Liz Wiseman - CEO of The Wiseman Group | Increase Your Leadership, Influence, and Impact at Work

Welcome to Success Story. I'm your host, Scott D. Cleary. The Success Story podcast is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network. The HubSpot Podcast Network has incredible podcasts like Nudge, hosted by Phil Agnew, where you'll learn these science behind great marketing with bite-sized, 20-minute episodes packed with practical advice from world-class marketers and behavioral scientists. Nudge is fast-paced and insightful, with real-world examples that you can apply to your business. Listen to Nudge or a success story wherever you listen to your podcast. Today, my guest is Liz Wiseman. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller multipliers, how the best leaders make everyone smarter, the multiplier effect, tapping the genius inside our schools, the Wall Street Journal bestseller rookie smarts, while learning beats knowing in the new game of work, and the Wall Street Journal bestseller impact players, how to take the lead, play bigger and multiply your impact. Now, she is a CEO of the Wiseman Group. This is a leadership research and development firm headquartered in Silicon Valley. Some of her recent clients, you're going to know these names. Apple, AT&T, Disney, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Nike Sales Force, Tesla, and Twitter. She's been listed on Thinkers 50, and in 2019 she was recognized as a top leadership thinker in the world. She has conducted significant research in the field of leadership and collective intelligence and writes for Harvard Business Review, Fortune, and a variety of other business and leadership journals. She is a frequent guest lecturer at BYU in Stanford University and is a former executive at Oracle Corporation, where she worked as the vice president of Oracle University and as the global leader for human resource development. Now, we spoke about all things leadership, starting off with Liz's time at Oracle and how her relationship with her dad impacted her career. We then defined what an impact player is and why they're so crucial to organizations. We spoke about how in many cases intelligence gets wasted within organizations and how organizations can fix this problem. And we also spoke about the importance of delineating impact, effort, and intent. And why this is so crucial for organizations to understand because when people show up, they always want to do great work. So how do organizations and people enable everyone in the company to do the best work possible? Oh, most meaningful moment in my life. Well, I probably the moment that set me on on my path is when I got served papers when I was 17 years old to appearance small claims court. And I never would have thought that this was like a really meaningful moment in my life, but it did something snapped in it for me. So I was working as I was a bit of a sewing prodigy. I guess as a child, I just, I don't know, I started sewing when things and designing things when I was young and ended in high school. I had a job working in a bridal store and I did alterations and someone came in and they were looking for a custom other of the bride gown and I don't know like in hindsight like why she would like actually have a 17 year old girl make her dress, but she hired me and I made the dress she didn't like it. And so she sued me. And I, you know, I got this, these notice in the mail that I was being sued for $250, which was my entire life savings. At that point, I didn't have a way to go to college other than on my own and I would be putting myself through college. And so this was kind of devastating. And I of course told my parents, my parents knew I had done this project and made this dress. And my dad's reaction was, well, you're on your own. And I was just like, what? And so I had to go and go to small claims court and defend myself in court. And you know, my parents weren't helping me with this. And so I was like, well, okay, I need to prevail in court. Now I remembered for when I guess middle school I learned that you can't hold minors to contract. So I had a feeling I was probably not going to to lose in court. But, you know, I went and I called up a family friend who was a lawyer, was like a corporate attorney for HP. I'm like, you know, what, what do I have to do? And, and then I had like got all these witnesses and character witnesses and situational witnesses. And I like court with my entourage of witnesses. And I'm like, you know, in my, I don't know, 17-year-old version of like, you know, sharp business attire. And, you know, I presented my case and did all this. And, you know, I ended up winning this court judgment. But I think it set something in me. And maybe, you know, later I was working for my father when I was in college. And he was a real estate developer or real estate salesman. And we used to go from like industrial park to industrial park and he would call on people and, you know, try to convince them that, you know, they needed a bigger workspace. He could represent them. And I was tagging along with them. And, you know, we're knocking on like door number three. And he's like, this one's yours. And I'm like 19, 20 years old. And I'm now suddenly half to pitch like this real estate representation, you know, presentation. And I think like both of these were indicative, I guess, of early life experiences that say, you know what, you gotta just take charge of things. You can't just show up and see what happens. Or, you know, kind of like, throw up your hands and go, okay, I don't know what to do. Like, I think it set me on this course of, you know what, take charge of situations and be ready at any moment to give a presentation. Well, I don't know that they ever intended to. It's, you know, I grew up in that free range, you know, era where your job as a parent was to, you know, pack a lunch and feed your kids dinner and, you know, take them to the hospital if they, you know, broke their arm. But, you know, if it was a mile break, which I had a couple of these little mild fractures, my mom was like, okay, you know what, I'll take you to the hospital, like, but I gotta go pick up the boys from like soccer practice. Let me go get them and go back and, and this was the kind of parenting, you know, that was the case in the, you know, early 80s and 70s. So I think those were experiences that taught me to just take charge, I guess, be assertive or simply not be passive. And, you know, I think other early experiences that really shaped me were, you know, having kind of a, a gruff father, you know, someone who was difficult to, to like talk to, difficult to deal with. And I think I learned to watch him and understand him and try to, I don't know, I think I learned these like two seemingly contradictory or very different skills. One was to sort of take charge. And the other was like, pay attention to what's going on around you. You know, I just would watch my dad like, why is he so grumpy? You know, why is he so curt? Why do some people think he's kind of a grumpy mean guy when actually he's really just someone who's wounded and hurt. And, you know, what, he's trying so hard to be a good dad, but he just doesn't know how. And I just learned to, I don't know, empathize, imagine a back story, assume good intent, deal with grumpy people, deal with difficult people, deal with bullies. And so when I made my way into the corporate world and, you know, I started my career to recall and I was dealing with some really smart, tough people, you know, people used to joke, oh yeah, Oracle, they eat their young, it's a tough place, it's a hard, you know, place. I was like, are you kidding me? These people are so nice. Compared to your, your tough dad, no nonsense, go figure out your court case, go sell, go sell to this real estate client. It was almost like a walk in the park. It really was. People were like, wow, like, can you met with Larry Os and if you work with Larry Os and isn't he so tough? You mean, I'm like, are you kidding? Have you met my father? Oh, like, very sweet. And, and I think it just prepared me to just take charge of things, but not just become the bull in the China shop or the bully on the block. You know, you know, I adore my father. He passed, you know, a couple decades ago, but I think he really taught me to separate people's behavior and the impact that they're having on others from their intention and their own story. And I think I just went into the workplace, like, able to see into this, I don't know dark space between what people think they're doing that's having a positive impact and actually what is really happening. And this is kind of a space that's always fascinated me. And if you kind of look at that, it's sort of a red thread through all of my research and my work is trying to understand the difference between intent and effort and impact. And I feel like most people by sort of disassociating intent and impact, most people generally want to show up and do good. I think that I think that any any individual that I've ever worked with doesn't really want to walk into a job and fail, right? And they don't want their peers to fail, they don't want their customers to fail. But ultimately, that's not always the case. So as you as you as you do your research, what is what is the goal of your research of all the different books you've written when you're trying to understand the the delineation between intent and impact, how do you how do you sort of tie those together so that intent does equal positive impact? How do you in an organization? How do you actually manifest this? Well, you know, Scott, there's something that you said there that I think is really important. And I want to, you know, put a big exclamation point after it. You said, you know, people want to do a good job. And I think it's what I have seen in all of my studies. So I've, you know, study leadership and the, you know, workplace leadership and workplace impact. And here's what I've noticed studying some of the best leaders, studying some of the worst leaders, studying leaders who who have a diminishing effect on other people versus leaders who have what I call this multiplying or amplifying effect on other people's capability and intellect and confidence. And what I've learned is that, you know, when people aren't able to contribute at their fullest, they don't extract, describe the experience as easy, a cakewalk, a good gig. They're saying, you know what? It's it's frustrating. It's exhausting to be underutilized. Yet when people describe jobs where they are contributing at their fullest, giving everything they have, working hard, making a difference, they describe those experiences as, you know, hard work, you know, maybe exhausting at times, but totally exhilarating. And what I found is that nobody wants the gig where they're not fully engaged. And, you know, I think the thing I've realized is all around the world, people come to work every single day, desperately wanting to contribute everything that they have. And in essence, what my work is, is trying to help leaders see that and lead in a way that people can contribute fully. And, you know, my latest research is all about understanding the difference between effort and impact and why in a room full of equally smart, talented, capable, hard working people. Some people are stuck going through the motions, like they're putting out the effort and they're doing their job, but they're not really making a difference in their work versus people who aren't working any harder that aren't necessarily any smarter. Not as more capable, but yet their work has huge impact and they're delivering incredible value, they're creating value for the organization, for they're creating value in the market, they're creating incredible value for themselves. Like essentially, I've been trying to understand the difference between the difference maker and the position holder. Understood. And I'm curious because I have opinions from working in large organizations. And I think it's, I think it's hidden more in large organizations. And a small startup, I think that it's very obvious when somebody is just a position holder versus somebody that's actually having impact. But in a large organization, that's probably, that's probably where these individuals are, are lost, right, in an organization where they do want to have an impact, but they don't know how to do it. And they feel like they're this cognizant, enormous machine. And I'm curious about your specific, your experience at Oracle. When you were working at Oracle, did you feel like there was this exact problem? Did you feel like you were having the most impact you could? Was there a route or a pathway for you to do that? Or did you feel like slightly lost at moments? Wow. So Oracle was this amazing place to work. I feel so fortunate that I landed there right out of graduate school. And it was kind of this place where there was nowhere to hide. The company was growing really fast. I think when I joined there were about, oh, I don't know, 2000 people, soon there's 4,000. And then, you know, 8,000 and 16 because they're doubling every year in size. But like, I loved Sunday nights. Sunday nights were like, and tomorrow I get to go back to work. And it was a sense that like, your job mattered. And if you didn't do your job, no one else was going to step in and do it for you. And so you felt like, I mean, it was kind of like you feel like you're, you're sort of on fire. And it was this amazing place where because they were growing really fast, they gave a lot of responsibility to people who were really young. And I felt like every day, like, man, I can't believe they're giving me this job. So, like, as an example, I was 24, 25 when I was asked to build a global training organization for Oracle and go build a corporate university, go build Oracle University. And I'm like 25 years old. And I remember saying to the VP who gave me this charter, I'm like, like, do we like adult supervision here? Are there no grownups who could do this job? Because like, I'm a child still. And I mean, I'm like two years out of graduate school. And I'm like, my only qualification for this job was that I had like recently been at a university. So they're like, well, she must know something about education because she's, and so they give me this job. And I'm kind of, it's sort of like, what the hell kind of moment? And then after you, you kind of pitch a little fit, like, wait a minute, like, I don't know how to do this. Then you, you know, you get about two days in that mode. And then you're like, okay, all eyes are on me. And I guess I better figure this out fast. And you start stepping up. I felt like when at Oracle, I was like working every IQ point, the good Lord gave me. I'm using every ounce of intellect that I have in every ounce of capability and experience. And then like begging for a few more, you know, and building capability. And you're learning on the way too. You're actively figuring stuff out. Yeah. And it was thrilling. And, you know, there's this moment, you know, you asked about sort of these like moments of impact. And some ways for me, like, one of these moments was I've got this big job. I'm like, you know, paddling like crazy, trying to figure out how to do this. And I'm at this, like a cocktail party with a bunch of Oracle execs and customers. And I'm always the most junior person in the room. I'm usually the, the sole female in a group of like executive males. And my boss was introducing me to one of these Oracle clients. And he's like, this is Liz. She runs Oracle University. She's the director of her, Pia, whatever, Oracle University, and the client. It was like a dignified man in his probably 50s. You know, with Graham, he's kind of like, does this flinch? Like, I mean, he does even hold back. He's in shock that this. And Bob, my, my VP, he said, oh, yeah, Liz, is it really particularly qualified for her job? Yeah. And I'm like, okay, great. Her co- cover, you know, an executive air cover. And so now there's a slightly tense moment as Bob is kind of poking fun at me. And I said, well, Bob, who wants a job they're qualified for? Like there'd be nothing to learn. And I think I might have said something sassy or like, right, Bob, shoot me if I ever have a job I'm qualified for. And it was like, he looked at me and said, okay, princess, you know, wish-cranted. And I never ever had a job I was qualified for. And it was thrilling. It was absolutely thrilling. And in fact, a lot of people said, well, why'd you leave Oracle? I had this great job. They paid me well, sweet office. You know, it was, it was a, it was a killer job. And I left. Not because I didn't like it. I left because I finally knew what I was doing. And it felt terrible. Like, I liked working in that space where like, I'm using everything I got. And then some as I'm figuring it out along the way. And I actually think it's the space that people tend to do their best work in. I want to, I want to understand that that type of person that that basically was you operating in Oracle. And that's really, I think, what an impact player is. I think you were that impact player. But then let's dive into that a little bit. But I'm also curious as I sort of listen to this story, I noticed that Oracle was giving you opportunities. But then you were also pushing your own boundaries. So I want to, of course, define what impact players are and how they operate within organizations and how you can be one, how you can find them and all these good things. But ultimately, whose responsibility is it to manifest this kind of environment is because for your specific story, it seemed to be both. It was Oracle giving you the opportunity. It was you being a highly motivated outside the box individual. So when it comes to being an impact player, who do you feel bears the brunt of the responsibility for actually enabling that in a company? Like where is like the preponderance of responsibility? Okay, let me make a case for both. It was funny. I did enter college wanting to be an attorney. I wanted to go to law school because I had this experience. And then I kind of go down that path maybe a class or two. And I realized, I don't really want to be a lawyer. I just was interested because people were suing me and people stopped suing me when I was in the law faded. But like the behavior comes from the individual. The mindset comes from the individual. It's this it's this mindset that says, you know what? I was hired to do a job, but really the way to have impact is not just do the job. It's do the job that needs to be done. It's to see where there are problems or opportunities. It's not to limit yourself. It's not just it's not to think outside of the box as much as it is to work outside of the box. And I think that's why I did well at Oracle is because I didn't say, well, that's not my job. Like that's not what you hired me to do. That's not what's on my business card. If there was something hard and interesting and important, I'm like, I'll do that. That looks like fun. That looks valuable. And you know, and it was actually, okay, there's this other really formative experience. I had it Oracle where, you know, I came into Oracle wanting to teach leadership. You know, I got into grad school and had this kind of like bug put in me to around management and leadership and bad and good leadership. And this is what I wanted to do. And, and I want to share this little experience I had and then go back to. I think it kind of shed some light on this question of whose responsibility is it to, to create impact and to work on what really matters. So anyway, I'm, I'm gunning trying to get like an opportunity inside of Oracle to, to teach leadership. And I took a job at Oracle, you know, as a program manager and education coordinator in a division. There's a reorganization. I have an opportunity down to interview for a new job inside the company. And there's this group that's starting up and they're going to like centralize the training. That's happening in the company and this group runs these new higher boot camps. So, you know, Oracle's hiring programmers and engineers now by the thousands coming in from all the top universities in the country. And I go to interview with this group. And, you know, I do my first second interview. I'm now interviewing with Bob, the guy who threw me under the bus with a customer and told me I was not qualified for this job. So this is way before I had been given this job. I'm interviewing with him. And I answer his questions and then he's like, it's now my turn. And so I'm like, okay, I take charge of this interview. And, you know, again, I'm a little bit of a take charge kind of person. And so I share with him my observation that the company's been growing really fast. There's all of these technologists, programmers and engineers who've been thrown into management. They're wreaking havoc on their teams. They haven't had any management experience, any management training. They've just been tossed into this role. And what Oracle needs is not just a technology boot camp for its new hires. Oracle needs a management boot camp for its new managers. And I kind of make my case. He agrees. Yeah, this is a big problem inside the company. And I'm like, boom, here's my opportunity. You know, Oracle needs a management boot camp. And I would love to help build this. So I make my offer, like, you know, put me in coach. I can do this. And Bob said to me, he said, Liz, we think you're great. We'd love to have you on this team. But your boss has a different problem. She's got to figure out how to get a thousand new college graduates up to speed in Oracle technology over the next year. And what would be great is if you could help her with that. And I'm like, oh, no, we want it to do very, very valid, very valid problem to be solved. But not what you want it to do. It's not the job I wanted at all. But it was the job that needed to be done. And I could hear like Bob never said it. But what I could hear him saying was, Liz, look around you and make yourself useful. Like do point yourself towards the big problems. And I'm like, oh, I wanted to teach leadership like to rising leaders. And now Bob wants me to teach programming to a bunch of nerds. And it's not something I was qualified to do. But I could see that it was important. And so I said, you know what? That's what's important. I want to work on what's important. Like, and what it allowed me to a bunch of amazing things happened as a result of this. It was really kind of this magical moment in my career because I said, okay, I don't want to do that, but I'll do it. And so I, I had to learn to think it worked like a programmer. I mean, like the, the asterisk to this story is, I didn't know how to do that work. And so, you know, I partnered with this amazing young woman, Leslie Stern, who came into the company when I did. And you know, she was a proper programmer. And she's like Liz. And I'm like, Leslie, let's co-teach this. Let's do this together. And I taught her some things about teaching. She taught me how to think like a programmer. And you know, we had a lot of success together doing this. And I think it's why I got tapped to go like lead oracle university is because I had shown that I was willing to work outside of my comfort zone and outside of my interest zone, my outside of the passion zone. See, I think a lot of people, I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode, HubSpot. Now, because at this time of the year, we like to think about new ways to solve problems, right? New year, new you, we like to think creative, innovative, scalable solutions that make our jobs easier in 2023. That's where HubSpot comes in. It's a connected all in one CRM platform that serves as a single source of truth for managing customer relationships across all your teams so that you don't have to worry about the time-sucking management and mind-boggling costs of multiple solutions. Best of all, it's free to get started. Learn how HubSpot can help your business grow better and get a special offer of 20% off on eligible plans at HubSpot.com slash success pod. Outside of every zone, outside of the job description, outside of the interest, outside of the passion, it was almost like it was very much for the greater good mentality. It was in all aspects, right? Well, it was, but it wasn't like I was doing it and sort of sacrificing myself on the altar of greater good. It was, it was a selfish as it was selfless because if someone is telling me, here's what's important and if I want to do well in that system, well, I don't want to be the one who's like, hey, over here, you know what, let's play this game. It's like, actually, no, we're playing soccer right now Liz and, you know, this is the goal that we're shooting at. Now, I'm really good at tennis. You know, you don't want to be that one and I think a lot of people are coming into the workforce sort of raised on, I don't know, I think it's sort of like dubious wisdom that, you know what, hey, follow your passion, which is really good advice when it comes to, I don't know, picking a direction in your career or what organization to work for or what kind of organization to start, but like once you do an organization, you know, you can follow your passion to irrelevance inside that organization and what I learned was like, you know what, figure out what's important and make it important to you. And opportunity after opportunity opens for me and I remember like when the president of Oracle, he's like, ask me, you know, so I'm coming up through like education and learning and development. He's like, Liz, I have this big sales organization that we're like building and I want you to go run it. And I'm like, I don't know what thing about sales. He's like, you'll figure it out. And I didn't take that job, but so many jobs were offered to me because I think I was willing to work where there was heat. And you know, we find that these impact players are sort of heat seeking. They're looking for hot spots, hot topics, hot projects. I don't know, hot takes like, okay, here's an issue. Someone needs to come in and respond to that. So like to answer your question, Scott is, well, whose responsibility is it? Well, I think it kind of has to be this partnership. It's it's, you know, if you want to be an impact player or someone who really makes a difference, you've got to be willing to work on what matters. You've got to be willing to be ranger with your responsibilities. You've got to be kind of courageous. You've got to be able to practice what I call the naive yes, which is to say yes to something you don't yet know how to do, but it's important and it's something you should do. But it also takes leaders, like in this case, mind who says, you know what, here's what's important. Here's where we need you. And you know, leaders who who point out what's hot, you know, who's kind of show people the heat map of the organization. And then leaders who permit, I don't know, the little scrappy path it takes to get good at something you're not yet good at or, you know, to be, I don't know, leaders who allow you to invite yourself to meetings, which most important work I did at Oracle were projects that nobody asked me to do. Actually, it was like me saying, I can do that. Like, I think I can make a difference here. Like, can I join the team? Yeah. Yeah. I want to, I want you to also, so now we've alluded to it. And I think it's very important because you've done the research and you've identified something that I think that everybody who's ever worked in an organization, they can always point to who the impact players are. But it's ultimately very difficult to define them any further than that person is an impact player. That person always seems to be in the right place in the right time in the organization. But what you've done is throughout your research and throughout your career, you've defined the attributes of that particular person. So how do you define an impact player? How can we sort of unpack who that individual is more specifically so we can wrap our minds around it and then, you know, through the lens of a business leader or through the lens of an individual that just wants to be that individual because they know the positive results it can have on their career, there's something more tangible to hold on to and to aspire to. So how do we actually define or how did you really define impact players? What was the research you did? How did you come to the conclusion? What are the traits the habits that they have? Okay. Well, you had me at research and I'll leave nerd out for just go at just as much as you want, nerd as much as you want. And because I think the way that my team and I did this research is important is what we did is I, you know, I never in my research go out and decide like who's a multiplier, who's a diminisher or who's an impact player or not. I asked the people who know and in this case, they're managers. So we went out to nine organizations, all top employers and we interviewed 170 managers inside of those companies and we asked them to identify two types of contributors. One was someone who was smart, capable, hardworking and who was doing fine. And we, you know, I call them ordinary contributors. They're not low performers by any stretch. They're not even really average. They're, they're solid, rock solid contributors. And we said, you know, identify one of those and then identify someone who was, you know, equally smart, capable, hardworking and perhaps no more smart, capable, hardworking who's making a huge impact, delivering work of extraordinary or inordinate kind of value compared to the team. Those are the impact players and then we compared how they think, what they do, the results they have, what they don't do and kind of built this behavior profile. And here's what we found. We found, I guess maybe for starters, the, the impact players, the, the value that they contribute was quantified by these managers as three and a half times greater than the rock solid contributors. Here's what we learned. And maybe I can express it best by first describing how the managers described the rock solid contributors because they said things like these were people who were, you know, smart, they're capable, they did their job, they did their job well, they, they followed direction, they were focused, they took responsibility, they carried their weight on teams. And as I'm looking at that profile of the 170 ordinary contributors, I'm like, wow, that seems pretty good. That, that seems like desirable, what you would want to hire. Maybe the ideal team player. And here's what I began to see as I looked at the contrast to these impact players is that these ordinary contributors were absolutely stellar employees, stellar talent, but they were stellar in ordinary times. And here's the difference. When things started to get ambiguous, chaotic, uncertain, messy, the impact players worked in very, very different ways like where other people would hold back around messy, walk away from messy, leave messy to the higher ups. This is where the impact players stepped in. It was like their playground and their proving ground in some ways. And there were five of these situations that the impact players handled differently. The first is how they deal with messy problems, where the ordinary contributor does their job, like they do their part, the impact players doing the job that needs to be done. They're like, well, that's not my job, but like, you know, there's like cleanup on aisle 12, like let me go there or who there's this new opportunity, I'm going to go work where there's heat. The second is how they deal with unclear roles, where the ordinary contributors, when roles were unclear and we find ourselves in these situations all the time, they would wait for direction, like wait for somebody to put them in charge, wait for somebody to clarify roles. Like I hear this all the time, we can't move forward on this because we're waiting for role clarification. Well, while others are waiting for role clarification or waiting for someone to appoint them, like, okay, no, you're going to lead this. The impact players are just stepping into that space. They step up, they take charge, they offer their leadership, but probably the most important idea is they're not, they're not the kind of leaders who always have to be the leaders. They don't always have to be the boss. They step up and lead, but when they're done, they fall back and they let other people lead. It works a lot like a flock of migrating geese, like they take their turn, leading, but they're willing leaders. The third big differentiators, how they deal with unforeseen obstacles, you know, the kinds of things you can't predict, the kinds of things that are out of your control and they're bigger than you. And when these obstacles drop in our way, the ordinary contributors, you see, they take responsibility, but when things get sort of above their pay grade, they escalate up. They hand off to higher ups, which is what so many large organizations kind of teach people to do. And even small organizations, like, oh yeah, yeah, when it gets really bad, like, that's what the senior leaders are for. In these same cases, the impact players, they just hold on to responsibility all the way to the end. And it's not like they go it alone. It's that they stay, they stay responsible for something. And so instead of like handing to the senior VP or to the founder, they're like, hey, founder or senior VP, like, I need your help clearing this obstacle, but they don't let go of the ownership of that. They finish. And they're going to push that person to finish it or take care of it and they're going to follow up when they haven't heard back from that person in a couple days, right? I know exactly what you're talking about, because I've dealt with people that are not dealt with. That's the wrong word. Work with people had the luxury of working with people that are like this. And something gets passed up to me. And if I don't action it, right? They're on my ass, like, they're like, they're like, they're like, hey, boss, you know what? And it's, and here's the thing that I've learned. So I want to interject in this. We've got two more of these practices. I want to interject. One of the things I've learned studying these impact players and then also asking managers, like, what is it that people do that you love? And what is it people that, too, on your team, that you kind of hate, that you resent, that makes your job hard? And you know, here's the thing I've learned. Bosses don't want to be bossy. It's like managers hate managing people. And when they find someone who is self-managing, even to the point of slightly annoying, as you said, kind of like, they're on my tail, like, but you know, you know that, you know that you actually value it. And the moment you're like, oh, my God, I have a thousand other things to do. But realistically, it's like, thank you for making me, for making me aware of all the things that I really do have to do. And for not letting me sleep on stuff, that's so, that's so important. Like, you need to value those people. Because if not, then as a manager, you get overwhelmed with tasks. And you need somebody to hold, everybody needs somebody to hold them accountable always. So these people, like the management job, you know, in its nag version of the management job, like, okay, let me give people work. Let me follow up. Make sure it gets done. You know, check things off. Like, that's a terrible job. Most people don't want that job of professional, high-paid nag. Like managers want to lead. And here's the thing is like, nobody really wants to be managed anymore. People want to self-direct. And that's essentially what impact players are doing, they are self-managing and self-directing. But it's like, they're working independently of their boss, but they're not working on an independent agenda. So like, magic happens when A you understand the agenda of the organization. Hey, what's important? What's hot here? Well, you know, what's valued? And I work on that agenda, but I do it independently. Oh, well, these are dreams. Like, these are people. Like, yeah, how do I get a whole team of people who can self-direct and self-manage and do it in a way that doesn't, like, leave broken glass in their wake? Well, over some of the items on that list, you mentioned. You just mentioned a list of things that managers like to see. And I think that there was a few items on that list. And I want to actually just put those on the record. Okay, I'm opening up the book. It's in the appendix of the book. And there's 15 on each. I won't share all 15, but do you want to start with what managers hate or with what managers love? Let's see what they hate first. And then we'll finish off on a positive. Sure. So these are, I consider these like credibility killers, like these are a surefire way to infuriate your leaders and to reduce your credibility and reduce your influence. These are influence killers. Number one, give your boss problems without solutions. And of course, you know, sometimes you have to go to your boss and say, okay, I have a big problem here. And I don't know how to fix it. But if that's every conversation, it's a credibility killer. Number two, wait for your boss to tell you what to do. Number three, make your boss chase you down and remind you what to do. Number four, don't worry about the big picture. Just do your piece. Number five, ask your boss about long. Oh, ask your boss about the next promotion or raise number six and long meandering emails and the list continues. But those are kind of six relatively annoying. I mean, like sometimes, like some of those things, do you have a place in the workplace, but I could see a like nonstop about asking about what to do next and not taking initiative and always asking you about the next raise, like those are, those are very stressful things to deal with as a boss. When you have, again, the thousand other things you're trying to deal with on a day to day. It's a time of those conversations. But they're all too standard workplace behavior. And, you know, so much of what organization, bureaucracy and culture gets created to, and, and sent people, encouraged people to work this way or to normal. I guess what I'm saying is I think a lot of organizations have normalized this behavior, either through bureaucracy or through diminishing leaders who are like, oh, no, no, no, you know, you just stay in your box. People have managed you much and not lead basically have also encouraged this. Yeah. And if you manage, and micromanage, of course, and manage too much, you're going to breed a mentality of ordinary contribution, which is I do my job. You know, I, I take responsibility, but when it's tough, I hand up and maybe I'll just round out these last two things. Yeah. You know, the fourth difference was how they deal with moving targets. And the ordinary contributor tends to just keep doing what they were asked to do. You know, like, okay, this was my budget, this was my objective. Whereas when the world is shifting, the impact players are shifting with it. They're, they're adjusting, they're adapting. You know, they're not, they're not asking other people to change like they're changing themselves. Like, okay, I get it. We're going in a different direction. Let me move that way. And the last difference is, you know, well, how we handle these unrelenting demands. And, you know, when, when the workload gets heavy and hard, like ordinary contributors, they tend to look for help. They ask for, you know, more, more resources. And then I'm adding to the burden of already overtaxed leaders. And what we find is that the impact players, they just make work light for everyone. They're easy to work with. They're low maintenance. They don't do a lot of politics and drama. And what they do is they don't engage in the phantom workload, which just allows people to work on their real work. And they also found that they were fun and funny and lighthearted and kind of lighthearted about things that were actually, you know, rather serious. And it's not that they're mocking it. It's they're just not taking themselves too seriously. And they create sort of this light air that allows people to like breathe. And like, they, they just make hard work easier. And, and you know, that's going to, that's one of the things that managers said they love. Let me find it on the list. I was going to say, you know, you mentioned the things that that frustrate managers. But I feel like the things that managers love just also are the, the, the, the, the, the traits of impact players. I feel like most of those things are very easily correlated into the behaviors and habits that good managers and good leaders really do love. Absolutely. And I'll share that list of what managers say they really love. But I think I want to emphasize something you said, Scott, is that managers love these impact players. And they don't treat them like employees. They treat them like peers or even like heroes. And these are people who have incredible respect from their leaders. They keep being given bigger responsibilities. They're the people you trust, like in the critical moments. But they're also beloved broadly in the organization. When I started this research, I thought, oh, yeah, a few of these, I bet these impact players, there's going to be a fair share of like pre-Madonna's, know what all's like, hey, I'm the star of the team. Everyone knows it. I know it. And we couldn't find a single person who worked this way. They were people everyone loved on the team because they were delightful to work with. They got things done. Yeah. So they really are loved. Okay. Scott, are you ready for the list? Let's go. Let's do it. Here are the things that managers love. These are credibility and influence builders. Number one, do things without being asked. Anticipate problems and have a plan to solve them. Number three, help your teammates. Do a little extra. And so they weren't like they were doing this like above and beyond heroic things. It would be like they create, do an analysis. And you know, send it to people and take the time to say, oh, and by the way, you know what, here's an executive summary with like a two-minute overview. Like, oh, thank you. Like, I wasn't expecting that. But it's a little bit extra. Number five, be curious and ask good questions. Number six, ask for feedback. This is like if you want to really increase your impact. Like, ask for feedback before someone has a chance to give it to you. It just makes all of your colleagues like nobody really likes giving feedback. But if you say, hey, you know, what's one thing I could do to improve that presentation? You know, what what what's one thing that would make this report easier to read? Then you're to gathering intel that's allowing you to increase the value of your work. And you're making it so easy for people to direct you to high performance. I love that. Um, we've already we've gone over some, I could honestly, Liz, I could go, we could go for like another hour on this because no, no lie, like candidly, I think we've gone into like the first quarter of the talking points that I had for you. So there's so much good stuff out of this. There's so we're going to have to do another one in the future. Where am I have to be a part two? This is very good. I want to I want to I want to I want to give you just a moment for for some closing thoughts because I don't want to I don't want to dive into a new topic now. I want to give you some, you know, just some closing thoughts on impact players. Some I guess some words of wisdom to give over to the audience where we close out and then and then I have just a question that I ask everyone at the end of every show. But some last words on some of the most important things to take out of your work about impact players, about what they mean for organizations. If you want somebody just take one thing away from this, all the research that you've done, what would that be? Here's what I think is important right now in this moment and time that we find ourselves in, you know, organizations are dealing with burnout. Managers are dealing with burnt out staff members, you know, if you don't feel burnt out, maybe, you know, someone close to you is burnt out. Like we've got this epidemic. People say, I'm working really hard. I'm really tired. And I think it's so easy for us to include to conclude right now that people burn out because they're tired. People burn out because they're working too much. And then we go to solutions like, okay, let's take our foot off the accelerator. Let's do less. And everything in my research, whether it's studying top leaders or studying top contributors, points to a different explanation. Yeah, it's possible to burn out because we're working our workload is too heavy. But more often than not, people burn out not because they have too much work, but because they're having too little impact, meaning like working hard, but actually being intellectually underutilized, working hard, but not making a difference, like working hard, but on things that don't really matter. And I think we should look at burnout through this lens of, you know, people crave impact. People want to be utilized. People want to do a great job. How do we help people not work more? No, but not also work less. How do we help people increase their impact for the time that they're spending working? And I think we will find that that creates energy rather than then takes energy away. And in some ways, for managers, you don't have to change out your team and hire a bunch of impact players. Maybe you just help people understand these distinctions. You know, the difference between, you know, doing your job versus doing the job that needs to be done, et cetera. And maybe you just give people permission to work this way. I think it's how people want to work, but we've learned not to. Very smart. I want to, I want to give the audience the opportunity to go check out everything that you've worked on. All of your, all of the books you've written, all of your social. Where should they go? Oh, to see all the books, I go to the Wiseman Group.com. And I think there's like a, maybe a tab for each of the books or even go to Amazon type in those Wiseman. And there'll be a few things pop up there, including multipliers, working smarts, impact players. Okay, good, perfect. Okay, that's all going to show notes. And then the last question that I ask everyone, obviously you've had an incredible career, both as an executive at Oracle, plus after the factor where you've written tons of books and you've influenced probably hundreds of thousands, not millions of people. After you look at what you've achieved in your career, what does success mean to you? Well, I think success, I mean, one level of success, there's sort of the hygiene factors is that, you know, you have enough resources coming in from your work that you're not constantly worried about work and about life, like that your basics and life are taken care of. Like to me, success is not about being wealthy or rich. It's about, like I have what I need in life. And then what you have what you need is I find joy in my work. And I feel very, very successful because I have what I need. And I find incredible joy. And meaning in the work that I do. And so to me, like that's successful. And I think a lot of people have achieved that but don't think they're successful.