bike story or learning to ride a bike. You know, what's two other simple, like. Like typical childhood or adolescent stories that most people have that they could be thinking about.

Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:30:55.570 - 00:31:42.610
I think graduation is probably one that a lot of people can relate to. We could.

We could look for a graduation angle that gives us this moment of getting to a point where we are finally at the point of celebrating our achievement. And I can use this as a rollout date for our Salesforce initiative, our CRM initiative.

And we talk about how beautiful that day can be and then come back and say, in order for us to create that reality, what do we need to do in terms of go live readiness? I can have like a whole day workshop where we spill out on flip charts how we will create the conditions for success for our go live.

So I think graduation would be one of them. And can I.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:31:42.610 - 00:32:15.850
Can I pile onto that for a second? Yeah, please. Because that makes me think of a couple. A couple similarly. Like a wedding. Right. And I'll explain where I think they're similar.

Here is there's all this time one puts into thinking about now with a wedding. There's a Lot more, obviously, a lot more planning for a lot of meticulous details.

But in both cases, that wedding, graduation, it's over like that, Right. You spend all this time thinking about it, planning for it, and the experience, you know, is a moment in time. Right. And so that's just kind of.

Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:32:16.010 - 00:32:17.370
I love that top of my head.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:32:17.370 - 00:32:31.050
Of like, where could you mine the story of planning and prepping for a wedding, you know, in that way, too? But. Sorry, I interrupted you. I totally put you on the spot, too. I was like, give me two. Yeah, give me two, please.

Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:32:32.250 - 00:33:51.350
It's wonderful because I think you. You've just shown. Showing the audience that it could be very simple moments of.

In our lives where you bring that moment up, and we would encourage them then to think about the details. You know, maybe it's the planning, maybe it's the guests, maybe it's the. The honeymoon trip. And you can pivot and say, you know what?

When we make that, when we create that fifth lane and we give customers that VIP experience for them, it's going to feel like honeymoon, because everything will be a whole lot easier for them to get what they want. So you can always package it.

And I think that's the message that you're sending people, is that it doesn't have to be too hard to pick a moment in time and then think about what lesson or message you want to get out of it so you can build on it. So that pivoting or that bridging over is what I coach clients on is we basically say, okay, let's.

Let's pause and think about how are we going to bridge over to the point we're making.

There may be a similarity that we want to pick out and then show the audience how you can then pivot, because a lot of the time they might get stuck in the story, but we want them to tell the story just enough so they can bridge over to the point they want to make.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:33:52.230 - 00:34:04.450
Yeah, I love that. I want to tell you a quick. I have to tell you a quick story now, please. I'll try to keep it brief. Right. So during. During the summer of 2020. Right.

Height of the pandemic.

Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:34:04.610 - 00:34:05.170
Yeah.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:34:05.170 - 00:35:04.780
I decided to build a floating deck in my backyard. Right. But my grandfather was a carpenter. Right. Now I. I am not, but. But I'm plenty handy when I. When I stop complaining.

And, you know, it was lessons learned from him of, like, you know, yeah, you can plan and you can design.

At a certain point, you just have to get your tools out and get started and oh, you're now, you know then, because even with all the planning, you're going to get to a point where this isn't square. And frankly, at that point, you still might just need to get the sledgehammer out and pound the thing square, you know, with a few good hits. Right.

And, and I, you know, I think about that with rolling things out in any project, rolling out a project where, yep, you can think you can plan it, eventually you need to get started and be, be willing to tweak, be willing to make changes, be willing to grab the sledgehammer and just kind of pound that thing square midway through. Yeah, sorry, I had to, I had, I had to try to try out a minute.

Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:35:05.900 - 00:35:21.660
You basically showed people that you, at some point you can do some correction, course corrections, and that's fine, but you, at some point you have to get the ball rolling. And I think that was the key message you were saying is at some point you're gonna have, you have, you have to step up and start walking ahead.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:35:23.390 - 00:35:46.350
Yeah, I love it. Well, I, I'm going to get us into the advice section here as we're kind of winding down. I think this time is flying, which I appreciate.

So I, I, and I want to make sure I save some time too, at the end of the advice column here, because I know you've got a book you want to talk about too. So I always ask everybody to come prepared with a couple pieces of advice.

So the first one is, you know, what's one piece of advice you have for leaders?

Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:35:47.230 - 00:36:24.980
I would say, at least at a minimum.

At a minimum, get yourself energized at the beginning of the day somehow, whether you jump, you know, you do jumping jacks or you take a walk outside, but for the sake of God, bring a little bit more energy into your conversation so that people feed off of you. It happens. Whether you want it or not, they're going to feed off of you.

So if you come with your shoulders drooping and they can tell that you're tired, you haven't had a good weekend. It's not fair. Let's just be honest. It's not fair for everybody at the office.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:36:25.460 - 00:37:12.310
Nice. I'm gonna. Let me, let me tag onto that because there's a. I'm gonna.

He probably would bristle against being called a sales guru, but gentlemen, I've become aware of over the last six months, Darren McKee, he does a lot of sale, you know, a lot of stuff with sales. And one of his things is like, hey, before you get on that Important sales call.

Call your best friend, call your, you know, your, your wife or your husband or call your mom or your dad or your brother and like, have a real uplifting conversation. I like very similar. Right. Like, how do you manage your energy? How do you be intentional? Right, Right. Yeah.

So what's one piece of advice you have for those who support leaders? Right. That could be hr, that could be senior leaders who are, you know, coaching and supporting leaders under them.

Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:37:13.430 - 00:38:34.170
I think this idea that we need to help leaders realize that they need to lead, not just manage the change, that basically means I see that you have back to back meetings on Monday, but then you also have this meeting on Tuesday where you're going to have an all hands. Highly likely you need a couple of hours to prepare your talk with at least one story that will be inspiring. So you know what?

I think I can have Sandy fill in for you in that meeting and maybe I can have Jim take care of that for you because I think you're probably going to need that time because unless we nicely tell them, you need to actually work on that talk because that talk is going to become what I call an exponential value moment in that meeting. When you speak, other people will be impacted and you have to think about what kind of impact is this going to be.

So to your point, I love what you said. Intentional. You have to be intentional thinking about. I want them to feel energized.

I want them to feel like they cannot wait to get to that promised land. And I want them to feel supported and therefore my talk will create those feelings. Yeah.

If I don't have my slide deck or my talking points, well, you know what? I better get prepared.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:38:35.210 - 00:38:58.040
Yeah, I like that. I think, you know, what you're saying here is for, you know, senior leaders, or hr, to give the leaders that they're supporting the permission. Right.

Give them the permission, slash, encouragement. Right. To be intentional about the role that they play in motivating. Right.

And I like how you kind of draw the distinction between managing change versus leading change. Right.

Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:38:58.190 - 00:38:58.510
Yeah.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:38:59.230 - 00:39:02.550
Kind of encouraging people to step into that leadership role so much.

Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:39:02.550 - 00:39:27.690
Yeah. Is dependent on that idea of sponsorship.

I used to work for proi, and a key statistic there is that sponsorship is one of the most important factors in the success of a change initiative. So that leader or leaders coming in and talking and reminding everybody of the promised land is 90% of how to get there.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:39:28.330 - 00:39:28.730
Nice.

Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:39:28.730 - 00:39:30.970
Which is crazy. Yeah.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:39:31.050 - 00:39:34.170
Well, and I know you, you showed me a book earlier. So what's, what's your book?

Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:39:34.170 - 00:39:34.570
All about.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:39:35.130 - 00:39:36.170
Tell us a little bit about the book.

Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:39:36.170 - 00:40:42.830
Yeah, so the book's called the Strategic Leadership Mastery, a 90 day planner for effective leadership and growth.

And the key idea there is to do what we talked about earlier, just this idea of freeing up so you can think up, so you can speak up what the planner does when leaders get this. And basically each page is an opportunity for them to have what I call a meeting with self recommended on Friday afternoon.

Where you think about yourself, you think about your team, your organization and the business as a whole.

So you're able to strategically think because if you are in the grind of the daily business, you're not going to help the company as a leader, you're going to help them as a manager. And they can, they can find a pile of those outside the company.

If all they want is people to manage the business, highly likely they want you to also help them create the future of the business.

And that's where this is going to be helpful because even if you just do one strategic thing per week, it's a whole lot better than zero or minus five.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:40:45.160 - 00:41:08.440
Well, where can people find that? And Ash, where can you know if people are interested in storytelling?

But to be honest, from what I'm hearing today is you're talking about a lot of stuff beyond just storytelling. Right. And really kind of elevated into the title of your book, Strategic Leadership. So people are interested in the book.

If they're interested in working with you, tell us a little more where they can find the book or how they can find you.

Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:41:08.680 - 00:41:34.300
Absolutely. So leadeffectively, co is one destination and also we have communicatewithclarity. Co is another destination for people. LinkedIn is fantastic.

Ash at Executive Greatness is a very easy way for people to, to reach out as well. And you're totally right. I think storytelling is just, is just the nucleus of doing so much more.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:41:35.180 - 00:42:00.710
Yeah, it's like the, it's, it's the above the water of the iceberg, I think in terms of, you know, what you've been talking about today, which I think is a lot of the below the water stuff that people need to attend to and be intentional about in order to, you know, lead instead of just manage. Right, Absolutely. Absolutely. Awesome, Ash. Well, I really appreciate you coming on today and people can find you.

I know I found you on LinkedIn as well, so I know people can find you there. Really appreciate you coming on today.

Ash Seddeek (guest)
00:42:00.870 - 00:42:03.790
I had a lot of fun. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you, Kent.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:42:03.790 - 00:42:28.720
Yeah, take it easy. That brings us to the end of our episode. Thanks for listening.

I'd encourage you to head on over to my website, Kent Coach and start a conversation with me there. Or check out my promotion playbook at Kent Coach Playbook.

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