What Great Teams Do Great with David Wheatley

John Ryan
You're listening to key conversations for leaders. This is episode number 54.

John Ryan 0:04
Hey everybody and welcome to key conversations for leaders. I'm your host John Ryan, and today we have a very special guest, David Wheatley. David is a principal and chief question asker at Humanergy, he works with leaders who are engaged in transitions to new roles, new scope or improved results. a facilitator, trainer and coach, he has worked for 20 years with government manufacturing, health care, law enforcement, technology, and financial institutions to challenge their thinking and push them ahead. David asked his clients the right questions at the right time. And he supports organizations through strategic planning, and helps them overcome roadblocks using a framework of values based commitment and stakeholder mapping. He's originally from Leeds, England, and David is a former Scotland Yard police officer. He is a graduate of the Hamden police academy in London and is a senior fellow at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy. David is the co author of the books 50 do's for everyday leadership lessons learned the hard way, so you don't have to, and what great teams. So what great teams do great how ordinary people accomplish the extraordinary. Thank you so much for being here. And welcome to the show. David.

David Wheatley 1:14
You're welcome. Thank you very much. Appreciate the intro.

John Ryan 1:16
You're welcome. And would you tell us a little bit about how about your journey to becoming the principal at humanity? How did you end up in in this amazing position?

David Wheatley 1:27
Well, it's appreciate the ask. It's like most journeys, its has its turns, and curves and is rarely straight. And as you pointed out in the intro, my first real job was Bobby in Scotland Yard. And so they taught me to ask good questions. And that's been a theme throughout my, my career is trying to ask good questions. Now, I went from doing it from a law enforcement perspective to doing it from a personal development, professional development perspective. And I actually started that when I was in the police. So I had the opportunity to do a little bit of leadership development when I was a cop. And then I went back to school and did a bit more. And then I've continued to do that. But the theme tends to be this. I prefer my version of the buyer, which has I tried to ask good questions. And occasionally I do. My team says I have to move away from the self deprecation. But you know that I think everything as a leader should be about working out the question that people need right now. And if you ask it at the right time and the right way, then it unlocks a whole bunch of potential.

John Ryan 2:37
Well, I love that identity of the chief question asker. And I think you and I can both debate about the self deprecation and when to use it and when not to use it. I'm certainly in marketing, people are gonna say try not to self deprecate, but but there's a reality of humility to asking questions and being vulnerable. When you ask questions like, like, I think you're also insinuating. What was it that really started your luvo questions? Did that begin in the police academy? Or was it even before them?

David Wheatley 3:05
Well, you know, you're taught as a cop to ask the right question. And you can read so much more into it if you ask the right questions, especially if it's more open ended, because people are having to think about things and and especially if they're trying to weave a story, they have to think about what story they've already weaved. And so you can see some of that. And so you're taught to work out the right question that gets as much information as possible. And when you turn that to a development role, my job as a leadership coach for the last 20 years, I try to ask a question that unlocks people's thinking, because, you know, it's more powerful if people come up with the idea themselves. And and if you can ask a question that makes people stop and think there's nothing more beautiful in that moment that you see somebody say, as they just find the answer in the head. And then they go through, why didn't I ask that question? And it's because you kind of bogged down in the situation. And sometimes you don't always see the clarity of the question that you needed. And so when I do my best work, that's it. And the title came my we've never had titles in our organization, particularly we've always said, Take the title, you need to get the job done. And, and then a few years ago, my business partner started putting chief insight officer on his LinkedIn account, and I was thinking, Okay, I need to match this. And it's funny, you mentioned it, because my first thought was, I'm going to the chief humility officer. But then I thought I will be the only person that found that funny.

John Ryan 4:37
I'll laugh with you. I love it. And the

David Wheatley 4:38
other people might have taken it too seriously. And then, but then I got down to the root of what am I doing when I'm doing my best work? I asked a good question. And so chief question out to see asker seem to be the right title. Well, I

John Ryan 4:53
understand that. Prince Harry now has a role with the organization where he is the chief impact officer. Sir. And it seems like that trend to more customized title rather than traditional might be maybe taking off in that direction?

David Wheatley 5:08
Well, you know, from a marketing perspective, as you mentioned, it's also a little bit catchy or isn't it gives you a bit of breadth. I work with a large credit union area in Michigan, they have a chief experience officer. And I love that idea as well, because her role is about creating the best experience for that credit unions membership. And, and she's one of the senior people in the organization, but that that title really sums up what she's should be focused on.

John Ryan 5:37
We mentioned, we probably both agree that what that does that title is relates to your identity. And the way you view yourself is going to change your whole focus. So when you consider yourself the chief question, Officer,

David Wheatley 5:50
Asker, Chief question asker.

John Ryan 5:52
Yeah, say it correctly, that that now gives you that lens even more in the forefront. Are there any specific questions that that you go to time and time again, that tend to be in your back pocket? That you like?

David Wheatley 6:06
That's, that's a great question. So one of my favorites has helped me understand that. So which, you know, it's a go to that people can say something and you ask, help me understand that. And it's amazing what else comes out in that situation? But we found that the, it's thinking about what the question starts with and making it as short as possible, because some of the best questions are short. You know, why is another way of saying help me understand that, but help me understand that as a slightly less abrupt approach to it. But another my favorites is when have you had a similar experience before? But we have some simple rules, that question should not be able to be answered yes or no, if it's going to be a powerful question. And it should not be a advice disguised as a question.

David Wheatley 7:00
And we can all be guilty sometimes of saying, Well, have you thought about doing a, b and c? Which sounds like a question, but is actually advice disguised as a question. And so powerful questions should not be able to be answered yes or no, it should not be advice disguised as a question. And it shouldn't have any judgment in that. Because sometimes it can also be guilty of putting judgment, and especially with your kids, when my kids are all grown now. And sometimes I can hear myself asking the question that has deep judgment embedded in it. And it's like, Oh, stop that. And to come back to your original point that putting chief question asker on your title, actually forces me to think about asking better questions. So

John Ryan 7:41
Well, it sounds like you've done some reflecting on what makes a good question. And what doesn't make a good question. I imagine when we grew up, or not really trained to ask questions, what are some differences that that you see in your organization, the way that you approach problems versus maybe the average person who doesn't think about asking the right question at the right time.

David Wheatley 8:05
I don't think there's anything special about it, it's just that we're, we train people in one way. And then we expect a behavior differently when they get to the more senior leadership ranks. And if you think about it, you whatever role you do, you get rewarded for solving problems and fixing things, whatever as you're doing. That tends to be your knowledge is what gets rewarded. And then when you become a leader, if you keep that as your go to mechanism, that you solve problems and fix things, then you're not empowering the people beneath you. which then means that you're not creating the space to be more strategic in your world. And so that transition from having the knowledge and solving things and fixing things directly to being able to ask a powerful question that opens that thinking in other people is the transition, it goes from being really a follower to being a true leader, that ability to submit myself, I don't have to be the problem solver, the answer, I just need to come up with a question that gets you there. Because then you'll be excited about owning it. And that feeling will be resonant in you. And I can go away with a warm feeling without having to say that but you needed my question. I just got away said I developed and empower these people. That's the biggest challenge that I find in any leader is making that transition. And we've spent 20 years helping people with that.

John Ryan 9:25
It sounds like you have to really put the ego to the side, grab some humility and vulnerability in put it back in their court to help them develop that skill, rather than trying to take ownership and and have that sense of Yeah, I led you to that solution. Is that part of the thinking that you have in your approach as well?

David Wheatley 9:46
Yeah, I think that should be any leaders thinking. And I think the first thing you said there is most critical we have to be willing to put our ego to ego to one side. Because if our ego gets in the way that it's all about us, leadership should be all about them. Who Whatever it is that I'm leading. And so I have in my coaching work have found myself asking a question that's got somebody someplace, and then you hear that somewhere else in the organization. And like I say, you, you have to reward yourself with the warm feeling. That is, Oh, I know, I started that back here. But it's really cool to see other people owning it. And moving along, I often feel like it must be like being the presidential speechwriter. Now you spend all this time and effort refining your art, but somebody else gets all the credit for it. Whenever that's spoken, it's somebody else's. But you must be able to reward yourself with the warm feeling inside, that other people are doing really well. And that's in my mind what leadership is about.

John Ryan 10:47
I love that perspective. As as part of that process. You know, I know, in working with clients and executives, sometimes there is some struggle around taking the time extra to coach and mentor people through the problem solving process, rather than just solving it yourself. Do you have imagined, you've come across that as well? And then we'll just faster to do myself? What suggestions advice, ideas, recommendations do you have for people who might be thinking about that it's faster just to do it myself, rather than to really take the time to invest in my team?

David Wheatley 11:19
Well, and they're right, this time, it's faster for them to do it themselves. But that's a very short term perspective, isn't that? How many more times is it going to be faster for them to do it themselves before, that's what they're doing. And besides, if I'm doing it myself, I don't need you. And which means that I'm working at a level beneath where I should be. And one of my favorite quotes, I can't remember who it's from, but it's the idea of, we never might make time to do it, right. But we always find time to do it over. And that's the thing that I would push to people and say, okay, you don't make time to do it. Right, you won't take the time to ask the questions and develop the person. But you'll make more time later on, to fix it yourself and to take care of it yourself. But we're not empowering and building the team beneath us. So we're not acting as a leader, we're still problem solving.

John Ryan 12:11
I love both of those reframes. Right, it's all about time in your perspective. So if you don't have to do it, right, you're not gonna have time to do it right later on. And it's such a huge reframe, just even accepting that it's gonna immediately shift your focus. And think about the long term versus the short term, is that one of the skills they need in writing your book, you know, what grade teams do great. What was it that really inspired you to focus on, on that aspect of the organization?

David Wheatley 12:40
That's based on a model that we've used for the best part the last 20 years and developed and evolved and, and so there's some pieces that because none of its rocket science, all we're doing is framing up in some simple ways, what we've seen has been the difference between those teams that have been very successful, and those that have been less so. And that the main thing at the front of it to get to your point areas, if we spend time setting up the team, right? It saves us a whole bunch of problems later on. And that setting up is making sure that we get to know each other, and what skills you bring to the table, making sure that we've got clarity about what we're trying to achieve and the environment that we're currently in, and establishing some what I call non negotiables. So what are our expectations of how we work with each other? Because if we have those things, those questions answered the rest of it, we can get that because it's going to fall within that picture of what successes. And and so the more that we're willing to spend the time there, the less it's going to cause us pain. Again, later on down the line.

John Ryan 13:43
I love the theme there about you know, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and putting the energy in upfront to set the rules and the culture and the dynamics that you have there. Is that also where you would have conversations around personal responsibility inside of a team?

David Wheatley 13:59
Yeah, that I mean, that goes a long way to that, are you are you taking the time as the leader to do that, but then even if you're not the leader of the team, are you doing the right things. And the second major aspect of the book and what great teams do great is really about that personal choice, which I believe that leadership is about the choices we make on a daily basis that influence and impact the people around us. And so if it is about personal choice, then everybody is making leadership choices daily. And we break those into two simple ones at its most simple end, which is I can make greenpath choices or red path choices. And we use the green and red as a traffic light kind of analogy. But the Green Path choices are when I'm about the greater good. So what I'm aligned is to what we're trying to achieve. I'm making sure that everybody's understood. And I'm forward focused on a solution versus red path choices which are attack avoid blame excuses. Ignore, accommodate, defer, deflect, all those kinds of things which we can all get into the habit of doing. But if we're operating that way, that's part of the problem. If we're operating in the Green Path, then we can be part of the solution.

John Ryan 15:16
It seems quite obvious when you lay those two choices out there, like which path obviously, is the one you want to go towards? Do you ever find teams organically focusing on the Green Path? Or is there a natural tendency that kind of go down the red path for self preservation and other, you know, drives that we might have?

David Wheatley 15:35
I mean, you're raising our culture question there. And in some ways, that depends on the culture as to what our first tendency is, if the culture is one of, if you stick your head out, you get shut off, then it's very easy to go red path and point the finger at somebody else. If the culture is one that encourages learning, and alignment, and cooperation, then it's very easy to go green path. And the cultures that we work within some of the organizations we work with, they've got very used to that Green Path culture. And then that enables people to stand up and say, Hey, I screwed up. And I need some help fixing it. And then everybody else gathers around and says, okay, help me understand, what do we need to achieve? Let's work on fixing it. Because people are happy to help when that kind of admission. Whereas if people are going into that, well, it wasn't me it was somebody else, then we can't trust you. And we're not willing to come around and help when you need it. And so you're just creating this death spiral of behaviors that destroys the culture, if we go red path all the time.

John Ryan 16:35
Is it fair to say that if you're seeing red path behavior, that as a leader, you're getting feedback on the parameters and the culture that you've established from from that role?

David Wheatley 16:46
I think that will be fair, I think culture, in a lot of ways is a direct reflection of leadership. Now, I put an asterisk by that and say, sometimes you've not been in the role long enough to change the culture. But it can be a direct reflection. And that's why we try to make it simple in the book that we can list off that attack, avoid, ignore defensiveness, blame those things because they're very real. And they're things that people can get a handle on, and recognize, and they can ask themselves, hey, am I part of the solution? Am I part of the problem here? And so if leaders are seeing that they can align the group and keep asking that question, but the first question should be, am I helping? Or am I hindering?

John Ryan 17:28
It seems so simple when you put it in those dichotomous terms. am I helping? Or am I hurting? am I creating that culture or not? What other suggestions do you have for leaders to help them build those green path cultures and in green path teams?

David Wheatley 17:46
It goes back to what we're saying earlier, it takes the intent and the time and the investment, to say we'll have this conversation. And we're willing to keep having the conversation. And we're willing to create an environment where we encourage that conversation. And the more we do that, the more people are likely to come on online with you and start walking down the Green Path. I think the other thing is to recognize that we're all human. And, you know, the, we have paint a picture in the book about the choices you make or laying the path ahead of you in your life, you want to be able to look back and see most of the Green Path that you want, that would be a good thing. However, we're all human. So we know that there's some red bricks in there. It's just that you can wash out the red bricks by putting more green ones in. And you don't really see the red bricks if they're one in 10. But if the red bricks are one in two, then it's going to be a very muddled looking path. And so we understand that we all make mistakes, we all go red path. The challenge is how quickly can you recognize that and get back on the Green Path and say, Oh, yeah, I screwed up there. Let's work on fixing it. And please, accept my apologies to help me.

John Ryan 18:55
But David, that's a very greenpath perspective on accountability and humility. So I'm not, I really appreciate that, because you're right. And I think inside of that is also letting go of the idea of perfection. And no one's gonna perfect. We're human, and owning that also creates a culture of ownership. Like we mentioned earlier, humility, and collaboration and honesty and trust. With all of the transitions that are happening. I mean, clearly right now, as we hopefully end the pandemic here in the world are on that path to doing so. There's right now there's a shift if you want to be asking her on a current topic shift going back into the workforce, and you may have seen and heard from clients and otherwise, where there's a lot of conversations around employees not wanting to come back full time or and how does a manager I understand they're, they're being pulled in different directions. How do you do you have any suggestions on how to navigate that for leaders who have to have those critical conversations in the coming months?

David Wheatley 19:54
I think that's a great question that a lot of us are going to be asking in different organizations. So I've got some clients that are looking at going back to 100%, what they call bums in seats. And so you will be in the office, you will be here. And I think that they're potentially going to see some challenges with recruiting. Because the last 12 months has shown us we can do it, as shown as we can have a different kind of lifestyle. And most people, especially the younger folks that are coming up there, and the organization are going to want some level of hybrid. And so then it gets to how do I manage your hybrid team?

David Wheatley 20:31
And people have, I was telling this conversation yesterday, people said, it's been harder to manage a virtual team. And my challenge has been, it's only hard if you're not doing the things that you should have been doing in person. And the response I got back was, well, it's really easy to have an organic conversation where I can just walk across the corridor and ask john, hey, john, what's happening with this? I need some help with that. And it's like, Yes, it is. But you've just interrupted that person. And do you realize the impact of that interruption, because that's what you won't do on zoom? You say, I'm not going to reach out to john and say, we've got five minutes to have this conversation, because he might be busy. And I might interrupt him.

David Wheatley 21:08
Well take that thinking on zoom and apply it in the office and schedule the time, or take the office thinking and apply to zoom. And again, schedule the time and send that note out and say, Have you got five minutes for a quick face to face chat. But if you've been struggling with it, it's been about leadership rather than it's been about the circumstances in the situation. And so as we come out of it, I think that the smart organizations will have some form of hybrid office to hometime. Whether it's three days in two, or whether it's some people are in place, and some people aren't, I think the value of the last 12 months is we've all got used to seeing some people on the screen. And so it's a lot easier to have a hybrid meeting, because we're very conscious of that. And so I think it's we got two choices, aren't we we're gonna have to look for three years ago, and want that back opening look to the future and say, how do we manage in this new world that we're entering into? And how do we maximize our, our work together? And let's put the structure in place to make that happen?

John Ryan 22:09
Well, from some basic leadership principles, I love that adaptive ness and vision forward thinking empathy, considering your client, your audience, which is your team, the culture that we're in like a lot of amazing ideas inside of that. So one of the things I want to point out that I really appreciated was the proximity in office, when you can go across the hall and talk to someone interrupt their day, the word he said was very deliberate on that you're not respecting their workflow and their work time, you're not actually. So instead of using proximity, you actually just have to have a little bit more intention, and use the technology appropriately while respecting their workflow and find a way that works for you actually could enhance your leadership, rather than just living kind of on that simple, simple, I guess, convenience.

David Wheatley 22:51
Yeah, exactly. And it's fine. We wrote the book last year and put it out just in time for all the conferences to shut down, so we couldn't get out and sell it. And, and what we found ourselves doing now is getting some feedback, where we wrote an additional couple of chapters. So the first one, we got some encouragement from some of our friends in the DI world, but we haven't addressed Diversity, Equity and Inclusion enough in the book. And so we worked with them to create a chapter nine, which is available from our website. But then also, Chapter 10, is about how we manage virtual teams. Because it gets to this exact point that you're talking about, which is we have to try and emulate the best practices that worked before virtual teams. And that best practice wouldn't have been to go and interrupt somebody, it would have been to say, we've got five minutes, and we can always meet in the break room. But the physical presence was what people enjoyed. And we can still do that we just have to do the same thing over zoom, or teams or whatever it is you're using. Just send people a note and say, we've got five minutes, sometimes it's afternoon, we can have a zoom, we can touch base, I can still see you. And we can have that conversation in an appropriate way. But it's this emulating the best practices. And it's understanding what were the best practices before and what was bad practice that we allowed to happen.

John Ryan 24:07
Absolutely. And I think it sounds like you really have used this opportunity to enhance the book and in adapt as as the opportunity presented itself to really incorporate some feedback and add even more value to your to your readers. And I want to bring that back up in just a moment. On the corporate side. Clearly, this is a transition. You know, we've always been in transition in business. It sounds like the the pace of transition is obviously increasing. And I've seen some predictions around mergers and acquisitions that since last year was a little bit a slower year in terms of that type of thing, that we're really poised for a lot of transitions in the in the coming years with all the money that's ready to go in terms of acquisitions and divestitures. Why do you think it is that sometimes I know you've worked with companies and m&a space? Why do companies sometimes have that resistance inherently, when they come together and form that large organization?

David Wheatley 24:59
It's interesting because you you've obviously been on a theme of your questions here, because I think you can probably predict what my answer is going to be. When I see that merger and acquisition activity, and most of my experience has been in the credit union world, actually, which has been rolling around if you know anything about credit unions, they lose a new credit union every week or to the right, because of mergers and acquisition acquisitions. And part of it makes a lot of sense that a small credit union that started to support a manufacturing facility is no longer as as viable or as useful to people as a larger one that has more capability. The key difference, though, is between working and not, is culture.

David Wheatley 25:43
And are we paying attention to the culture that we're putting together because we can do all the math and put all the spreadsheets together and say, this is going to work and this is going to be a value. But if we aren't understanding the differences in the cultures, then we'll never be able to maximize that financial value that we're looking at on the spreadsheet. And that's the piece that I find most leaders in that world miss out, is let's just think about what that's going to look like and what work we need to do on making sure that we get the best out of both cultures, for this new culture that we're creating. Because it's not one absorbing the other. It's we have to create a new culture, and we have to be willing to go back to the beginning. And it comes back to the bare bones. Again, when one person joins or leaves a team. That's a different team. And so we have to go back to the setup and say, Okay, let's reorient to what we're about. Same with organizations just amplify.

John Ryan 26:32
There was exactly the next question I had for follow up is how do you know when the team has actually changed? substantively, and any change whether someone leaves, someone joins, that's a different team, and all the rules have to be re established, the culture has to be re established? Or else you're not going to have that, then integration? Thank you so much. One, one last question. If you don't mind, obviously, here are key conversations, we feel that conversations are the key to a lot of things. Dave, would you mind sharing, if you happen to have a conversation that you can think of that had a major impact on you, either personally or professionally?

David Wheatley 27:03
Oh, I was thinking about this, as I came on today that I go back to one of my mentors at college in my undergrad, who continues to be a mentor, even though he probably doesn't know it. He's on his way up into his 80s now, and retired and focusing his efforts on some really important environmental work. But he would talk about in classes and have one on ones he's always critiquing me, and probably more so than I wanted at the time, but the value of that paid off in the long term. Now, as he pointed out things, and he wouldn't be critical. I'm sure he was asking great questions, I was just resistant to it. But he would look at the idea of adventure, because we were talking about adventure, as being slotted into four areas, and we would have this conversation about, you can be at a play and have adventure.

David Wheatley 27:52
Or you can be in an adventure section, which is kind of fun. Well, then you can move to frontier adventure, which is where you're really at the cusp of your learning and capability. And then the fourth step is you're in misadventure, which is when everything's gone horribly wrong. And having that conversation way back when we were talking about teaching kids kayaking, and sailing and things like that. That conversation still resonates in the work that I do today. You think about the m&a conversation we're just having. So you could slot a potential m&a into one of those four boxes. And so is this play is it's just easier, we just mess around? Is this adventure, as in we're actually, you know, this feels like it's good. Is this frontier adventure where we're pushing ourselves? And this is really feels like we're on the cusp? Or is this potential misadventure where we could die? And I think that's that was a great series of conversations that I had with Colin Mortlock. What's it now 30 or 40 years ago, that still play in my mind on a regular basis?

John Ryan 28:53
I love it. Thank you so much for sharing that wisdom. Definitely. One I look forward to pondering about thank calling for sharing all that time ago. Wonderful. David, thank you so much for being here. What's the best way for people to find out more about you and humanity and also to take advantage of your books along with those bonus chapters?

David Wheatley 29:11
Well, I appreciate you asking. I'm on LinkedIn, of course as humanity. We also have a YouTube site and podcast that the humanity leadership podcast, and, and you can find that wherever you pod. And those extra chapters, the book is available. But what great teams are great is available for all good bookstores and Amazon, as I tell people, and I encourage folks to go to all the good bookstores first, where they can order it for you and let's share the wealth with your local bookstore. The ninth chapter on race power and what great teams do great is available for download from humanity.com. In the book section, you'll see the extra Chapter and Chapter 10, where we're being a little bit more restrictive on that and if people send me an email, and I'm available at david@humanity.com, I will send them a copy We have chapter 10. But we're not being as liberally giveaway with that. And chapter 10 is all about the virtual one. Great. seems too great.

John Ryan 30:08
That sounds fantastic. I'll put a link to those in the show notes. So those are available for our listeners so they can always reach out to you for chapter time as well. David, thanks so much again for being here. I appreciate you.

David Wheatley 30:17
Well, thank you, John, appreciate you having me.

John Ryan 30:19
And thanks for listening and for watching. Until next time, develop yourself, empower others and lead by example. Thanks for listening to key conversations for leaders with your host John Ryan. If you enjoy the show, please let us know. Give us a rating or write a review. And if you'd like to connect with me and other like minded leaders, I invite you to join our Facebook group called Develop, Empower and Lead where I deliver free live training every week. If you go to www.developempowerlead.com It will redirect you right there. Hope to see you there soon.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai