Keith Greer: Stop Trying to Be Right and Start Getting Curious

Keith Greer  00:00 

The research would tell us that it's somewhere about 0.07 seconds that both brains start to determine: Can I trust this person? We know that in 100% of the time, the brain will listen to the nonverbal message. If there is a discrepancy, brain is always going to go with the nonverbal. Always go with the nonverbal. By the time we're in our late 20s, we never meet a new human being again. We only meet people who remind us of people we've already met, and I love that. Love that. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:36 

I'm your host, Debra Chantry-Taylor and I'm passionate about helping entrepreneurs a better life by creating a better business. I started this show a number of years ago to bring people onto the show to talk about the ups and downs and what goes on in business and other things we just don't talk about at times. And today's guest is is really fascinating for me because he started life as a family therapist. He then became certified in conversational intelligence, and we'll talk a bit more about that on the show. And he now works with family-owned businesses and privately owned businesses as an executive coach, bringing a lot of these things into that. Today, we're going to talk about things about how we can navigate difficult conversations more safely, how we can build trust and safety in our team, how we can give better feedback, and how we should be having more conversations about the conversation. So, with no further time to waste, I would like to introduce you to Keith Greer. Keith Greer, as I said, is an executive coach in leadership development. He is certified as a conversational intelligence coach, and he's based in New York. Welcome to the show, Keith. 

Keith Greer  01:48 

Good to be here, Debra. Thank you for the invite. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  01:51 

My absolute pleasure. I believe it's the middle of the night for you, so I'm very grateful for you getting up in the middle of the night in New York to speak with me. Thank you. 

Keith Greer  01:58 

It's just fine. I tend to be a bit of a night owl, so this just worked out. It actually is the least disruptive in my day to just okay midnight. I'm going to spend a little time with Debra. That's wonderful. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  02:09 

And we've had a quick chat before the show, and you're still bright and sprightly. I'm usually in bed by nine a.m. so I'm sorry, 9p.m. I should say. So I'm not good at those late night things. But anyway, hey, I would love for you to share with me, Keith, how you got to what you're doing right now, because what you're doing right now is fascinating to me. But it wasn't where you started. So tell us about your story. 

Keith Greer  02:29 

Sure. So I like to say, Debra, that I have had this blessed closing in on 4445, year career, and I started in the traditional clinical world by schooling, I'm a licenced clinical social worker here in New York, and pretty quickly that started actually in the world of addiction was where the career started, and kept my fingers in that a little bit through the years, but quickly, quickly, quickly jumped into creating a family therapy practice, I I became enamoured with the the the art and the science of of doing really really good family therapy, and I think that very much was a natural jumping off point to to go into coaching. So, you know, so in the family therapy world, we're not an expert on the family we work with. We're an expert on how to facilitate family therapy. And as I started reading about coaching, it it went even a little bit further down that road of, of no coaches don't tell people what to do. They're really good at asking you know good questions, listening deeply, helping people create awareness. And so went off and and went back and did a whole bunch of training through ICF and and transformed this clinical business into a clinical practice into a coaching business, and so that was I don't know that was you know 15 1617 years ago, and jumped into coaching, and for a while did not have. I wasn't listening on the day in coach school when they told you you really need to create a niche. I did. I did some different things: some wellness coaching, some life coaching. I have to say, I remember this very clearly when I was in coach school. Almost everyone I was in coach school with wanted to go into executive coaching, and for some reason at that time it just wasn't it just wasn't where my head was at. So did some different things, and then about 1213, years ago, this gentleman walked into my office, worked for a company in my area, a very kind of high tech company. They make high end optics. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant engineer, who said to me, "I am two seconds away from being fired because I'm so horrible with people. And the company was growing, and they had already put him into a you know his first leadership role. And and the whole people thing, just that that that was not his natural way of coming at the world. Give him a an engineering problem, he was all over it. And so we did some work for about a year, and I can say, 1213 years later, he's still working for the company. He's still not the greatest people person. It's not how he thinks about the world, but he's much better. And so, after I finished working with him, the I was put in touch with the the president of the company, who said to me, "You know, Keith, we're growing rapidly, and I need to start putting people into leadership roles. And there are all these brilliant engineers and mathematicians and optics technicians. And he said that person you just worked with, he said, that's my whole company, and I need help. And so it's so that so this whole executive coaching leadership thing just dropped in my lap, and and that's what I've done for the last you know 1212 13 years and I and I love it. And then I went off. I had the immense privilege about 1011 years ago because she she passed away not not long after I did some training with her with this woman by the name of Judith Glaser, who again walked in the executive coaching circles internationally and had created this modality called conversational intelligence that looks at the neurochemical underpinnings of how, when we interact with each other, how our brains either perceive each other as safe, I trust you, or threat, and and I don't, and loved it, loved it, loved it. It made so much sense. Everything about us as human beings gets transacted in our relationship world through conversation. And so, what this modality allows me to do is is truly deconstruct people's conversational patterns and habits, histories, and help them look at all right. When you interact with people this way, they will most likely perceive you as not trusting, and relate. 

Keith Greer  07:07 

And leadership at the end of the day is a relationship, and you need to bring all you can to bear to creating trusting, safe, inclusive relationships with the people on your team, and they will follow you anywhere if you do that. So that's that is where I am today, and I will just end that with father of two, grandfather of three amazing little boys that that I am privileged to have in my life on a very regular basis. So so life is full and life is good. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  07:39 

That's wonderful. I must admit, I'm I too am fascinated by the whole conversational intelligence thing because that's the science part of it, right? Isn't it? It's the you talked about art and science in the beginning, but that's the science part. It's not fluff. It's genuine how the brain works. So, so tell us a little bit about that because that is fascinating. 

Keith Greer  07:58 

So, you know, I'll ask some of your listeners to think about, I don't you you you meet somebody for the first time. I don't somebody it's their first day of of work at your company, and they and they walk in and you lay eyes on each other. The research would tell us that it's somewhere about point 07 seconds that both brains start to determine: Can I trust this person? And I, I need people to really because I know most people understand what fight, flight, freeze, appease is, but I need people to really understand where that where that mechanism came from. So you know, it's a million years ago, and I walk out of my cave and I'm I'm walking down this path on a beautiful day. What do I need to be on alert for? I need to be alert for some predator bigger than me that wants to make me their lunch, and and that's really the origin of fight flight. And I would make the argument: fight, flight is the only reason human beings still walk the face of the earth. It is this incredibly finely tuned mechanism in our brain, and when the brain perceives threat, sometimes I think about this as a computer with limited RAM. When the brain perceives threat, that is its primary process, is to keep us physically safe. So a lot of other things that our brain does, it doesn't do well when it perceives threat. And so what CIQ looks at is when we interact with each other through the transaction of conversation. Everything from the nonverbals to specific verbal patterns and habits. That when, if I use them, as you and I are talking right now, and they cross the room and they land in your ears. Does your brain immediately perceive it as threat? You go into some level of fight flight because you you just don't trust me, or am I interacting with you in a way that causes your brain to say, "Oh, I kind of like this guy. I feel a little bit safe. I'm curious." Like to get to know a little bit more about him, and as you said, what what you know one of the coolest things about it to bring it into the leadership world and the the organisational world. I'm in these conversations all the time where where people are very quick to say, "Well, isn't this all kind of touchy feely, fluffy, as you said, stuff? No, it's science. Like I, you know, you can argue with me if you want, and and maybe I'm not the person you want to work with. But it's it is hard science because while we don't think of trust this way, how two human beings develop trust for each other, our brains look for hard, cold evidence. I always say, you know, our brain looks for, you know, we're we're listening for it, we're feeling for it, we're looking for it, hard, cold evidence that I can trust Debra, or not. And so it so it it really empowers me in my work with with my clients, to really look at very specific aspects of language, and as I said, nonverbals that that land well or don't land well. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  11:12 

But I wrote this down point 07 seconds, and we make a decision. That is such a tiny amount of time. So what is it we're looking for in that very short period of time? 

Keith Greer  11:20 

So the one thing I want to highlight is because people think like, how quickly do I perceive? Do I perceive that I can trust you? And and perception is there, right? That's a part of it. How quickly does it come into my conscious awareness that I either trust you or I don't trust you? What I what I want people to understand is the difference between perception and neuroception. So neuroception is how quickly our brain perceives threat, which is much quicker than perception. By the time it comes into our awareness, the brain has been at work for quite a while, so to speak, getting us ready-fight, flight, freeze, or peace-getting us ready to respond to the threat, so our brain looks for. We can start in the nonverbal world. We we know if there is ever a discrepancy when you interact with people, if there's ever a discrepancy between your verbal message and your nonverbal message. So I say to you, Debra, I'm paying attention to you. I'm really interested in what you have to say while I'm looking at my cell phone, right? We know that in 100% of the time, the brain will listen to the nonverbal message. If there is a discrepancy, brain is always going to go with the nonverbal. Always go with the nonverbal. So again, I'm meeting somebody new for the first time. It's somebody's first day of work on our on our team. How do I just even you know think about showing up in a way eye contact? I'm really listening. I'm not distracted. I I am maybe as they're you know talking. I'm asking. There's a concept in the conversational intelligence world called asking questions for which you have no answer. So we've all been in conversations where people ask questions. Sounds like they're interested, but they're leading questions, right? Questions for which you have no answer are exactly what the title is. I don't know. I want to know more about you. I want to know more about this thing you're telling me, and and if if those questions are delivered honestly and authentically, like I'm authentically curious about you, your brain will love that. Your brain will perceive that as I'm safe, as I want to know more, and so it's really helpful to think about again. I think in the workplace, and I always think about this, you know, example of somebody showing up for their first day. How do we help that person? How is everybody on the team, not just whoever is maybe in leadership? What do they need to think about, and how they want to show up in that point 07 seconds to help that person start feeling connected to the team to the organisation. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  14:08 

Interesting. So yeah, so I'm just I'm so making some notes here because I'm I'm yeah this is really fascinating for me. So it always goes with a non verbal first, and so I'm guessing yeah. So a lot of the the work, even though it's sort of the conversation, it's not necessarily the the verbal conversation. It is the entire presentation of the. 

Keith Greer  14:27 

Depending upon the research you read, the number is always a little bit different. But but it's usually somewhere around like in the world of communication, 95% I'm going to say on average because you give or take a few percentage points of communication. 95% of communication is not content. It's not the content of what I'm saying. It's everything from the non the nonverbal of my body. Am I making contact? Am I paying attention? It's intonation. In my voice, it's volume. Boy, we we can say I like you, but you can hear something in someone's voice that tells you no, no, they don't, or you feel judgement or something like that. And and so we know that not that words aren't important, and not that content isn't important ultimately, but you need to be so thoughtful about how you deliver that content, or people, or somebody's brain is going to say, "I'm not even listening to the content because I can't get past some of this other stuff. I had a conversation with a leader a few weeks ago. He leads a team of about 10 people, and he has several people on on his team who, when they meet as a team, they will have their laptop in front of them. And he's tried to ask them to stop, and they say, "Well, I'm taking notes, and and and and there's truth to that. But the challenge here is, I can almost guarantee that as the conversation is going on around the room, and somebody is typing away on their laptop. There's another brain in the room that is perceiving that as I don't know if I can trust them. They're not listening to me. You know, another thing again in the conversational intelligence world, we call it the addiction of being right. So everybody has been at a table, at a conference table, with somebody on their team banging on the table. I'm right, I'm right. And what they don't understand, as they're sharing with everyone how right they are, is what's the other side of that message? If I'm saying to my team members, "I'm right, what's the other side of the message? You're wrong, right? And and if you tell someone they're wrong in that way, I I can guarantee somewhere in their brain, their brain is saying, "I don't trust you, or "I don't feel safe enough to speak up. So I'm not even going to share my wisdom or my experience because this person's just gonna, you know, shut me down, or if you have somebody at the table who is always interrupting, those are the kinds of conversational strategies that just breed a lack of trust. And in today's world, when you think about how teams operate, and I know you do a lot of work in the entrepreneurial space, boy. If there's if there's a team in a room having a conversation and they're trying to problem solve or they're trying to innovate, there needs to be such a level of trust in that room that people can really, really share what they think, even though we might disagree, see it differently. Disagreeing is very different than feeling not listened to or feeling belittled. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  17:43 

So, if trust has been broken, or maybe you just never ever felt you had trust with a person, what can you do? 

Keith Greer  17:50 

So, the first thing to do would be is somebody courageous enough to acknowledge it. I and I realise that's really easily said. It's so easy for someone like me to say that, and it's really hard to do if we already have some experience with each other and now we don't trust. I just I don't trust. You know, my my point is you can keep going and try and fake it, but but the brain can't be faked out, right? So, so we don't trust each other. We might talk nice to each other, but we really don't trust each other. So we will not work productively. We will not have any conversation that is truly win-win. Do we do we provide things for each other that allow both of us to walk away from conversations getting what we need, right? Or or working well together. So is somebody just even willing to say that? Now, you don't have to say it meanly, right? And you don't have to say it like in a confrontive kind of way. You could, if you wanted to, and this is not easy to do. This is this takes a pretty decent level of skill and, as I said, courage. If let's say you and I have some history already, you know, and we we don't do well together, and we've had some really difficult conversations, and we walked away maybe spitting and sputtering, and you know, annoyed with each other, could I come to you and say something like, because one of the greatest strategies to approach difficult conversations is to lead with empathy. Lead with empathy. Now, leading with empathy for a lot of people feels pretty vulnerable. Making people don't like feeling vulnerable, especially maybe people who have been in leadership for a long time. But we know it works. The brain loves it. So I could come to you and say, "Listen, Debra, I've been thinking about this. I don't know where you and I miss the boat, but I know we both feel like these conversations are going nowhere. And I would love for you and I to figure out a way to to bridge that gap. I would love for us to revisit what we need to do." To to be at a better place with each other because I really value what you bring. Like I, you know, I really value what you bring to the team and to our partnership. And I'm not quite sure what happened. And I've been really thinking about like my part in it, and you know where you know maybe things break down for me. I would love for us to figure this out, now I'm not saying it every time you say that the person is going to run to you and give you a hug, and but it's a whole lot better than saying nothing, or it's really a whole lot better than you know. Because here's the other thing I always think about: if you and I have a conversation and that conversation goes south, and we walk away really angry and annoyed, or you know whatever our feeling states are. I know that if someone ran up to either one of us as we were walking away from each other and said, "Okay, Debra, Keith, give me your best explanation for why what happened, why you know what just happened happened, both of us in that emotional place would blame the other one. Well, Debra's this. Well, Keith's this. The world's worst explanation for why conversations go south. But if we don't do anything and we just walk away with that explanation, we will stay in that explanation for years, years and years and years. Our brain's memory of uncomfortable emotion is stronger than it is for comfortable emotion, for positive emotion. So, if we have an interaction like that, and then let's say I leave the company, and you and I don't see each other for five years, and we walk into a Starbucks one morning and lay eyes on each other, in a split second for both of us, all the feelings from five years ago will come flooding back, and we'll tell ourselves these stories about each other and versus okay, it happened. Debra, what do you and I need to do to get to a better place? Debra, would you be open to hearing a little bit? 

Keith Greer  21:58 

I've been really thinking about this of of how much I want to connect with you, would you be open to hearing a little bit from me of one of some of the things that I think are really helpful to me in trusting you? And then I really want to hear from you the same. Again, does it always work? No, because the other person that might feel too vulnerable making, but it's way more productive than just leaving it where it was. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  22:24 

It's interesting. We talked a little bit off camera too about the fact that sometimes some people just remind us of other people. Can you give me an example? I mean, I can think of one for myself, but I'd love to hear from you an example. Yeah, yeah. 

Keith Greer  22:37 

So, so you know, years ago, and I'm always annoyed at myself that I didn't hold on to this article years ago. I read this article, and it was not based on any research, so it was just this person's opinion. And it was talking about, like in the psychology world and the therapy world, we talk about this projection process-what what we project onto each other because you remind me of someone, and this author said, and it's so it stuck with me because it's always made intuitive sense. He said, by the time we're in our late 20s, we never meet a new human being again. We only meet people who remind us of people we've already met, and I love that, love that, because again, I ask people to think about because we all have those people in our lives, like that person who I don't know, especially maybe with some of the people we work with, that person you just have this reaction to. You don't even know where the reaction comes from. I just they set me off. They press my buttons. I can guarantee if you have that reaction with somebody, that somebody is somebody else from somewhere else in your life. Look, in the world of leadership, or you know, in most places, you know, where there's any level of hierarchy within a workplace, hierarchy is you know, there's power dynamics there. So what does that kick up for people? Well, it often kicks up who were some of the first people in our lives that were authority figures. Well, you know, we know the answer to that one of who the you know maybe the first couple of people were. All of that is in there, and what I what I try and drive home for people because getting curious about this part of of of kind of our psyche can feel again very vulnerable. Making it's normal. Like what I tell people is every single time you sit down with somebody and you meet them for the first time. So I don't know. Let's say you go and have a cup of coffee with somebody for the first time, one of the things that's going on in both people's brains is, and and I always, I always, you know, show my generation when I use the term Rolodex, I run into a lot of younger people who have no idea what a Rolodex is, right? All of our brains, like even you and I, when we first came on Zoom. Evening, the minute we laid eyes on each other, both of our brains were rifling through our lifetime rolodex, looking for people who you remind me of because it's one of the ways our brain creates meaning. It's a good thing, can also get in the way if we're not if we're not aware of it. So when you and I first came on, if I don't know, my Rolodex landed on somebody you remind me of, and that somebody comes with not the greatest memories, and I'm not aware, and all of a sudden, within you know a couple of minutes, I've got this kind of funky reaction to you, and all we've done is just you know chatted for five minutes, that can get in the way, so so I have this. You know what I ask some of the folks I work with to think about is it's this concept I came up with a long time ago in my family therapy days of who walks in the room for you when you interact with certain people. Is there somebody from somewhere else in your life that has a tendency to walk in the room and get in the way of you doing good work, get in the way of you having good boundaries. That no, you might remind me of somebody, but you're not that somebody. I realise, you know, I always realise in my work as an executive coach that that this kind of work skirts the therapy world. But I always say to myself, we all do it as human beings. It's just how our brain works. It's just how we create meaning, and if we can be aware of it and curious about it, and even invite it, you know, invite it in a little bit. Oh God, who does Debra remind me of? 

Keith Greer  26:36 

It it limits the possibility that it will get in our way, and for leaders who are often in pretty challenging conversations with people, conversations with a lot of feeling, emotion, maybe conflictual, those kinds of conversations are right for somebody else walking in the room, and to be aware of that is, I think it's one of the greatest gifts that that leaders can give themselves, and us human beings can hold on to. And wondering why why do I connect with some people easier than than maybe some others? 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  27:13 

Who was it who walked in the room? Good questions to sort of ask. Yes. Now I know that you do a lot of work with family businesses, as do I. Mine is very much around the business side of things, but often there's a lot more dynamics that come into family businesses than those in a traditional business, because it's not just who do you remind me of, but you actually might be one of those first people who was actually in your life, right? 

Keith Greer  27:36 

Yeah. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  27:38 

So how does that how does that work, and and what do you you know what sort of work do you do to help them overcome some of those challenges? 

Keith Greer  27:45 

I you know just I sometimes walk away from that that work and I think it is amazing that any family business thrives because it is and and I say that lovingly and respectfully it is so challenging, like that-that intersection of good, solid business practices and our family stuff. And you-and you just kind of said it. I'm sitting at the table with my fellow business partners, and this person at the end of the table is speaking. Is this my business partner speaking, or is it my father, right, or my sibling or it is really challenging and and so for me when I walk into that one of the first things I get curious about when I work with family business folks is just the whole concept of boundaries of how do you know when you're at the table and I'm thinking this one family business I'm I'm working with right now, and it's and it's a dad who's you know around my age, mid 60s, son, daughter, and daughter's husband, and we've had some wonderful conversations of how challenging it is for all of them when they're talking about business, to talk about business and leave family out, and the reverse is true. When they're together on weekends, we've talked about how do you give each other permission to be family on weekends and not bring up business, so that you start to really think about each of you in these in these very separate domains, kind of business, right now we're now I'm talking with this man who is my father, but now we're talking about business. You know, in this in the case of this one family, the the daughter and you know she's wonderfully self aware, and and talks all the time about there's a tone. There's a tone that her father speaks with, that she can feel herself, and they're at the business table talking business, and she can feel herself get transported. That's her word. She gets transported to like being five years old, and and I. You know, I don't have any strategy that, like, you know, like remedies that incredibly quickly. This is such complex work. This world of boundaries and how we we we see each other differently and start to say, okay, when we're in this conversation, we'll we'll be this way. And so, in this case, with this family, one of the things that we've been doing is just, just even started supporting them and giving each each other permission when they're in a business conversation and one of them starts feeling like I'm feeling five years old right now, or Dad feels like my damn kids aren't listening to me. That can we just even can they in those moments put that out on the table. Like, let's just get it out, because again, those kinds of dynamics, if they are not spoken, if we don't make the invisible visible, I sometimes say, let's shine a light on that. Then they their impact is significantly greater, and not in a positive way. If we can get that out on the table, maybe it means okay. Can we just take five minutes because I need to get back into my 35-year-old body right now because I'm not feeling that way. Or, or for the for the father at the table, and I've really appreciated this because this this kind of conversation isn't the most comfortable place in the world for him, but he's but he's been willing to go there, and he gets that. Yes, I know. I know. I have this tone. I used it when the kids acted out when they were little, and sometimes when I'm frustrated around business, it comes out. And and so we're just trying to create awareness, and maybe create some mechanisms that when it's there, we we label it for what it 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  31:45 

is. It's kind of like I think I use a similar philosophy in terms of the you know the which hat are you wearing, and being very clear about which hat you're actually wearing because obviously you can wear multiple hats in one in those situations. But also sometimes in businesses too that are not family businesses, you're you're both the founder, and then you're also working at another level as a salesperson. And so, when you're in the sales meeting, which hat are you actually wearing? Are you wearing the salesperson hat or the founder hat? Yeah, 

Keith Greer  32:10 

right. And so, again, for me, one of the things I always think about is, as I said a moment ago, how do you make the invisible visible? These dynamics happen. They're happening. They're just happening, as you just said. Whether it's a family business or any business, how we perceive each other, how we interact with each other, which hat am I wearing? It's there. It's in the room, and so it is just my belief is they are much more potentially negatively powerful and influential if we don't talk about it, versus no, let's start identifying. You know, in my work with families, as we're meeting together and talking about things, how do we just start? Oh, there it is. You know, there's that one. Don't know which hat I'm on, or you know, I'm feeling this way, or dad's, you know, feeling like dad again, and if we can just start to bring some light to it, normalise it again. This is like welcome to the complexity of being human beings, right? Then we can do something productive with. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  33:17 

Okay, we talked about trust and safety agreements offline, and I want to get an understanding of because that is really about some of this plays into that. Is like how do you know what the boundaries are, and how do you ensure that you do have a safe space that you do feel like you can trust each other? How do you even go about doing that when you've potentially got a person you've got a challenge with? 

Keith Greer  33:38 

Yeah, it is. It's a fascinating conversation because it's a conversation that most human beings have never been invited into in the way I'm going to describe it. So again, we tend to go through our lives. I have people I like and I I really trust and feel safe with, and I have people maybe not so, and I just assume that just kind of happens haphazardly. But it is it's not a haphazard process. So, what a trust and safety agreement is, and you could do this between you and one person. You could do this as a team, right? You, your leader, and their whole team. Family can do this. Is I and so I will. I'll throw out a couple of different versions of the same question, so I might ask. All right, so here's what I'm going to ask all of you: If trust and safety, emotional safety or psychological safety, whatever word you want to use, if trust and safety were in the room, in the way you needed it to be. So let's say you and I did this together. Just you know, we're new to each other. All right, Debra. If trust and safety were in the room in the way you need it to be, what do you look for, listen for, and feel for? That would be evidence to you that you can trust me, because we are looking for it, listening for it, and feeling for. And again, I what I tell people when I when when when we talk about when I work with folks about doing a trust and safety agreement with other people, I always tell people, look, here's what you have to do if you're going to do this. Get ready for people when you pose the question to look at you like you got two heads, because most people have never been asked this, and so quite honestly, most people at first aren't even sure how to answer it, because what we're doing here is we're operationalizing trust, which is not one of the ways most people think about trust. They think of it as kind of fuzzy, but our brain does not think about it as fuzzy. Our brain is looking for hard, cold evidence. So, what do you look for, listen for, and feel for that could tell you that you trust? You know that that I am trustworthy. If trust were in the room between you and I, in the way you needed it to be, Debra, what would you be looking for, listening for, and feeling for? So you might say to me something like, "Well, Keith, I I need you to respect me, right? Awesome, right? I I I get that. So, in this in this you know in this kind of interaction conversation, we often use pretty fuzzy words. So you could say, Keith, I need to be respected. Keith, I need to be listened to. Keith, I need to be. be, I don't know. It could be a whole lot of different things that somebody could say, but one of the biggest mistakes we make in the world of conversation is something called assuming shared meaning. So, right now, as you and I are talking, every word that comes out of our mouth is wrapped in meaning, based on you know, in my case, based on my 67 years of life, when those words cross the room, land in your ears. If I assume you're going to assign the same meaning to them, we might already be in conversational jeopardy because you're going to assign meaning based on your life. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  36:59 

Yeah, because you said respect, and it's like, so what does respect mean? What does it 

Keith Greer  37:02 

mean, right? So this is a little hokey, but you know, in this conversation, we sometimes, you know, I'll sometimes say, "All right, so listen, Debra, could we like, can we double click on the word respect? Let's go deeper. All right, can you talk a little bit more? Like exactly what what do you need from me that you would say, boy, when Keith is acting this way, I feel like he respects me, because it could be a little bit different from you than it is for me if I were to also say, no, I need a level, I need a level of respect. So respect, or compassion, or empathy, or you know, all of these are fuzzy terms, but if we say them, there's a tendency for, oh yeah, okay, yeah, I agree with that. Yeah, let's give each other trust. Nah, can we go a little bit further? Can we talk about this a little bit more? What I find in doing a trust and safety agreement is, as I said, most people have never been asked. At first, they might not even be sure how to answer. What is really important, especially if it's a leader doing it with their team, is for the leader to really, really, and again, this needs to be authentic. Really, really communicate. Look, gang, this is so important to me. I I believe for us to be effective as a team, there needs to be a level of trust in this room, so so you know this would be my language. Play with me a little bit here. What I do believe, Debra, is is that not that not that the answer to the question what you and I come up with of what trust would look like, sound like, and feel like isn't important. What is monumentally important is the ask. Is simply asking. Is simply saying to someone else, "You and I figuring out how to trust each other is so important to me. I believe it is. It is at the foundation of us, of our relationship, of us doing good work together. And what I have found in doing a trust and safety agreement with lots and lots of people over the years, individually with teams, is if you stick with it when they first look at you, like what? What are you asking me? People, people get it. Like people get it. So here's an example I'll sometimes give, even to kick it off, because people can relate to this. All right, so I'm I'm the leader of my team, and I get my team into a conference room, and I'm talking about some new initiative that's about to come down the pike, and I'm really excited about it. And hey, gang, this is going to be really good for all of us, and it's work, and it's going to challenge us. And there's maybe a bit of a positive chatter around the room, and you know, meeting comes to an end, and you know, I'll get more information to you. But this is going to be great, so meeting ends. What conversations happen in the next few days? The meeting after the meeting, and it's usually two or three people getting together and saying, you know, Keith didn't talk to me about this. I've got more than enough on my plate. I don't know if I. Take on anything more. Well, what I say to people is, all right. What's your best explanation for the meeting after the meeting? Because the best explanation is there wasn't the required level of trust in the room in the first place for people to speak their truth. So they put on a face. Oh yeah, Keith, that sounds great, but that's not where they're at. And then they have these little, you know, sidebar conversations, water cooler conversations. 

Keith Greer  40:27 

Versus, could what would we have needed to do before I even broach the subject with my team to explore with the team what do we need from each other so that when we have conversations, quite honestly, they're not a waste of time because I would argue that meeting I held, that resulted in people doing the water cooler conversations, was a waste of however many minutes it was long, because there was not the required level of trust for us to really, really chew on it as as a team, including, you know, the ambivalence in the room. I don't know if I really want to take this on. That didn't get said because people were worried what I was going to think. And so, doing this, broaching this subject with folks, again, it it works. It's a fascinating conversation. You need everyone needs to. You know, I gave you the language I use. People need to find their own language to ask. Use a little bit of humour when when people look at you because they've never been asked this before. But um, but people get it. Like people get. Yeah, yeah. Those water cooler conversations happen all the time. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  41:39 

Yeah, I've got two questions coming out of that from me. So the first one was around, you know, if we if you said in order to to to look for, listen for, feel for, I want I need you to have respect for me. Sometimes it's hard to explain what a positive looks like. Is it to okay to explain the converse and kind of go what disrespectful looks like? 

Keith Greer  42:00 

Beautiful, yes, yes, right. Like whatever. Because one of the things we're we're we're trying to do with this is we're trying to bring clarity into the room, right? And so that's a great great point. You you can bring clarity in through the front door, or you can bring clarity in through the back door, right? The front door would be saying, "Here's what trust looks like, sounds like, feels like, and the back door, which is just as important, is. I'm not quite sure how to describe what it is. I can describe what it's not, and that is, yeah, that's wonderful, because that we're we're just we're just trying to bring clarity to to this incredibly complex thing that happens between you and I when we interact with each other. The 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  42:43 

next question is probably more of my own interest because of the way that I tend to behave and act. I'm a quick start person. I can I can think and speak and everything else very very quickly. Not everybody on my team is necessarily that way inclined, and so I'm wondering when there's a a mismatch in terms of I guess sometimes called extroversion, introversion, the way you talk things out loud or in your head or whatever might be. How do you deal with that? 

Keith Greer  43:06 

So I'm gonna I'm gonna repeat myself probably a little bit here. You bring clarity to it, right? So all right, so we've got people in the room. We're on team. We're different. We're different. Our communication styles are different. Introversion, extroversion, other preferences that you know might show up on personality profiles that that are that are different. I'm I'm incredibly scattered in my thinking. You know, thankfully I've been married for you know 43 years to a woman who's incredibly organised in her thinking. That's not a coincidence, and So, but so imagine this, right? So you just said, right? Like you know, you're like you really want to get rolling. I'm I'm going to assume. Tell me if I'm I'm if I'm in the ballpark here, that maybe sometimes there's a worry that if I get rolling too quick, do I either leave some people behind or does somebody feel like I talked over them, or right, anything like that? Steamroll, 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  44:05 

I'd be called a steamroller. Steamroll. Okay, right, 

Keith Greer  44:08 

right. Okay, all right. So, all right. So, will I steamroll somebody? And if I steamroll, if they perceive being steamrolled, will they then have other thoughts and feelings attached to that, like Debra doesn't respect me, and she doesn't want to hear what I have to say, and so I always think about, you know, and I know you know this. If if you Google the top, you know, three to five reasons why people leave companies and jobs, somewhere in that top three to five is did not feel valued and appreciated. People often will feel not valued and appreciated because we will have conversations where they will perceive you don't value and appreciate me, and how do I know you don't value and appreciate me? Because Debra, you steamrolled right by me. But in your head and heart, you totally value and appreciate me. It's just a. Style thing, so this comes into another thing I do with folks called having a conversation about the conversation. Can you and I, if we know there are some differences in how we come at things, can we get that out on the table? Can we explore it? Can you know? You might say to me, Keith, you know what? Some I know myself, Keith. Sometimes I get so jazzed about what we're talking about here. I'm just going to get rolling, Keith. It's really important to me that if I do that, that you know how much I value and appreciate you, Keith. It's really important to me if I do that that I get. You know, it's okay with me if you say, Oh well, right. I I won't take offence now. If you don't tell me that, I'm probably not going to go whoa because I'm going to worry. I'm going to offend you. And so, if we can identify some of the differences just in in our personality and how we come at things, Debra, you know, when you and I, when we're working together, if we ever have a time where we really disagree, how do we want to deal with that with each other? What do we want to do in that moment? How do we give each, you know, how do we make sure we we give each other room to disagree, to agree to disagree, right? Debra, man, if I ever if I ever interact in a way with you that causes you in to question whether I value and appreciate you, please tell me because it is so important to me that I in that moment that I make sure no, you know that I do. If you ever feel talked over, right, or I or I interrupt you, or like any of these kinds of things that we know happen that can cause people to. Here's what I want to help people not do. When some of these things happen in our in our conversation with each other, we assign malicious intent. Well, Debra really doesn't like me. She really doesn't trust me. And in your head, you're not thinking any of that because that's not what's behind your conversational style. If we can, once again, if we can make the invisible visible, if we can get curious with each other about some of those differences, put it out on the table, have a conversation about it, where the chances of them, the chances of them having a negative impact are limited. Now, let me do part two of that. We can do the whole conversation about the conversation, and let's say we have a conversation and something happens, and I do feel, I walk out of the room and I'm thinking I'm really kind of annoyed with Debra. She talked right over me. What do I need to do? I need to get with you ASAP, Debra. I know we had that conversation about the conversation, and I know you know you told me, but I don't know. There was something about our interaction, and you know, an hour ago, and I just I felt this, and I just want to check in with you because it is so important to me that we trust each other and we're on the same page, and we're we're taking something so complex in in the realm of our humanness. This one company that that I do a lot of work for that I mentioned, they make very high end optics. 

Keith Greer  48:20 

They have an entire department that does what they call process write. So when they get a contract to make some optic they've never made before, they their engineers put their heads together. They make this optic, and there's a bunch of folks who literally write down every step they took. So when they get a similar contract, I've got the process. I love that concept because I think what we're doing here is we're process writing conversation. We're just trying to make sure that we are on the same page. We understand each other. We don't misunderstand each other. We don't assign malicious intent. We believe that we're both positively motivated in terms of what we want from the conversation, and then how we interact with each other. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  49:04 

It all just comes down to communication, doesn't it? And I suppose that's the thing with humans. I was talking about this the other day with the team. I was saying that unfortunately, whether we like it or not, whenever there is a vacuum, humans will fill it, and they don't. They tend to fill it with negative things, not not deliberately, but it's like you know. So if you and I are really, really good friends, I haven't heard from you in a while. I immediately think, oh, Keith must be must be upset with me. Keith must be pissed off with me, or he's got new friends. He doesn't like me anymore. And in actual, I never, I never think. I bet Keith out there having a fantastic time with his sons and his grand his grandchildren, and he's just too busy to do because it's not all about me. But we, but humans just naturally do that, don't we? 

Keith Greer  49:43 

Right, because it is all about us, and and I say that again lovingly and respectfully, because we only see the world through our eyes, and and and the only voice we ever hear is ours, and and so there is a piece that it is, and so if we know that about ourselves. Then we can do something about that, and we can work hard to quiet that voice. We can work hard to really, really listen. We can. One of the greatest trust-building strategies is to practice curiosity, true curiosity, where I want to know you, Debra. I want to know how you think and feel and see and your perception as a human being or as a member of our team. I really want to wrap my head around it. You know that that I mentioned earlier that addiction to being right that that often you know people in leadership have. I'm right. I'm right. I'm right. Now, this is a little provocative as a coach, so I only pull this out of my you know my coaching toolbox when I'm working with someone who I really have a good relationship with, and I tend to use humour in my work. So I I do my best to say it with some level of humour when I am working with someone, and part of what's getting in the way of their leadership is their tendency. I'm right. I'm right, and I will ask people. All right, in this moment where you believe you're right, is there any evidence in the known universe that your right is the only right? Because the answer to that is always no. No, nobody feels their opinions about things stronger than I do, right? In some ways, but I realise it's just my sense of right, and and there's nothing wrong with that. And I'm not saying you know relinquish your sense of right, but if you want to be a powerful leader, an influential leader, a respected leader, a productive leader, then I I will sometimes challenge people in leadership to can you walk into this conversation you're about to walk in with either with one person or you know a group of people, and here's your only goal, your only goal is to walk out of this meeting with a greater understanding of their perspective, even if it means in that meeting you don't get to share yours. That's quieting that voice, right? And really allowing ourselves to listen and to practice curiosity and to not just lead with my my right, and to be curious about and what do we know innovation is? Innovation for a team is everybody's right, everybody's right sense of right coming together and figuring out, all right, how do we co-create something bigger than any of us could do on our own? 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  52:24 

Keith, what happens if you genuinely don't want to be curious about somebody? There must be some people that we just you just have zero interest in it. 

Keith Greer  52:33 

Yeah, I look. I hear you. It it's I you know what I say to folks is I am. This is where, like even that you know that statement, Debra, is a very self-aware statement. Like so, so can we just practice even that level of self-awareness? That you know what there is this person in my organisation. I am not all that interested in being curious with them. I struggle with them. For me, what I ask people, because I'm not saying that every single human being you come into contact with or work with, you have to sing kumbaya. Like that's not realistic. I do believe, and I guess because I believe this for myself. Like when I have that person in my life, I don't want to be curious about. I do get curious with me, and I ask myself, Keith, what's it about? Like, and again, that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm going to run to them and say, Oh, you know, let's figure out how to be buddies here. But that even that reaction, like that kind of reactiveness, for me, I the first place I look is me. What is it about this person, this situation? Everything we're talking about here, Debra, requires a great deal of energy to do. Right, this this kind of self awareness of how I come at conversations. So, so I have this acronym. It comes from my from my work in the recovery world. So, if you if you walk into like a 12 step meeting, like an AA meeting or something like that, you will often hear people talk about this acronym HALT H A L T, and HALT stands for hungry, angry, lonely, and tired. And in the recovery world, what what that you know means is what someone might say is if you're hungry, angry, lonely, or tired, you're at risk for future use, right? I think that is that acronym is so relevant to leadership to being the human being because if I am hungry, angry, lonely, or tired, I am more likely to be reactive. I'm more likely to be judgmental. I'm more likely to not want to be curious with folks, because doing this, being curious, being self-aware, being thoughtful about how I come at conversation, really putting a focus on trust and safety, it requires a level. Energy to do it and to do it well and to do it consistently, and so that's a whole nother conversation, right? About self care and for those who are building businesses and and leadership. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  55:13 

Okay, so can there ever ever be somebody there who really just is a square peg in a round hole? Maybe it's me. Maybe I'm the square peg in the round. How is there ever a time? Is there ever a time where you actually just kind of go, "This is just never going to be, you know? Because we talk about this in culture of an organisation in terms of having people who genuinely live and breathe your core values and feel like they fit in. Can there sometimes just be some some cases where the person isn't the right person in that environment? 

Keith Greer  55:39 

Yeah, and I and I think you used a key word, and that's values, right? I I I think if you have folks who are coming at something from a very different value proposition of of what is truly important to them, if you think of a value as a philosophy or belief that resonates so deeply in me, that that when I align my choices and behaviours and decisions to it, life feels good. Right? So so our values are really important. I do a lot of values clarification in my work with with leaders, and yeah, I mean, I think if look, I think all you have to do today is is look around. You know, I know here in the states, right, some of some of the horrendous dialogue that goes on, you know, politically, often I think is it has somewhere in its origin right some really different value systems, and that can be hard, if not impossible, to to bridge. If if both people just say, "Nah, I I like my values where they are, I'm not looking to shift. Yeah, yeah. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  56:40 

I always ask my guests to give kind of three top tips or tools. I'm sure you have hundreds of them, but what would be the three top ones that you know? If people listening in who have gone, this has been really fascinating. What what can I do with this now? 

Keith Greer  56:52 

Yeah, so I think the three top would be hold on to this concept of make the invisible visible. How do we take these aspects of of human interaction that are there, that impact us, but we we've just never been taught to talk about, and make them make them visible. Be the one who is courageous enough and and vulnerable enough to bring it up. So whether it's doing a trust and safety agreement, or you and I talked a little bit before we came on about you know the whole issue of giving people feedback, and and if you're going to give people feedback, are you willing to ask people, teach me the best way to do that? Because that's an inherently another inherently vulnerable conversation. Make the invisible visible. Understand, understand some basic neurochemistry. Again, this is not touchy-feely, social worky BS. This is how our brain works, and and if we understand that, we can take steps to to create some wonderful connection with other human beings, in in general, in our in our personal life, or or in our professional life, but so there's a you know there's there's two books I'll I'll just throw out to to recommend to to your listeners. One is called Conversational Intelligence by Judith Glaser. It's it's the book she wrote, filled with a lot of really good neuroscience. Doesn't read like a neuroscience journal. Very accessible in in being able to take some of the concepts that around fight flight and how certain conversational patterns create get perceived as threat or not. The other book is called More Time to Think by Nancy Klein. It it's also based on a lot of neuroscience, and and what that author does is she has 1010 conditions that if we offer them to each other, we invite each other to be each other's best thinking partner. I mentioned you know early in our conversation, that when we're in fight flight, we have difficulty being in touch with this part of our brain where all of our really good thinking takes place. I love her work, especially again around teams and innovation. That we will be at our best if we are all doing our best thinking. We're doing our best thinking when we're in a place of trust with each other, so it's a a really really cool book. So that would be that would be two, three. What would be the last thing I would recommend of folks? Be the courageous one. Just be the courageous one. Oh, let me add to that. Be the self-aware one. Be the self-aware one. Right? If you, if you, if you're right now, you're thinking of someone you interact with, and it could be work. It could be the person I really don't want. You know, at the holiday dinner table because we so struggle with each other. Do your best not to give in to that explanation in your head that that assigns malicious. Intent and it's the other. If the other person would just be different, get curious with yourself. What's my part here? What's you know that I bring to this conversation? Am I bringing old stories, old assumptions that I do? They remind me of somebody, or do I? I just walk in because we've never dealt with anything. There's so much feeling in the room the minute we get there, again, I'm not saying that you will necessarily take steps and all of a sudden you'll become best buds, but that tendency for us humans to respond to those negative interactions with people, assuming they're to blame, just means it's never going to change. Never will change. Could you be the one who practices a little self-awareness, maybe a little courage, and attempts to move it in a you know a different direction? Not easy to do. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  1:00:52 

Sage advice, but yeah, easy. Definitely not easy in some respects, but yeah, very very insightful, beautiful. So we're talking about so make the invisible visible, be courageous and vulnerable. Be the one that stands in basic neurochemistry. A couple of really good books there that you've mentioned, and then yeah, the self awareness. I think I we always used to teach people if you're sort of pointing the finger at somebody, point point the rest of the fingers back. That's right. That's right. Right. Yeah. Right. Right. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  1:01:15 

Yeah. What What do What do you need to do? And we forget, right? Because as you said, when you get triggered, we're in a completely different brain state to to when we are cool, calm, and collected. So, yes, really, really good advice. Thank you, Keith. Thank you. There's been I always love these sessions because I get to take so much from it. I'm absolutely certain our listeners will too. We will make sure that we have got all of your contact details and things in the show notes, along with the things we've mentioned here today. But if somebody does want to get in contact with you, what is the best way? 

Keith Greer  1:01:42 

Probably the best way can either go to my website keithgreercoaching.com or the email is keith@keithgreercoaching.com. Feel free to reach out. I love talking about this. If you you know, I always say if you're listening to this and you're thinking of a specific person that you're struggling in conversation, or you know you have to have one, and you want to just you know I'd be more than happy to hop on you know a phone call or Zoom, and we can look at some of these strategies that that that you know maybe can bring about a difference in the conversation. I'd be more than happy to be in that conversation with with any of your listeners. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  1:02:19 

You are very kind. Thank you so so much. Appreciate your time. We look forward to staying connected. 

Keith Greer  1:02:24 

Great, thanks, Debra. Enjoyed the conversation very much.