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The Modern Hotelier #53: Author Series: "Speak Up Culture" | with Stephen Shedletzky === Stephen Shedletzky [00:00:00]: If you're a CEO or founder, or especially if you're new in a leadership role, you've been incentivized and rewarded for being the best or being the most responsible, for being the most driven, for knowing all the things right. But you come to a level where what's gotten you here won't get you there. And so what leaders need to do is they need to know that their role isn't to be in charge, but it's to lift others up. David Millili [00:00:26]: Welcome to the 2nd season of The Modern Hotelier, the fastest growing hospitality podcast. Both hosts were named top 100 most powerful people and voted 4th most popular podcast by the International Hospitality Institute. Each episode will get to know an expert, and we'll discuss the latest trends in hospitality to help you, The Modern Hotelier. Welcome to The Modern Hotelier. I'm your host, David Mililli. Steve Carran [00:00:52]: I'm your cohost, Steve Kerrin. Jon Bumhoffer [00:00:54]: And I'm the producer, John Boomhofer. Steve, who do David Millili [00:00:57]: we have on the program today? Steve Carran [00:00:58]: Yeah, David. Today, we have on Steven Shedletsky, or SHED as his friends like to call him. SHED is the author of Speak Up Culture, When Leaders Truly Listen, People step up. A little background about Shedd. He graduated from the Richard Ivey School of Business with a focus on leadership, communication, and strategy. He received his coaching certification from the Co Active Trading Institute, and he currently lives in Toronto with his wife and 2 young children. Welcome to the show, Shad. Stephen Shedletzky [00:01:31]: Thank you so much for having me. You asked me, Steve, if I got a bad haircut and it's just, no, it's just a bad it's just a bad hair day. With the bad hair day, nursing nursing a cold, so we're just powering through you today. Steve Carran [00:01:42]: You're all good. I'm usually a hack on myself, so no shame in that game. But Thank you for joining us, Shad. We're really happy to have you on. Happy to talk about your book, Speak Up Culture. First question. You know, it seems like this book has been a long time in the making here. How did Simon Sinek's TED Talk about how great leaders inspire action almost start this journey years ago. Stephen Shedletzky [00:02:07]: Oh, my. I mean, I my 1st day and my first corporate job ever. I worked in the leadership development program at an oil and gas company. Not that I cared about that industry so much, but I cared deeply about leadership. You know, on my 1st day on that job, a 1000 people were let go post merger. And so I walked in on my very 1st day as a 1000 people were walking out boxes in hand. And so I, I was, you know, I felt fortunate that that was my 1st job and not a job that, you know, in the cubicle next to me was Brynn, who had been there for 37 years and was freaked out that her pink slip was going to arrive next. And so I was grateful that I wasn't that deeply invested. Stephen Shedletzky [00:02:48]: And I had a front row seat to seeing the impact of a tumultuous time, the behaviors of leaders for better or for worse, impacting not just people's productivity, but also their health and well-being. I saw increased car, car crashes, increased incidences of cancer and chronic illness because of corporate culture that was less than thriving. And so I came across Simon and his work shortly thereafter. A friend of mine I I said to him, I'm afraid to do marketing because I was gonna move into a marketing role for an organization where I don't believe what they sell or how they sell it. And he went, watch this TED Talk. And I successfully procrastinated for 2 months and then watched it. And I remember watching it in my experience of watching Simon's TED Talk, and I've heard it similar for others. It's like kind of just like puppy dog turn my face and go like, Everything this guy says, you know, seems to be true. Stephen Shedletzky [00:03:47]: Never thought about it that way, but it made such sense. And so some months later, I went to a conference, actually, in the very same place you and I met Steve at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre downtown in Toronto. And I went to hear Malcolm Gladwell speak, author of Outliers, David and Goliath, great, great prolific author, and Simon spoke just before him. The passion and connection I felt on a computer screen was amplified when I got to hear him speak in person, and I felt as though I found my my order. You know, Simon preaches and speaks to a vision of a world in which more of us feel inspired, safe, and fulfilled. And so I spent, you know, close to 12 years helping Simon build his organization. Never thought I'd write a book of my own, but I found a way, my own way, to help advance this movement of more play places of work and more places in society where we feel inspired, safe, and fulfilled. Steve Carran [00:04:42]: Yeah. Absolutely. And you talk about it right away in the book. You hit on kind of what speak up culture is. Can you kind of talk about a little bit more of that for for those readers who haven't read it yet? Stephen Shedletzky [00:04:52]: Yeah, absolutely. So What's fun is when I wrote the book, I thought at first that I was simply rebranding psychological safety. We've heard this term a lot, psychological safety. Amy Edmondson has helped put that on the map very prominently. Amy is a scholar, great researcher and writer out of Harvard. She endorsed the book. I have such respect for Amy. But I didn't love the term of psychological safety. Stephen Shedletzky [00:05:16]: It feels like we put an academic lab coat on a very human experience and emotion. And so I did good old Zig Ziglar. People don't buy drills. They buy holes. So if the drill is psychological safety, then the whole of what you get as a result is a speak up culture. So I wanted to market and advertise the end outcome, which is the thing we all want. And the way I define a speak up culture is it's an environment in which we feel both psychologically safe. And here's the key one worth it to speak up, to share our ideas, our feedback, our concerns, even disagree with someone at our level, more junior to us or more senior to us, and even admit mistake. Stephen Shedletzky [00:05:57]: And And in doing all of that, we think it'll actually lead to improvement, not being repeatedly ignored or worse punished. And so, A good friend of mine, I shared the first 3 chapters with her, and she's a scholar out of U of T and wrote a great book called Power for All, Tiziana Casciarro. And she said to me, Shed, are you writing are you writing different things or are you writing things differently? And I went, oh, that's a great question. And I think because of this distinction and the the 2 by 2 framework that's formed the thesis of this book that leaders make it safe and worth it for people to speak up that I actually think maybe. And, you know, it's really up to the eye of the of the reader, but perhaps I've written both different things and things differently in a really sort of engagements, engaging story based, but research based way. David Millili [00:06:45]: So you spoke about what makes a good leader. You listed Devon these attributes that make a good leader. Can you expand on that and give us a little more? Stephen Shedletzky [00:06:55]: Yeah. So Rich De Vinny is a retired U. S. Navy seal. And if there's anyone who needs to understand leadership, it's a seal because if things don't go well, the cost is life and death and fate of foreign affairs. Right? Stakes are high. And I like studying those types of industries, life and death industries, because successes and errors are so visible and so direct. Rich has, I think, my at present, my favorite quote on leadership. Stephen Shedletzky [00:07:23]: I'm really looking for another one because I don't like saying that my friend has My favorite quote on leadership, but Rich says, leaders aren't born. Leaders aren't even made. Leaders are chosen based upon the way that they behave. In the chapter Leadership Defined in the book, I attempt to craft a standard definition of what it could mean to lead. I think we need nuances based on context, but there are a few behavioral attributes that Rich outlined in his book, The Attributes, which is right here. This is Rich's book. It's fantastic. And so, Rich identifies this isn't necessarily all inclusive or comprehensive, but it's a pretty good start. Stephen Shedletzky [00:08:09]: Empathy, authenticity, which means we experience you consistently and that what you say and what you do, there's a small gap there. And just to build on that one, David and Steve, I warmth and vision are not requisites of leadership and neither is charisma or riz as the as the kids say. I know some leaders who are consistently grumpy and cold, who are not charismatic, who are introverted, who don't necessarily have vision, but they believe in something bigger than themselves. You need to identify with a vision, but you don't need to be a visionary. In fact, I know visionaries who aren't leaders. They have vision, but that's about it, right? Which is valuable still. But what you do need is a care for people that is a requisite. And the fact that we have the term servant leadership means to me that the definition of leadership is broken to lead is to have a service orientation. Stephen Shedletzky [00:09:03]: So, yeah, those attributes, just to be quick and clear on it, empathy, authenticity, service orientation, decisiveness, ability to make a decision with limited information and quickly, and then accountability. When things go well, you give credit. And when things don't go well, you take disproportionate responsibility. Those are some of the key leadership attributes. Steve Carran [00:09:25]: And kind of on that, you mentioned kind of dealing with people who have high risk, high reward. One thing I really liked was your performance trust matrix that you did with the SEALs. Kind of a side question here, but can you talk about that more? That's just something I thought was really, really cool. Stephen Shedletzky [00:09:39]: Yeah. So in my work with Simon Sinek, I met met Rich And Rich and the teams at the seals, we asked them, how do you select and how do you promote on seal teams? And they said, well, we have a matrix for that. And they call it the performance versus trust matrix. So it's it's 9 quadrants, or maybe not quadrants, 9 boxes. In the upper right, it's high trust and high performance. In the lower left, it's low trust and low performance. Then you have high performance, low trust, and low performance, high trust. And what Rich and the teams point out is that they put trust on a pedestal over performance. Stephen Shedletzky [00:10:16]: Performance measures something right now, whereas trust is more indicative of potential. Of course, we all want the high performer of high trust. Of course, No one wants the low performer of low trust, of course. But who do we pick between the high performer of low trust and the low performer of high trust? And the SEALs would say 10 times out of 10, you pick the low performer of high trust because that indicates potential as opposed to high performing but unethical and toxic, you know, and it's very easy to find who's the who's the toxic high performer. Go to any room and say, where's the jerk? They all point to the same person. Right. But similarly, we say, hey, who's the best team player? Who's got your back? When all the cards are down on the table, it's a different person and the same person. So, yes, the seals put trust over performance. Stephen Shedletzky [00:11:07]: The best example of this is there is a skill required to be a good seal. It's called swimming. But swimming, you can learn. And so I put this in the book. There's a there's a story. That's apparently a true story. In the early 19 nineties, 1 sailor who was trying out to be a SEAL. The first thing you do is you hop into a Olympic sized Swimming pool in Coronado Beach. Stephen Shedletzky [00:11:28]: I visited it. It's very impressive. Large pool. And you jump in and you do pool comp like, what's your pool competency? This 1 sailor hops in, sinks to the bottom like a stone, walks across the bottom of the pool, touches the other end, gasps for air, walks back the other end, is yanked out, nearly drowning. And the drill instructor is like, once the guy comes back to says, what the heck were you doing? To which the young sailor says, sir, I don't know how to swim. To which the instructor said, we can teach you how to swim. What they just exuded were all of the attributes needed to be an tributes needed to be an effective seal. Right? Courage, perseverance, cunning, like breaking rules. Stephen Shedletzky [00:12:06]: You know, all seals kind of have a bit of a rebel criminal mindset within reason. So that that seal, though they didn't yet have the skill of swimming, they could teach that to that individual with the right motivation very quickly. They exuded the appropriate attributes to fit the role and fit the teams. Steve Carran [00:12:24]: So this analogy I I absolutely loved, and you mentioned it a few times throughout the book, but it was Cucumbers, pickle brine, and pickles. Can you talk a little bit more about, a, you should start a pickle company, and b, how that correlates to culture. Stephen Shedletzky [00:12:41]: Yeah, I never thought my pickles would be so popular, and I haven't even made them yet. It's fantastic. So I liken culture to pickle brine. I liken culture to a pickle jar. And this is like it's the perfect analogy, kind of, because what's different between pickles and human beings is you can actually put a human being in a new brine and they can change. Once you pickle a pickle, it's done. Right? But we we can take a world class cucumber that is highly ethical, talented, hardworking, trustworthy. There is such a thing. Stephen Shedletzky [00:13:14]: Put them in bad pickle brine, and that turns into a bad pickle. And it's no fault to the cucumber, right? We have to examine the brine that that cucumber is in. And too often in our cultures, we label poor performers as the problem without looking at, are they in the right role? Do they have an appropriate leader? What's the culture? What's the level of trust? Because if any one of us are not in a healthy brine, a healthy culture, All of our performance suffers. And so, really, culture and environment either turns us into fabulous, delicious, crispy to whatever your taste pickles or can turn a sour, but it's not all our responsibility. We need to look at leadership systems culture as well. David Millili [00:13:58]: Yeah. And since we're in the middle of football season, there was a famous Philadelphia Eagles Cowboys game in Dallas where it was like 120 degrees on the field and they Pickled. The Eagles use pickled juice to stay hydrated and actually won the game. But anyway, useful information. Stephen Shedletzky [00:14:11]: It's better than it's better than Gatorade. Probably more more electrolytes per per million or whatever. David Millili [00:14:16]: Exactly. So you talk about encouragement and reward and how they play a part in the speak up culture. So Can you elaborate a little bit more on that on those 2 items? Stephen Shedletzky [00:14:26]: Yeah. So, so there are a few key behaviors that leaders do to create a speak up culture. 1, they make it safe and they make it worth it for people to speak up. And a great way to help do that is to encourage folks to speak up. And when they do, reward them when they do it. Encourage means set the stage, ask open ended questions, leave room for silence. Don't be the 1st to speak of the 1st to share ideas, pull and ask people in different ways. Use chat, have different types of meetings, not just large meetings, because certain folks feel comfortable speaking up in those large meetings and some folks don't. Stephen Shedletzky [00:15:01]: So encourage is really setting the stage. There's a great story of a very senior commercial airline pilot who's a safety specialist guy by the name of Ben Berman. And every time before he flies, every single time he says to his crew and the likelihood that you have a new crew when you work at a large airline is very high. Like, you fly with someone new almost every time. And so he says to his crew, as this most senior 4 stripes in his shoulder, he says, I've never flown a perfect flight, and today is no exception. I need to know what you see every time just to set the condition right Now, on the other side is reward when people do step into that speak up spotlight because it is never without fear speaking up. Right? There's more benefit to the team in the organization to speak up than there is potential benefit to the individual. It's hard work. Stephen Shedletzky [00:15:52]: Right? And for anyone who says, you know, the goal is fearlessness or here's our fearless leader, b s no such thing. If you come across a fearless leader, they're dangerous. Right? Fear is important. Fear is a risk modulator. It's biological. And so leaders don't eradicate fear. They simply create less fear. And when people feel that it's safe and worth it to speak up and they share ideas, concerns, feedback, bad news, disagreements, mistakes. Stephen Shedletzky [00:16:18]: We must reward folks for doing so. Now, I've learned that there's a bit of a sweet spot, right? Speaking up isn't sucking up. That's hogging air and kissing up. And speaking up isn't a hall pass to throw emotional intelligence, situational awareness, tact, decency out the door. Right? We still need to approach it with diplomacy, with tact, with emotional intelligence. So, there is that that sweet spot. But leaders must work really hard that when folks do speak up, especially if it's bad news or hard to hear, to still reward it. And reward doesn't mean extrinsic rewards. Stephen Shedletzky [00:16:52]: It means in terms of rewards. Hey, Steve, thank you for bringing that up. I know it was hard. Wow, David, that must have taken courage. I appreciate it. Hey, Steve, I don't really see everything that you see yet. Can you share a bit more of your of your perspective? I think you're onto onto something, you know? Hey, David, we didn't implement your idea, but here's why. Keep it coming. Stephen Shedletzky [00:17:10]: These are all forms of reward, such that people feel that it's worth it to speak up again. Steve Carran [00:17:16]: I love that. You brought up a good example of encouraging people to speak up was you brought up a CEO, how he's always the last one to speak up in all the meetings. And I just love that because that encourages everybody else to give their thoughts before he does. So, awesome so far. So, you know, at the end of the book, you got pretty personal and You talked about when you were younger, how you had a stutter and things like that. And I really appreciated that as someone who enjoys kind of getting to know people. So, you know, can you tell us kind of how that almost was the backbone of this whole book almost. Stephen Shedletzky [00:17:51]: Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you, Steve. There's a great quote by a Danish philosopher Kierkegaard that says I'm going to paraphrase, but it's something to the effect of life makes sense looking backwards, but it must be lived forwards. And so I'm a I'm a really big believer that the things that we've overcome come or are overcoming in our lives is often where our purpose lives, that it's so meaningful for us to help other folks move through things that we've had to had to move through. And so for me, growing up with with a stutter, I went on to marry a Speech therapist, very good choice, and more so for my kids and my nieces and nephews. But I knew intimately the feeling of voicelessness as a as a young kid, as an 8, 9, 10, you know, 13 year old kid. Even later in in life, you know, I was still terrified of public speaking at 19, 20 years old. Stephen Shedletzky [00:18:42]: And I just got help. I got support, and I took a series of modest, reasonable tests to build confidence, Build some tools because I still have a stutter and it still happens, but I've learned to work with it. And so I know intimately that feeling of voicelessness. And so it's no mistake that that experience growing up, I think, has helped inform much of my passion, which is helping people communicate their ideas in ways that they can connect and be understood and their feelings as well. Also helping leaders create environments where people feel that it's safe and worth it to speak up. There's sort of no coincidence playing it backwards. David Millili [00:19:16]: Yeah. That's great. So, I was fortunate. When I started my 1st company I got from, went from hotel, running a hotel as a general manager to a tech company. And I think that general manager background Helped me. And I get asked the question, like, what's the biggest mistake a lot of entrepreneurs make founders? And when I say the first one is they Assume that they should be the CEO and they should be the leader because just because it's your company doesn't necessarily mean you're you're the right person to run it because it's your idea. So what would you how would you kind of evaluate that or talk to founders about how they really Make sense of the management of that company and being a CEO or a founder. Stephen Shedletzky [00:19:57]: I mean, for a CEO or a founder to to have The arrogance or naivety to think that there is a Swiss army knife is really silly. This is the value of having a team. Now, it's really hard because especially if you're a CEO or founder or especially if you're new in a leadership role, You've been incentivized and rewarded for being the best, for being the most responsible, for being the most driven, for knowing all the things. Right? But you you come to a level where what's gotten you here won't get you there. And so what leaders need to do is they need to know that their role isn't to be in charge, but it's to lift others up. You know, there there's no mistake, David, that every single leadership development program I've ever seen participated in, facilitated in, witnessed, whatever it might be, they all start with a module on self, every single one of them. The work of leadership is to understand your own instrument, your strengths, amplify them, your limitations and weaknesses, build strategies around them, be vulnerable with the team around you so you can better team, and then it's around helping others build relationship with their instrument and then harmonizing together so that 1 plus 1 equals infinity. Right. Stephen Shedletzky [00:21:07]: That's the work of leadership. And so to have the belief that leading is always in front is a misnomer. Sometimes you are leading in front. And, Steve, sometimes it actually does make sense to be vulnerable and for a leader to speak first if it's appropriate. Other times, leaders lead from the side and other times leaders lead from the from the back. It's dynamic. It's constantly evolving based upon what the situation and context calls for. David Millili [00:21:31]: Yeah, that's great. Yeah. There's nothing more I would say in my career, there's been nothing more eye opening than, You know, I had a long career of being a CEO or founder of a company, and I got positioned where I became a chief commercial officer, and I wasn't the true leader. And it was amazing to be, you know, on the sidelines looking in and seeing what was that like. So, Yeah. That's great stuff. So you were at high-tech. What would you say to people who are in hospitality and why they should read your book and how it can really affect them and really kinda have a positive impact on their career? Stephen Shedletzky [00:22:06]: I mean, for folks specifically in hospitality, I mean, we hear so often, you know, who comes first? Employer, customer, you know, employer, patient, employer, you know, student, you know, teacher, student list, list goes on. And my perspective on this is neither. What I think should come first is values. Values dictate who your people are, because if you have values and standards of this is how we behave at our best in a healthy, thriving way in this culture, it then determines who are your people and who aren't. And if people behave as employees or clients outside of those value set. You're allowed to fire both or coach both. I would say coach first. Right. Stephen Shedletzky [00:22:49]: And so for folks who work in hospitality and in the hoteling industry. It is an industry that is reinforced with customer service, serve the Customer serve the customer, serve serve the customer. And I think for those who are leading in the hotel space, we need to know that the Purpose of yes, an organization or a hotel is to serve end users so that there's money and the thing exists. But in order for that to happen, leaders must care for their people. When people feel cared for, that people care for each other and that extends to the paying customer, and that takes care of the results. And so I think 1st and foremost, get clear on what your values are, how we treat each other, inclusive of how freaking empowering is it to say to someone at a front desk. We don't talk to each other that way here. And if that's not okay with you, you're welcome to go down the street and take your business elsewhere. Stephen Shedletzky [00:23:41]: That's empowering and that's important. And then as well, you know, culture and trust lives from the inside out. We cannot expect someone to extend care if they themselves do not feel cared for. Steve Carran [00:23:54]: That's awesome. So that's the end of our questions. Our producer, John, has been listening in the background this whole time. I'm gonna kick it off to him for the final question here. Jon Bumhoffer [00:24:03]: So a lot of what you talked about seemed to me like me paraphrasing it. Hiring for especially the hiring spot, like hiring for character, not necessarily skills or performance. Right? What would you say, you know, if you're a a Small company or you're an entrepreneur making a 1st hire, a lot of times with labor shortage and just you're trying to get things off your plate, and you're hiring for character, not skill, but you have to train the skill. That takes time and you're trying to get things off your plate. What would you say to help Kind of figure out that situation. Stephen Shedletzky [00:24:34]: It's a great question, John. And I'm glad that we're both wearing hats here. Makes me feel makes makes me feel safe and that it was worth it. Thank you. It's a brilliant question. I mean, I'm going through it right now myself. I have a small fledgling team. I have 1 employee other than me in another contractor and then some vendors. Stephen Shedletzky [00:24:54]: Right? And there are vendors that we worked with that it's been fantastic and vendors that we no longer work with because there was a values mismatch, and we learned that quickly. Right? But when it came to hiring my 1st hire, first of all, he was exceptionally open by saying, Thank you for sharing the list of things that you need for someone to do. He actually challenged me and said, you don't need an EA, you need a COO. And I was like, Oh, Keep coming. And he said, now I admit these things on your list, I'm gonna have a hard time with. It's twenty percent of my job, and it's gonna take 80% of my energy. But he said, I'm willing to make that sacrifice because I believe in you. I believe in the work. Stephen Shedletzky [00:25:34]: I believe in the vision. Right? And so I willingly made it a bit of a sacrifice on skills in some competency areas to prioritize compassion and character. And it's been a pain point. Like, we talk about it very openly that there's some stuff that's on his plate that shouldn't be, but we don't have anyone else. But, we prioritize those attributes And those those that that character over it, meaning he's not a high performer who I don't trust with the with the keys to the house. You know, I trust him with the keys to the house, even if there are some mistakes here and there, and we're solving toward those skill gaps. So, yeah, work needs to get done, but that 1st hire is so important. And if you make a wrong hire, that could sink the entire company. Stephen Shedletzky [00:26:23]: And so I would rather hire for for for character because skills can be developed and you can solve for skills in creative ways. It's a great question. David Millili [00:26:31]: Great. Thanks, John. So that does it for another episode of The Modern Hotel. This is the time where we Allow you to plug away, let people know how they can get the book, let them know how they can get in touch with you. Stephen Shedletzky [00:26:43]: Thank you so much, David and Steve and John. This was a treat to join you. I know it was packed and quick, but I really appreciate it. You can get the book wherever you like to get your books and even places you don't like to get your books. It's probably available there there as well. You can learn more at speakupculture.com, and I'm pretty sure I'm the only Steven Chicletski in the world at present. So all you handfuls of Chicletski's, please name your kids wisely. You can find me on LinkedIn. Stephen Shedletzky [00:27:08]: I'm most active there. David Millili [00:27:09]: Well, once again, that does it for another episode of Modern Hotelier. We hope to see everyone again soon, and we really enjoyed it. Thank you for being our guest. Stephen Shedletzky [00:27:17]: Thank you for having me. Steve Carran [00:27:18]: Thank you, Can subscribe if you're watching on YouTube or follow wherever you get your podcast. If you know of a guest or sponsor that would be a good fit, feel free to email us at hello at the modern hotelier.com. Thanks and have a great day.