1st Lead U - Leadership Development

A Conversation with Tom von Weisenstein: Leadership and Friendship

• John Ballinger

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John Ballinger:

When you learn to develop yourself, invest in yourself, even sometimes when you don't know you're doing it, and it could be you're watching someone, that you took a little nugget out of them and you took a little nugget out of this person, but it started creating who you are as a leader, to ensure that you're leading your team well. Well, if you don't do that, you're never going to realize your full potential and the people that you've been entrusted to lead are never going to realize their full potential.

Announcer:

Welcome to First Lead you, a podcast dedicated to building leaders, expanding their capacity, improving their self-awareness through emotional intelligence and developing deeper understanding of selfless leadership.

John Ballinger:

Hello America and welcome to First Lead U where we believe selfless leadership is essential. America is suffering a leadership crisis. Self-awareness and emotional intelligence is the key to developing selfless leaders.

Announcer:

Now here is personal growth to developing selfless. Leaders. Now here is personal growth coach, john Ballinger.

John Ballinger:

Welcome leaders. My name's John Ballinger and I am with First Lead Youth, and I'm here with my trusted co-host, mr Douglas Ford.

Douglas Ford:

John, good afternoon. How are you today?

John Ballinger:

I am good. So we're in a bunker. Today we are. We can't say where we're at. It's very important.

Douglas Ford:

We do have a nice view there.

John Ballinger:

We do have a nice view in this bunker and we have a special guest today, and this will be the first time in our third season that we have a special guest that we have no agenda, no timeline, no talking points.

Douglas Ford:

So it's going to be freestyle.

John Ballinger:

Does that scare you?

Douglas Ford:

No, I'm in, Are you? I am.

John Ballinger:

And we did this because this special guest is actually a very special guest. It's not just a like we in the past we've met someone and we call them a special guest is actually a very special guest. It's not just a uh like we in the past we've met someone and we call him a special guest. This, this is a special guest from way back, when you're way back, when my way back. Yeah, um, I go back over 40 years with this young man and um, and I wanted to invite him on to our show for a couple of reasons, and one I don't think, as as people, as a people group, that we do a good job in our fourth quarters of life connecting, reconnecting and looking back to look forward to what that fourth quarter is going to look like and so Tom von Weisenstein is our special guest. Welcome, tom.

Tom von Weisenstein:

It's a pleasure to be here.

Douglas Ford:

Yes, thanks for joining us. Thanks for providing the bunker facility, the bunker facility.

John Ballinger:

We're in, yes, at a location that's to be undetermined. We can't talk about it. But Tom and I went to high school together many years ago, many years ago, yeah, many, many years ago, and we went on a separate trajectory in life and I don't really think we knew we were. We didn't know what our trajectories in life were after we graduated high school. We knew we were, we didn't.

Tom von Weisenstein:

We didn't know what our trajectories in life were after we graduated high school it was separate, but it was the same in a way, I I think that, like most people you know, people peel off out of high school and go to college, or they go into the workforce, or you, you know, they choose something that, although you still have close friends and associates, people just go their own way and you end up what you know, just by the fact of life, losing contact with some of your closest friends that you've spent many years.

John Ballinger:

And I would say that in our time in high school we were close Absolutely and then we all of a sudden weren't Right and then we reconnected.

Tom von Weisenstein:

I think there was some maybe intermingling of conversations, but I want to say it was almost 20 years I agree we may have had some friend of a friend connections where we may have been able to keep tabs on each other a little bit, but but speaking one-on-one it was it was about a 20-year-old.

John Ballinger:

And then we come back after 20 years and this is my perspective of it it's like we hadn't been separated.

Tom von Weisenstein:

Absolutely, and hopefully we can get further into this a little bit. I think that is a sign of true friendship, of many years go by and you kind of pick up right where you left off when you do.

John Ballinger:

Yeah, and so we did. So there we are at our 20 year union where we really reconnected, and we've not disconnected since then. But the reality is of late we have re-reconnected to a point where the trust and the relationship that started 40 years ago has actually matured us and much faster in our fourth quarter of life. And there was this one common thread that we both had. That I didn't realize it until the 20-year reunion and maybe I did and I just didn't remember is that you went in the military.

Tom von Weisenstein:

I did.

John Ballinger:

And so we left, went in the military in different directions and then converged back and realized we'd both been in the military and I thought, well, that's unique. So first of all, tell us we do this with our special guests, tell us about who you are your background a little bit, your family dynamics and things like that, and then we'll move forward with the conversation.

Douglas Ford:

Any interesting details you have about John that we might be able to use in the future.

Tom von Weisenstein:

Well, plenty.

John Ballinger:

They're not supposed to be non-attributional, obviously, but I do have some stories we could probably share about that time and just just so the audience knows, this will be a little bit longer episode intentionally, because this is a special guest and it's one that I want inside the first lead you podcast. So just uh, just a warning this this is going to be a longer podcast than normal, but uh, go ahead and tell us about yourself, mr Von Weisenstein.

Tom von Weisenstein:

Okay, I've been introduced.

Tom von Weisenstein:

My name is Tom Von Weisenstein and I grew up through elementary, middle school in Knoxville, tennessee, and went to Farragut High School where in I guess maybe our junior, sophomore or junior year, we connected together like John and I did, through some common courses that we had and became fast friends and we had a small circle of friends that we built together at the time that I mean we just we spent numerous hours together after school, during the week, on the weekends, the whole bit it was.

Tom von Weisenstein:

I look back on those years now, so many years ago, with great fondness and think about how those relationships and friendships that were built then, how grateful I am to continue to have had those built upon over the years. I'm fortunate in that I was able to serve my country out of college and serve almost 30 years in the United States Army and I don't regret a minute of it. It was a great experience for myself and my family. I have a wife and one son. He's finishing up his senior year in college now. So you know, when I look back on, you know those years, I really feel like a lifetime of service to our country is something that was really important to me and I know that through the time that we have reconnected, that that also has been very important to John as well.

John Ballinger:

Yeah, it has, and let me tell you Tom and I were talking today and I was talking about leadership and you know leadership is a topic I like to talk about.

John Ballinger:

I don't know if you realize that, but there's a story that the audience has heard me tell many times about different types of leaders.

John Ballinger:

The story I was telling Tom today was about the Dwight Eisenhower George Patton story in World War II and just to give the audience a glimpse, an example of the type of leader Tom is, I would refer to Tom as a Dwight Eisenhower type of leader Very thoughtful, strategic, uh, communicates well and I I affirm that in him. But I also know that I'm a different type of leader and I probably fall more into falling more to that george pat type of leader. And both are needed and and both care and both want the best for their team members. And if you read the history of the two generals, they had a storied relationship with each other for many years and there was a healthy respect, even though there were some times that Eisenhower, I'm sure, rolled his eyes at Patton eisenhower, I'm sure rolled his eyes at pat and interestingly though, to your point, both of those generals build critical roles in the overall success of the united states military winning in world war ii absolutely, absolutely so.

John Ballinger:

So we've got tom von Weisenstein going back 40 years plus, and now here we are in the bunker doing a podcast about leadership and our life, and I I told you uh, as we were preparing for this, I said you've got to tell me that one thing. And I'm going to tell you the one thing that comes to my mind, going way back when, about that just it's, it's almost like seared in my mind about us in high school and I said you got to do the same thing. So we're gonna take a break and come back, or you want to just keep rolling? How do you want to do it, mr board?

Douglas Ford:

yeah, let's just keep going, let's get through the story and we'll come back with some good stuff.

John Ballinger:

All right, so I'll go first. So one of the the fondest memories I have um the car that I had, uh, first in high school was a 76 Toyota Corolla station wagon and it was red and I how many people would we fit in that car?

Tom von Weisenstein:

Safe Yay.

John Ballinger:

There was at one point. I don't know if you remember there was one point we were heading to an event and you couldn't see windows in that car for people and we had a blowout you talking about. I know why we had a blowout. Those were 13 inch tires and that car was absolutely overloaded and I was gassed down on that thing and it was screaming and I don't know how that car survived. I really don't.

John Ballinger:

But that is one memory that stuck in my head that I'm like I will never forget. But what happened and so this is the memory with Tom and I, because this was a group of people is I remember when Tom got his Z-28. The next thing I know, we're down at UT on the strip, here's two high school guys and amongst all these college girls and guys and we're down there with ZZ top, t tops out, by the way, there's T tops are out and we are sharp dress man cranked all the way up and that's easy top. That that's a, the font. That is a fond memory that I had and we would spend hours going up and down the strip and that Z 28.

Tom von Weisenstein:

Oh, we would burn a tank of gas All that we ate on a Friday night.

John Ballinger:

We would, it was. But you know looking back how many conversations, how many things that we did in that car on Friday going up and down the strip, I mean that was really. That was a bonding time for us, it really was. So that's mine, I love it. That's a bonding time for us, it really was.

Tom von Weisenstein:

So that's mine. I love it. That's a fantastic story, yeah, I think the best one. I've been thinking about this, and I love telling the story, and somewhere in my archives I actually have a photograph back that's up.

Tom von Weisenstein:

I could not find it to show John this weekend when we were getting together, to show John this weekend when we were getting together, but one of the things that we, as two guys that were friends in high school, used to do was, on a Friday, we would get out of school and then we would go work out, and there was a gym in Knoxville that we would go work out in, that we'd finish up, and then we would head to dinner, and there was a favorite cafeteria in Knoxville that we would go to habitually, that by far we were the youngest people in there, by maybe 30 or 40 at the time.

Tom von Weisenstein:

We loved it, though, and I think our fellow dining companions loved it as well, after dinner. This particular story, though, takes me to Westtown Mall, which is, at the time, the preeminent mall in Knoxville, tennessee, and this was in December. And this was in December, and John and I went inside, and we decided we were going to get our picture made sitting on Santa Claus' knee, and so I do have this picture that shows me on one knee, john on the other, sitting there with Santa Claus, with our arms crossed and our legs crossed.

John Ballinger:

I'm starting to remember that that is wild.

Tom von Weisenstein:

And it goes on and on from there. But the lead-in to that of going to work out and going to the cafeteria, that was a pretty standard routine we had for that year.

John Ballinger:

And we were an odd couple of young guys that were out in this well-established cafeteria, for sure so y'all were the odd couple you? Yes, yeah, there was. It was a gray-haired place, but it was great food.

Tom von Weisenstein:

It was great food they had a great and a fantastic variety of choices to choose from.

John Ballinger:

Yeah, that is a man. Wow, we're talking about a way back, and I started remembering that picture and I'm thinking I had blue jeans on. Did I? You did Wow, as did I Wow. That's awesome.

Tom von Weisenstein:

What a great story. We're going to take a break and we'll come back and we're going to do some more memory lane and get into leadership.

Douglas Ford:

Hello First League Youth listeners, douglas Ford here. I want to take just a few seconds during this break to say thank you for spending a few moments with us as we discuss the challenges and opportunities of being a leader. We hope that in every episode you find some bit of information that will help you on your own personal leadership journey. In order to reach more people and to improve our positioning on all the podcasting and social media platforms, it's important that you subscribe to our podcast on your favorite podcasting platform, like Apple, spotify or any other platform where you listen to First Lead you. We would really appreciate you clicking on the subscribe button to help us reach more people and expand the message of First Lead you, and please take time to visit the First Lead you website. That's the number one S-T, the word lead and the letter Ucom. S-t, the word lead and the letter Ucom Firstleadyoucom. Number one. S-t the word lead and the letter Ucom. I hope you have a great day as you continue to learn to Firstly you.

Douglas Ford:

Today we are here with a special guest, tom VanWisenstein. Thank you for being here, and we have been hearing some memories, some recounting of history between John and Tom, and one of the things that they did have in common that we have already discovered is they both went in the military, but they took different paths and didn't necessarily know that the other one had gone into the military. And so a question I have that you guys can probably talk a little bit about. Obviously, we want to talk about leadership, but what did leadership look like when you entered the military, versus what it might look like today?

John Ballinger:

I think for me when I entered the military I came into because I was different. Tom went ROTC, if I'm thinking correctly, so you commissioned as an officer, I went in as enlisted and so military for me was a shock when I went in from a leadership standpoint. I don't think I was prepared for the intense screaming and yelling and the breaking down piece of it for the first two weeks of base training what they call the red face. But I quickly learned that Drill Sergeant Byrd, who I refer to quite frequently, was one of the two most impactful people in my professional and military career Because he showed me what it was like to care that I was broken down properly within the limits that he pushed me to, but was also rebuilt back so I could effectively be a good leader. And my opinion is I don't think we do as good a job or maybe we're not allowed to do as good a job of doing that in today's military as was done back in the 80s.

Tom von Weisenstein:

I would agree with that.

Tom von Weisenstein:

My experience commissioned at the University of Tennessee and I think that after coming into the military now as a commissioned second lieutenant, I was a non-prior service so I did not have prior military time before I was commissioned.

Tom von Weisenstein:

So this was my first run in the military and one of the biggest, most impactful things for me was my very first platoon sergeant that I had. So this would have been the late 1980s, when we still had Vietnam vets actively serving, and that was certainly a different culture, mindset, viewpoint on leadership and not only my interaction with him as a vet but how he approached working with the soldiers in our platoon. I don't think that that type of leadership style is with us today, because not that we don't have. Obviously we've been through many engagements and wars since Vietnam, but the approach to leadership has certainly evolved from a more, very directive, harder style that I experienced with him at that time. Versus today, that is not so much so. It's more about building more of a teamwork mentality than a you're going to do what I tell you to do kind of thing.

John Ballinger:

Did you rely heavily on your NCOs when you were first doing that?

Tom von Weisenstein:

I did, I did. I think I would have starved to death on my first field exercise without my seniority.

John Ballinger:

Really.

Tom von Weisenstein:

Absolutely, because coming out of ROTC you know it was your packing list and if you're going to eat, you're going to eat what the Army fed you. And so I just didn't show up with the gear I was issued and it became quickly apparent to me that I was not as adequately prepared to have extra things with me, that my senior NCOs had to ensure that I was well nourished through a field exercise, and what gear was important to have with me and what wasn't, and how to adjust and pivot and make do with what you got. That was impressed upon me. That that was within the first 90 days after I got my commission with that first field. So it was a way. It was definitely a uh shaping event fast forward in your career.

John Ballinger:

What took place then? So you're, you're getting acclimated to the military.

Tom von Weisenstein:

Right, I'm getting acclimated to the military and you know, at the time you know a lot of things were going on in the world.

Tom von Weisenstein:

The Berlin Wall came down shortly after I was commissioned and so that reshaped you know what the military was going to focus on and what we were busy with and I had the opportunity. My initial service was in the National Guard, coming out of University of Tennessee, but I had the opportunity in the mid-90s to go to work at the National Guard Bureau in Arlington, Virginia, and, subsequent to that, additional years of service up there and additionally at the Pentagon Through 9-11, really, I was back and forth between the National Guard Bureau and the Pentagon up through the mid-90s. Subsequent to that, I had the opportunity to deploy overseas to Afghanistan. I returned to Tennessee for career developmental positions, command positions, key leadership roles that are more based on operational MTO unit types of assignments rather than working on staff MTO unit types of assignments rather than working on staff On into battalion command and on to senior service college and finally being able to culminate in the headquarters of the Tennessee National Guard in 2018. That's when I retired.

John Ballinger:

So you retired as a Colonel. So that's another thing, tom. Because I went in and I was a crusty old enlisted guy who became a warrant officer and I said, do you think less of me with my journey and what I did? Because he obviously advanced from a rank structure standpoint far greater in rank than I did. I said, do you think less of me? And your comment was Absolutely not.

John Ballinger:

Because I think we both know, with our styles of leadership and what we did, that the military needs all types.

John Ballinger:

And I fit the military again with the ASVAB test and what you?

John Ballinger:

They put me where I was best suited at and it actually made me a better leader, a better person, because the military put me where I needed to be at. They put you where you need to be at and you were able to flourish with it and help. And one of the things since we've been in the bunker for the last day or so we realized, I realized just going, just doing some mental gymnastics with Tom, because he would get to the point like what else are you going to ask me? Like here's another psychological question where you're rooting around in my head, but what I was getting at and ultimately I think it was about finding 1 o'clock last night there was this determination that Tom didn't realize and maybe he did, he just didn't want to say it that he was born to be a leader. And that's kind of weird when you're a military person that still to this day, when somebody says thank you for your service, I still cringe a little bit. I don't know if that's….

Tom von Weisenstein:

I do you know it's.

Tom von Weisenstein:

thank you for supporting me in my service is usually how I address those comments when they're given to me it's thank you, I could not have done it without your support as well. I have always felt I was kind of destined for public service in some form or fashion. Even back in the high school days I was really focused on military service and pursued that through the university and went on to commission, as I stated before, because I do believe in public service and I felt like that military experience was the best way for me to give back my country.

John Ballinger:

So you find yourself getting ready to retire. You start looking back now at the amount of people that you affected their life.

Tom von Weisenstein:

This is really where your personal scorecard comes through on whether you felt like you successfully influenced or left a positive mark on those that you served with or were on your team throughout the years.

Tom von Weisenstein:

And I'm filled with gratitude because now I can look back and see that when I was a battalion commander, one of the captains that got promoted to major at the time that served on my staff is now a one-star general and I'd look back on that. Well, hopefully I had a little influence on him. That you know was a growing opportunity for him to move on and be as successful as he is again. Other others that I that I served with have moved on into senior positions brigade commanders, et cetera and I always kind of think, gee, I hope I left, I hope I contributed to that effort for this person's success in some form or form. And when you see those that I think you see those that when they are successful, I believe you can take some solace in that and say, well, okay, maybe that's my personal scorecards filled out pretty good on that as a leader, yeah. And leaders.

John Ballinger:

As you listen to Tom talk about that you've heard me talk about it when you learn to develop yourself, invest in yourself, even sometimes when you don't know you're doing it, and it could be you're watching someone that you took a little nugget out of it and you took a little nugget out of this person, but it started creating who you are as a leader, to ensure that you're leading your team well. If you don't do that, you're never going to realize your full potential and the people that you've been entrusted to lead are never going to realize their full potential. There's going to be something what they call it in football or baseball you're going to leave something on the field, and that piece that you left on the field could be the difference in that person's trajectory moving forward and your trajectory moving forward as well, Because I've always said you invest, invest in others.

Douglas Ford:

They actually invest in you and it allows you to grow. Yeah, I think you mentioned something really important there, john. Uh, and we even talked about this was when we had sam guthrie on the podcast about watching and doing like sam's also a natural born leader. I mean his think about his progress in the military and how he moved up in rank and he was at the pentagon he was actually there during 9-11 and but he talked about like part of his learning was I would watch people and I would take that little piece from them, and I think sometimes maybe we do that unintentionally. You're just like oh, I'm going to grab that little piece.

Douglas Ford:

In marketing, we call that a swipe file, where we grab what somebody else is doing and we're like we're going to use that at some point. We don't know when we're going to use it, but we're going to take that, we're going to put it away and then bring it back and then, as the situation presents itself, you mimic that until it starts to become internal and you're using that, and so it was very interesting to hear kind of all three of you talk about the idea like you're, even though you were obviously in that L category born leaders, you still need to observe. Some people Like how do I refine some of the natural instincts I have? How do I refine those so they're actually useful for other people?

John Ballinger:

Yeah, there's a meme that was going around Facebook for a little while where there's an adult man that's handing blocks of himself to his son and he's taking this block out and the son's becoming a person off of the blocks that the dad's removing himself. And I see that picture and I think not only should we be doing that for our children, we should be doing that for the people that we're leading. We shouldn't just take what we've developed ourselves people have developed in us what we've learned and just die with that. We should take those blocks and hand it off to somebody else.

Tom von Weisenstein:

Absolutely. You know we we've talked a lot this weekend about you know our leaders born that way, or are they taught? Are they and they be self-taught or does it have to be organic, like some people are just born leaders? We mentioned Eisenhower. I don't think any either.

Tom von Weisenstein:

One of those two learned their leadership through reading a book.

Tom von Weisenstein:

I think it was baked in.

Tom von Weisenstein:

It was their life experiences and dedicated hard work made them the successful generals that they were, both in their own unique ways, like you highlight and I think about that today and that the military is like the business world, in the sense of you're going to get the experience and the training to do your job, but you may not get the experience and the training how to effectively lead others to accomplish the mission or accomplish the business model that your organization is supporting, and so some of that I think you can work hard on.

Tom von Weisenstein:

Look to building your own network of mentors and leaders that you can surround yourself with to be successful in those efforts. But there has to be an element of it where it's organic your style on how you interact with people, how you value people, how you look at them and you, in some cases, like family, you have to keep the professional separation, obviously, but that doesn't mean you don't value them as human beings and be concerned and empathetic about things that are going on in their lives. Things that are going on in their life. And all of a sudden, over time, you'll find that those employees, soldiers, airmen, whatever the case may be all of a sudden you will receive the same empathy from them when things may not be going well for you and your career in your life. And I think that's one of the. That's one of those little check marks and one of those little signs that says I got a pretty good thing going on here with organization.

John Ballinger:

Yeah, We'll wrap up. I was, uh, I didn't think about this when we were talking and Tom said something to the fact that he thinks my Rolodex is one of the most important things that I've acquired in overtime especially military and I think about that sometimes, but I don't think I think enough about that enough. But then Douglas said or one of the two of you said, but yeah, you're in somebody else's and I think you know what A leader should always want to be in somebody's Rolodex, to be the person that that person calls because they need. If this is what I need, this is the person I know I could trust, that has the information I need in order to help me through this situation. And that made me think about really telling the leaders out there learn to create a Rolodex and learn to be in someone else's Rolodex, because that's important for you as a leader.

Tom von Weisenstein:

I love thinking about the I know a guy scenario and I feel like we should spend a little more time on that.

John Ballinger:

Yeah, time on that. Yeah, um, this is a this, this person that's, uh, I'm going to talk about. Probably he listens to the podcast, so he'll know that I'm I'm saying this, but the other day, um, I was sitting in a place waiting on this gentleman to get here, and this gentleman's, um, he's, he's quite a bit older than me, but I have been working alongside him and with him for close to 15 years and I have taken him through a myriad of business, personal, legal, financial issues over that time. And he walked into the restaurant that we were meeting at and he told the hostess. He said I'm here to meet the Godfather and she walks toward the table, looking at me and says, oh, the Godfather's back here Now. Keep in mind, this guy's older than I am and he sits down at the table and he said I finally figured out what you are in my life. He said you're like a Godfather. I come to you when I need things done and I want to make sure that I'm not harmed. And I thought wow that's not something.

John Ballinger:

I wasn't expecting that at all, especially from somebody that's my senior. And then we start talking about the times over those years that he's called and needed something and I was his Rolodex call for the specific thing, and that's that's the most recent memory that I have of somebody saying Rolodex.

Tom von Weisenstein:

Absolutely, and you know my my personal anecdote or I know a guy or a Rolodex person is when I would, over the course of my both my personal and professional life, finding those that you feel like you can use as sounding boards or reach out to for an opinion on something you get a hint like I'm really not sure what to do. The beauty of that in the world of providing sound guidance and leadership, is those people will not tell you what to do. They won't give you the answer to whatever the solution is to the question or the issue you may be working on, but they're going to allow you to talk it out with them and provide feedback and all of a sudden, you're going to realize you knew the answer all along. You were just looking for a check on that through one of your trusted mentors or friends.

Tom von Weisenstein:

That, okay, I was probably right all along. I just needed to talk this out with somebody, and I believe that we all need that. We need those connections in our personal and professional lives to handle the trials of the day or whatever is going on in your life that you might be unsure about, that you have a cohort or a group of people that you surround yourself with that. You may not talk to them once a week, once a month, once a year, but they're there, at your disposal to be able to reach out. You know how to get them, yes there's, there's there, absolutely.

John Ballinger:

you need that type of person in your life, a group of people in your life and we talk about during a risk assessment, having six professionals that are extremely important to your business and having a relationship with them, where, at least once a year, with those professionals that are being paid by you and their companies, to sit down and say, all right, what's next year, what did this year look like, what does next year look like? And let's do some three-year projections with all the professionals that are looking from a legal, financial risk real estate, banking, accounting standpoint, so that you're moving forward. And it was odd to me because in the military, when you go get a plan together, you got S1, s2, and there's communication and everybody knows who's moving where. And on the civilian side, in business, rarely did I see the professionals that operate on behalf of a business owner ever meet or talk to each other.

John Ballinger:

I'm like, well, that's weird. I'm like, well, that's weird. How do they know what's going on and the cause and effect of if this doesn't happen, it's going to impact and you're going to have to call an attorney and pay that attorney to get you out of a ditch because there wasn't some thought put into it and so this lawsuit was created, or it's going to cost the company money because there wasn't an insurance policy to pay for X. That happened. So now I've got to go to the accountant and say I need to dip into operating capital to pay this X. So we've made a point on the risk assessment side to ensure that we got these people in the room and talk to them. It's odd how awkward they are when they first get in the room because they're like what are we all doing here? Like we're getting called to the principal principal's office.

Tom von Weisenstein:

but it's necessary in those particular scenarios that you just described, you feel like that lack of cross-talk and cohesion is a factor of culture, confidence, insecurity. What do you attribute that?

John Ballinger:

All above, I think there is a Douglas has been in the room and kind of what the accountant thought from what the legal person thought or the financial person thought. Ultimately, at the end of it we came up with a plan to go forward. Now it took a little bit and it took some discussion, but it became conversational. And then it become very comfortable and then everybody's leaving slapping each other on the back. But somebody has to start that conversation, Otherwise you'll keep separated and you won't have that cohesion that you needed in the unit.

Tom von Weisenstein:

Trust is a big thing, huge, and not only trust in your superior, your peers, your subordinates. It has to be both directions and what that creates is an environment to where you're not afraid to make a mistake. If there is a high level of trust in the organization because you're comfortable in your surroundings to not be hesitant to say things that are on your mind.

Douglas Ford:

Right.

Tom von Weisenstein:

Yeah.

Douglas Ford:

Yeah, we actually recommend a book that's called the speed of trust Steven and Mark Covey, who's Steven Covey's son. He wrote seven habits of highly effective people and I mean that's the whole book and it talks about trust in the organization. It talks about trust of yourself, trust of the relationships that you have, and there are several places within the book where you basically assess yourself, you assess your organization, you assess your team as to how much trust is going on in the organization, and that if you don't have trust among your team that you actually pay he calls it a trust tax and so your productivity actually pay. He calls it a trust tax and so your productivity slows down, your expenses go up, and if, on the other hand, if you have a high level of trust, your productivity goes up, your expenses go down and you work much more efficiently as a team. But you're absolutely right, trust is the key to all relationships and the more trust you have with the your team that you work with on a daily basis, the more effective that team is going to be.

John Ballinger:

Yeah. So in closing, with the Rolodex, again, find your people, create trust Even when there are mistakes. When trust is there, you you know it's not intentional. It was purely something that happened because when trust there, you can actually get through it quickly and continue moving forward. Otherwise, if the trust isn't there, it creates a cancer inside the relationships and it'll actually be detrimental to you, the team and the organization. Tom, thanks for being with us.

Tom von Weisenstein:

Thank you for having me.

John Ballinger:

It's been a great experience douglas, thank you for operating this new board yeah, there's a lot going on over here there is. I'm watching you over there, I'm like good gracious. He's just digits and colors and things all over the place. Uh, so thank and. And this was the first use, so I mean he was flying by the seat of his pants on this one. So great job on the new board. And uh and and remember leaders in order to lead your team, well, you must first lead you. Thanks everyone. Guitar solo.

Tom von Weisenstein:

We'll see you next time. Bye.

People on this episode

Contributor

John Ballinger

Host
Contributor

Douglas Ford

Co-host