[00:00:00] Kevin Stafford: Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Conversations with Coaches podcast. I’m your host, Kevin, and I am reacquainting myself with the fabulous Chuck Muller. We talked a while, I can’t remember, it’s been 84 years or it could have been last week for all I can remember these days, but let me reacquaint you with Chuck before we dive back into the conversation we’ve already been having about The ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future.
Chuck is the founder, CEO, advisor, and executive coach at MCG Partners. Also the bestselling author of the rise of the agile leader for well over 35 years, Chuck has advised, coached, and consulted executives and organizations across industries from startups to fortune 500 and not for profit organizations.
Chuck, it is great to have you back. As you can probably tell, very easy to talk to you as I just launched into a little boasting about my early Christmas shopping. So it’s a pleasure to have you back on. I’m so glad you wanted to share some time with me again.
[00:00:57] Chuck Mollor: Thanks, Kevin. And I appreciate that little conversation ahead of time.
And again, I think I’m jealous about how advanced you are getting your Christmas shopping done. So I think everybody would be if they listen to the whole story. So
[00:01:09] Kevin Stafford: and just for the audience, this will be posting probably later in the year, but we’re recording this on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving 2023.
Go ahead and anchor it in time because we are going to be talking a little bit about, like I said, the past, present and future. Obviously this is a time of gratitude, a time of consideration, both looking backwards and looking forwards, which is always something that’s very interesting. A lot of times you’re either living in the past or you’re pressing towards the future.
And this tends to be a time of year for a lot of people where it’s both. Which is always very fascinating, the kinds of insights that come out of that. I’ll just open that up to you, a little loosely. Talk about the year past, the year to come, and anything you’re excited about or interested in right now.
Yeah, I,
[00:01:49] Chuck Mollor: no, I appreciate that. And as I mentioned right before we started recording, I think this is a great time of year for people to take a step back. Even though many of us are very scrambling toward, getting ready for Thanksgiving this Thursday. In 2 days, what travel plans are for many of those are traveling for kids flying around or people flying to get to family locations.
It’s a hectic time of year. And of course, for those who have not done Christmas shopping and do celebrate Christmas, many of us are going to be scrambling to get ready for that. And the chaos
[00:02:20] Kevin Stafford: that sometimes comes with
[00:02:21] Chuck Mollor: that. So it is not always easy to stop and pause or reflect, especially. The, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because it is a time to be thankful.
It is a time to be grateful. It is a time to get together with family and friends and break bread and have a meal and, throw on a fire depending on what part of the country or the world you live in and have some popcorn or watch your favorite movie or go for a nice walk or. Go play with your dog or your cat or whatever animals that you may have.
So my point is, if we live in a world, we’re always running so hard, professionally and personally and it’s really hard to sometimes have that moment to reflect to have that moment to pause and to think about really what and all the news around is, let’s face it. With the news, not only in terms of our politics, what’s happening in the Middle East and Ukraine and other parts of the world and now in Argentina it can easily become overwhelming to think about the negativity.
And I think it is a good time to pause and to think about the positive, to think about what we’re grateful for, what we’re thankful for including for ourselves. And so I think it’s any time of year, frankly all throughout the year we should be doing that, but especially this time
[00:03:37] Kevin Stafford: of year.
Yeah, I haven’t really, I never really thought about it quite this formally before, but I think now more than I ever have before, I appreciate the fact that the quote unquote holiday season in this part of the world begins with a celebration of gratitude. And family and connection. And I was like, now that I’m thinking about that, I’m like, Oh that’s really the way that we should be structuring our life is that we should lead with gratitude and lead with that celebration of our connections to each other and what makes us love each other.
And sometimes frustrate each other, but also always love throughout. And the sharing of, the sharing of food, the sharing of sustenance, the sharing of life together. And it’s just such a. There’s a good, strong, simple lesson there that I don’t have to belabor because it’s just obvious. Beginning there allows everything that comes afterwards to be, it can still be stressful.
There’s still a lot of work that goes into the holidays. There’s still a lot of work that goes into food prep. There’s a lot of work that goes into the Christmas shopping or the holiday season or whatnot. But whatever you might be attempting to accomplish or whatever you might be setting out to celebrate or complete or begin, starting with gratitude.
It’s just, the more I say it out loud, the more it’s just that’s, again, it’s it’s common sense at this point. And it’s something I’ve been trying to practice in my life for years now. Practice being the key word there. It’s not just something that comes upon me as a feeling, it’s something I work at.
And it’s, I think my awareness of it being a skill, as opposed to just like a feeling that would come upon me, really changed the way I thought about it, and changed the way that I lived, changed the way I lived my life, period. But yeah, I just, I really do. Now more than ever, and now that I say it out loud, it’s yeah it’s only right that we begin with gratitude as we enter into this time of celebration and consideration.
It’s
[00:05:23] Chuck Mollor: not always that easy, right? We know that, including ourselves, we’re all dealing. And many of us are doing much worse situations and then let’s say the average person, but, we’re all dealing with something and we’re all having challenges and issues and frustrations. And for many of us, some very serious issues that we have to deal with.
So it’s, in some sense, it’s easy to say, let’s be grateful and let’s let’s be positive. I’m not saying this in a way that discounts or somehow. Wow. Hides all the issues or challenges that we have in life or the world around us. However, I think by, really thinking about this in a, in addition to dealing with all those challenges and problems and issues by having this sort of this moment of being grateful and thinking about the things that we’re grateful about.
It just allows us to frankly show up. In a more not only authentic way, but a way that allows us to frankly, it actually, I think, increases our strength. To cope, right? Because it’s not just about coping. It’s frankly how we show up for others. And I’m really true believer by how we show for others really does impact the people around us in the world around us.
And it impacts us, our ability to be grateful for not only ourselves and the people in our life, but the life that we have in addition to those issues and challenges allows us frankly, not just cope, but frankly impact the world around us and the people around us in a much more positive.
Effective way, and it affects us, affects our energy, affects our mindset, affects our mood. Look, we’re all going to have bad moments, bad days. I’ve had some recently myself. So I trust me, I can relate. But I think the more we reflect, the more we create time to reflect on these things, it really impacts us in a very positive way.
I think it impacts our health. I think it impacts relationships, and frankly, it impacts our ability to manage stress and some of the pressure that we have to deal with on a day to day basis.
[00:07:29] Kevin Stafford: Yeah, the body keeps the score, as they say. As you were talking I, my mind drifted to similar, looking, always looking for comparisons and whatnot.
And I was thinking about what popped into my head was that, a lot of times, our understanding of, say, courage. Is we we don’t think about this quite so in such a straight line, but like that courage is somehow the absence of fear when in fact courage cannot exist without the presence of fear like you’re courageous through fear, not because you don’t feel it because you don’t have it in your life.
I feel I’m sensing something similar with gratitude and that the gratitude doesn’t really exist without. Challenges without the things that, grind you down or stress you out or threaten your health and being on in all manner of ways that gratitude. Is strongest in the face of those challenges.
And again, I think you very wisely point out that it’s not a covering up or an ignoring of those hard things, those terrible things that have happened are happening and will happen again. It is actually gratitude through those things, just like courage comes through fear and turns into action. Yeah I agree
[00:08:40] Chuck Mollor: with that.
And I, not all of us were lucky enough or fortunate to have a role model. And honestly, for me, the role model I had in my life, I don’t think I fully appreciated how they dealt with all the incredible challenges and events that occurred to them in their life. Literally, I could write a novel about everything they went through.
Things that most people probably would really not be able to cope with, frankly, and deal with, and I’ve always been fascinated by the positivity and the energy and the youthful mindset and just the passion and how much this person gave to others. And, but if I really think about it here right now, I think it’s this foundation of gratitude, this foundation of being grateful for what they did have.
Not what they didn’t have and the positive experiences and memories and events and their belief system and their sense of purpose and how much joy they found in giving to others. That sounds very interesting. Falsifical and, esoteric right now. But when I think about our ability to how we show up and when you think about that, whether it’s as a leader, as an employee, as a person in life I think there’s something to really be said about that.
I
[00:09:54] Kevin Stafford: couldn’t agree more. It’s obviously in the holidays, there’s a tendency to drift towards the philosophical and towards the sweet and the sentimental and yada, but there’s a reason for that, and it’s because, and as you speak I’m also like, I’m imagining some, a couple of most, my most cherished people in my life, who would never have called themselves mentors, but who nevertheless, by their example, Like really mentored me in the way that I want to live my life.
And there’s always this, whenever I meet people who are like that, there’s this generosity of spirit that unites them all and that they may be a varying degrees of means and have varying challenges to the, the, no need to go into details, but there’s just this unifying generosity of spirit that they just radiate it.
And it’s not something that they try to do necessarily or consciously it’s an element of who they are, it’s a consequence of who they’re choosing to be in the world. And I think you were speaking to that as well earlier, where you were just talking about the way that it just changes your own life and the lives of those around you by committing to that kind of generosity and that kind of gratitude and living that out.
And it just naturally shares itself. It’s honestly, it’s very similar to how I find good coaching to be where there’s just this sort of exponential radiating effect where it’s like you coach someone and they become a better version of themselves a more complete version of themselves and are on this journey and they’re naturally radiating those gifts out to the people around them the people that they lead the people who lead them their family their friends their colleagues their co workers their clients everybody and that sort of Exponential effect.
It’s one of the things I find the most powerful about coaching. It’s one of the things I find to be the most powerful about just being a human being and being alive. Again, drifting into some of the more sweeter, sentimental, philosophical elements of this time of year, but I can’t help but think that I can’t help but see that.
[00:11:43] Chuck Mollor: Yes, but there’s a real practical aspect to this, right? Because it comes down to, when we struggle with the ups and downs of life and organization of our people of our culture of, again, dealing with the world around us, whether it’s our own personal world or professional world, or just the world in general right now, right?
It can seem pretty overwhelming. All of that. So you have to start with yourself. You just do. There’s no other place to start. You’ve got to start and internalize, what am I going to do? I, you can’t change the world. We know the cliche, one day at a time, one person at a time, but there’s truth to that matter.
Especially if you’re. Whether you’re a coach or try to influence others or frankly, you as someone who’s trying to make a difference and if you happen to be in leadership and try to help leaders be effective, that’s the critical place to start with you and frankly, how you start your day and how you think about how you show up and how are you going to impact others and.
Your ability to not just make a difference, but your ability to listen versus the do. There’s so many components to this in a very practical level. So yes, it’s philosophical. It’s nice. It’s sort of part of the holiday spirit of reflection and in giving. But there’s also a really fundamental practical
[00:13:00] Kevin Stafford: aspect to this.
Again, I’m not to I’m almost by proxy blowing smoke up your butt because I just obviously I have this podcast. I love coaches. I love coaching. I see such value in it. And it’s one of those aspects that I continually brings me joy to discover is how coaching really is the hybrid of those that those 30, 000 feet like big picture, high concept, philosophical principles.
And. At the same time, often interwoven together, these really practical steps to take, frameworks to follow, processes that will get you on the path you want to be on, that are nevertheless adaptable to your specific situation, because obviously no one person is the same as anybody else, everyone needs that little bit of flexibility.
Bye. Tailoring a little bit of bespoke consideration and the way that coaching the way that really good coaching hybridizes the really high concept important to get your head around. What’s the foundational principles of the way that you want to live your life in the world and. Here are, the 17 steps to, achieve this, this step in your career or here are the, here’s the five chapter framework for how to turn X around in your life into Y or whatever it happens to be.
And it’s, yeah, it’s, it really is. It’s both and not either or. And I think that’s just such an important part of coaching. And life
[00:14:17] Chuck Mollor: again, going back to impact, and what you’re trying to do and ultimately at the end of the day, if you’re part of an organization and going back to now the world we’re living in which is, organizational effectiveness, a big concept that my, my firm and I are working on the, this year, going back to themes is we think about 2023 to your question earlier.
And what we’re looking at 2024 this whole concept of organizational health is becoming more and more. At least relevant in terms of how we’re framing it and not to say we coined the concept of organizational health. It’s not a new 1 either. But I think when you think about how we all deal with pressure, how we all deal with stress, how we show up going back to what we’ve been talking about the last few minutes.
Ultimately, it’s about organizational health in terms of organizations being successful. No matter how big you are, how small you are, whether you’re public, private, nonprofit. It doesn’t really make a difference what sector your industry, where you’re located or how, what your geography size and your scope is.
So what does that mean? What is organizational health? Ultimately, it’s about how engaged is your workforce, which we know we can measure today through engagement surveys and focus groups and other metrics. We can actually gather data to say, is your workforce engaged? And oh, by the way, after 30 years of research, we know that the higher your workforce is engaged, Okay.
There’s the correlation to stronger financial performance, and we’re not talking about small numbers. We’re talking like 20 to 30 percent higher than non engaged workforces. So the correlation to engagements, not just some fluffy H. R. concept, it’s actually a very again. Practical. I’m a practical person.
There’s actually a correlation to financial performance. So then the ultimate question is what drives employee engagement? There’s many things. But again, what has not changed in 30 years, the number one driver by far is leadership effectiveness. And it’s not just the individual leader, it’s the collective leader, right?
And what also is a reflection of employees being engaged? Having a healthy culture. Essentially, how healthy is your organization? So your levels of engagement is a reflection of health. Your leadership effectiveness is a reflection of health and then ultimately who you are as a culture, what you mean by culture, how you’ve defined or not defined your culture is also reflective of health.
So if you’re going to have a formula to what is. Organizational health and why that’s so critical. You need to have an engaged workhorse through a highly defined, strong culture, which is being driven by strong leadership. On a very strategic level, if you focus on those pillars, as I’ve outlined it, that’s what’s going to drive.
Not only retention and attraction of top talent and of all talent, but also financial performance. And I know that’s a 20, 000 foot statement. And then obviously the devils were all the details of how to do that. But if I was going to quickly summarize where we are so far year to date and what we see is, so far going to next year, especially with still uncertain economic the environment we’re in, there’s a lot of uncertainty economically.
It has been all year. I don’t think that’s going to change for the 1st, 6 months of the year. So I think that focus not only individually, but collectively from a leadership effectiveness is really critical.
[00:17:46] Kevin Stafford: Yeah, I really, there’s a number of things I really appreciate about what you said. And also it’s every great story, every great idea also has an elevator pitch.
So you do need to have the 20, 000 foot version of it to really get just to hit the key points and you cover them beautifully. And like you were saying, it’s there’s, you can spend hours discussing the nuances of just each individual element of what you were talking about there.
For example, we could talk. We could talk endlessly and act endlessly about the distinction between individual and collective leadership, which is something that like that, just like I love the way that you phrased that. So elegant. I was like, yes, because a lot of times leadership development is.
Is taken as an individual sort of process, but something that I think especially in large organizations, but really in any size of an organization. What is the collective leadership? Like, how do your leaders quite frankly, work together, synergize together to create? The collective leadership, which again is a leading indicator of your culture, leading creator of your culture.
It’s just, oh yeah, I could, we can go down many rabbit holes and there is, and the great part about that is that there is so much to be done. So many specific things to be done, trackable things, and again, I appreciate you emphasize that as well. This is measurable. A lot of times people get trapped in Oh, I got to be a better leader.
And again, it’s like gratitude, just being a feeling as opposed to a practice. It’s, there are things that can be done, specific things, measurable things to be done individually and collectively to grow the health of your organization, to be as healthy and thriving as you want to be. It’s just, yeah, it’s just fantastic.
And yeah, the 20, 000 foot view is always welcome because there’s so much beneath that waiting to be taken action on. Agreed,
[00:19:28] Chuck Mollor: There’s a lot of components to that. And you’re right, this, what we’re doing more than I think we’ve seen at least recently is the focus on the individual leadership development through executive coaching and other kind of approaches, but also focusing on that leadership team, especially the top level, the executive team, because ultimately, if they’re not Demonstrating the right qualities of leadership individually, but collectively, it’s hard to have the rest of the organization to demonstrate those same qualities and attributes, not necessarily from a leadership standpoint, but from a behavioral standpoint, going back to culture, because all culture ultimately comes down to what do you value?
That’s reflection of your purpose and your brand. And then also, how does that get reflected and demonstrated through specific behaviors that are observable and measurable and then how you create systems and processes to support that from a selection and development, a retention, a reward and recognition.
Including advancement. And that ultimately becomes your sort of your model for what culture is. So you have to start with the executive team to be able to cascade that and, throughout the organization. So that’s what we’re doing. It’s a kind of a blend of individual. Development with the team development.
And that’s a big focus of ours right now. I love
[00:20:44] Kevin Stafford: it. I love it. As predicted, I almost lost myself in our conversation and just thinking about different follow ups and implications or whatever, before I let you go, and I should let you go. Where can people, if people want to know more about, about you individually, but also what your work is like through MCG partners, your approach, what you’ve experienced in 2023, what’s happening in 2024.
If they just want to know anything about you and. Maybe start a relationship with you professionally. Where can they best go to do that? Preferred social media, website, both and. Yeah, no, I
[00:21:13] Chuck Mollor: appreciate that question, Kevin. You can reach me through my LinkedIn profile, which is probably easiest to do, just look for Chuck Moeller.
It’s M O L O R, or you can access through our website, which is mcgpartners. com. Those are probably the easiest ways to reach me.
[00:21:29] Kevin Stafford: Good to have a couple of good starting points. Obviously, everything’s so interconnected. It’s like you land on LinkedIn and there’s links to everywhere else. You go to the website, there’s links to everywhere else.
But yeah, it’s those to me are like the twin pillars. If you really want to start a relationship. That’s one of the things I’ve grown to really love about LinkedIn too. Is that’s where, that’s how we got to know each other at first. And now we’ve done a couple of podcasts together.
It’s just become a really powerful place to make. make strong connections and build strong relationships professionally, obviously at the beginning, but also, one naturally leads into the other professional to personal. And yeah, thanks. Thanks for being available. Thanks for coming back on the podcast here, on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.
And thanks for doing what you do and your focus. I really appreciate the. The both and approach to keep coming back to that term as we’re talking because there’s a lot of stuff that you are that you coach in that you coach on that is often considered individually or it’s considered an either or situation and I really appreciate the fact that you’re all about the both and you’re just like it’s the 20, 000 foot view.
It’s the boots on the ground view. It’s both and I love that. So Thank you. Across the board.
[00:22:29] Chuck Mollor: Thanks, Kevin. This has been a great conversation, especially the timing of Thanksgiving. There’s a lot to be thankful for.
[00:22:35] Kevin Stafford: Yeah, couldn’t agree more. And to the audience, I hope you are experiencing as much gratitude as I am right now because I just got to have a great conversation with Chuck.
But you know what to do next. Links will be in the show notes to everything. You know how to find Chuck if you want to talk to him, get a little bit of this kind of conversation going. And thank you so much for spending some time with us today. We will talk to you again very
[00:22:54] Chuck Mollor: soon. My pleasure, Kevin.
Thanks for having me. Really appreciate it.
