#awinewith Shelley Johnson
MEET Shelley
Shelley is the Founder of Boldside Consulting.
Find Shelley here:
Boldside Consulting website or Instagram @boldsideconsulting.
Transcript
Danielle Lewis (00:10):
Amazing. Shelly, welcome to Spark tv. I'm
Shelley Johnson (00:13):
So excited to
Danielle Lewis (00:14):
Have you.
Shelley Johnson (00:15):
Thanks for having me. I'm pumped too. I am surprised that it's like, I guess we're just working out that it's 12 o'clock my time, but it's 9:00 AM your time. So I've got an early bevy and you're on the coffees.
Danielle Lewis (00:28):
I'm on the coffees today, which is so off brand for me. Somebody's going to get mad at me for not being on the booze.
Shelley Johnson (00:37):
I mean, you could have kind of had a That's right. You could have gone had a mimosa, but I still think it is early for
Danielle Lewis (00:44):
Your time. Oh my God. A mimosa would've been such a good idea. I cannot believe I did not think of that. Oh my God.
Shelley Johnson (00:51):
For the next one, you can have a mimosa and everyone will be fine, but 9:00 AM mimosas are fun.
Danielle Lewis (00:58):
Oh my God, that is so good. Okay, I'm stealing that for future episodes. You here first everybody. Oh my God, I love it so much. Well, before we just start gas bagging, let's tell everybody what you do. So I know your biz is bold side, but what is it? What is the impact that you make in the world?
Shelley Johnson (01:22):
Yeah, so basically I run a business called Bold Side, and we're on a mission to build standout leaders and epic teams, and that's really the core of what I do, and it's a really fun gig. It is weird. People are weird. And so my whole,
Danielle Lewis (01:38):
Oh my God, people are so weird. Yeah. Oh,
Shelley Johnson (01:40):
Aren't they? I'm weird. You are weird. We're all weird.
Danielle Lewis (01:43):
Yeah.
Shelley Johnson (01:44):
When you're a leader though and you are dealing with the weirdness of people, it can be really challenging and really taxing. And so that's where I come in. I love weird people stuff. It's like my jam. So I'm right there in there. And yeah, I just really love to help leaders get the most out of their team, but also create an environment that people really want to be there. They want to show up, they want to be engaged. And it's a really hard gig. You would know this when you start a business and you're like, all of a sudden you've had this full technical skillset that you've built over many years, and then all of a sudden you're like, I've got all this technical expertise, but then I have to lead a team. And that just doesn't naturally evolve. I think organizations think and businesses think if I've got this technical skillset, I can step into leadership and just figure it out. It's not easy.
Danielle Lewis (02:40):
No. So you're literally describing me. So I was a sales person for a decade, so working for big corporate, rising through the ranks and thinking that I was better than sliced bread
Shelley Johnson (03:00):
And
Danielle Lewis (03:01):
Decided to start my own business. And of course I took on the sales for the business, so fabulous. But I was always a lone wolf in sales, the harder you work, the more money you make happy days, but you are right. Then you start your own business and it's like, yes, that's one part of my job is to grow the business, but then I have to hire these people to do all the other things. And then I was like, oh my God, why are you whining to me about your sick cat?
Shelley Johnson (03:30):
That's right. And it's like, I love that. I was talking to a leader who I work with the other day and she is just like, I love my job so much. I just don't like dealing with people. I feel that on a deep level because that's the thing is you get into a business to do what you love to do, and then as it grows, all of a sudden you need people around you. And so it becomes more about how do you mobilize a team and less about how do I do my technical skillset? And that can be really sad in some ways.
Danielle Lewis (04:02):
Oh my God, I was literally talking to a founder the other day and they're like, it's not fun anymore. I don't do the thing that I love to do. And the whole reason why I started the business was to solve this problem. But that's not my job anymore. My job is to be the CEO and to lead the people. And they're like, this sucks.
Shelley Johnson (04:22):
It's
Danielle Lewis (04:22):
Such a mindset shift.
Shelley Johnson (04:23):
And I think what happens, and this is why we see startups when they make that transition point and they've had all this rapid growth, then eventually the founder has to make the choice. Do I step into the CEO gig and fully own that or do I become the founder? And we interviewed on our podcast, I do a podcast called My Millennial Career, and we interviewed Amer imba who has had this incredible, amazingly successful career, and she works with Pixar and Google and all these huge Atlassian, all these huge businesses. And she in her own journey has just stepped out of the CEO role into the chief maker where she gets to do all the stuff she got into the business to do and she doesn't. That's brilliant, brilliant. Because a CEO is that in and of itself, the leadership gig is a technical skillset that has to be invested in. You don't just wing it. People think they can wing it. And I tell you, you can't wing leadership. And so that's a really long ramly way of saying, this is what I do. I work at Bold side and I fix people problems.
Danielle Lewis (05:32):
I love it so much. I love it so much. And I think, I mean there's so much to talk about, but even just that point of stepping into a more defined role other than the CEO, I think when we become business founders, we think we have to be the CEO. And we think that there's some kind of shame associated with not being the CEO and almost resigning to the fact that we are not good at that skillset. But I love how you just described it as a skillset because you are so right. There are career CEOs who are never going to be founders, who are never going to be that more creative type to start something to love the hustle and all of that stuff. But that doesn't discount your skillset as a founder. It's really about understanding what you're good at.
Shelley Johnson (06:22):
Yeah, you're spot on. I love that idea of career CEO, but they can't do the founding role, which is nuts. Totally. That journey is so huge, and it's not for everyone. It's not a cop out or an opt-out to move roles. And I love hearing, and if anyone wants to listen, we could probably put in the show notes. Yes. But I can put in Amman's story is just amazing of I love even the name like Chief Maker.
Danielle Lewis (06:54):
Yeah. It's so cool.
Shelley Johnson (06:56):
Yeah. Anyway, it's a good process to go through to really unpack, is this where I still want to be as a founder? Do I still want to lead a team or do I want to be doing more of what I love?
Danielle Lewis (07:09):
Are there any tips for founders who have no experience being a leader, but want to start that journey? And I know that you obviously support people on that, but if anyone's listening in going, oh my God, I'm in the middle of a crisis. How do we become leaders?
Shelley Johnson (07:27):
Oh yeah. What a huge question. How do we become leaders? I think
Danielle Lewis (07:33):
We need a bottle of wine for this discussion,
Shelley Johnson (07:35):
Don't we? Oh my gosh. Right. Totally. For me, it's this first process of Is that a Ghostbusters Cup? Yes. Good. Very
Danielle Lewis (07:46):
Good. And I think that there was just a bug in my, I think I might've just swallowed a bug. Okay,
Shelley Johnson (07:52):
Well, this is happening. This is
Danielle Lewis (07:53):
Authentic. This is Elle. I think I just swallowed a bug on the podcast. Oh my God,
Shelley Johnson (07:57):
I love it. I love it. Sorry. Got the giggles. So how do we become leaders? But the first thing for me is, so how do you first become aware of the gaps of your own weaknesses of the things that you do that actually hinder people's ability to perform? Because you can't lead people if you're not aware of your own shortcomings in that role. And so I would be doing a bit of a self-awareness journey, and there's this amazing book by Ryan Holiday who I love. He's such a beautiful author. Isn't he amazing? I'm not sure if you've read it. Ego is the Enemy.
Danielle Lewis (08:39):
No, I haven't. I've got a couple of his books on my shelf and of course I don't have my glasses on to even be able
Shelley Johnson (08:46):
To spot it
Danielle Lewis (08:48):
To see what the title is, but I've got a couple, one of my board members gives me one of his books every, I'm pretty sure the last one was something like Rest is the Way or whatever it is. It's some kind of stop work. Obstacle
Shelley Johnson (09:02):
Is the way, obstacle
Danielle Lewis (09:03):
Is the way, that's it. And there's something about rest, silence, silence or something. But he's amazing. Anyway, keep going. He
Shelley Johnson (09:12):
Is amazing. You're going to
Danielle Lewis (09:13):
Get so sidetracked on this chat, aren't we?
Shelley Johnson (09:15):
But there's a good point to it. So ego is the enemy. And if you are a leader, if you've been a leader for a long time or if you're a new leader, you need to read this book because it really goes into the impact of ego, especially for leaders who are really gifted in their, if you are really talented in your technical skillset, it's easy to fall into this trap where you think that that will just translate into skills to influence a team, to create a beautiful culture that people want to show up and engage and perform. And it often doesn't end up like that until you've developed the skills. So going back to what are my strengths? How am I leveraging those? What are my gaps? And then who do I have around me that can help me with my blind spots? Because often we know our weaknesses, we know we are cognizant of some of our strengths, but who's speaking into these are your blind spots as a leader, because they're the things that our team are going to feel most acutely because they're the things we're just completely unaware of or oblivious to, and they have such an impact.
(10:30):
And so starting with that self-awareness journey and then getting a coach, getting someone who can work alongside you and give you those truths in kindness, how do we share a good solid truth that, Hey, Joe, you've really dropped the ball there with that person. You didn't show enough empathy, and that's not going to help you get the most out of them. How do we do that differently? So that would be my encouragement of where to start as a leader.
Danielle Lewis (10:57):
Yeah, I love that too because I think it's really difficult as founders because I think in the early days we're wearing so many hats and we think we have to do everything. And then when we start to bring a team together, yes, that feels like the next best milestone, but letting go of the tasks is hard enough. And then actually the next level down, which is the understanding the gaps in our blind spots. That's huge. We think we have to be the best at everything. And I love the idea of actually bringing in a coach or a mentor or somebody that can actually, I love how you phrased it, something in kindness. Yeah,
Shelley Johnson (11:39):
Truth and kindness. Truth. Absolutely.
Danielle Lewis (11:42):
Exactly. Yeah. Because it doesn't have to be a bad thing, recognizing what our blind spots are.
Shelley Johnson (11:49):
And as a founder, and especially when you're in that kind of early phase, you can get in your little bubble. And if you think back to your days in corporate, you've got lots of voices, you've got lots of opportunity for feedback, you've got peer feedback, you've got your manager's feedback, you've got direct reports, you give you feedback. Whereas when you are in your business bubble, you can get quite isolated quite quickly. Totally. And not have those people speaking in saying, Hey, you did this really well. I absolutely loved when you did that. And I think we need to do this better. And every person who leads people needs feedback.
Danielle Lewis (12:28):
Oh, I love that so much. And it's our responsibilities, I think, as founders to make that happen. Right?
Shelley Johnson (12:34):
Yeah. Invest in it, right? Yeah, absolutely.
Danielle Lewis (12:38):
Oh, so good. So how do you see, and I'm super just interested to explore this leadership space. So how do you see early leaders get tripped up? What is the common things that you see leaders trip up against that might be easy for them to overcome?
Shelley Johnson (12:58):
Yeah, I think the first, maybe
Danielle Lewis (12:59):
Nothing's easy to overcome, but who knows
Shelley Johnson (13:02):
The first, it's a good way to put it. How do they get tripped up? What are the traps? I think the first trap is young or not young. New leaders feel they need to know it all. They need to have the answers. And actually your team don't expect you to know everything. They don't expect you to have the answers. In fact, if you are open about that, you don't know. They're going to appreciate that way more than thinking their leaders know it all because no one wants to work for a person like that. Right,
Danielle Lewis (13:33):
Totally. And I think that hinders the team's ability to make decisions on their own as well.
Shelley Johnson (13:40):
Exactly.
Danielle Lewis (13:41):
You are the type of leader that does know it all and is doing everything and just giving direction, then you're not actually allowing for growth in your business.
Shelley Johnson (13:49):
Yes. Yeah. And I mean that's huge. That is what you've just said there. I love that, Danielle, of how do you, so the first thing is, okay, well, you don't have to have the answers. You don't need to know everything and be vulnerable enough to admit when you don't know. And then I think to your point, the second thing is you have to release control.
(14:13):
And we're all control freaks. If you get into a business this, I'm such a control freak, and I listened to one of your podcasts with nine yards, I think it was, and you heard you talk about your own kind of journey in your career. And I think you get into starting your own business, you want to have that sense of, I've got this strategy and vision and creative kind of view of what it looks like, and I want to control us getting there. And all of a sudden you've got 10 people, 20 people, whatever it is, and you're like, oh, I have to release control
Danielle Lewis (14:50):
Totally. But
Shelley Johnson (14:51):
How do I trust my team? And so the last thing would be building trust. So we start with, you don't have to have all the answers and you have to release control, and then you have to build trust. And so I need to build an environment with my team. You need to build it with yours of how do we trust each other enough to release control and also hold each other accountable when we drop the ball.
Danielle Lewis (15:18):
So as a founder myself, I'm listening to that and going, oh my God, I don't know where to start. I get the concepts, but holy crap, that seems hard. So then I only assume that you and your business would support founders and leaders going through this process. Talk to me about that.
Shelley Johnson (15:40):
Yeah, that's right. And I mean, I think it's hard. This is an interesting thing of, that feels hard. Is it hard to build trust? I don't necessarily think it's hard to build trust, but it's easy to lose it. So the way that I would start to build trust with the team and as a leader to relinquish some of the control, because that's what you have to do if you want to get to that next level, you have to relinquish some of the control to your team is I would start by setting the expectations with the team. And so I come in and do these types of things where I'd work with that leader or team to go, well, how do we want to behave as a team? What are the expectations around trust and accountability? What do we look like when we are operating at our best and what do we look like at our worst?
(16:28):
And one thing that I love, Danielle, it's so funny, we don't talk about this enough in teams, but getting everyone in the team to share their pet peeves. So literally go around the room because 10 people go around the room and you don't need a consultant to do this, right? You can do it. DIY sit in a team meeting and say, Hey, we're going to share the best things we do on this team, what we love, and we're our pet peeves. And once you start to hear around the room and John says, I really don't like Shelly. When you rock up 10 minutes late to our one-on-one, I find that really disrespectful. And I'm like, oh, I'm just in a world of chaos and I'm in my own little head, but I don't realize the impact of my behavior that John's saying, well, that actually deteriorates trust and that makes me feel like you don't respect my time. Or Sarah says, Hey, when you text me abrupt message about something I did that I could do better, can that be a phone call?
(17:31):
You start to go around and you hear, okay, we've got some stuff, simple things that we could do to fix and build trust, build accountability, and understand what works well. For some people, it doesn't necessarily work well for others. So you want to bring all the stuff that's underneath the surface to the surface. It's vulnerable. It can pretty nerve wracking, but it's such a trust builder. And then from there, that's like your springboard and you progress over time where you start to share more honest feedback with the team. And that would be where I would begin to build that culture of trust.
Danielle Lewis (18:03):
I love that so much because literally the actions that came out of that exercise were so simple. So at the two minutes ago, I'm stressing going, how the hell do I go through this process? But literally breaking it down to as simple as having a conversation with people and asking them to share and then going, oh my God, the stuff that's coming out so simple, yet if it doesn't get addressed, it does just bubble away under the surface.
Shelley Johnson (18:32):
Well, and I would say it does more than bubble away. It snowballs. So it's funny how on teams we have this thing happen where we, and as leaves, we're so busy we have so much on and we think I need to talk to that person about that thing that's annoying me. I need to talk to that person, I need to talk to that person. But we kind of put it off an avoidance strategy, but also because we are like feeling
Danielle Lewis (19:00):
Very triggered. We're triggered.
Shelley Johnson (19:01):
So we got this avoidance strategy going on, but we also feel really busy and pressured and we don't know how to have that conversation and setting the scene as a team and go, Hey, we want this environment to be an environment that we all love to be in. And to do that, we have to understand what we like and don't like about working on this team. And that's going to be different for every person because what I like is going to be different, Danielle, to what you like and what John likes, but knowing it and just opening up the dialogue and you can get someone in to facilitate it for you, or you can do it yourself, it doesn't matter. It's just about that you're stepping into the messiness and uncomfortableness and allowing the things that you mentioned that are bubbling under the surface to come up. And once they're up, we can actually address them. But if we don't know what they are, we just live in an ignorant world where we are trying to figure it out on the fly.
Danielle Lewis (19:54):
And it's so good. I love that you use the word uncomfortable because earlier when I was like, ah, it seems too hard. I think it's uncomfortable. I think that is the right word. And stepping into that and being vulnerable and being able to go, oh yeah, this might suck. Who knows what people are going to say. But also it might just be those tiny little things that are so easy to fix that actually makes a huge change in the business.
Shelley Johnson (20:24):
And it's just instantly you can feel when we do this, and I did this with a team last week at a NZ actually, and we were workshopping what are our behaviors when we are at our best and at our worst, and what are the things that we see unfold? And once you get them on the table, the ones that everyone says, well, that's us at our worst, everyone just breathes a collective sigh of relief. Finally, we've all agreed that that is bad. We all knew no one talked about it, but we've just brought it up and now we can go, okay, cool. We've all acknowledged we don't like that behavior. We don't like when people bitch about each other behind their backs because it detracts from trust. So what are we going to do instead? Instead we're going to make sure that before we go and bitch about it to Sarah, we're going to go and talk to John directly and say, Hey, mate, this is not working. Can we look at ways to improve this?
Danielle Lewis (21:24):
I love that. I love that. And again, it's just coming back to having conversations and asking the question, which yes, might be a little bit uncomfortable, but so easy when you think about it.
Shelley Johnson (21:37):
Yes, totally. And people want to talk about it. It's just giving them the platform to do it.
Danielle Lewis (21:41):
Yeah, absolutely. And what about, does this translate to remote teams? Because I know we're now living in this world where we've got fully remote companies, we've got hybrid, we've got everyone back in the same office. How does that throw a new element into what we're talking about?
Shelley Johnson (22:00):
Yeah, absolutely. I think we need to be investing. It's so funny. So I love being in person with people and as a HR person, and even running that workshop that I did on Friday of last week and just having 15 people in the room, there's just something really special about it. So I want to say first I love those moments and I just don't think you can replace them. I also recognize most of our teams are remote, so we absolutely need to do it, and we have to become more intentional with how we do it. So one thing I encourage leaders and teams to do is when they're at remote, let's say we've got 15 people on a remote team meeting, it's an all in, everyone's in together. And the default for remote work environments is the quieter team members, they actually get overlooked. So they don't get to voice their concerns because the dominant verbal processes like me overtake the whole conversation. So sorry if I'm doing that right now.
Danielle Lewis (23:07):
No, it's brilliant. I love
Shelley Johnson (23:09):
It. Are you a verbal process, verbal processor, Danielle?
Danielle Lewis (23:13):
Oh, I'm a mixed bag. I do. I'm kind of like the extroverted introvert, introverted, extrovert, whatever it is. So I have my moments of, because I love this. So talking is my game. I'm a salesperson through and through, literally this is all I do, but I tend not to be very confrontational. So I will hold back and I won't say anything and I'll avoid the uncomfortable situation. So I don't want anyone to be mad. So I've really, really had to learn that and how to actually speak up as a leader and ask people uncomfortable questions and be okay with that. But I think I had to learn, I think as a business owner and founder, I think your whole job is to be uncomfortable. I think
Shelley Johnson (24:02):
I've,
Danielle Lewis (24:04):
Yeah, just be uncomfortable all the time and you'll be fine.
Shelley Johnson (24:08):
What is someone, my sister actually, she sent me, she's been doing her own business for a long time, whereas I've only just started this year and she sent me this message when I launched the business of Welcome to Running Your Own Business. You now joined the club of Paralyzing.
Danielle Lewis (24:27):
Yes.
Shelley Johnson (24:29):
I feel that on a deep level.
Danielle Lewis (24:31):
Absolutely. I'm 10 years in and I still feel that,
Shelley Johnson (24:35):
Okay, I look forward to being 10 years on. That's
Danielle Lewis (24:39):
Why this podcast is over wine because it's like therapy. That's right.
Shelley Johnson (24:44):
It's like therapy. I love that. So good. I mean, going back to the remote team stuff, if you are a leader and you have a fully remote team and you work from wherever, the way I do it is your team meetings start with a quieter team members first. It actually, it is tricky for them because it does make them feel uncomfortable, but it means that their voice is heard. So the way I'd frame it up is saying to those people independently in a one-on-one context, Hey, we're going to restructure our remote work, our remote teams meetings. I'm going to ask you and invite you to speak earlier because I don't want you to get overcrowded because we need to hear your voice and we want to make sure that that's heard. So can I invite you to share upfront and just actually asking them if they're sweet with that. In most cases they will be because they want to be invited in.
Danielle Lewis (25:34):
I love also giving the warning so they know this is the topic of the call I'm about to be on, and I will be asked to speak up front. So maybe a little prep so I'm not feeling overwhelmed wouldn't go astray.
Shelley Johnson (25:46):
Exactly. Versus
Danielle Lewis (25:48):
People who just speak all the time. We all just think on our feet and we'll just start rambling and go, yeah, I know what, and then the whole meeting's over,
Shelley Johnson (25:55):
Everyone's like, oh, they did that thing again that we all said in our pet peeves, we don't want you to keep doing. Yeah. It's just a
Danielle Lewis (26:03):
That's a great idea. I love that.
Shelley Johnson (26:05):
And then I think it's becoming, we need both. So you get really intentional with your remote meetings, but when you're in person,
(26:13):
That in person time do it as a retreat, a team member that has a fully remote team, they have staff overseas as well as locally across all of Australia. And when they get together annually, they do a two day retreat conference style. And it is amazing the investment because they say, well, we only get together really twice a year, but that big annual one is just, they go all out because they say, when we are all together, this time is going to be core culture building. It is all culture. It's all about creating this amazing experience for our employees. And I just think that is priceless. You cannot beat those moments. So just being really intentional with that in-person time as well.
Danielle Lewis (27:00):
I love that so much. And it is really hard to replicate in-person time remotely. I love the idea of making sure that the quieter team members get the opportunity to go first, but I think you do have to.in cultural culture building things and be more intentional about it when you're remote because you do miss, you can just create a bond so quickly when you're in person. It is really difficult over video as much as you have your daily whips or your weekly standups or whatever, sometimes they feel super transactional and sometimes culture building things can feel quite forced, but you really do have to be intentional about it when you're remote.
Shelley Johnson (27:50):
Oh wow. I love that. I'm just thinking about that as you're talking. That is so good around that word transactional and also forced, I'm thinking about those two dynamics when it comes to culture. The last thing you want with your team is this sense of a transactional culture or forced fun. And I'm air quote like, oh, I just cringe covid, you
Danielle Lewis (28:17):
Have to show up at four o'clock on a Friday with their drink remotely and we're going to play some games. It's like, Ugh,
Shelley Johnson (28:23):
Kill me now. Don't do it. Yeah, totally. So I think it's how do you get input from your team on what do they actually want? Because some teams are happy to do the online trivia and board games and whatever, and other people are like, heck no, I don't want to be there. I don't want to do that. So what are the alternatives? And I think culture is less about fun in inverted commas and more about how do we have authenticity on this team? How do we have real conversations that get to the heart of issues? How do we overcome our fear of conflict and avoidance so that we can have this really healthy, robust dynamic where we all understand each other really well and we understand the goals of the business and we're all driving towards that. And that's what I think people want on teams less about, we do this tokenistic kind of fun thing over here. I'm not downplaying that that's really important to have social events, but do it in a way that is not transactional, but relational and real.
Danielle Lewis (29:29):
I love that so much because I think things have evolved so much in the last few years, right? 3, 4, 5 years ago, it was really the startup culture of ping pong, table beers, wine in the fridge. That was culture. That's how we find culture. And we were all together. We were all in person, and you'd have your people that would or would not show up to different social events and what have you. But I feel like the last couple of years where we have gone more remote, I think it's forced us to take a bit of a step back and go, that's exactly what you said, right? That's not what culture is. Yeah, it it's just goes so deep. And I think at the heart of it, exactly what you said, really understanding what your team actually wants because every team is so different. I know people who have purposely built all female teams or mum teams depending on what their product is. So you really have to actually have conversation and understand what's important to everybody before you can even define what your culture is.
Shelley Johnson (30:41):
Yeah, I love that you mentioned the ping pong tables, right? I hate
Danielle Lewis (30:45):
The ping pong tables.
Shelley Johnson (30:46):
I hate the ping pong tables. When I launched my business first, some of my marketing photos, we got this ping pong and this guy who did the photo is so cool and it's really fun and catchy around culture is more than table tennis. Nice. And if we think about relationships, so let's get work off the table for a sec, but think about healthy relationships because employment relationship is that it's two ways. A healthy relationship is not surface. And I think about ping pong tables and foosball tables and that's fine, but that's surface. The deep relationships are the ones where you really want to stick out. It's those ones where you've seen me at my worst and you're stuck by me. Those are the kinds of relationships that are healthy because they have depth for me saying to my team member, if there's a healthiness in the relationship, it will be like me being able to with ease, give them constructive feedback and know that we are going to be better off overall for sharing it.
(31:53):
But when you've got a surface relationship with a team member, you are often afraid to give them direct feedback because we will be worried that it will damage the relationship. And that's when we know that it's not deep. That's when we know we're still at the surface level. So go deep in those relationships in terms of you don't have to know all the ins and outs of every single problem in their lives. Actually, that's not what I mean. What I mean is that we have enough trust that I can sit down and say to someone, I feel really let down by what happened, or I feel that your behavior is quite entitled. And that's disappointing. Can we talk about that? That's what I mean when there's depth in the relationship, the ultimate outcome of that conversation is that you and that person will have a stronger relationship as a result.
Danielle Lewis (32:41):
Yeah, I love that because I think you're spot on. I think as early leaders, we mistake being employees best friends for being their boss and leaders, and we worry that if we say the wrong thing, they're going to hate us and quit. Yes,
Shelley Johnson (33:01):
Totally.
Danielle Lewis (33:02):
But we, and I love how you said, put work to the side because it's relationships and we wouldn't think that way about our best friends or about anyone we have a relationship with. We would know that the relationship is strong enough to be able to say, Hey, that really sucked, and still be fine. So I think you're right. We need to actually focus on having the type of relationship with our employees where we can be honest with them and have open conversations and give feedback because at the end of the day, you want them to grow as well, right? Yes. This isn't just a work for me for the next two years and move on. This should be a stepping stone for growth for them. Promotions within your company or Yes, having them off on their way, doing the next amazing thing.
Shelley Johnson (33:53):
Well, it goes back to what you said before, Danielle, of transactional to be a transactional leader where you just go, I'm going to get three good years out of this person and then see you later. Or do I want them to grow with my business and do I want to invest in them? Because I think that is what a good leader does. They want to invest in their people. And I think if you are listening right now and you run a business and you want transformational results, you cannot have a transactional approach to leadership. You just can't.
(34:27):
It doesn't work. And so how do you connect with your employees? You don't have to be best friends. And in fact, you probably don't want to have that dynamic, although I've seen leaders who've worked with people and become super close friends, and I think that is beautiful. It's more about how do we have that health and honesty in our relationship and trust and that they feel they're safe. And this idea of psychological safety in teams is a really important one. And so there's so much obviously we can cover in this leadership space, but I do think it comes down to you start with yourself and understanding your gaps, and then you look at how do I build the trust within the team so that people can thrive and flourish and then ultimately they help the business succeed.
Danielle Lewis (35:21):
Yeah, no, I love that. That's awesome. So let's take a huge right turn left, turn here because we're running out of time. And I'm so keen because you go into businesses you see intimately inside other people's businesses, but I'm super keen for you to reflect on your own business and starting that. Were there any lessons that you've learned since starting your business that you were surprised by or,
Shelley Johnson (35:55):
Oh my gosh, where do we begin? Well, I almost need a countdown time or so. I'm like, don't waffle, don't go over. I could go down so many rabbit holes. So there's been heaps of learnings and I'm like only six months in. So I've been doing my, I started bold side in May this year, so not long ago, but I've been running this podcast, my millennial career for, well co-hosting this podcast, sorry, I should say, for three years. And that's done really well, which kind of is what gave me the platform, well maybe the confidence to think, I think I could do my own thing. And then I launched it and I was like, holy crap, can I actually do it? Do I have what it takes? And all those internal questions that you have around your own skill and capability. And so it's been a huge process of crippling, but
Danielle Lewis (36:56):
You are amazing if it helps.
Shelley Johnson (36:58):
Thank you. Thank you. I'll cling onto that. Absolutely. Absolutely. The biggest learning for me, and I was thinking about this podcast beforehand and what would I say has been the biggest challenge and growth so far has been this idea of not outsourcing my emotions. So one of the things that I have found is I've transitioned from, I've had a really long great career in hr, but I've transitioned into starting this business and totally the opposite of you, no sales background at all, zero sales skills. And I'm like, oh my gosh. And so one of the things I found that I was doing is my emotions would be dependent on whether I'd got the sale or not.
Danielle Lewis (37:45):
Yes. Oh my god.
Shelley Johnson (37:47):
And I was outsourcing a lot of my emotional stability to external factors, and that creates a world of anxiety and fear,
Danielle Lewis (37:55):
Right? Oh my God, yes.
Shelley Johnson (37:57):
So every time I would get, and I started to, I am very observant of my own emotions, so I would become quite reflective after a client meeting and the person signed on and I was on a high for two days, probably just an absolute high. And then I'd have the no meeting the next week where they said, no, can't do it too expensive or too this or too that, whatever the reasons. And I was like in the pitch of despair.
Danielle Lewis (38:24):
Yeah. Oh my
Shelley Johnson (38:26):
Gosh. I started to go, this is not going to be sustainable for me. I'm just outsourcing my emotional to other people, and I can't afford to do that for my family. I can't afford to do that for myself. So what do I do instead? And one of the things has been setting, and I know Adam Grant talks a lot about this in his book, think again of how do you set intrinsic goals instead of extrinsic goals? So what I was doing is externalizing all of my sense of value to success or money coming in or sales being, getting the tick. And instead now I'm going, well, I need to set internal goals that I can actually achieve that not dependent on someone else's decision making. And holy crap, that's so hardcore this week I had the same thing. I had a client come through and say, yep, let's do it. And it was a big, big gig and I was like, yes. And I had to taper it right back and go, no, no, no. It's okay to be excited. I'm not saying don't be excited, but I'm not going to tie my value to landing the deal.
Danielle Lewis (39:37):
I am so glad you brought this up because you are so spot on, right? It's so funny. You know how you hear things you need to hear. And I'm going, oh my God, this is literally what I'm doing right now. I was in the worst mood yesterday. And it's that it's tying your value to other people's validation. So I've literally, I've got a post it full of things that you've said now. Good. But it's so, so true because I've often heard people talk about, so because we have the rollercoaster, the highs of highs and the lows of lows, people often, the way they've described it to me in the past is the tapering. So I just try not to get too excited about something so that the lows not too low, but I actually think what they're doing is just controlling their emotions but not actually changing the input. I love what you just said about no, my value is not tied to the yes or the no and actually setting goals that you can literally control. That is awesome. That is the wisdom. That's so
Shelley Johnson (40:45):
Cool. And it's, it's obviously very difficult to master. I'm in this really early stages of figuring out, again, I'm laughing that we keep coming back to this, but it's having the awareness enough to be in tune with what your emotional response is to something and going, that is not a healthy response. It's kind of the same as emotional responses to eating thing. I didn't get a deal. Now I need a bazillion malteses to get through whatever that is. But I,
Danielle Lewis (41:29):
Mine's actually salt and vinegar chips. Oh,
Shelley Johnson (41:31):
Is it nice? Oh no. If I ever see you in real life and you've got salt and vinegar chips on hand on me, okay,
Danielle Lewis (41:38):
Just avoid me.
Shelley Johnson (41:39):
You're doing okay. It'd be good to have some of those signals. But that's been the big lesson and it's been hugely challenging. The honest version is, the other side for me is I've always been a confident person, I would say for most of my career until I started this business, and I've called it like bold side, right? I'm trying to do this thing that's like helping leaders have bold conversations at work with their teams. But for me, when I launched it, Danielle, I was in a world of fear and so much so that I was like, this is not me. Why am I so afraid? And so I have done a bit of deep processing on that of trying to look at, okay, well, what am I afraid of? And a lot of it's come down to fear of failure and fear of what other people think. And again, it's the externalizing my value. It's that same issue of pushing my sense of self-worth to external factors instead of finding, okay, no, I need to be able to find my own value and worth in something that's more meaningful than what other people think or whether I succeed or fail.
Danielle Lewis (42:56):
Oh my God, you are absolutely incredible. Thank you so much, Shelly, for being so honest.
Shelley Johnson (43:05):
No worries.
Danielle Lewis (43:06):
I'm not even joking. I've got a post note of books and concepts, and so I just know if I'm getting this kind of value, everybody listening in as well will not be. So, I cannot thank you enough for sharing your insights and wisdom with the Spark community. You're amazing.
Shelley Johnson (43:25):
Thank you so much, Danielle, for having me. It's actually like a therapy session for me, so it's been awesome.
Danielle Lewis (43:31):
Perfect. I love it.
