The show’s guest in this episode is Dr. Lisa Hale. She is a master executive coach, leadership and team dynamics expert, mother of three incredible young men, avid skier, and all out dynamic and brilliant facilitator of people being awesome

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Creating Happiness and Success in the Same Life with Lisa Hale

Hey everybody, I am so excited to be here with you live today. I’m Melanie Parish. And I am doing, we’re doing all sorts of new and exciting things in our business. And it’s leading me to think about the whole concept that anytime we do something new, it’s an experiment. And so it’s making me think about how we do measurement, and how we set things up, right. So I’m just thinking about, you know, as we put new things into place, I’m just so curious about how we’re going to know if they’re working, and who’s going to be in charge of that, because we’re all really busy, I’m busy, coaching people and creating programs, and my team is busy doing the things that they do already. So anytime we try something new, it actually puts a load on our team.

I had a conversation with our team yesterday, and we did a quick check in and one of the things that we did, I was like, hey, just tell me in terms of capacity, where you’re at scale of one to 10, you know, zero or one, you’re like lying in bed at night worrying, you’re gonna lose your job, because you’re not providing enough value to the company, and 10 You’re laying in bed at night. worrying that you’ll never get your workload done, and things are gonna crash. Where are you? And I thought this was a really cool tool to just sort of assess. And then it led me to this whole idea of where do we want our staff to be? Where do we want like, we want some capacity built into their jobs, I don’t want to be working at 100% capacity all the time. And so I’m actually super curious about this. I don’t know if anybody’s listening live and wants to weigh in on this and like, put a comment in, I’d love to talk to our guests about this too. But like, where do we want our employees capacity to be? Do we want them maxed out all the time, because that leads to burnout? Do we want them to be at 50%. So they we can hand them anything at any point. And they’re just waiting there for us like a, you know, 1950s Assistant, and I was thinking is somewhere between like 70 and 85%, that I’d want them to be where they can sort of steadily go about their day, they’re not having to rush, so there’s not so many mistakes, but they could take on new tasks they could think things through they have time to think I always worry when people don’t have time to think but I’m super curious about what other people think about this topic. Because I actually don’t know the answer to this. And I’m curious what you think. So that’s what I’ve been thinking about in my leadership today. And I am so excited to welcome our guests today.

Our guest today is Lisa Hale, Dr. Lisa Hale, who founded focus leadership consulting. She’s part of my inner circle, actually. And I asked her to be on the show because I love her ideas and opinions and the work she does in the world. And she helps free talented teams and leaders to do the work that came together to do. She specializes in helping teams integrate during change, so that their team dynamic dynamics and results are even better than ever. And from the leader who leads them to the individuals working on the team. And then the team as a whole. She helps get all the wheels on the track. So that change is for the better. She has coached over 10,000 hours with more than two decades of experiences of experience. And she works on coaching senior leaders and senior leadership teams. She’s also a mother of three incredible young men, an avid skier, and an all out dynamic and brilliant facilitator of all people being awesome.

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Welcome Lisa to the show.

Thank you, Melanie, I’m so happy to be here. And it is a treat to be having one of our very interesting conversations out here where others can hear him.

It’s so fun to have you here and you and I are both MC C’s, but as we were talking before the show and you’re also a PhD, and I don’t actually know what your PhD is in and I refrain from asking earlier. Can you talk about what your PhD is in?

Yeah, it’s it’s unexpected, actually, for someone who does executive coaching and leadership development. My PhD is in political economy, International Political Economy.

Well, every organization is a political economy. I think it’s fantastic. That’s so interesting. Well, it’s book we’re doing book club this year on my show, and I think you were kind enough to you dive into the experimental leader a little bit, and I have a little piece that I actually picked with you in mind that I wanted to read from the book that I wanted to talk about with you.

I’m gonna wonder if it’s one of the ones that I highlighted…

“So frequently, I see managers and others immobilized and incapable of making change, because it’s because they believe that it’s a process requiring everyone’s input and agreement. The larger the organization, the more complex the processes become. And that eventually prevents leaders from implementing change. A person’s career can die because he didn’t back the right solution. And experiment allows people a safe to fail environment in which to try new things and to learn.”

Yeah, I definitely highlighted some portions of that.

Yeah, so I just think I see this all the time. But it’s it’s like in the often like, when I’m coaching. And I don’t know if you see this too, but it’s like in the muck, it’s like, you start to see people trying to make movement or trying to improve things, and then they get mired down and, and they’re trying to find a path. And I just was curious what you see, because you do similar work to me.

Well, as you were even reading the quote, which I’ve, you know, I’ve read recently, I’ve reread portions of the chapter we’re talking about today. And even as you were reading it, I was, I was struck by something I hadn’t even thought up when I read it privately, which is that what you’re getting at here, and really, the meta level solution or problem that you’re solving with this experimental leader approach is how many leaders get stuck in fear. And they don’t realize that they’re stuck in fear, they don’t realize that that’s the thing that they’re up against. And we of course, see it. But the, when you describe, I might lose, my job could be on the line, if I back the wrong program, or the wrong initiative. That’s just fear. That’s not even a thoughtful assessment of whether backing one program or another is the right move for the organization, the team, the business or whatever. And I run into that all the time, working on several projects now in organizations where the leader is just paralyzed by fear. And, and it doesn’t look that way to other people or to the leader. In one case, it’s a her and another to him. So him and herself.

And these conversations with coaches are so funny, because we have all these, like real live examples, and they’re all confidential. And we all know it’s this funny sort of conversation of, you know, oh, and I’m watching how he burned down his career or he, right. And it’s, it’s, you’re absolutely right. It’s so funny, because when I was writing this book, and I was working with editors, they were like, but tell us how to experiment. I was like, I don’t care how you experiment, just experiment and embrace it and change your culture. And allow that experimentation as possible, because it isn’t so much about the experiment. I mean, being a good experimenter is super important. But it’s it is about creating a culture where people aren’t afraid. And experiments are a path to do that.

Yeah, there was there was somebody and I is somebody pretty well known like a sales coach from decades ago that I’m not thinking of the name of right now. But he said something that stayed with me throughout all of my business career, and that is that you can’t go anywhere, if you’re parked on the side of the road. And so many of us park on the side of the road, when we don’t know what to do, we think it’s better to just pull over. And then look at the map I have. I have a client actually, who has been for many, many years spinning around in the same traffic circle, not sure which of the many opportunities she has in front of her she should take and she’s really one of those friends that I coach on the side because I can’t help myself. She’s not actually one of my clients. And so there’s a limit to how much I can just smack her around and say, you know, you’re parked on the side of the road and you need to make a choice. But more recently, she’s been asking me how do I get unstuck and I said, you got to do something, just do something. It doesn’t matter which one of the many things you’re thinking about. You do just do one of them.

Well, and I think sometimes I’m having someone make a choice to pay us. Yeah. helps them start to do things because it does they, they find it difficult to pay what my fee is, or your fee is, yeah. And then to spin in the traffic circle, right, and there is there is some function to the professional relationship that can help with movement I have a, the higher my prices got, the better my clients got, because because they want real things to happen in their lives, the people that hire me today really want things big, giant, exciting things to happen in their lives. Right. And, and it’s one of the joys of being sick, you know, at this phase in my career, is that I get to work with the most fascinating, lovely, exciting clients. Now, whereas, you know, my first years in I didn’t, I mean, they were nice, I had nice clients, but they missed appointments, and they didn’t do their homework and they didn’t move, they were stuck.

Right. I really agree with you. And I know, you you are someone I really admire in the space of how you constructed your clients and your relationship with your clients. So I’m Yeah, I appreciate hearing you say that.

So, I mean, that’s enough. I think about experimenting. Thank you for playing. I love we’re doing a book club every week, this year, just going through the experimental leader book. Just because I love this book. I think the ideas are interesting to continue to talk about because it is real change that can happen as people adopt these mindsets as feedback loops open as ideas are, like as as people have detachment with ideas. So we’ll be continuing this all year. So grab a copy. It’s on amazon.ca and amazon.com. And I don’t know where else Amazon dot whatever, and other big booksellers. So do that. And, um, let’s see, let’s talk about you, Lisa, what are you experimenting with in your life and your work right now?

I thank you for that question. I loved finding out that of the many things we thought we might talk about today that you chose the work success and happiness at the same time in the same life topic. There are lots of things I’m experimenting with. And as I was reading your book and thinking about experimentation, I asked, I kept asking myself in the background, you know, do I think about these as experiments? Is that really how I experience it? And I realized that I experiment on everything all the time. And so I really, I was really tickled by that remark, actually, that you made you, you brought our attention as readers to the idea that we’re experimenting in the kitchen, possibly in the bedroom, definitely in our lives, you know, with sports, I mean, part of the reason I love skiing is because I get to play with how do I take 10 turns in a row on a steep double black mogul run instead of just three, or whatever it is. And it’s exciting and scary, and also really fun to just advance the edge of success. So we have to do that in building a life that has happiness and success at the same time. Also. Yeah, so I’m, I’m experimenting with how do I prioritize all the self care things that I really have to do and prioritize my business moving forward and the things that I’m writing about, and I’m experimenting with different ways of organizing time and organizing information and spending time with my family. My brother I just found out is now critically ill and which will make him very likely not to live actually very much longer. And that will make the third family member passing away in this last eight months. And it’s like how do I experiment with making space for grieving even when I’m really happy? And all of that is just on the table just like what are the things that I want to be playing with and creating and moving forward and help us create little mini experiments around doing that?

I just want to say like you are a coach who I esteem so highly. And that topic of grief, enjoy, enjoy and them sort of existing together. I’m really curious because I have, I have, I’ve coached while I’ve been grieving, I have clients who you know, have grieved or do grieve, or grapple depression, like the the juxtaposition of lots of emotions in a life. So when we talk about fulfillment, like what have you learned? What are some of the things you’ve learned in your years of coaching about all of that?

Yeah. Well, a coach who is working with me as my coach who I esteem so highly wink wink is recently brought me through a process of really deeply letting whatever feelings and feeling be felt. And I love the idea of really high performing people having coaches during whatever they’re going through, I actually think that the most high performing people sort of always have a coach, I know, I always have at least one coach, sometimes more than one. And I know that I’m a better coach because of it. So coaching is just the kind of thing that people who really want to create a spectacular experience of their life, just take on, like we take on going to the dentist, it’s just a thing that we keep in our pocket, I think. And this coach helped me experience the depth of really intense feelings without feeling like it was going to go off the rails. And I think that’s what a lot of people worry about, especially when they’re busy with stuff. And they’re generally pretty happy with their life. It doesn’t feel that appealing to go into the poignant and intense and painful or just high intensity feelings that we all have. But when we don’t do it, we actually cost ourselves in joy and freedom and creativity and innovation, because we are occupying big chunks of our energy internally, keeping those feelings at bay. But if we just let them be felt, and let them come out, it, it lightens our load, it just makes us like I remember after though, I’ve had a few pretty intense crying Jags My father died two weeks ago, my brother’s not in good shape. My sister died in April. And just the last few days, I’ve had quite a few of those intense moments. And out for hours before the crying happened, I felt sort of stuck and like I wasn’t getting much done. And then I had these crying moments, I did it in the company of someone I was able to have an intimate conversation with. And immediately afterward, I got like a whole day’s worth of stuff done in about 90 minutes. Because I just felt more I had more access more freedom and available access to my own energy and creativity and what’s in there, you know, the spark?

Well, and I feel called they think for just a second to talk about, you know, sort of professional boundaries a little bit with coaching and therapy, and where do they land because I think people sometimes wonder about where coaches are and where therapy is and. And I’m super, I always feel super clear about this. So I think this might be a fun time to talk about that. So I always think about coaching, as in the present. So when we look at emotions, if you’re looking back to the cause of your childhood pain, that’s probably a therapy topic. So if you’re talking about your parents, or your your diving into the why, then you may want to go into a therapist, you may want to talk to a therapist about that you might want to have a short conversation with your coach. But if you’re looking if that’s the primary thing you’re doing is to try to resolve it by doing a narrative about the why for you in the past, that might be therapy. But there’s no reason not to explore the current emotion in a coaching context with a skilled coach. Right. And, and so that’s like fully a present place for coaching. And I think it doesn’t get used that much. I think some coaches are a little afraid of it. Yeah. And there, but it’s but to be able to dive into full emotion and I don’t and not just difficult emotions, but also joy like to be able to amplify joy and excitement when somebody has worked on something for a really long time to be able to amplify the joy of that and to be with a coach and to have someone fully see the joy and merging of accomplishment is also incredibly powerful in in a coaching relationship.

Yeah, I agree. I think you talked about this a little bit in your book, the loneliness of leaders and the one and you know, they aren’t the only ones who are lonely, although I would say you and I are both leaders, so maybe some of our loneliness, occasional loneliness, it professionally, stems from that. But But that’s where witnessing someone in whatever their experiences is so powerful, because it’s not just because you’re experiencing the joy with them or standing there witnessing it, or the grief or the whatever it is, but because the being witnessed helps us not feel so lonely.

Yeah, I think being fully seen as when when someone sees you, it’s, it’s allows, it allows you to be that, and then be the next thing to write.

I want to come back to your professional boundaries around coaching remarks, because I largely agree with you and vice versa, slightly have I don’t think we disagree, actually, fundamentally. But I would probably frame it a slightly different way. And I think I am privileged to be able to do that, because my PhD is actually not in psychology, or organizational psych, I have no training as a therapist. So I don’t worry about crossing that boundary at all. I mean, I know what the ethics are. And it starts to feel out of alignment with my professional self, if we’re spending too much time in what I would call a psychological loop. So I think that’s where we really agree. And I think so much of our current stuckness. Some can sometimes have its roots in conditioning we’ve experienced in other places in our life. And I think I don’t actually start most sessions or most engagements with people exploring that. But if it’s coming up over and over again, like a really powerful, educated, confident, talented person, who just keeps not sending setting boundaries, for example. And by the way, that’s a real case. Yeah, we discovered over time, even though the agenda was around very much current professional leadership things, we discovered over time, that the roots of that sort of collapse in his power had to do with his relationship with his mother and his brother. And so we did have to spend a couple of sessions diving into that. And it wasn’t like a terry therapy session, it was just a, what did you make up about that kind of thing. And so I think it’s important for leaders to know that, you know, those things might come up, and we’re not going to be afraid of it, you know, it’s not. And certainly you are experienced enough. And I am to know, when to have the boundary, and we’re going to each of us have slightly different boundaries, right. And I meet senior leaders all the time coming into a, an engagement who are up against it. And you and I both know, when we meet them that they are deeply terrified. And they don’t talk about that they don’t talk about 25% of my organization left last year and or this year, and I thought that I was really a great leader. And now I’m really scared. They don’t say that. They just say, well, we got to figure out why they’re leaving and what’s going on, what do I need to do, right? And then we have to help them deal with the fear part two, or they won’t be able to make do any experiments because they’ll be stuck.

I remember there was a time and it’s not true. Now, I don’t think but there was a time in my practice that most of my clients were experiencing panic attacks. And I didn’t know I didn’t have it in my intake. I didn’t know that this was a reality for them. And they would just slowly over time, reveal it to me. And so I started asking, just, you know, sort of to understand, like, what do I need to know about you? Right. And I, and I think, you know, with COVID I think the wheels are off the bus, you know, all the child psych psychiatric facilities are full right now. Like, it’s a crazy world out there right now, like people are pushed to the limit. And, and so I think, you know, people need safe space, and I think coaches are really safe space. I totally 100% agree with you that if you want to be a top performer, hiring a coach is your best insurance to being that over time, because whatever it is, they’re gonna get you your 10% Extra every year. They’re gonna pay you It’s just they do it all the ROI is there like, statistically and all of that? Um, what do you want to have happen? You know, in your world in the next couple of years? Like what’s what are you doing up for yourself and your business in your life? Like we’re talking about fulfillment? What’s what’s exciting for you?

Yeah, I’m so glad you asked that question that way I was expecting, you know, how we anticipate the ends of sentences, I was totally expecting you to say the next couple of weeks is Christmas. next couple of years, I love that I, I have two books brewing. And I, you know, when I wrote my dissertation, I spent maybe seven months writing it, and it was a dozen chapters, and I wrote a chapter a month plus. So it came out of me really quickly. But I spent the year and a half prior to writing it, having it percolate, and I’ve come to finally accept that that doesn’t mean I’m a bad person, and a procrastinator, but I’m, that’s just how I create and process. So right now, I have two books percolating. And I actually thought about those when I was reading your book, because there’s experimentation going on, as I develop these books, one of them, I’ve iterated a little bit how it’s going to come out, because the thing that I thought I would do initially hasn’t been working beautifully. And I’m aware, I haven’t entirely put all the effort into making it work beautifully that I could. So it’s an open question. But I like the experimental approach to thinking about that one. And the other one is easier. They’re both about leadership, one is going to be focused on speaking with HR leaders about what they’re seeing in their organizations that are constant frustrations. And, of course, some of what I think could be done about that. And the other one is more about startups, startup founders transitioning into senior leadership and scale, they’re going to be, you know, series D, kind of, most likely, maybe see, it depends on how much money they raised initially. Because some companies go from series from seed round to series A with a couple 100 million dollars, and then all of a sudden, they have 25 people working for them. And they don’t know how to do that. And so I’m very curious about how they secure it’s like the success and happiness question how they secure people, and profitability and growth at the same time, starting from the get go. And I’m excited, I’m really excited about those projects. So what I want to see in the next couple of years is those two books launched and out. And I like I really enjoy public speaking, I enjoy doing private workshops and companies around these important topics, I actually enjoy that even more than speaking to larger audiences. I mean, I like the larger audience thing. But it’s, it’s a bit more performance. And I prefer to interact with the people there and get out what’s really going on for them and help them workshop it right then in there. So I love doing that stuff. I’ve got lots of big work projects, very likely unfolding. It turns out, I live in aerospace alley, and I didn’t know that and I have a number of aerospace clients. And so some cool fun stuff going on there.

I just like what every time you say aerospace, I’m like, Oh, that’s so fun. It’s yeah, I know. It seems exciting. I don’t know if it’s actually exciting. But aerospace sounds super exciting…

And one of my kids is applying for an internship at Ball Aerospace right up the road. And so like, it turns out that their worlds intersect with what I’m working on too, which is super fun for me. And you know, I’ll just say it because we’re talking success and happiness. I’m really open to meeting the partner that I would spend a happy, you know, love last couple of last few seasons last few chapters of my life with and I don’t know who that’s going to be and I’m not I’m not willing to do it in a sort of, you know, strategic planning kind of way.

Yeah, it’s so interesting because I love that we’re as we’re talking about happiness and success, like you’re dreaming up like what you want. And this time of year, I have to like, get ready because I do sort of a year end year beginning with my clients. And I have to kind of get myself in the right headspace. So kind of at the beginning of December I started thinking about it and and so I’ve been thinking I want to do 150 days of exercise and 2023 which I want it to be swimming, but I don’t know that I can actually get to a pool because I travel. So I’m going to say exercise but means swimming, and, and then allow myself to walk or do something else on the days that I can’t but. But it’s so interesting as a coach, like we live this sort of dreamy space with our clients. But it means we do it for ourselves too about like, what are we dreaming up? And what are we? I don’t know, I I’m feeling very joyful about 2023. And I have big business goals for 2023. I’m really excited about them. I’m excited about my team. I’m excited about, you know what my kids are up to? There’s just so much excitement in my world. I do and then but but I but it’s always framing too, because my kids might leave me and I might be alone and empty nesting and a little bored. And I mean, it could be all sorts of things. But I, I am, I am feeling quite full of possibility. And it’s an interesting occupational hazard of being a coach that we are always sort of setting these sort of big dreams goals for the future.

Yeah, you know, you just said framing, it’s all about framing. And I wrote a note I was looking for it, I can’t find it. But I remember what it was when I was reading. And the note was about the fact that the key to being successful at iterating. And actually moving yourself towards your goals using this experimental approach is actually noticing the micro changes that are happening and appreciating them. And because so many of our leaders have their eyes so fixed on, we’re trying to get to, I don’t know, a billion and a half dollars in revenue instead of 900 million, that they forget to notice that when they get to 910 million, that that’s indication, you know, or when their growth rate isn’t 10%. But it’s 11%, that that’s an indicator that what they’re doing is starting to work.

Yeah, I see that all the time that, like people exceed their current, but they don’t meet goal. And so they’re devastated. Right. But they’re actually doing an amazing thing. And there’s an it’s, I don’t know, I don’t know what I don’t know what to I don’t know what I have to say about it other than it bugs me…

Well, I can tell you, what I have to say about it is I can totally relate on that so often in my life, and it’s so great when I’m with my clients, and I noticed them doing it because I learned from the conversations I have with them for myself, too. I’m really good at appreciating my employees. And I tend to forget to turn the appreciation on myself, but I’m getting better at that. And so I really, really relate when my clients have that same struggle. And usually I say to them, oh, oh, I so do that too. And here’s the problem with and then we chuckle and then, you know, hopefully they move forward a little.

Where can people find you, Lisa?

I’m focused leadership. consulting.com is my website. I thought it was so easy to spell and see when he designed that that was the URL. But it’s important to do the past tense focused, its focus. There’s that and then Lisa at focused leadership consulting.com. And I’m on LinkedIn and Twitter and Facebook too. And you know, not so hard to locate. I’m based in Colorado, it turns out there are a couple of Lisa Hale PhDs around the country and a few of them are like psychologists and some somebody’s a neuroscientist, and you look for the one in Colorado.

Well, it has been such a pleasure to have you on my show. Thank you so much for being here.

Gosh, super fun to have conversations with you always. And I’m so pleased to have been able to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me. I feel honored. And I wish you a tremendously happy day and we’ll be back right.

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It was so great to be here with Lisa Hale. It was amazing to get to hear her thoughts. It’s so rare for me to have on air conversations with other masters certified coaches. And I just love this idea of really looking at fulfillment. I love that different emotions can live in us at any one time. We can be happy. We can grieve. We can experience all the things we don’t have to be one thing. We can change our own perspectives at any time. So I just want to invite you to be all of who you are during this holiday season. You don’t have to be any one thing for anyone. And it doesn’t have to be the same thing at any given time that it was a minute before. Go experiment!

Important Links: 

• Lisa Hale – LinkedIn
• Lisa Hale – Twitter
• Lisa Hale – Facebook

Lisa Hale

Dr. Hale founded Focused Leadership Consulting (FLC) to free talented teams and leaders to do the work they came together to do. FLC specializes in helping teams integrate during change so that their team dynamics and results are even better than ever. From the leader who leads them, to the individuals working on the team, and then the team as a whole – we help you get all the wheels on the tracks so that change is ‘for the better’.

Lisa has coached well over 10,000 hours, with more than two decades of experience. She focuses on coaching senior leaders, and senior leadership teams. Lisa has helped new acquisitions, and portfolio and venture-backed companies produce hundreds of millions of dollars in valuation gains – by making sure the engine of the company, its people, are free to bring their best.

DEVELOPMENT APPROACH
With every client we:
1. Discover and diagnose the ‘lay of the land.’ In this stage we determine together whether FLC and Dr. Hale’s expertise are the right solution for your organization.

2. Our next step is to determine what outcomes matter most to you, and what we will do to achieve them.

3. The third step is to gather data – through interviews and formal instruments we collect feedback from the organizational system.

4. Next will be to lay out the plan for our work together, and then ….

5. We get started.

Lisa’s approach is to help leaders discern what is really going on behind the curtain in the system they lead. We find both the subtle and obvious derailers. We look closely at what is working well and where the strengths are, as well as what is getting in the way of the cohesive, clicking-along team you need in order to wow your clients and customers, deliver quality as quickly as your market demands, and to grow your impact. We help your team become the competitive advantage that exceptional companies
need.

Finally, we will identify continuing opportunities to embed those changes ongoingly, and evolve your collective effectiveness.

CREDENTIALS & EDUCATION
Lisa is a Master Credentialed Coach through the International Coach Federation, a Master Corporate Executive Coach through ACEC and is certified to facilitate The Leadership System™, The Collective Leadership Assessment™, The
Leadership Circle™, as well as a variety of communications, leadership practices, resiliency and hardiness assessments. She is a certified GTCI team coach. She trained and gained her certification at the College of Executive Coaching. Lisa earned her Doctorate and Masters at Northwestern
University.

Lisa is based in Colorado and works with clients all over the world.

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