Transcript: Keys for Developing Emerging Leaders // Clay Scroggins

The Flourishing Culture Podcast Series

Keys for Developing Emerging Leaders
June 6, 2022

Clay Scroggins

Intro: How is your organization developing emerging leaders? We believe a key role for every leader is to develop the next generation of emerging leaders. And today we talk with an author and leader, Clay Scroggins, about the keys to emerging-leader development.

Al Lopus: Hi, I'm Al Lopus, and you're listening to the Flourishing Culture Podcast, where we help you create a flourishing workplace. The problem employers are facing today is that more of our employees are quitting than ever before. Some people are calling this the great resignation. And now with millions of open jobs, how can churches, Christian non-profits, and Christian-owned businesses face this tidal wave of resignations while attracting new, outstanding talent? And we know that having a flourishing workplace with fully engaged employees is the solution. I'll be your guide today as we talk with a thought leader about key steps that you can take to create a flourishing workplace culture.

So, now let's meet today's special guest.

We see the world is changing rapidly and that what worked in the past may not work in the future. But what are the skills and qualities that emerging leaders need so that they can lead into the future? And this podcast will have clear takeaways for those who are stepping up and being inspiring leaders. And those of us who are equipping and clearing the way for new leaders will also have an opportunity to learn and grow from our discussion today.

Well, I'm delighted to welcome Clay Scroggins, the author of several books, and his latest book is The Aspiring Leader’s Guide to the Future. Clay has a strong background in leadership development and a very special focus on emerging leaders. He served with Andy Stanley in the North Point Ministries in Atlanta for 20 years. So Clay, welcome to the Flourishing Culture Podcast.

Clay Scroggins: Al, thanks for having me. Thanks for giving me the opportunity. Thanks for taking your spotlight and shining a little bit of the time, energy, and platform you have on what I'm doing. I'm really grateful. Thank you.

Al: Well, Clay, this is really going to be a great conversation, I know, just as I've listened to you on podcasts in the past, and you've written just important books. But, you know, let's start off maybe a little bit on the humorous side. You know, we're going to dive into a serious topic of leadership for aspiring leaders. But I also noticed on your Twitter profile descriptor that you've got leadership content for truckers. Twenty years working in the church, and here you are, you've got leadership content for truckers. So help me understand what you mean by this.

Clay: Okay.

Al: I mean, are you a Grateful Dead fan, keep on truckin’? What's this leadership content for truckers?

Clay: I don't think I knew that I'd put that on there. But here's the story behind that. So I've got great relationships at Choice Books and Gifts. They do all of these spindles and airport bookstores.

Al: Oh. Yeah.

Clay: So 2017, I released a book called How to Lead When You're Not In Charge, and they loved that book, and I loved them. It was a great relationship. So it was in airports all over United States. I had friends all the time texting me pictures. “I'm in Minneapolis.” “I'm in Charlotte.” “I'm in Phoenix.” And they’d send me pictures of those little spindles.

Well, after a while, I didn't even know this, but Choice also, they put a lot of those spindles in grocery stores, and then they put a lot in truck stops as well. So after about six months of the book being out, I guess they felt like, well, it's doing okay in airports; let's see how it does in truck stops. So eventually, I started getting pictures from my friends. “I'm at the Petro truck stop in Topeka, Kansas, and your book’s here. Amazing.” You know, as flattered as I was by the airport, I got to admit, the truck-stop thing wasn't quite as flattering. And I am pro truckers. They're a lifeblood for our country. They deliver our goods to us. But I just never thought, wow, I guess someone thought this leadership content is appropriate for truckers. And so they started putting it in truck stops. So I do jokingly use that in any conversation I ever have from here on out with publishers is I was like, “Let me tell you. You want to know who I am? I write leadership content for truck drivers. That's what I do.”

But what I mean, really, by it is that I do feel like—Howard Hendricks was a professor of mine from Dallas Theological Seminary, and he used to say, “Students, remember that Jesus said, feed My sheep, not My giraffes. So make sure to keep it on the lower shelf.” But he was always real passionate about making sure that when you're preaching that you keep things down on the lower shelf for people.

So I do feel like one of the things I've been able to do is take, hopefully, you know, maybe sometimes complicated or lofty leadership principles that we think are for the CEO, and say, no, no, no, no, no. How do these apply to the person that feels stuck in the middle of the organization? How do we keep these on the lower shelf?

Al: Yeah.

Clay: So maybe that's what I mean by leadership content for truckers.

Al: There you go, okay. Well, that’s clear. That's fantastic.

Well, so, you know, Clay, at BCWI we identify inspirational leadership as one of the keys to a flourishing workplace culture. And the qualities of such leadership include compassion, humility, transparency, even the fruit of the Spirit. You know, you hit on these qualities when you discuss self-awareness as a leader. And why, in your mind, is self-awareness so important for those who want to lead into the future?

Clay: What a great place to start, Al, because it does—it feels so elementary. I've talked a lot about self-awareness in different environments, different organizations, as you have as well. And, you know, at first, when people first hear it, they think, well, of course I'm self-aware. I think I heard this from Pete Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Leader, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality. He says that most, you know, we're all probably, you know, maybe 40% aware that we're all less aware than we think we are. Self-awareness is the foundation upon which every virtue is built. So you can't be humble if you're not aware. You can't be transparent if you're not aware. You can't be selfless if you're not aware. I really think it's the beginning of, you know, at least from Daniel Goleman, who I think is kind of the godfather of emotional intelligence—

Al: Yep.

Clay: —you know, the idea of EQ. I mean, it is the thing that’s standing between you and where you want to be as a leader. Every one of us, our greatest area of growth, is probably around our inward health, and the first place that starts is with self-awareness, of being able to identify and recognize what I'm feeling so that I'm not whipped around by those feelings, so that I can be more empathetic toward other people, so that I can be more present with other people. I mean, in the last two years alone, just with the challenges that we faced in our world, we have seen such a great need for emotionally healthy, emotionally intelligent, emotionally aware leaders. So, yeah, I think it is the place to start when you talk about, how do we help people develop and grow as leaders?

Al: Well, and you mentioned the foundation of every virtue is self-awareness. That's striking. Yeah. So the place to start.

Well, being willing to admit that you don't know is a leadership quality you discuss in your book.

Clay: Yeah.

Al: So why is it so important for leaders? And what are some practical ways that someone can commit to being a lifelong learner?

Clay: In the book that I wrote, The Aspiring Leader’s Guide to the Future, the subtitle I think is—I don’t have it sitting in front of me—but it's 9 Surprising Ways Leadership is Changing, I think is what it is. But you know, I was trying to tease out, all right, we all know leadership is changing. That's obvious. But the question is, how is it changing? And so the first place I started was with this simple concept that there was a day when if somebody said, “All right, go. Define leader. Tell me what a leader looks like. Tell me what a leader is.” The first few words we would have used, we would have used the words competent, confident, knowledgeable.

Al: Mm-hmm.

Clay: That's what we think of when it comes to leadership. But as I was trying to think through, “Okay, how has that changed?” it's so obvious that one of the ways it's changed is the rapid growth of information, the rapid evolution of technology, the rapid changes and updates, the constant changes and updates that are happening in the world. It’s leaving us forever stuck in a noob state. Do you know the term noob, Al? It's a video-gaming term.

Al: Oh.

Clay: This is what they—if you play a lot of video games, and you're new at it or you do something that, you know, only a rookie would do—

Al: Yeah.

Clay: —they call you a noob.

Al: Yeah.

Clay: It's kind of derogatory.

Al: A newbie, yeah, right.

Clay: Yeah, a newbie. Yeah, yeah.

Al: Right, uh-huh.

Clay: It's short form for newbie, sure.

Al: Short for newbie.

Clay: Yeah, exactly.

So, there's a quote that I use in this chapter on, hey, if one of the significant changes in leadership is that you just can't know everything, and if you're waiting on knowing enough in order to lead, then you're wasting your time because you're never going to know enough to feel like a leader. But I use this quote by Kevin Kelly, who I think is the, I believe his latest title was the editor of Wired magazine. He wrote a book, The 12 Most Significant Technological Changes that We Need to be Paying Attention To. And he talks about just this rapid growth of technology, and he talks about how we are all going to be forever stuck in the noob state, that it’s one of the implications of how much technology is updating and changing and evolving, how much information is being created, that we're going to always be stuck in this noob state. But if you feel like, well, there's just, there's something I don't understand or something I don't get or something I don't know, and I guess I'll just wait until I can learn it. You know, maybe it's “Until I can explain the blockchain, I just can't be a leader of the future,” right? or “Until I can explain to someone what a Real is on Instagram,” or “Until I can explain complicated finance to someone, I just am not ready to be a leader yet,” it’s just not true, that you're never going to be able to know enough to feel like a leader. And that's never—I don't think that's ever going to change. I think that has changed significantly, but it's not going away.

I mean, we have to adapt to this new mindset. And the easiest way to do it, as you mentioned, is to just use these words, to have them on ready, to be willing to say, “Hey, I don't know. I do not know the answer to that, and I'm not going to let that disqualify me as a leader, but I'm actually going to frequently use that,” because when you don't use it, you become a poser.

Al: Yeah.

Clay: You become fake. You become inauthentic, which is significantly important in these years and certainly in the future. But also, what it's doing is it's inviting others in to say, “Hey, bring your strengths. I'm admitting to my weaknesses, and I'm inviting you to bring your strengths,” which is one of the greatest invitations that leaders give is the invitation they give to others to say, “Hey, we're working on something big, and I'm inviting you into it.” And those words, “I don't know,” I think they form what becomes an invitation for other people.

So the idea was that, listen, if we're going to be leaders of the future, we've got to be willing to admit what we don't know, to admit when we don't know it, and to be willing to use those words, “Hey, I don't know.”

Al: Yeah. And that takes humility, doesn't it, Clay? And also, I mean, as I think about the noob, you know, being the noob, we shouldn't be paralyzed by that, should we? I mean, as leaders we can't be paralyzed.

Clay: Correct.

Al: So we don't know, well, okay. But how do we move forward? You know, God wants us to move forward, so how do we move forward? And through humility. And I love your point of inviting others, you know. So I might not know everything, but together, as I say frequently, we can do more together than we can alone. And that's a sense of community as well.

Well, while we know there certainly will be failures on our journey, especially because things are changing so quickly, sometimes we're tempted to move quickly past some of these experiences. And why do you need to examine our failures? You've talked about that in the book. Why do we need to examine our failures to get over the fear of failure in order to grow and learn as a leader?

Clay: I hate being a failure, so let me start by saying that.

Al: Yeah. Well, being—

Clay: This is, you know, I'm probably not alone in that.

Al: Fear of failure is, you know the Enneagram and the Enneagram three, and a lot of leaders are Enneagram threes—

Clay: Sure.

Al: —and so fear of failure just paralyzes many of us, doesn't it? I mean, yeah.

Clay: Yes. This is one of those, you know, I feel like of the nine—these are nine that I wrote about. I mean, there's hundreds of ways that leadership is changing.

Al: Mm-hmm.

Clay: But the ones that I wrote about, I would say, you know, there's probably half of them that these are not new concepts. I think about half of them are probably things that might not have been true ten years ago that are true now and will be even more true in the future. But there are a few of them that I would certainly say, hey, this has always been true, but because of the way the world is changing, this is going to be even more true. And I think this is one of those. Again, this form of leadership that probably it's the form of leadership that my parents grew up with or that they probably sought after or were calibrated to, I think that's one of the things we all have to pay attention to. We're all calibrated to a world that no longer exists. I think Scott Cormode said that in The Innovative Church, that our churches are calibrated for a world that no longer exists. But it's certainly true that as leaders we are as well. But most leaders learn how to lead. They learn how to lead in a world, and they learn how to lead a world that doesn't exist anymore.

And I think previous generations, and even my generation as well, one of the things we learned was that “fake it till you make it” mindset. The I've got to be buttoned up. I've got to have it all together. I've got to look the part. That worse than failing is actually being perceived as a failure.

Al: Yeah, right.

Clay: And that's what I think we've got to come to grips with how that is changing. We all know all the inspirational stories of, you know, Michael Jordan being cut from his eighth-grade basketball team or all the strikeouts that Babe Ruth had or the companies that Steve Jobs led that didn't work. We know them as fables, but are we really willing to take risks and to lead out in such a way that when we fail—not if we fail. When we fail—that we know how to take that failure and turn it into something that we can learn from, turn it into something that actually is attractive to others, that draws people to ourselves. The idea of, you know, there might have been a day where people wanted somebody that was perfect, I don’t know that that is anywhere true anymore. We would much rather a leader that's real, that will admit to failure, that has learned from the failure, than a leader that has never failed but has it all together.

Al: Yeah. That's great. I remember failure stories, you know, at the end of a day, skiing, you know, if you don't have any snow on your pants, it means you haven't fallen.

Clay: Oh, that’s good.

Al: That means you haven't learned   how to ski any better, because you haven't fallen. You haven't taken any risks. For example, I remember back in the nineties, going back before I started BCWI, working with a best company, one of the best companies to work for, and they were in the software-development area. And they would have their designers, their programmers, every time they would fail, they would ask them to write down that failure on a yellow sticky and post it on their cubicle—

Clay: I love that.

Al: —doorway to their cubicle. And a leader would come around and say, “You don't have enough yellow stickies. You're not experimenting enough, because you haven't failed enough.” So, yeah, I love what you're saying. You know, if we're not willing to take risks, we're not going to learn from it.

Clay: That’s right. In the chapter, Al, I try to take my own medicine or at least, you know, practice what I'm preaching. So I tell a couple of my least-favorite failure stories.

Al: Yeah.

Clay: I had a moment about—it was probably about three years ago now—where I actually, I sat in my boss's office and cried. And I have never cried at work before. I mean, I've cried. You know, I worked in ministry for 20 years, so I’ve cried at an amazing baptism story, parents being reconciled to a child. I certainly have cried over grieving the loss of someone. But I've never cried over a spreadsheet. I've never cried over data.

Al: Yeah.

Clay: And I was in an argument with my boss about data. And the reason why we were not arguing about the rights and wrongs of data, because data is kind of black and white. It is what it is. But we were arguing over what data we should be looking at. And at the time, we were looking at some data that was making me, which I couldn't recognize it in the moment, but once I was able to process it, I was able to look back and realize, “Oh, this data is making me look like a failure.” Even though I don't think I was failing at the time in general, or at least I certainly wouldn’t have labeled myself as a failure, but I was feeling this, “Oh no. The people around me are looking at me, and they think I'm failing. What does that say about me?”

Al: Yeah.

Clay: And the thing I probably enjoyed most about writing that chapter was making myself dig into that. And then, also, trying to help people put some handles on, what do you do? What do you do about that?

Al: Yeah.

Clay: Because it's real easy to say, “Well, take more risks and go, you know, hang more sticky notes out there.” But the person that isn't doing it, there's a reason why, that there's something deeper there. And that's what I was really trying to—I'm still eager to hear from readers on how well it went—but I was really trying to help readers learn how to do that self-excavation, that soul excavation of, what is it inside of me that is so afraid of failure? because the truth is, we are more afraid of failure than we are of death.

Al: Yeah.

Clay: We would rather, most people would rather die than be humiliated.

Al: Mm-hmm.

Clay: You know, Jerry Seinfeld’s got that joke, Al, about, you know, the data came out about what Americans are most afraid of. You know, the number two answer was dying, which is so surprising. But the number one answer was speaking in public, which means that if you had the choice, you would rather be in the casket than doing the eulogy at the funeral. You know, that's kind of the big payoff line that he's got in it, which is a very clever joke, very great point. I think it's a brilliant observation of life, that we would rather be in the casket than be in front of people, because of the risk of humiliation, the risk of embarrassing ourselves. We would rather be literally dead than embarrassed in front of our peers.

And that's the hard work. The hard work is, how do I get over that? How do I get past that fear so that I can hang up some more stickies outside my office?

Al: Yeah.

Clay: That's not easy to do. But if we're going to be leaders of the future, we've got to be able to do that, that is for sure.

Al: Yeah. And being able to—so I'm just, you're causing me to think about that, just as you sat back and you thought about, you know, that data and how it was making you feel and that you're feeling kind of a failure, you were embarrassed, at least understanding that is a first step, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, even being willing to kind of go there is really a first step. Yeah.

Clay: I really do love the way you led this podcast off, about self-awareness. It really goes back to there. It goes back to doing the work to pay attention to, “Okay, what am I actually feeling?" which in the moment, when I sat there and cried in my boss's office, I didn't know what I was feeling. I just, you know, we've all had that moment before, where you feel emotion rising up inside of you, but then you tell the emotion, “Hey, now's not the time, you know? We'll deal with that later. Now's not the time. I'm in this conversation with my boss, about data.” Well, this was one of those moments where I had spoken to that emotion hundreds of times, and it always obeyed me. But in this case, it said, “Oh no, we're coming out. Now's the time.” And I just start losing it.

Al: Yeah.

Clay: And of course, my boss is going, “Is everything okay? You know, are you fine?” And I'm like, “No, I'm fine. I'm fine,” which I kept saying that, and I'm like, “Clearly, I'm not fine. I'm crying over data. There's something going on.” But the problem was I couldn't identify it. I didn't know what to call it. I didn't have a name for it. And, you know, the worst of the moment, to close the story, the worst moment was my boss, who is a pastor—I'm a pastor. So I've sat in that moment with people hundreds of times—and my boss, who is a pastor, has done that as well. At one point in the conversation, he looked at me, said, “Hey, can I pray for you?” And I said no.

Al: That is a pastoral response, I guess.

Clay: Exactly. But I said it because I, you know, in my mind, and I was in such a bad spot, but I was like, “I know what you're doing. I get it. You’re doing the right thing because you’re running the playbook on being a pastor. I thank you. You can pray for me later. I don't need that right now. What I need is I think I just need to leave, and let me go process this, and I'll figure it out, and we’ll come back.”

Al: We’ll have a conversation.

Clay: And so I did. I left.

Al: Yeah.

Clay: Exactly. When I can compose myself emotionally. But I was able to go away and spend some time going, “Okay, what is this?”

Al: Mm-hmm.

Clay: And you're right. Until you're aware of it—

Al: Yeah.

Clay: —you can't deal with it—

Al: Right.

Clay: —and it doesn't seem like God will deal with it, that He only, it feels like—now, I think God, obviously, can do whatever He wants to do.

Al: Right.

Clay: But it feels like He's most active when we're willing to put a name on it, when we're willing to say, “Oh, now I see what it is. I feel like I'm being perceived as a failure. God, would you help me with that?” And then I feel like that's when He rushes in and says, “Oh, yes. I would love to help you with that.”

Let's talk about that. Are you a failure? Who—let me back up and ask you an even bigger question. Who gets to decide whether you are or whether you aren’t?

Al: Right.

Clay: And is that the way I deem success? Is that the way I judge success? I mean, that was significant for me to go, “Oh my goodness. This isn't even how God measures success.” I think God measures success on, were you faithful?

Al: Mm-hmm.

Clay: Faithfulness—

Al: Faithfulness, yeah.

Clay: —and not on qualitative or quantitative benchmarks of success. So all of that is what got me to a place of being willing to go, “Okay, if I'm perceived as a failure, who cares?” And if you're going to risk, if you're going to take risks, you have to be willing to put the Post-it Note out there. You have to be willing to wear the badge of, “Yeah, I ran that project. We tried. We raised money for it.”—

Al: Mm-hmm.

Clay: “It failed,”—

Al: Yeah.

Clay: —"but we learned a ton. And I'm not afraid of doing it in the future. And say what you want about me. You're right.”

Al: Right. You're also right that we always learn from it. Usually there's another step that will take us further because we've learned that. Yeah. So, yeah. Well, that's great.

Al: I trust you’re enjoying our podcast today. We’ll be right back after an important word for leaders.

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Al: And now, back to today’s special guest.

You quote Jim Collins and his wisdom about building a team, moving forward a bit here. And he's famous for the idea of well, let's get the right people on the bus. You know—

Clay: Yeah.

Al: —that's just become quite a statement that we all just have right at the tip of our tongues. But you have a twist in this idea of, especially for aspiring leaders. Why would you say that we need some different people on the bus, maybe even quirky people, those who think differently or even people who are difficult to manage? That kind of rubs against that getting the right people, not having the right chemistry. Yeah. I mean that kind of starts into a chemistry conversation.

Clay: Mm-hmm.

Al: So tell us about your thoughts on that.

Clay: Well, I dreaded this kind of moment ever since writing this, because I thought, you know, anybody who writes something or stands up in front of people and says something or even publishes something on LinkedIn, everybody has that feeling of feeling like an imposter or a poser, or who do I think I am? I mean, Al, you've been in leadership far longer than I have. You've recently written a book on how to help organizations flourish with their culture and the way their employees are engaging. So it's a little challenging to have this conversation with you. It will be, I will dread the day on one hand, and also look forward to the day being able to talk to Jim Collins about this. But yeah, who am I to disagree with Jim Collins? “Get the right people on the bus” is a brilliant phrase. It's so sticky. It's portable. It's memorable. It's so powerful because as soon as you say it, people just know, “Oh, you're right. You're right. You're right.”

The challenge that I feel and the reason why I do feel like this is changing—I mean, he wrote that 20 years ago—

Al: Right.

Clay:  —and great—but what I feel like is going to be different about the future is not the phrase, but the definitions that we use for the word right, “Get the right people on the bus.” That’s the word that I would contend with most, and I wouldn't even advocate for a different word. I would just say, we all should spend some time thinking about what does that mean for me and how would I define that? Who are the right people? And here's why I think this is so important, because there was a day, even—I just turned 42 years old. In my own leadership journey, 22 years ago, if you would have said, “All right, Clay, Get the right people on the bus. Go,” who would I have looked for? I would have just naturally looked for people who were like me, that in my mind—and not even in my mind. It was subconscious—I would say in my being, in my essence, in my ethos, in my soul, even, I just assumed that right meant same, get the same people on the bus.

And what I have come to learn about myself, and I think it's true about other people as well, but I think other people have to, this is one of those that you have to self-diagnose. I would never try to put this on anyone else—but I know for me it was a subtle form of loving myself. It was a subtle form of stroking my own ego to ascribe more potential to people who look like me, were educated like me, grew up in the kind of family I grew up in, from the part of town I was from, from area of the country I was from, with a similar background as me, similar path as me. A lot of times when you're giving somebody advice, it's really just, you know, nostalgia out there masquerading as advice.

And the same thing is true with getting the right people. Oftentimes, it’s just, you know—here's a simple little example, Al. Peloton’s had a rough go of it in the last couple of months, but before the last couple of months, I mean, they were just absolutely skyrocketing, right? And I remember listening to How I Built This, the podcast, where the founder of Peloton tells the story of how the company was created. And I find out on that podcast that he graduated from the same college I graduated from and majored in the same major I majored in. And I remember listening to that, and it made me feel better about myself, which is kind of ridiculous because I don't own a Peloton. I've never ridden a Peloton. He made better grades than me, I'm sure. I've never risked as much as he has risked to step out and start something like that. I mean, there is so little that we have in common, but that similar educational background suddenly made me love myself more and carry more pride, thinking, “Oh, look at me. I was educated at the same place the Peloton founder was educated,” which is meaningless, worthless, could not be worth less.

And so what I contend with is the phrase, is the word right, that right cannot mean same. We've all led people who were challenging to lead that ended up helping us see. We've led people who came from different backgrounds than we came from that helped us understand something we would have never understood. And certainly, there's historical examples, but there's definitely loads of current examples and data that tells us that when we surround ourselves with people that don't see just like we see, we actually make better decisions. So I think the proof's in the—I think it’s definitely in the data, but I think it’s also it’s a way our world is evolving, and I think it’s a really good thing.

Al: Yep. No, I agree. If we have people that are just like us all around us, then we're going to end up going off a cliff at some point, because nobody is looking out for the edge. Yeah.

So you observe that we're living in a time when people are less skilled in conflict resolution and more prone to experiencing interpersonal challenges. I believe that as well. We certainly see that the ability to process conflicting ideas in a healthy way is a key to a flourishing workplace. You know, that's one of the questions that we ask under “fantastic teams” is people have skills in conflict resolution. So how do you advise aspiring leaders to develop their conflict-resolution muscles, with the divides in our country over different things, the conflict that we don't seem to be able to work through it? How do you advise aspiring leaders to develop their conflict-resolution muscles?

Clay: This is one of those that has always been true, to your point. Best Christian Workplaces Institute has been using this for years and years and years, that conflict resolution is such an important part to a healthy workplace. But this one would go in the category, certainly go in the category of, it has always been true, but it is even more—it will be more true in the future, for a number of reasons.

Number one, because, like you said, we're having more conflict.

Al: Mm-hmm.

Clay: We all know that. I mean, there is no leader that has avoided conflict in the last couple of years, particularly. I mean, for most leaders, they would say, “I have had more conflict in the last two years than I had the previous ten years.”

And then secondly, we're living in a society that is not getting better at conflict but is actually, our conflict-resolution skills, if we ever did have them, are eroding. They're almost down to nil. And some of that is because of social media. Some of that is because of the way kids are raised these days. We have a lot of parents that are loving—they're attempting to love their kids, but unfortunately, they're resorting to preparing the path for the child rather than preparing the child for the path, right?  What I try to do in the chapter is, because this is one of those that it’s, okay, yeah, that's obvious; so what? you know, I try to give people a simple plan, that here's a tool you can use. Here is a roadmap that you could use. If you put some, you know, 15 minutes of effort into this—

Al: Mm-hmm.

Clay: —you can begin to learn how to have more productive conversations, particularly in high-stakes, emotionally charged, complicated conversations.

Now, it's never going to go perfect. It's never going to be just right. You're never going to get to the moment where you're like, “Oh my goodness. I just navigated a conflict, and it is absolutely perfect. Everybody's hugging and feeling great, and we're so glad we had it.” Of course not. But if you apply this simple model, I think you just have so much of a better chance of having a productive conversation.

Now, there’s loads of tools, loads of models, so we’re not short of those. But I try to make it as simple as possible. It’s just four words that if you’ll fill in the blank on each of these words, it just gives you a framework on how to have that conversation. If you start by affirming, what can you affirm? What can you affirm about this person? Can you declare your intentions? Can you tell why you're there? Can you tell what about the other person that you appreciate? You're building safety, building trust.

Number two, after you affirm, can you ask? What are a couple of questions that might reveal something that you don't know?, which means you have to go into it assuming there's something you don't know, which is not easy to do. Arrogant people don't ask questions. They don't have to. They know everything.

Al: Yeah.

Clay: So if you can convince yourself, there's something I don't know, and if I knew it, it would help me better understand. What can you ask?

And then number three is not necessarily something you can prepare for, but it's something you've got to do in the moment. But are you willing to acknowledge? Can you acknowledge? After you affirm and ask, can you now acknowledge? It’s closing the loop on communication. So it's, you know, it's speaking back to the person what they said.

I use this example all the time. My wife and I do a lot of pre-marital mentoring for couples that are engaged. And in general, I don't really enjoy it, but I like it, my wife loves it, and so I do it. But the month that we do the session on conflict, I really enjoy it because I just think it's so fun to help couples learn how to do this. So we’ll do a simple exercise. We’ll say, “Hey, next month when we talk, I want you to bring one of the most recent conflicts that you’ve had.” And it's always about the in-laws, Al. I'm sure you could have guessed that, right?

Al: Yeah, yeah.

Clay: And so, you know, I'll say, “All right, John, let's start with you. You know, how would you describe the conflict?” He’d say, “Well, I just wish that she wouldn't talk to her mom after every single big conversation that we have.” And I say, “Okay, Sally, let's go to you. Can you speak back? Can you acknowledge what John just said?” And so naturally she'll go, “Oh, so you don't ever want me to talk to my mom again?” And then John, you know, he cuts his eyes to me, like, “Hey, you got me in this mess. Are you going to get me out of this?” And so I go, “Okay, Sally. Hang on a second. Now, that's not exactly what he said. That's what you heard. But let's acknowledge what he actually said. So what did he say?” And she’ll go, “Okay. Well, I guess what you said is you don't want me to talk to my mom about everything.” And then, you know, he's going, “Okay, now we're getting there. Like, that's closer to what I said.”

And we all have seen that so many times in conversations, where someone says, “Well, you said,” or “What I felt,” or whatever, and you're like, “I never even said that.” And that's how communication breaks down. So that simple art form of learning how to acknowledge, “So what I hear you saying is that your greatest fear is that we would lose money if we make this change or that we would lose customers or that our employees would hate it. Is that what you’re saying?” And if you can get to that point, even then, the coworker or the boss or whoever would go, “You know what? Now that I hear you saying that, that's not—let me think about that.” You know, it leads to more productive dialog, but it starts with affirming, asking, acknowledging, and then advising, then bringing your advice. And most people go through it in reverse order.

Al: Yeah.

Clay: Most people begin with advising. You know, they rip off the email, they pick, make the—"Yeah, we got to talk right now. I got to take”—barge into office. And if you do that, you end up having to acknowledge that you were wrong, ask for forgiveness, and affirm that you still enjoy your job. So you can always choose how much you prepare. You can always choose the order in which you go through a conversation like this. But I would just encourage everyone, don't shirk the hard conversation. You got to have it. But put a little bit of time in on getting ready for it, and it will not be perfect, but it will certainly be more productive.

Al: Yeah. And again, we're talking with leaders of Christian-led organizations. And, you know, in the body of Christ, we want to be nice, you know, and we think we need to be in unity all the time. And that means we don't argue. And that just creates conflict that doesn't get addressed, and it will always pop up somewhere else, even greater by not addressing it. So I love the model. What can you affirm? What can you ask? What are you willing to acknowledge? And then, and then, possibly provide some advice. Yeah, so, great. Thanks, Clay. That’s great.

You know, as you acknowledged, the pandemic has really changed things. And, you know, in two years we condensed ten years of change into our lives, especially through technology. I mean, we all that are reflecting back on it should see how much change we saw. And as leaders, we need to stay nimble and be open to new ways of acknowledging our goals, you know? So how can leaders create a culture of innovation in their sphere of influence? You know, this idea of innovation—you've already really touched on several of the topics—but, you know, summarize the culture of innovation, what are your thoughts?

Clay: Well, I think it begins with what we talked about around the fear of failure. It begins with being willing to admit your own weaknesses, being willing to speak to your own faults, being willing to talk about your own stories of when it didn't go well. You know, if the bar is always if you're going to give it a shot, it better work; if that's the bar, if that's the kind of culture that you have—and a lot of times we think, “Well, if I sacrifice on that, I'm going to sacrifice excellence.” No, no, no, no. You can still pursue excellence, but you have to learn how to have micro moments, how to share those micro failures, maybe even the macro failures, and being willing to celebrate them, acknowledge them and celebrate them. And as you do that, what you're doing is you're realizing, “Oh, this is a safe place for people to try things,” you know?

Al, you remember being in a college classroom and, you know, you could pretty much tell the way the semester was going to go by whoever asked the first question, right? Maybe first lecture, second lecture, whenever; somebody raises their hand and asks a question, and everybody goes, like, “Ooh, let’s see how this goes.” And if the professor responds kindly or corrects kindly or does it with some compassion or encouragement of, “Hey, thanks for asking,” it fosters more of that. But if the professor goes, “You idiot. What do you…? No, that's dumb,” or “You're ridiculous,” or “That's a stupid question,” well, what's going to happen the rest of the semester? Everybody's going to go, “Cool. I'm not asking any questions. I'm not going to bring anything up.”

And I think the same thing is true in organizations, that if we want people to try, if we want people to put themselves out there, we want people to pursue innovation, we have to be willing to create a culture that doesn't just allow failure, but that celebrates the way in which people have tried and failed. Your Post-it example, Al, I will never forget that. That's such a simple and clear little way to celebrate the failures in an organization. So I would say if you're looking for a best practice or looking for a way to install this or to make this a part of your culture, I would say go with Al's Post-it idea, about sticking some Post-its on your office door every time there's a failure.

Al: Yeah. Yeah. Great.

Clay, I want to get to this because our audience, it’s such a key aspect, and that's great leadership is spiritual work. At BCWI, we’d echo that sentiment, believing that Christian workplaces should have the best cultures, be the best places to work in the world, and from experience, we know that isn't always true. And our calling energizes us to keep helping Christian workplaces move towards excellence in that regard. But can you elaborate on the spiritual side of greater leadership?

Clay: Well, leadership is so important because it is spiritual. Leadership is best when it is led by the Spirit, when it is filled with the fruit of the Spirit.

Al: Mm-hmm.

Clay: Anything less than that has opportunity for growth and opportunity to improve. You know, we all get this one life, and leadership is that it's, really, at its essence, at its core, its influence, it's the ability to move people to do what they don't want to do to accomplish what it is they want to accomplish. Leadership is the ability to move a room. Leadership is the impact that we have on other people. And if we only get this one life, then I would just urge people to continue through resources like this, through organizations like Best Christian Workplaces, to continue to seek to become a better leader. Because as you do that, what you're doing is you're ultimately loving others better. You're loving others the way Jesus would love other people. And the best kind of leadership is filled with unconditional and fearless love. And that's certainly what God has for us. And He says since that is Who I am, go and be that as well. And so you can call it leadership if you want, but to me, leadership is just discipleship, that leadership is—the more we're formed into the image of Jesus, the better kind of leader we're going to be, not the better kind of leader, but the better leader we're going to be, because that is what leadership is. It's the ability we have, the opportunity we have, to impact the people around us. I could not agree with you more, that Christian workplaces, they should be the ones that are doing it the best because we've got the greatest model. But we’ve also, particularly those that are following Jesus, those that have submitted their life to Him, we’ve got the power of God in us, and so we should be able to, as much as we can, yield and move out of the way and let His fruit manifest itself in our life. I certainly think it’s going to make us a better leader and a better human.

Al: Great leaders love greatly. I love your point there.

Clay, you know, we've learned so much from this conversation. Thanks so much. This has just been really insightful. You know, starting off, we talked about self-awareness and how those who are going to lead into the future, certainly the foundation of self-awareness is key, and that's the foundation of every virtue, is your point there. That was fantastic. And because the world is changing so quickly, we have to be lifelong learners. We've got to recognize that feeling of noob. We're a noob because we don't know everything, but yet we have to move forward. And it takes humility to understand, you know, yes, we have to be open to learning and move forward. And we can't be afraid of failure. We talked about that. And we have to be willing to take risks and learn from the risks that we're taking when we don't succeed. And that's just part of learning, and we have to recognize that and not be afraid of it, at the same time. And your point about when we look at that phrase, you know, “getting the right people on the bus,” so let's talk about right. Who are those right people? And they can't be just people like us, because that's  truly stroking our own ego, as you said. And your four points on helping conflict resolution to really build our conflict-resolution muscles. You know, what can we affirm? What can we ask? Are we willing to acknowledge what we've heard? And then maybe a step into advising. And then, of course, this culture of innovation. We need to innovate as we move forward. We have to be willing to admit our weaknesses, and we have to create safe places to try new things clearly. And then lastly, on the spiritual side, and leadership is spiritual. You were so precise and on point with that. And, really, it's discipleship, and are we growing in our own faith? And if that's the case, then our leadership will be more effective.

Wow. Great conversation. Anything else you'd like to add that we've talked about that seems to come to your mind for our listeners?

Clay: I would just say leadership is certainly not easy. And so if you're feeling like, “Hey, it is hard to be a leader right now,” I would say it is not hard to be a leader; it is hard to be a great leader. And so for those that do feel the resistance of being a great leader, you are not alone, and that is not abnormal. It's easy to be a decent leader, but it is certainly hard to be a great one. And I would just say keep at it and continue to take advantage of resources like this, because I love the heartbeat of what you're trying to do, Al, and just helping people. I think that we could all use a little bit more help. That is certainly true. But as hard as it is, it is incredibly rewarding and fulfilling. And I think it's one of the greatest callings in life to be able to influence others in a powerful way that leads them to feel more loved and be more loved and experience more of God's Kingdom on Earth. So I just really am grateful to get to be a part of this today. So, again, thank you.

Al: Thank you, Clay. This has been great.

So thanks for your contributions. And most of all, I appreciate your commitment to equipping emerging leaders so that they and the church and Christian organizations will continue to be relevant and proclaim the Good News for future generations. So thanks for taking your time out today. Thanks for your ministry, 20 years of service, and speaking into the lives today of so many listeners. Thanks, Clay.

Clay: My pleasure.

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