Todd Davis With FranklinCovey

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of High Velocity Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have Todd Davis with Franklin Covey. Welcome, Todd.

Todd Davis: Hey, Lee. Thanks for the invitation.

Lee Kantor: Well, I am excited to learn what you’re up to. For the folks who aren’t familiar, can you share a little bit about Franklin Covey? How are you serving folks?

Todd Davis: Thanks, Lee. Yes, Franklin Covey, for those who may not be familiar with Franklin Covey. Franklin Covey is a global organization that helps organizations, uh, achieve results when the achieving of those results requires a change in human behavior. We do that through leadership, and we have been in the leadership space for nearly four decades, in fact. And I say this with humility, but many tout us as the as the most trusted leadership organization in the world we were founded. Many people might be familiar with the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, written by Doctor Stephen Covey, one of the best selling business books of all time. And and that was one of our founders and our founding pieces of content. And then also Hyrum Smith with Time Quest and the and the time management concepts and the Franklin Day Planner that many people may be familiar with or remember their parents or their grandparents having, but that those were our beginnings. And like I say, we now we do leadership development at all levels of leadership and organizations and have done that for 40 years now.

Lee Kantor: What’s your backstory? How did you get involved in this line of work?

Todd Davis: I’ve been with the organization for nearly 29 years. I’m in my 29th year now, and for 18 of those years, until about two years ago, a year and a half ago, I was Franklin Covey, chief people officer, overseeing their human resources and some other operations of that. I like I said, I came to them 29 years ago. I had read the seven Habits of Highly Effective People and thought, I wonder if there’s an organization behind this because it is powerful. And so I came to work for them at that time.

Lee Kantor: So what are some of the symptoms of organizations that aren’t working with Franklin Covey, but maybe should be? Are there some symptoms and things that are happening within the organizations that are kind of breadcrumbs that, hey, maybe we ought to make a change here and invest in leadership?

Todd Davis: Yeah, it’s a great question. Well, what we are finding even more so now in this age of technology and AI, where we’re artificial intelligence, is replacing more and more of our roles. Recent survey that was done with 290 different organizations that are heavy users of AI, their top management rated the number one skills that are needed. And among those top three were interpersonal or emotional intelligence skills. Something that I can’t do or doesn’t do. And so this is where, um, the seven habits we have just re reimagined the seven habits, which again has been around for 35 years. But because it’s based on principles of effectiveness, it’s as relevant today as it was when Stephen Covey first wrote about them. And so we are finding more and more that the relationships at work, not just a nice to have, but the way people work together, really has a significant impact on the bottom line of the organization, the growth of the organization and how well top performing organizations do. And so. So the seven habits is what what I’m out doing. In fact, I was just down in Atlanta yesterday. Just got home last night leading a two day, seven habits workshop. So, um, these interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence can never be understated as far as how important that is to help organizations and teams achieve the growth they’re trying to achieve.

Lee Kantor: Now, how do organizations, um, manage the communication skills needed when your workforce is not all in the same place physically and you’re seeing kind of face to face, and you’re kind of seeing body language and maybe some nonverbal cues when a lot of folks today, you know, their whole world is on their phone, and that’s how they’re interacting with their teammates and their clients and the, you know, just humanity in general.

Todd Davis: Such an important question always. But now more than ever before, because as you as you state, we are most organizations are more remote than ever before. And we, you know, before or as the pandemic hit and opened up this whole different geography, we are now recruiting and hiring people from not just, you know, within our own nations, but all over the world. And so, while it’s always been important to your point, communication and the way we understand one another is more important than ever and more challenging than before. For those who are not familiar with the seven Habits of Highly Effective People, habit five is seek first to understand, then to be understood. It’s based on the principle of respect and empathy. And so while that sounds theoretical to your question, having that mindset and that principle at the core really helps us to do a better job of of when we’re talking, like you and I are today, you know, just in an audio version or on a zoom call or whatever, taking the time, slowing down and asking more questions. You know, tell me how things are going and tell me what you mean by that, because a lot of things, like you said, we can’t see anymore. Some of the physical signals that we get. And so we just need to bring more discussion to it. And we need to have more frequent conversations and check in more with people. I think there are huge. Well, I know there are huge benefits to the flexibility that remote work offers us all. But there’s also this isolation and this, quite frankly, loneliness. And so great leaders are aware of that and they are checking in on their teams more. They are they are, um, coming up with reasons not just to have meetings for meetings sake, but more engagement, more interaction. Realizing that for people to stay engaged, they need to be interacting even more so now than they were before with their team members.

Lee Kantor: Now, how do you help people? Um, I want to phrase this right. How do you help them give people the benefit of the doubt and give them grace? Those qualities seem to be lacking in kind of the increased polarization in the world today, where people have picked sides and have teams, and then on their team and their side, they get information. And that information is saying one thing. The other side is no longer just a the other side, but they are kind of deemed as evil. They’re not it’s not, you know, my opinion. Your opinion. It’s it’s right or wrong. It’s good and evil. So how do you kind of help open people up to that grace and the empathy that, um, that habit number five espouses.

Todd Davis: Well, thanks for teeing that up because, well, all of the habits in some way address what you’re talking about. But it is habit five, this habit of empathy that we have to make a choice. How about one is to be proactive. And so the reason that’s habit one is because we’ve got we’ve got to make a decision. Wait a minute. Do we even see a problem. And if so, are we willing to take a first step. And so so recognizing that it’s up to us. And in this time, especially here in the in the US where there is such discord and seeing things so polar opposite, we’ve got to decide if we’re fine with that status quo or if we want to work with in what we call our circle of influence, and to work within our circle of influence versus our circle of concern. We do have to take time to understand the other person. So something that I find very helpful and I and I facilitate and coach others is simply moving our mindset from I bet to I wonder. So simple and yet so difficult to do. I bet she’s acting this way because she believes that. Bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla. First verses I wonder why she sees it that way. I’m going to ask. And so instead of judging, instead of assuming, ask. And when you ask, don’t ask and then listen with the intent to reply. I mean, how many of us, how many of you are listening? If you’re honest with yourself, you you listen to someone and you nod and you’re looking at them and you’re not talking over them, but in your mind, you’re already formulating your response or your defense or your solution or what you’re going to come up with.

Todd Davis: We are all guilty of that. We all do that. And and I think a lot of it doesn’t come from a bad place. It’s because we’re fixers. We want to, you know, we hear just enough of a conversation to say, oh, I know how to fix that. Let me. As soon as they stop talking, I’m going to tell them. And the key to to really understanding and starting to heal from what you’re talking about, Lee, is listen with the intent to understand, suspend, not not agree or disagree, but suspend your feelings, your thoughts, your opinions long enough to truly hear the other person. I had this experience just the other day with someone who who had a very different opinion on something that has happened in our world than I did, and I as wrong as I thought this person was, I just said, hey, help me understand. I know you and I have said we see it differently, but I really want to understand why you why you think such and such and went into that and I and I forced myself to push my opinion aside. And while after listening to them I didn’t say, oh, I completely see it their way, I got a much better understanding of maybe considering a different way to look at things, and I could. I had more of an appreciation for why this person was was acting the way they were acting. So it’s it’s listening with the intent to understand, not just to reply.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you’re working with your clients, are your clients. They have to have a level of self-awareness to even consider working with you. Um, and the folks who might need you the most maybe lack that self-awareness. So, um, how do you help the people or do you not? And maybe that’s just a choice from, you know, kind of your worldview is saying, hey, we can only help the people who raise their hand and want to be helped, but is there anything for the folks who maybe aren’t ready to buy into what Franklin Covey is saying, but do need help? Like, is there some low hanging fruit for that crowd?

Todd Davis: Yeah, absolutely. But it does take a it does certainly take even an ounce of self-awareness. And so how we in, you know, a little bit hard to summarize this in such a short period of time. But but how we work with organizations and we just ask them front up, you know, are they exactly where they need to be. Are they exceeding all of their expectations? We have not met. I’ve not met an organization, including our own at Franklincovey who is there. And so if you’re not achieving all of your goals for the organization with excellence, help us understand where the pain points are, what’s getting in the way, and most organizations, most leaders can come up with, well, here’s a problem here, here’s a problem here. And are you is there any area of improvement or is there anything you think you could be doing differently? And again, with rare exception, most people are willing to say, no, I’m not perfect. I and so when we get to that point, they are willing to at least do an analysis and evaluation. So we have with all of our our work sessions and the and the content that we teach, we do an analysis for seven habits.

Todd Davis: There’s a profile a 360 profile. And you’ll see senior leaders, including CEOs. They’ll do this 360 profile where they’ll send out. It’s an anonymous survey to all of their team members, their executive team, people that report up to them and they’ll get feedback. And you’ll be hard to argue with feedback. You can say it’s not accurate. Well, it’s their opinion. And so when a leader as good as she or he is sees, gosh, this is what people think. I’m doing well. But this is where they think I’m, I’m I’m needing some help that that creates not in a bad way, but it creates some humility and some willingness to say, well, gosh, that’s not my intention. And and I may not agree with their feedback, but I’m doing something that’s causing them to think that. And that’s where we find people willing to say, would you be would you be open to let’s discuss a few things that we could do to improve the results we’re getting, including the results of how people feel about our leadership.

Lee Kantor: Now, how do you help organizations that might have some maybe subconscious bias, because the people around them are all kind of look the same. They’re not kind of leaning into the diversity of this country, America, that has such a, um, diverse crowd that is part of the America team. You know, we have people from all cultures, from all countries, and that’s just part of the fabric of the country. But in a lot of organizations, all it takes is to look on their website of their, you know, their board of directors or their leadership, and you’ll see that they all look the same. So how do you kind of help them take that step to say, hey, you know what, maybe we should expand our universe of of talent and maybe expand our universe of leaders.

Todd Davis: Well, such such a great point you bring up. And we have we have a couple of we call them solutions. But our content things that that I facilitate and other consultants facilitate, we have one on inclusive leadership, we have another on unconscious bias. And they kind of go hand in hand. And so to your point, Lee, there are whether you choose to believe them or not. And that becomes more and more of an issue in our country here. But there are research data points that show diverse, inclusive cultures. And there are two different things. We can have a very diverse culture that at least looks diverse but not be inclusive. But a diverse, inclusive culture generates much more revenue or success or whatever. However you want to measure the growth and the success of your organization, then a non diverse and inclusive organization. So that’s the first thing, is that a senior leadership team, executive team has to recognize that if we don’t have people with from different walks of life, from different backgrounds and experience, we’re not going to be as successful as the other competitors in our space that do that. If they don’t acknowledge that, not much we can do about that. But if they acknowledge that, then we talk about the benefits of not just checking a box, in fact, not checking a box at all and saying, oh, we want to look diverse, diverse, but in really looking for what talent do we need and seeking out people with different opinions, you know, it’s easy.

Todd Davis: We all do it. We gravitate towards people who are like minded, who think like we do because it honestly makes the day go easier. We don’t have to, you know, defend ourselves or push up, but we also don’t grow and develop. And so great leaders and great, great individual contributors, they recognize that we want different opinions and different experience at the table to challenge us, not in an argumentative way, but to get us to think outside the box. And again, it all starts with habit one being proactive. I got to make the choice if I’m satisfied with my results. If I’m satisfied with where the company is, great. I’m not going to do anything but but I haven’t met anyone, leader or otherwise, who doesn’t say no. We could get better. And if they’re open to that, we can talk about ways where they can. I like your use of the word expand. It’s not okay. Let’s go seek out a bunch of diverse, ethnically, ethnically diverse people or gender, you know, different gender people. But it’s let’s let’s cast the net wider. Let’s expand the net so that we’re pulling from great talent all over the place. And not just this little defined subset that we’ve gotten comfortable with.

Lee Kantor: So what is a an engagement with Franklin Covey look like? What is kind of that first conversation you have or even the pre conversation. Maybe you give them some homework to do even before you begin an engagement, can you share a little bit about what it looks like to start working with you guys?

Todd Davis: Appreciate that. So so with this, a couple of different ways with this relaunch or rebranding or Reimaging reimagining the seven habits we do. This is what I’ve been out doing for the last four weeks now. It just barely launched. We do a lot of public, um, half day or two hour overviews of that. And so that’s one way where a, you know, prospective clients can come in and get invited. They can go to our website, franklincovey.com and find out where those are taking place. They’re all over the nation. And in fact, doing them in some of our other international direct offices. And then they can attend one of those. The other thing they can do is they can go to our website at franklincovey.com, and they can just book a time and we, we offer this complimentary to have a consultant like myself or a client partner, or both of us come in either virtually or depending on geographic to meet with them, live and just talk about their business, and spend even a half hour understanding where they believe their gaps are, what their challenges are, and then just giving them an outside view of, you know, here’s what we’ve seen in other clients in your area, or here’s what we have learned. We’ve been in this business for, like I said, for decades. So we’re not out there pounding our chest telling people how great we are. We’re just saying, like all of you who have been in a particular skill for a long time, you have so many reps. We have a lot of reps in the leadership business, in growing companies, and so we can share with you and and offer suggestions on what we would recommend as we put together an impact or a learning journey for you and your leadership team.

Lee Kantor: Is there a story you can share that illustrates what it’s like to work with Franklin Covey? You don’t name the name of the organization, but maybe share the problem they came to you with and how you were able to help them get to a new level.

Todd Davis: Uh, sure. And in fact, this one, I’ll be happy to share the name, because they’ve given us permission to share the name, and everybody knows them, or most people know them, at least here in the US. And that’s Panda Express. Like, I cannot pass up the walnut shrimp in the Panda Express fast food chain. And, uh, Panda Express has been a long term client. And when they joined us, you know, they had their very first, um, uh, restaurant down in, uh, I can’t remember what part of California, but anyway, they they were having huge turnover as as people in the fast food industry do have they have a huge turnover. And they were recognizing that culture, you know, while they were paying the appropriate amount of pay to keep people and had the right amount of benefits, they were still having turnover and they and they hit home that it wasn’t a very wasn’t a non-inclusive culture, but it wasn’t a culture that inspired people to want to be there. And so they, we, we connected with with them. And there’s long story about how we we first became in touch with them, but we connect with them and worked with their leadership team and their owners that started that. And and to this day, they have had phenomenal, measurable success, not just because of Franklin Covey, but they will tout that it was Franklin Covey that helped them bring their culture to a level where there are a lot of competitors for that talent in their in their industry, and they continue to attract top talent because of the culture they’ve been able to establish through their leaders at at Panda.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there any advice you could give folks listening right now? When it comes to culture, there are some do’s and don’ts. Or is there some low hanging fruit that a leader could implement? Um, without Franklin Covey’s help that could improve their culture?

Todd Davis: You bet. Um, a phrase we use. And for anybody listening, of course we’d love to work with you. We’d love you to go to our website. But. But even if you don’t think about this, leaders, leaders who are listening, if your foundational goal as a leader were to have every member of your team saying the following statement with confidence and with certainty. I’m a valued member of a winning team doing meaningful work in an environment of trust. I’m going to repeat that again and think about what it would take to have those people reporting to you, or for whom you have stewardship. Able to say that with confidence. I’m a valued member of a winning team, doing meaningful work in an environment of trust. Are you a high trust leader? Do you inspire trust? Do you? Are you authentic? Do you show up as the same leader every day? Do you, um, are you willing to create a safe space for people to develop and grow and make mistakes and learn from those mistakes? Are you a high trust leader? Do you do they know they’re valued? Do you invest in them? Do you coach them? Do you let them know what they’re doing well and where they can improve? Not from a critical standpoint.

Todd Davis: Not to be critical of them, but to let them know you care about their progress. When we say winning team, are they able to measure the contribution they’re making and that your team is making so that they know they’re making a difference and that they’re winning this game? So I’m a valued member of a winning team doing meaningful work. Do they understand the mission of your organization and how what they do contributes to that mission? So so that is something that everybody that’s listening could take away today to enhance their leadership skills. I’m convinced of it because I’ve done it myself and I’ve seen it with the hundreds, if not thousands of leaders that I’ve coached over my three, nearly three decades with Franklin Covey. I’m a valued member of a winning team, doing meaningful work in an environment of trust. Let that be your focus on each of your team members that they can say that statement with confidence.

Lee Kantor: Now, as the work with Franklin Covey is your ideal client, are they in a certain industry or niche, or is this kind of industry agnostic that these are kind of just Foundational truths that can help any organization.

Todd Davis: Great. Great clarification. These are we are industry agnostic because these are principles that are as true today as they were hundreds of years ago. And as they will be thousands of years from now on, they apply to every person and they apply in not just our professional lives, but in our personal lives. Be be proactive. Begin with the end in mind. These are the habits. Be proactive. Begin with the end in mind. Put first things first. Learn how to prioritize. Think. Win. Win. It’s a mindset of abundance versus a scarcity mindset. Seek first to understand, then to be understood. Like we’ve already talked about. Synergize. It’s a habit of creative collaboration. And then habit seven is to sharpen the saw. It’s the habit of renewal. Invest in yourselves not because you’re selfish, but because by doing so, investing in the body, the mind, the heart, and the spirit. It makes me that much more capable and equipped to do so much more for my organization, for my team, for my important relationships in my personal life.

Lee Kantor: Well, Todd, if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what is the website? What is the best way to connect?

Todd Davis: Thanks for asking, Lee. It’s just franklincovey. That’s c o v e y.com. They can also reach out to me directly. I’m on LinkedIn under Todd Davis. If you just put in Todd Davis Franklincovey on LinkedIn, you’ll be able to find me very quickly. And we would love to we would love to continue the conversation.

Lee Kantor: Well, Todd, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Todd Davis: Thank you. Lee.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.