Transforming Leadership: From Fear to Empowerment in Times of Change

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

Stone Payton: Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show, where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this afternoon. This is going to be a good one. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast keynote speaker, author, and consultant, Mindy Vail. How are you?

Mindy Vail: I’m great. Stone, thank you so much for having me.

Stone Payton: Well, the pleasure is all mine. I’ve really been looking forward to this conversation. Let’s start. Maybe tell us a little bit about your practice and what you’re really out there trying to do for folks. Mindy.

Mindy Vail: Yeah. Thank you. I am a consultant, as you said in the intro. I’ve authored the book The Mindshift effect, and I help leaders navigate change through their organization, whether it be small or large, mergers or acquisitions, and help them lead their teams through the tough times of change. And we have a lot going on right now. I mostly focus on the HR world, which is being blasted by, um, all kinds of changes right now, and just trying to keep up with it can feel overwhelming. And so I step in and try to help those teams navigate that.

Stone Payton: Well, I gotta say, as a sales and marketing guy earlier in my career, I got to believe, uh, choosing the practice of helping people navigate change. I don’t think you’re ever going to be out of work, Mindy.

Mindy Vail: No, no. You’re right. Absolutely right.

Stone Payton: Oh my goodness. So what do you what are you running into? What are you finding these days, anyway? Are some of the the biggest challenges or obstacles that are that leaders are facing in, uh, when they’re trying to, to navigate this new terrain.

Mindy Vail: Yeah. It’s mostly it boils down to fear. Um, fear of just uncertainty, not knowing what the future holds. And it can be fear of job security. It can be, um, fear of just not knowing what’s going to happen next. And so I think that that puts us in a very uncomfortable situation and mindset of, you know, we’d like to have control over things. We like to know what the next step is. And very few people flourish in a state of fear. Very few people. So that’s the number one thing I’ve been seeing recently is just an underlying this current of fear.

Stone Payton: When I’m operating under the impression that, yes, there’s so much going in our world here in this country anyway, that there’s got to be plenty of that. But that must happen, you know, when there’s a downsizing or a major technology upgrade or a merger or acquisition. I mean, that’s that’s probably happens a great deal, doesn’t it?

Mindy Vail: All the time. All the time? Absolutely. And before I left, um, the position I was in, I was up with a company in the northwest for almost ten years, and we had an acquisition from a Canadian company, and then we merged with, um, sister companies underneath that umbrella. And it created quite a bit of uncertainty, and it was very difficult. And that happens all the time. I see organizations who are combining cultures that are very different, and they’re having to work under this new system that is very unfamiliar to them. And so there’s going to be resistance, there’s going to be communication gaps, there’s going to be leadership misalignment. There’s going to be some change fatigue that happens. And so all of those you mix into one pot, and it’s the ingredients for kind of a messy situation if you allow it to be.

Stone Payton: So you mentioned that one specific set of experiences. What is the full backstory? What? Tell us a little bit about your journey to coming to this line of work.

Mindy Vail: Yeah, yeah, I would love to. It’s a little unorthodox, but I love it for that reason. I was a high school English teacher for 17 years in the Denver metro area, and then I left public education and the family and I moved out to the Pacific Northwest, where I took on a position just as a e learning curriculum development, um, training manager, and then kind of worked my way up and became an executive VP of culture and employee engagement, and was able to work with strategic communications and HR learning and development, and really got to see a different side of the world, from public education to corporate exec. And, so it’s been a little different as far as career path goes. But it’s worked. And that’s really what I, um, promote in my consulting and my speaking is it’s never too late to try something new. And things are constantly shifting. And if you’re willing to step into that fear and uncertainty, that’s half the battle. And I think that’s where I’ve flourished. I don’t love change, but I accept it as a reality. And I and I try to roll with it as best I can.

Stone Payton: Now, are you finding that certain types of leaders or certain segments of people within organizations? Well, I’ll just pick one, like women like do. Let’s just say women. Do they have challenges that are unique to to women in leadership and change? And maybe there are other groups that aren’t coming to mind right now?

Mindy Vail: Yeah, absolutely. And I appreciate you bringing that up. I do a lot of work with women in particular. I work with women owned industries, and I do a lot of my workshops with women groups. There are still biases and stereotypes alive and well, and we have to accept that those are still there. We often face scrutiny on competence versus likability. We’re constantly trying to balance what it is to be in charge without being aggressive or deemed other names that I won’t say us right, and we still have a lack of representation in those higher roles and positions in companies. And so we don’t have the same level of mentorship and role models as maybe men do. Um, I think that we still face work life integration pressures. We, we we’re a lot to everyone. And so we have to somehow balance our lives, our personal lives, with our professional lives, while still holding our identity true and not losing ourselves within everybody else. So yeah, I definitely think the women in Leadership is is top of mind for me in particular.

Stone Payton: Okay, let’s talk about me for a minute. It’s my show.

Mindy Vail: Yeah, yeah, let’s do it.

Stone Payton: No. With respect to this question, actually. So I’m the number two guy in a pretty successful media company. I’ve made a comfortable living for a lot of years. So, you know, I’m fairly well-to-do, middle aged white guy. I would like to think that I’m not biased or prejudiced, but it occurs to me, though, that sometimes, um, we can create preconceived notions, biases, um, and not even be fully aware of it. So I wanted to get your opinion on that to see how accurate you think that might be. And then more importantly, okay, look, Stone, you could impact a lot of lives. What what could should you be doing to be more in, in passive and empowered? Some of these folks that feel like maybe they, they, uh, are, uh, you know, digging out of a little bit of a hole.

Mindy Vail: Yeah. And and stone, let me just hats off to you for just saying that out loud, that you do accept that, you know, you are in a situation where you are grateful for what you have and self-awareness. I preach this all the time. Good leaders are self-aware. Good leaders can say the things that bad leaders don’t say of, yeah, I accept that I am this way, and I accept that I may have unconscious biases and I respect that 100%. Um, we all have unconscious biases. That’s the thing. Like if you say you don’t, you haven’t done enough research, right? Because it’s how our brains work, and we’re influenced by our background and our experiences, our culture, our upbringings. And we have these mental shortcuts that go to immediate assumptions. And they’re not always negative. That’s the thing. But it is real. They’re often limiting. Even if they’re not negative, they’re often limiting. And I write about that in my book. And I think for someone like you asking that question, that’s where the conversation starts. We acknowledge and we educate ourselves. We help to be an ally. We amplify underrepresented voices. We listen with the intent to understand, not with the intent to immediately respond with our opinion. And that’s really tough sometimes because we think we know the answer. But if we just listen with the intent to Tend to understand. We can learn so much more. Um, and I would just say call out those biases and microaggressions that we see because they’re everywhere. And it doesn’t have to be embarrassing. It’s really just how our brain works of yeah, I just I noticed this and I’d like to address it. Let’s talk about it. So I appreciate you asking that question. I think that’s that’s amazing. Very respectful.

Stone Payton: Well, it’s interesting that you bring up this, uh, this concept of genuinely listening. I was, uh, on an interview. It was just a few days ago with, with another very well established coach, and we and we, we started talking about the difference between, uh, listening and waiting, as in, just let them get done talking so I can say my thing.

Mindy Vail: Yeah. It’s so hard to write. It’s so hard. Because when we’re in a conversation, we want people, especially when we’re a leader and we’re and we’re running the show. We want people to see that we know what we’re doing. We want people to perceive us as competent. And so with that comes this responsibility to share our knowledge. But sometimes we just need to sit back and listen. Truly listen. And for me, I’ve had to train myself over the years to what you just said, to wait to pause and reflect on. Is this a beneficial, purposeful place for me to insert my opinion, a comment, or a statement? And that’s really hard to do. But you can train yourself to do it, and you find that not only do you learn so much more, but you’re really showing respect for the other person and giving them space to be something in that moment that maybe they haven’t had a chance to do.

Stone Payton: Speaking of training yourself, is there a master key or a set of disciplines or process for getting good at this topic? You mentioned earlier in the conversation of of embracing uncertainty.

Mindy Vail: For me, Stone, I really advocate taking time for yourself, truly for yourself. Um, whether that be meditation, I, I meditate, I also go for walks in nature. Um, I have a little bit of a hippie side to me, but you do not have to be a hippie to do these things, right. To get out and get fresh air by yourself. Um, maybe take a walk every day to the same area and notice something different every day. And then meditate. Think about those things that are consuming you and figure out how you can compartmentalize them and prioritize them in a better way than what you’re doing. Organize your life. I think exercising is always good, and talking to others who share in your passion is really helpful too.

Stone Payton: So what are you finding the most rewarding about the work? What are you enjoying the most these days at this point in your career?

Mindy Vail: I love when people are able to notice something different about themselves and how they process information, or how people perceive them. I love when that when that light turns on, and I was able to just be a catalyst to get them there. I love when there’s that self-awareness spark of energy of, oh my gosh, I never actually realized that’s what I do. And now I see it, and I can change it so that I can lead better or I can speak with more confidence. Or I can listen to understand more than I have before. Those are the moments. And this comes back from years of teaching too. That’s what I loved about being in the classroom, of seeing those aha moments. That’s what’s rewarding for me.

Stone Payton: So let’s go back to that, that transition from the teaching. And then, you know, now you’re in business. You’re out there practicing your craft, but you’ve also got to run a business. Was it tough in the early days like just the just getting the business like this whole sales and marketing aspect of things or did that come pretty easy?

Mindy Vail: No, it was it was tough. It was tough. First off, leaving teaching and then moving into the corporate world, it was tough just to learn all the acronyms and the business acumen. But like that was a whole beast in and of itself, right? You know, they had three pages of acronyms and I was just overwhelmed trying to learn the new terminology. Um, but you you get the hang of it. It’s it’s assimilating yourself into a foreign language and a foreign country, and you just do it over time, and and it becomes easier. Um, then shifting from being with a team of people who I relied on every day and respected and absolutely just loved collaborating with to being my own boss, working for myself by myself, that was different. That took me a little bit longer because I loved that team aspect. I still miss it, but I found the rewards that come with working for myself as well. And so yeah, it took me a long time. It was like a definitely a culture shock. I won’t lie, it definitely took months. And writing the book was part of that journey to really put down all of the things I was passionate about, and reminded myself that this is exactly where I need to be doing what I love.

Stone Payton: Well, I definitely want to talk about the book in a moment. I’m interested to know the structure and the content and how people can use it and all that. But, um, initially my one of my questions is just the process of committing your ideas to paper. What was that process like for you to actually sit down and craft a book?

Mindy Vail: It was unexpected. I did not sit down with the intention to write the book. I have an advantage because I was an English teacher. I have always loved writing. That’s been one of my passions, and yet I’ve never shared it in a public venue. So when I was part of a pretty major layoff, I really had the opportunity to sit down and just journal and it became really what is now the book. I started talking through this by myself on paper of what it takes to be a great leader versus a not great leader. To be very frank, just, you know, why leaders suck and why they don’t. Um, and so I started really digging into it. And I’m like, God, I really do love the neuropsychology behind all of this. And I love digging into the whys and the hows and how people respond to different behaviors and personality traits. So before you know it, I said, you know what? I’m just going to try it. I may what do I have to lose to try to write it? And I did, and it was one of the more rewarding processes I think I’ve put myself through.

Stone Payton: I would imagine, and I know your book has been successful and helped a lot of people, but I would imagine, if nothing else, investing the time and energy to commit your ideas to paper like that. Uh, I bet you it helped you solidify and crystallize your own thinking on a lot of topics and probably made you that much better of of a practitioner. Yeah.

Mindy Vail: Yeah, I would like to think so, Stone. I really think that it helps. Like anytime you can put something in writing or teach others about it, you really know what it is you’re talking about, right? It does solidify the content. And it really helped me organize all of the thoughts that were in my head at the time. But I just couldn’t compartmentalize everything because there was an emotional aspect to it as well. And yeah, I would like to think that it has made me a better practitioner.

Stone Payton: Yeah. So talk about some of the key topics covered in the book, and maybe a little bit about the structure and how how one can get the most out of it.

Mindy Vail: Yeah, I wrote it with the intent to just share my thoughts with other leaders who were either struggling to get to that next phase in their career or to the beginning leader like an emerging leader. I was able to build out and run emerging leader programs, which were super rewarding. And so this book really has that in mind. It’s structured so that you take one chapter at a time, you process it, you digest it, you think through it. And then there’s those reflective questions of, okay, just stop. Just stop right now. Just pause. Like we were saying, read and then pause. Listen and then pause and then really reflect. Where are you with this information so far in your day to day career? How are you putting this into practice? How is it working for you? How is it not working for you? And then put the book to the side and then come back to it later and do another chapter? So it’s not it’s structured in a way that’s not meant to be ingested all at once. And I’m all about bite sized learning. That’s the way we process and retain information most effectively. And so that’s how I have it structured.

Stone Payton: This strikes me that the way it’s structured and the way you described using it, it strikes me as being very helpful for an individual. But I wonder if it wouldn’t really lend itself to like a group of execs or a group of emerging leaders. And we go and we read the chapter, and then we get together and we kind of talk about what we took away from it and how we tried to apply some stuff that worked. Does it lend itself to that kind of group, peer to peer exchange at all?

Mindy Vail: You are in my brain 100%. It does. It is. It’s really that’s how I approach teaching and learning of you individually, taking information. And then you come together with other people who are going kind of through that same journey as you, and you talk about it, you discuss it and you dig in.

Stone Payton: So what are some of the we won’t try to do the whole book here. We’ll make sure people know how to get their hands on it. But what are some some key topics that really stand out for you or you feel like? You know, I this is something that comes up all the time, and I know people are going to want to at least read through this and try to apply some of this material.

Mindy Vail: Some of the topics that I start with are. What you really opened this conversation with is recognizing your biases, and really getting into why you think the way you do about the world around you. And then I get into kind of the neuropsychology of change, the things that we don’t often think about because our brain is just on automatic pilot, and then how that really impacts the decision making. Um, I talk a lot about how we get to true innovation. We’re always as companies, you know, that’s one of the big core values, is we want to be the innovators. But what does that really mean? And how is that tied to successful change? I talk a lot about strategic planning and when we have our vision and mission and values, what does that really mean to building a culture that lives and breathes those things? How do we get there? We can’t just put it on a poster and make it come alive. We have to do a lot of behind the scenes work to get there. And then I also talk about just embracing, having a growth mindset and how to do that. When you feel kind of trapped, maybe in a job you’re not flourishing in, maybe you’re having disagreements with coworkers. Maybe you just don’t love the culture. How do you then embrace a growth mindset and move out of that discomfort to a place where you’re going to flourish?

Stone Payton: I want to talk about this values thing because you’ve struck a chord in me, because I’ve spent my share of time in boardrooms and in corporate halls over the, over the years, and I’ve seen some pretty nice looking posters, you know, with the, with the acrostic spells out the values and right and that kind of thing. But it strikes me that it is clearly another thing to get not only that directly tied, clearly tied to where we’re going and why in the plan, but, uh, yeah, that, that that’s that’s a bridge. Not everybody crosses real well, do they?

Mindy Vail: Um, it’s so true. And I think we, we I, at least as a consultant, have seen this time and time again. The missing link is the leadership team. The leadership team must embrace and model expected behaviors that they want their team to exhibit. When we just send out, let’s just say an employee engagement survey and everyone gets the survey except the leadership team. There’s a break. That bridge will collapse. And so I always advocate when when I’m working with an organization to start with the leadership team first. Dig into how do they see themselves. Where are their gaps? Where are their opportunities? Where are their strengths? And then let’s talk about how are we going to build as an organization knowing that we have ultimate responsibility as leaders.

Stone Payton: And when it comes to to managing change in an organization of any real size and complexity, I got to believe no matter how well you plan, you’re going to run into some resistance, at least initially. Can you speak to some strategies for that? Well, first of all, just check me here. Am I accurate? Even if everybody or a lot of critical mass is on board in the early going that, you know, maybe that level of optimism is a little bit naive. And then when they really do take that computer program away that I’ve mastered over the last ten years now, I’m not happy. Does that kind of happen? Like later on they figure out more stuff that okay, now I’m ready to resist.

Mindy Vail: Absolutely does. And I’m a I’m a pro side change management practitioner and I use the Adkar model. Are you familiar with Adkar?

Stone Payton: I don’t think so, no.

Mindy Vail: Okay. This is going to this is going to be good for you then. Stone, I’m so glad you asked this question. The Adkar model a k a it’s you start with the need for change. The awareness of do employees know why you’re changing? Whatever it is you’re changing? If it’s a software program, do they understand? Have you communicated effectively as to why are you even changing this in the first place? Right. Because a lot of people, to your point, will say, I’ve been using this for 20 years. Why do I need to change? It works fine. Don’t fix what’s not broken. So you have to tackle that that a the awareness and then that desire of do people want to do it? And if they don’t want to do it because you have not communicated clearly the why behind it, the what’s in it for them? Chances are the resistance is going to really stall you right there. And then you have to teach them how to change. You have to implement really effective, good, solid training that is ongoing, not just a one stop shop. It’s a it’s an ongoing training development and then ability to implement required skills and behaviors of teaching them that this is this is not going away. We’re all going to model the expected behavior. We’re all going to use the training tools we put out there. We’re going to continue to communicate really clear, effective messaging and then reinforcing it. The are of ADR of to sustain that change over the long run. We’re not just going to drop it because we see that a lot. We we implement a change, we do all of the work and then no one ever talks about it again. And we get into this belief that, oh, well, they’re just never going to follow through on anything. We’re just going to stop paying attention to all these changes they’re putting in place. When we follow the add car model. It’s really effective.

Stone Payton: Well, I bet it is. It’s certainly it’s it seems like a very helpful framework to me just to get my arms around the whole thing. And it strikes me that it would be almost impossible to, to overcommunicate all the way through just to communicate, communicate, communicate. Because I suspect if you don’t, other people will fill in the blanks themselves. Maybe not.

Mindy Vail: Do they write their own narrative, don’t they? Yes, yes. And then oftentimes it’s at the beginning when we forget to communicate. And so as leaders, we’re already ten steps ahead because we’ve had all these meetings leading up to the communication. And then we just expect everyone to jump on board with us because they should be as excited as we are, but they haven’t been in all the conversations. And so when we get resistance, we’re offended as to like, why aren’t they jumping on board? We don’t get it.

Stone Payton: All right. I’m going to switch gears on you for a minute if I can. Well, you kind of touched on it because you you revealed that you may have a little bit of hippie in you, but I’m just curious. Hobbies, pursuits, interests, passions outside the scope of your of your work. What do you enjoy doing when you’re not doing this?

Mindy Vail: Yeah, so I do. I am in the Pacific Northwest, like I mentioned. So I do love hiking. I love being outside. We have gorgeous area up here, um, in Washington. And then I also have my own podcast that I just launched with a friend of mine. Um, it’s called Together To and we’re really setting that up to empower women in particular, like we talked about earlier, to really just embrace who they are and be able to set healthier boundaries for themselves to live their best life. And so I’m really excited about that. That’s that’s just like a side project that we just started and it’s super fun.

Stone Payton: So are you already capturing some content? Have you started?

Mindy Vail: We are. Yeah, we had our first our our launch was two weeks ago and we’re going to go every other week. And yeah, it’s super exciting.

Stone Payton: Oh fantastic. We’ll definitely continue to follow that aspect of the of the story. And I just can tell from having an opportunity to have a phone call with you a few weeks ago and now in this, in this exchange here, you, uh, you’re going to thoroughly enjoy it and you’re going to genuinely help a lot of folks with that. So congratulations.

Mindy Vail: Thank you so much. I really hope that that it proves to be true. Yes. Thank you.

Stone Payton: Yeah. Hey, listen, before we wrap, I would love to leave our listeners, uh, with a little bit of counsel advice. I call it a pro tip, but I’d kind of like it. And I guess the frame for that, for me, would be when it comes to producing better results in less time, but maybe related to some of what we’ve talked about. And look guys, the number one pro tip, uh, is reach out and uh, tap into Mindy’s work and maybe set up a conversation with Mindy or somebody on her team, but to to sate them between now and then, uh, let’s leave them a little something to chew on. Mindy.

Mindy Vail: I would say my tip is to invest in yourself. Invest in yourself. Whether that be coaching, whether that be therapy, whether that be just better, healthier lifestyles. Um, I honestly think that when we invest in ourselves, when we carve out deliberate time to just learn who we are, what our own core values are, what it is we want out of life, what’s bringing us down. It goes so far in our daily interactions with others, whether it be at home or at work. Invest in yourself.

Stone Payton: Amen and well said. All right. What’s the best way for our folks to do just that? Tap into your work. Um, maybe have a conversation with you. Definitely want to get them, uh, connected to this, uh, podcast, give them an opportunity to, for to have access to the book. So let’s leave them with some coordinates to make that happen easily.

Mindy Vail: Fantastic. Yeah. They can reach me at. Uh, Mindy and then Vail, like Vail, Colorado. Mindy. Vail. Com. And I’m on LinkedIn. Mindy Vail as well. And same thing, uh, with the podcast. It’s a little bit separate from that because it’s a little more fun and a little more lighthearted. And that’s together to podcast. And that’s also on LinkedIn. You can find that on my Mindy Vail profile.

Stone Payton: What a delight. Mindy. I have thoroughly enjoyed the conversation, I oversold it. I told you we’d have about a 15 minute conversation. We’ve gone well beyond that because I am so thoroughly enjoying it. I’ve learned a ton. I know our listeners will as well. Thank you for what you’re doing. Thank you for your insight, your perspective, your enthusiasm. And keep up the the good work. We sincerely appreciate you.

Mindy Vail: Thank you Stone, I appreciate you having me and getting to share my passion. And I love your energy as well. So this has been great for me too.

Stone Payton: My pleasure. All right, until next time. This is Stone Payton for our guest today, Mindy Vail, and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you in the fast lane.