When you get down to the essence of a career, it’s really a series of conversations and relationships. The way you approach those conversations and manage those relationships can determine the course of your life and your passions. We explore how managing your interactions and relationships with the people around you can help you excel and elevate your career.
The Power of Conversations (ft. Andora Hinton)
From difficult conversations to facing unconscious bias, managing our relationships is one of the most important— and powerful— ways to chart a course through our lives and careers.
GUEST BIO:
Andora Hinton is the founder and CEO of Willow North Growth Partners, a leadership development and sales training provider for corporations around the globe. Her goal is to help professionals transform both their professional and personal lives in a way that leads to monumental transformations in their work. Over the course of her career, she’s developed extensive knowledge on the strategies and techniques that lead to real results for both individuals and organizations.
Learn more about Andora Hinton:
CORE TOPICS + DETAILS:
[2:19] -- Difficult Conversations, Essential Progress
The hardest conversations lead to the greatest breakthroughs
One constant in professional life is that relationships are always changing and evolving. A coworker becomes a boss, a close friend becomes a sometimes-difficult coworker, and a project doesn’t go as planned. Willingness to have— and prepare for— productive conflict is essential, even when it gets uncomfortable.
[8:28] -- Objective vs. Subjective Feedback
...and where they belong
Objective feedback is feedback that’s not based on an individual’s feelings, while subjective feedback can differ from one person to the next based on their opinions, circumstances, and perspectives. Both have a place, but objective feedback is less personal and can often be less damaging. Focus on behavior, rather than the person or their identity, and watch how difficult conversations become more productive.
[14:32] -- The Danger of Unconscious Bias
How can we correct biases we’re not even aware of consciously?
Want to reduce your biases? Start with self-awareness. Emotional intelligence is partially the ability to look inward and recognize where we fall short. Ask, “What if my thinking is wrong about X, Y, or Z?” Sometimes, you may not like the answer— but that’s a clue that it’s time to work on changing your perspective and evolving. Evolving is a beautiful thing.
[16:59] -- The Power of Walking Away
Sometimes you have to abandon ship
When a difficult conversation is going up in flames, how do you save it? Sometimes, the answer is to postpone it entirely. Andora advocates for an approach that sometimes requires one party to say, “Apparently this is not a great time for us to have this conversation. Let’s reconvene at another time.” Sometimes, simply rescheduling a conversation can ensure that both parties are in a better headspace for when it finally does occur.
[23:06] -- Don’t Wait. Conversate.
Delaying difficult conversations for too long can be damaging
Rescheduling a difficult conversation for a more opportune time is fine. Delaying it as a means of avoidance is dangerous. If you’ve waited three months to confront someone about an event that occurred months ago, often the problem is too deep, the details too fuzzy, and the biases about the event too hard coded to make real progress. The best time to have a difficult conversation is yesterday. The second-best time is today.
[25:27] -- Key Takeaways
Can’t-miss tips from this week’s episode
RESOURCES:
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ABOUT AHFTER HOURS:
The AIDS Healthcare Foundation is the world’s largest HIV/AIDS service organization, operating in 45 countries globally. The mission? Providing cutting-edge medicine and advocacy for everyone, regardless of ability to pay.
The AHFter Hours podcast is an official podcast of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, in which host Lauren Hogan is joined by experts in a range of fields to educate, inform, and inspire listeners on topics that go far beyond medical information to cover leadership, creativity, and success.
Learn more at: https://www.aidshealth.org
ABOUT THE HOST:
Lauren Hogan is the Communications Manager for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and has been working in a series of roles with the Foundation since 2016. She’s passionate about increasing the public visibility of AIDS, the Foundation's critical work, and how everyday people can help join the fight to make cutting-edge medicine, treatment, and support available for anyone who needs it.
ABOUT DETROIT PODCAST STUDIOS:
In Detroit, history was made when Barry Gordy opened Motown Records back in 1960. More than just discovering great talent, Gordy built a systematic approach to launching superstars. His rigorous processes, technology, and development methods were the secret sauce behind legendary acts such as The Supremes, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross, and Michael Jackson.
As a nod to the past, Detroit Podcast Studios leverages modern versions of Motown’s processes to launch today’s most compelling podcasts. What Motown was to musical artists, Detroit Podcast Studios is to podcast artists today.
With over 75 combined years of experience in content development, audio production, music scoring, storytelling, and digital marketing, Detroit Podcast Studios provides full-service development, training, and production capabilities to take podcasts from messy ideas to finely tuned hits.
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Learn more at: DetroitPodcastStudios.com
Lauren:
Tune in for battle-tested leadership skills that can be used on a day-to-day basis. Get the insights you need to foster change and drive business forward. These are professional development tools for immediate use that you won't want to miss. AHF is the world's largest HIV/AIDS service organization operating in 45 countries globally, 16 states domestically, including DC and Puerto Rico. Our mission is to provide cutting edge medicine and advocacy regardless of ability to pay.
Lauren:
Hello and welcome to the After Hours podcast. I'm your host Lauren Hogan serving as your liaison to take you on a journey to learn more about AIDS Healthcare Foundation. Our topic of today is Excel and Elevate. Before we start the show, please make sure to remember, to check out the show notes so you can follow along. Now, let's get started. So, hello, Andora we want to welcome you to the After Hours podcast. How are you?
Andora:
I am great, Lauren. Thank you. How are you?
Lauren:
I'm doing good. So, just to get started off, we just want to do some guests introductions to get everybody familiar with who you are. So, tell us about yourself.
Andora:
Yes. So, I am Andora Hinton and the CEO of Willow North Growth Partners, and we focus on leadership development and sales training for corporations.
Lauren:
So, what made you specialize in that? How did you decide that this was a career path for you?
Andora:
Yes, so I actually, my background is in sales and when I worked for a newspaper company when it was really good and I was in sales for many of my years in the corporate world and eventually moved into sales management. And then, I kind of accidentally got into training where I was doing sales training because I was trying to get to a larger market. And so, I was going to be a field training coordinator and that kind of led to the leadership development where I started to do a little bit more sales management training and then eventually started doing just leadership training. And so when I started my business, it seemed like the natural path to move into leadership because I realized that it was a great love for me.
Lauren:
So, why would you say is having difficult conversations crucial to successful leadership?
Andora:
I think it's crucial because if you think about from a leadership perspective, there are many different facets of being a leader. And one of the things that leaders have to do is focus on performance. So, sometimes telling people that their performance is not the way that it should be, can become a difficult conversation. There are a lot of times where there might be conflict and if you have conflict, then that might be a difficult conversation because a lot of times people don't like to have conflict. And you also just have situations where leaders get promoted into a specific role and their colleagues were their friends and now they are their bosses and they have to have a different kind of conversation while also still trying to be their friend. And that can be a little bit difficult. So, I think as a leader, there's so many different areas where you might have some challenges with having some difficult conversations, not just with your direct reports, but also with your peers and colleagues.
Lauren:
So, what do you do to prepare for like said difficult conversation? What does that look like?
Andora:
Yeah, so I think one of the things that you can do to prepare is really to think first about how do you feel about this particular situation that you're going into? What do you expect to the outcome to be? Because the fact of the matter is sometimes we go into conversations that we think are going to be really difficult and they end up being really easy to have. And it's like, "Oh, that wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be." And then other times we go into a situation where we didn't expect for it to be a difficult conversation, but it ends up being very hard and very challenging.
Andora:
And so, I think that one of the things we have to constantly do is practice communicating effectively with anyone no matter if you think it's going to be a difficult conversation or not because sometimes you go into a situation where you think it's going to be difficult, it's not going to be difficult and it turns out to be difficult. So, I definitely think from a preparation standpoint, it's important to make sure that you're thinking about what are the outcomes and also thinking about yourself of how do I manage my emotions because of course, difficult conversations, there's a lot of emotions involved. How do I manage my emotions so that I can focus on controlling my emotions when things get a little bit heated?
Lauren:
So, I kind of have like a flip side question to that. Let's say in a situation you have lower level employees that are not in leadership are actually complaining about leadership and how they're kind of too aloof and don't really understand what's going on on the ground. What advice or how do you advise leaders in those positions to do better?
Andora:
One of the things that's so important as we're talking about difficult conversations is first open communication. I think I say this a lot about kids. You know, when we were kids we'd always ask the question, "Why?" Why, why, why. It was always, why this? Why that? And I think that as adults, we do the same thing, we just may not ask the question. And one of the biggest ways to get people to recognize as a leader that they're not aloof and they are paying attention is to be able to explain to an audience of people the why.
Andora:
A lot of times people feel like leaders don't care or they're aloof because we haven't done as leaders, we haven't done the best job of explaining why something has happened, is happening, why we're moving to this new process or procedure. And people start to get a little bit confused and confusion leads to a little bit of distrust. And once you lose that trust from someone that it's really difficult, forget that to get that back. So, I would just say immediately to start thinking about how you create open communication and trust with your direct reports, with your peers, so that you can make sure that you're always having some type of open communication.
Lauren:
So, in that same vein, why is it important to anticipate how the person you were speaking to will respond with that conversation?
Andora:
Yes! So, that it won't get too bad and it's going to be a fight.
Lauren:
Exactly. Exactly.
Andora:
It's important because if you think about it, when you are approaching someone, we never know exactly what the end result is going to be or what that person has gone through that day, what that person went through yesterday. We don't know all of their experiences from their past and we have all of these things that have happened to us and it's only in our brains. And so, as leaders, in order for us to make sure that we are preparing for those conversations and thinking about, "Well, how will the other person respond?", it's so critical because you have to think about that the person has gone through something or they have gone through something and you have to consider their emotions, their thoughts, and their feelings.
Andora:
And so, preparing ahead of time really just helps you to think about if I know this person's well. So, Lauren, if I know you very well, then I know there's certain things I probably shouldn't say to you. If I know you very well or if I've observed you in some way, then I know that if you're in my direct report, then I know that this is probably going to be something that pushes Lauren's buttons. And I shouldn't say that. And so, I have to kind of practice. And that's what I talked about earlier. It's kind of a practice I have to practice to really think about how do I effectively communicate to someone so that I can ensure I'm being effective on my end. I can't control how another person responds, but what I can do is make sure that I'm in a good space to receive how someone responds to me even if it's in a negative way.
Lauren:
So, can you also to explain objective versus subjective feedback and why? What is the difference?
Andora:
Yes. So, if we think about objective means the fact that I'm in the middle. I'm not on one side or the other. And objective means that I am not putting my feelings into the situation. Subjective means that I am putting my feelings. So, I'll give you an example. Let's say that I have a direct report that I've had some challenges with in the past, and they're having a problem right now. And I need to have a difficult conversation with them because I've had that challenge with them in the past, it might be difficult for me to be objective, which means I put all those feelings about how I feel about this person aside and I'm more subjective because I know I've had this experience and I'm already expecting that the same thing that happened last time is going to happen again. It's important to make sure that we separate the two because being objective, we have to...
Andora:
One of the things I always like to say to people is how important it is to focus on the behavior and not the person, because Lauren might be one way today and might be another way tomorrow. And it's important for us to not really focus on that person because that person can change. That person may have had a bad day yesterday and is just emoting in some way. And so, we really have to pay attention to the behavior and not the person. And that's why it is so critical to make sure that we are more objective, especially when we're talking about performance, especially when we're talking about some type of bad behavior, bad habit that we're having to address because we have to stay in the middle. Otherwise, we're putting our own feelings into something that is not fair to that person.
Lauren:
So, when do you have difficult conversations with team members? Like when do you decide like, okay, this is a good time that we should now sit down and have this difficult conversation when it's going to be the most effective.
Andora:
Yes, hopefully. There's many facets to that. One of the things I would say is when you have a situation, to have it as soon as possible because if you decide, "Okay, I'm just going to kick the can and not talk about it or not bring it up", by the time you talk about it, then that person is like what are you talking about? They don't remember or they're remembering it the way that they will want to remember it. So, it's important, no matter how difficult to have that conversation as soon as possible and not kick the can. The caveat to that is sometimes emotions can rise. Emotions can rise on the other person's side and the emotions can rise, can rise in me as a leader. And it's important to make sure that we're in a place where we can actually have the conversation.
Andora:
If I'm too angry or too frustrated or I'm focused on being subjective, then I probably should not have that conversation right now because it's not going to be productive. I'm not bringing my true, authentic self to the table. I'm only bringing myself that is angry, that's frustrated, that's confused, and that's really a lot of emotion. And the same thing for the other person. The other person might not be in a clear head space. They may have had a bad day, they're frustrated, and it's not going to be a productive conversation. So, I say to have it as soon as possible, but it also say keeping in mind that it's important to make sure that you're in a great place as a leader to have the conversation and to also make sure that the other person is in a good place for them to actually receive it.
Lauren:
So, what advice do you give to, for instance, let's say a subordinate who has an issue with their leader, whether they're not being communicative or they're just not listening or just not being effective. So, how do you advise as a subordinate on what they should do in that situation? When they've tried to have said difficult conversations with leadership and it's not going anywhere, it feels like they're just stagnant in this stale place?
Andora:
I think there's a couple of things that you can do. The first thing that you can do is first ask youself how you may have been coming to that person. As a subordinate, how have I been talking to this person? Is it in a way that has been influential or is it in a way that has been combative? And if you feel in your heart of hearts that you have not been combative in any way, it has not been subjective in any way, but you're totally being objective and you're sharing your thoughts and feelings, then the next step I would do is to make sure that you... One of the things I always say is ask people questions. So, instead of maybe expressing your thoughts and your feelings, maybe write down some questions to ask the other person because when you turn it into asking questions rather than sharing your I, I, I, you get the person to actually open up.
Andora:
And so, once you ask those questions, be curious. It's important to make sure that you're asking questions from a curiosity standpoint. As you ask those questions, there's going to be something that comes out that helps to have a dialogue. And now, we can start having a conversation. One of my favorite quotes or actually it's not a quote, it's from Stephen Covey's book Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People. It's habit number five: seek first to understand, then to be understood. And if we are talking to someone who we feel like they're just not getting it, then we need to step back and seek first to understand. And then we can be able to be understood. Everybody wants to be validated.
Lauren:
So, I think that leads into my next question for you is so how do you ensure that you are being mindful of your own unconscious bias?
Andora:
That's a big topic right now, isn't it?
Lauren:
Yeah, for sure.
Andora:
Man, that question actually touches my heart because recently I did some diversity work for a client and we talked a lot about unconscious bias and trusting differences and accepting and respecting people that are different from our own. So, I'm speaking, to answer this question from a personal space. One of the most important things to do is first have self-awareness. So, I'm bringing a little bit of emotional intelligence, is to be aware because in actuality, it's hard for anyone to wake up and say, "I have a bias about whatever." We all have biases. It doesn't necessarily have to be about people. It could be about anything. And we have to first have self-awareness and be able to be honest with ourselves and say, "I think or I wonder or what if...?" Just asking ourselves questions.
Andora:
The second thing I would recommend is to educate yourself. I certainly, I did a lot of research whenever I did this work for this particular client. And I learned so much and continue to learn. And so, educating ourselves helps us to become more aware about what unconscious bias really is and actually how to have a relationship, a healthy relationship with it, to where we're not afraid of the word bias.
Andora:
And then, the third thing is to pay attention. Pay attention to the words that come out of your mouth. I know for myself, I certainly pay attention to my thoughts, I pay attention to my words, and I pay attention to other people's words so that I can address it if necessary because unconscious bias is something that I think we're all learning about right now. It's a very big and important thing in order for us to make sure that we're moving forward and progressing, we have to support each other.
Andora:
So, those are the three things have self awareness, be educated or get educated and pay attention to your thoughts and your words and your behaviors. Pay attention and chastise yourself if you feel like you're doing... Nobody knows, but you. So, if you feel like you're doing something that's a bias then just tell yourself and be honest with yourself.
Lauren:
So, going back to the discussion conversation kind of component, if you are having said discussion and it's going horribly wrong, what steps can you take to save it?
Andora:
Yes. And sometimes they can't be saved, right? It's good, it's blown up in flames and there's nothing you could do about it. Sometimes, I've actually told people to do this, many people to do this, that if you get yourself in a situation where you feel like it is just going into flames, that the best thing to say is, "Apparently now is not a great time for us to have this conversation. Let's reconvene at another time." And the reason why is because, like I said earlier, if two people are now talking at each other and not trying to focus on collaborating and working together, then there's no point, it's not productive. No one is going to get anything out of it. So, one of the things you can do is walk away. Walk away and then come back to it because if you don't come back to it, it's just going to fester and fester and fester, and then it'll blow up even bigger.
Andora:
The other thing you can do, though, if you have some trust between this person, you've known this person for a while, you can pause and say, "You know what, Lauren. This is not the way that I wanted this to go. I acknowledge that. Here's what I did that I probably could have done differently. Can we pause and start over?" Because if you have some trust, which is the foundation of communication, one of the foundations of communication, then you can just pause and say, "I'm sorry. And I acknowledge what happened and let's figure out how we can move forward." Because sometimes you have to just pause and stop, it's like timeout. Let's just pause and think about what we're doing here. If you feel like you can move on. If you feel like your emotions have totally taken over, just get out of it, go away.
Lauren:
So, can you provide some phrases leaders can keep in mind or in their leadership toolkit when dealing with some of these situations?
Andora:
Yes, I actually wrote down a few if you don't mind me reading some of them. These are some of my favorite.
Lauren:
Absolutely.
Andora:
So, I have, let's see, six that I wanted to share. One is there's a reason for everything and that doesn't go like philosophical, but it's thinking about when someone has an attitude or if someone is speaking to you in a way that is negative and that's not the norm. If someone is acting or behaving in a way that is different from what they normally would, there is always a reason as to why someone is behaving a certain way or saying something that is out of character. There's a reason. So, that curiosity piece that I talked about earlier is so important because it's being curious. Don't just walk away because someone has an attitude or they might be having a bad day, try to dig a little bit deeper to figure out what is the reason, what's really going on.
Andora:
My second one is conflict happens because there's an unmet need. And you know, we all have needs. And the reason why conflict happens is because there is something that has happened, I had a need and it wasn't fulfilled. And so, now there's a conflict. And then, we have to figure out how can we meet that unmet need? Or can we at all? So, conflict happens because there's an unmet need.
Andora:
My third is something that I've already said, focus on the behavior, not the person. If one thing doesn't work, try something else. Conversation and communication is a practice. It is a skill. I, myself, have practiced and continue to practice on how to have better conversations with my friends, with my colleagues, with my team members, with my husband, with my stepdaughter, my mother. So, it's ever-evolving.
Andora:
You never... I don't... I read this book called Drive a long time ago by Daniel Pink. And he talked about mastery and how you never really get to perfection, you're just always striving for perfection. And so, communication is about, and having difficult conversations is about, striving for perfection. It's like, you never really perfect it because everybody is different and we all change and our emotions are involved. So, it's always going to be a little bit different. So, if one thing doesn't work, then try something else.
Andora:
My fifth one is we are all different. My why is not your why. A lot of times the reason why difficult conversations happen and conflict happen is because Lauren doesn't think the same way that I think. And so now I'm upset about it, but your why is not my why. So, why should I be upset about that? So, we have to recognize that we're all different. My why is not your why.
Andora:
And then my last, my favorite one is trust the process. If you have a process, if you have a thought process of how you want to behave, how you want to show up every day, sometimes things will get a little bit out of whack and it seems a little strange and uncomfortable, but always trust the process.
Lauren:
I love those. Thank you.
Andora:
Thank you.
Lauren:
So, also too, how can leaders right now evaluate their team members to see if there are some difficult conversations that need to be had at this place in time?
Andora:
Yeah. I think that if you see someone who is behaving differently, if someone's not taking initiative and they used to take initiative, if someone's performance has gone down, anything that you see that's different from the norm, then it's probably... And it may not even start as a difficult conversation. I think, excuse me, the reason why things start to happen as being a difficult conversation is because we don't address it immediately. So, as soon as someone, if a leader, as soon as you see something that's different, then just ask questions about it and you'll find that things will be a lot easier if we just go ahead and address the problem or the challenge immediately, rather than waiting.
Andora:
It starts to become difficult once you've waited. If you've waited three months to ask somebody a question about something that happened three months ago, then that's why it's difficult because now this person has continued to do it over and over and over again. And it's gotten too deep, you don't know how to fix it. And so that's why it's such a challenge. So, I would say if you see anything that is different or out of the ordinary or unnatural or even uncomfortable or any change in behavior, then that's when you should probably say something and it does not have to be difficult. Just ask some questions.
Lauren:
So, we are almost at time. So, I just want to ask you one final question, being that you are a contractor for AHF in a way, so from the outside looking in, and I think you probably have the least amount of bias of everybody that we're going to actually have on this podcast. What would be like your overall assessment of AHF leadership?
Andora:
Can I say that I love the AHF leadership? I am biased!
Lauren:
That's totally fine.
Andora:
I am totally bias. I have to say Lauren, I'm so glad you asked me that question because I was just saying to Jennifer earlier of how I love this group and I miss this group. I have loved the energy. I think it's really the energy, not just with the leadership, but the participants that I worked with earlier in the year. And it's not an energy that I always see. I mean, I get energy from participants, but the energy and the loyalty and the passion behind what you all are doing is so exciting to be in. That's always people that I want to sync up with. So, I am kind of biased because I think I might be in love with AHF.
Lauren:
That's not biased, that's just awesome.
Andora:
There you go! [crosstalk 00:24:57]
Lauren:
But you know, you're from the outside looking in.
Andora:
Yes, yes.
Lauren:
So, it's always good to hear feedback. So, we appreciate you saying that, but I wanted your very honest opinion.
Andora:
Yes, that is my honest opinion. Did you see my whole face lit up when you asked me that question?
Lauren:
Yeah, I did. Yeah, your body a little bit.
Andora:
Yes! I'm a fan for sure.
Lauren:
Well, we appreciate you Andora. Thank you so much from coming on for this episode and we love working with you. So, thank you a million times over.
Andora:
Yes, thank you. Thank you, it was a pleasure. Thank you.
Lauren:
Thank you so much for tuning into this episode about leadership with Andora. Now, we would like to provide you our viewers and listeners with a few takeaways. One, focus on managing your emotions throughout the conversation. Two, share the why. Three, work on your unconscious bias. Four, conflict happens because there is an unmet need. Five, practice having conversations. Six, prepare for the conversation, meaning think about what you want the outcome to be. Anticipate how the person you were speaking to will react by considering their thoughts and emotions. Eight, timing is key. Have the conversation as soon as possible while considering the emotions of the situation.
Lauren:
We hope these takeaways are helpful, and we hope that you all tune in next time for our next episode. Thank you so much for joining us. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the show, please subscribe, share it with your friends, like, post about it on social media, or leave a rating and review. Follow us on Instagram @afterhours and see you next time.