Neuroscience and Archetypal Leadership Communication – WBE Feature

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios. It’s time for Women in Motion. Brought to you by WBEC West. Join forces. Succeed together. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Women in Motion and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor. WBEC West. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on the show, we have Dr. Robin Miller with Articulate Real & Clear. Welcome.

Dr. Robin Miller: Hi. Good morning everyone.

Lee Kantor: I am so excited to learn about your firm. Tell us a little bit about it. How do you serve folks?

Dr. Robin Miller: We are actually product service company, meaning that we teach and coach leadership and teams. We’re service because we serve leadership and teams, and we have specific areas that we focus on which is product. So we have a combination of two. We’ve been in business over 13 years and we’re artists. So we bring the artistic energy to any kind of organization, mostly corporate and some associations to help leaders move forward faster and help teams get along better.

Lee Kantor: So what’s your backstory? How did you get into this line of work?

Dr. Robin Miller: Oh wow, Lee, that’s that’s what I call the Renaissance woman story. I got into this line of work by getting my education, moving into it as a customer relationship manager, moving into a service line of work with going to Iliff School of Theology here in Denver, and then meeting up with my business partner, and decided that we wanted to bring our artistic skill set to the corporate environment. So we started articulate, real and clear so that we could, as artists, go in and use all the tools and the skills that we’ve learned to go in and help others move forward in their business and move forward in their teens.

Lee Kantor: So you use the word art several times, and it’s obviously part of the word articulate. How do you kind of view art in the business world?

Dr. Robin Miller: It’s an art to communicate well and we focus only on communication. So whether it’s facilitation, whether it’s executive presence, whether it is team building, we are constantly focused on communication. And if you’re building a culture in an organization, you can’t do it without communication. And to do it well, you have to do it artistically, which means finding out what works, how to make it work better, and moving it forward. So as artists, we bring that to the world.

Lee Kantor: Now, how do people realize they have communication issues? Is there some symptoms or some clues that maybe they aren’t communicating as effectively as they think they are?

Dr. Robin Miller: Sometimes I spend a lot of my time with the team doing executive leadership coaching, and sometimes people are sent to me for coaching because in their three 60s, they’re getting information that says they could do some things better. So we go on a coaching journey together and we explore what those things are, and we work on things of so that they can communicate better. It sometimes people want to do a keynote at a conference for an organization, and they don’t feel comfortable getting up. In the past, a lot of people have used the word fear of public speaking to motivate people. And we say, you know what? If you don’t have nerves getting up on the stage, you should get off the stage because we also have nerves as artists. So a clue could be, I want to give keynotes. I want to give some public speaking. I don’t feel comfortable doing it. They would come to us. And then if you have teams that are having difficulty communicating with each other, maybe you were just promoted out of that team to be a leader, and you don’t understand the type of communication that’s needed now, and the role and the strategy that’s needed to be that leader. We also work with those individuals as well as well as the teams.

Lee Kantor: So when you work individually, can you share a little bit about what maybe those first conversations or sessions are like, what do you give them homework to begin? Or like how does it how does it start?

Dr. Robin Miller: We’ll do an intake with individuals and find out from them what they say their goal is, because we’re always driving toward their goal, not our goal as coaches. And as I’m listening to the intake, because I will do the intakes with individuals, I’m finding what else is showing up. And so we call it feedforward. We ask people if they would like the feedforward. They usually say yes, and I’ll say here’s what I’m also noticing as well. Then we will create a journey map for them, for their coaching experience, for the goal that they have and the additional things that showed up. And then they move toward accomplishing those things by the end of their coaching retainer.

Lee Kantor: Now you use the word feed forward instead of feed back. Can you explain?

Dr. Robin Miller: I do use feedforward. I believe that you can’t go back. You can only take information and move it forward. So we’re always feeding forward, feeding the individual forward rather than taking them back. And if I know what wasn’t working well in the past, then I have information that I can change the way that I’m doing something, the way that I’m saying something, and I feed it forward so that I can make a difference.

Lee Kantor: Now, you mentioned that a lot of your work is around, um, helping people speak is do you believe that anyone could be a good speaker or is this something you’re born with?

Dr. Robin Miller: I believe. Yes, we can all learn to communicate better. It doesn’t matter if you’re on a conference stage or if you’re one on one talking with your manager, or if you’re a CEO that has never had any kind of presentation executive presence. We can all learn to do things some better. And I will also say, are we all meant to be on the main stage? Probably not. Okay. There are individuals that are driven toward that, and if I have a passion to do that, we can actually help that individual with tools and techniques and coaching to get them on that stage. And then it’s up to them.

Lee Kantor: Is there any kind of low hanging fruit for individuals that maybe the listener right now that, um, has some anxiety around speaking or even leading? Is there some easy things that they can be doing, any actions they can be taking right now that can help them?

Dr. Robin Miller: Yes, I’m going to say, as a coach, we come into this world with breath and we go out of this world with breath. And the thing that that actually supports us to stay connected to our thoughts and the thing that actually gets our voice up and out of our body, and the thing that actually keeps us from. From allowing the cortisol spike to take us over is breath. So we have to pay attention to our breath. Are we holding our breath high and tight? And if we are, then we need to exhale. So many people tell you to inhale, and all that does is, is provide tension up in your shoulder area and gives you a shallow breath. We say it articulate. Exhale first. And then bring the air in and sit with that. It’s a good meditation technique and it’s also a good speaking technique. It all depends on the breath. So first notice what’s happening for you. Is your breath working for you or is your breath working against you?

Lee Kantor: Let’s switch gears a little and talk about maybe the beginning of your journey. Um. Uh, what was it like going after that first client? Um, when you’re an entrepreneur, you say, okay, I’m going to be an entrepreneur. I’m going to go down this path. Was it difficult to communicate that how you were doing things is different than maybe how they have done things in the past, like was that can you share a little bit about what that was like early on as you were kind of, um, crafting your messaging?

Dr. Robin Miller: Yeah, for us, because we had worked in the arts world prior to starting the company. And I say us, my co-owner and I, people knew about us. And so it was the first clients were people who already knew and wanted and knew that we were credible and that we, our team, we and our team were gifted and that we could give them what they were looking for. So they came easily. And I have to say that prior to the pandemic, we call it the dandelion effect. People love the work that we do, and people love the change that they actually experienced. And as they move from company to company, they would bring us into those companies. Now the dandelion effect is starting to show up again, and there were a few years, pandemic wise, where the dandelion effect didn’t work anymore. And you really do have to rely on marketing. So what I’m going to say to people is regardless of your your dandelion effect or your first initial clients getting a really strong marketing program underneath you and getting a really clear message is going to go a long way.

Lee Kantor: Now when it came to your message and your marketing of your message. So how do you go about, um, doing that? Do you lean on education? Do you lean on your own speaking?

Dr. Robin Miller: I’m not sure I so I’m going to practice what I would have my client do. I’m not sure what you’re asking with that question.

Lee Kantor: Well, when you’re transitioning from, uh, getting clients from reputation and referrals and other clients, and now you’re saying I’m going to lean on marketing, how do you, as a firm say, okay, now how do we begin this process to market? Are we going to do it by educating? Are we going to be doing this by going out and speaking more in general to kind of drum up business? So how do you how do you begin your marketing kind of journey?

Dr. Robin Miller: Yes, speaking. It’s what we do and it’s what we coach our clients to do. One on one we have Hillary, the co-owner, is a fantastic, fantastic keynote speaker and she loves to do breakouts and take the main stage. She was just on the ATD stage yesterday down in New Orleans. So we get the word out by actually practicing and doing what what it is that we do, which is speaking and networking, going out and continuing to meet new individuals and finding out what their needs are and building a relationship. Article is about relationship. So as a company, we always let our clients know we are not one and done. We are connected and we’re here to support them during the training, prior to the training and after the training. So for us, we really do walk the talk and believe what we say when we tell our clients. It’s all about relationship and it’s about connection. So keynote speaking, doing podcasts, going out and networking are things that we consider part of our marketing effort.

Lee Kantor: Was there a moment, uh, maybe early in your career that you had that. Aha. Like, this is what I’m meant to do. This is why I do what I do.

Dr. Robin Miller: Yes there was. I was just speaking with one of my teammates this morning, Courtney Cawthorne, and thinking about this podcast. My journey has been one between the balancing act of how do I care and serve others, and how do I learn more about business. And as I made that journey to being part of this company, I’ve realized that I can get bored easily. And the fact that I get to learn and continually learn about business to improve our business, and I get to coach and support other people. The Aha is I’m in the best of both worlds. Constant learning and continuing to take care of others and help them become the best that they, they can and want to be. So that feeds me. And that’s where I thrive.

Lee Kantor: Now is the kind of work that you do when you’re speaking somewhere, or you’re coaching someone to speak. Is this something that is measurable? Is there a way to go, okay, that we have an ROI that I can point to because of that?

Speaker4: You started. You’re starting to sound like my corporate clients.

Dr. Robin Miller: Lee. Yeah. There is. Everything can be measured. And if you have a starting point, if we take a video of you doing one on one coaching and you say, these are my goals, and at the end of the coaching, we take another video of you, then we can see the difference in what you got coached on and how you’re showing up. That can be measured. We just coached with a company here in town in Denver, and they wanted their leadership to understand more about how to deliver feedback in a way that it could be received better and it would improve employee engagement. So a measurement would be we went in and we trained, and we’re supporting them on finding the best way that they can deliver feedback to the individuals on their teams. And at the end of that, we can measure, hey, how have your employee engagements improved and how has the the ease for your managers improved in delivering feedback with the different tools that we offer to them?

Lee Kantor: Is part of the measurement like things. Such as, um, less turnover or, um, you know, more engagement with the employees. Like, what are some of the things that are you are able to measure.

Dr. Robin Miller: I think if someone does an employee engagement and they ask their employees. Do you feel that your leadership is being more transparent with what’s happening in the company, and do you feel that you’re getting the feedback that you need from your leader in a way that speaks to you? That is going to lead to more retention. And it is going to lead to a more engaged workforce. Because if I feel you’re being transparent. Then, and I feel like you’re delivering feedback, which we call feed forward to me, so that you care about me and I can improve more. Then I’m going to stay with that company. If your people are more. Especially in the last year, we’re finding that there are fewer people being driven by money and more are being driven by belonging. And so what are the ways that we can shift things in our communication as leadership and teams to help people feel like they do belong and that they matter and that you are listening.

Lee Kantor: And is an offering a service like yours to the team. A demonstration of the character and culture of the organization.

Dr. Robin Miller: Absolutely. Absolutely. I’m surprised by how many organizations. Find it difficult. To actually open up clearer lines of communication. And the ones that actually do step into it are the companies that I find that are thriving. Because they do care about their employees, and they’re not afraid about what their employees are going to say, because that’s all feed forward for me as an organization. And if I have truth for my employees, then I know what I can shift to make it matter.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, I was always a believer that the culture is going to happen whether you’re proactive about it or not, so you might as well be proactive about it and build the culture you you know, you’re proud of and you want.

Dr. Robin Miller: Absolutely. Yeah. And finding out from people what’s going to matter to them that their working relationships have improved, because it’s not always about the leader. We hear a lot about the leaders in writing and in the media. It’s not always about the leader. Sometimes it’s about the people that you work with. And if those relationships improve for them, then that makes it more desirable for them to stay there as well, because they feel like they have a family or a community or a workforce that they click with. So we’re about that as well. How do you make your teams thrive so that people want to stay?

Lee Kantor: Now, why was it important for your firm, uh, to be involved with we back west?

Dr. Robin Miller: It’s important because early on, I realized that one of the ways to help businesses thrive is through diversification. That’s one of the first businesses principle business principles that I learned. And so by joining this organization, the first thing was I get to diversify my business. The second thing was it’s a women’s organization and it matters to be a part of it and to be credentialed through it. And I, I have a lot of friends and colleagues that are credentialed through this organization. So if I can support women moving forward, uh, supplier diversity moving forward, then I’m going to support that.

Lee Kantor: So what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Speaker4: I need more people to know about.

Dr. Robin Miller: Us and to get the word out that articulate is a woman owned business. We’ve been in business for 13 plus years, that we are a diverse supplier, and we are here to help support them, communicate them, get them up on a main stage if they want to be on the main stage and help make them better or help work with their teams. So getting the word out about us and that we are a vendor that you can trust, and your we are a vendor that we stand behind our word. So. Reach out and we’ll reach back because we want to build relationships and connections that matter. We also want to build partnerships. So if you have a way that we can partner with you, we’re artists, we partner, we collaborate, we want to partner with you.

Lee Kantor: Is there a niche? You mentioned associations, but do you work in certain industries or is it across all sectors?

Dr. Robin Miller: We do work across all sectors. And I just got back from a program. The Tuck Executive Education Program, and I’m bringing all the learning I have from that. I was able to go to that because we’re a diverse supplier and we have that through WebEx. And so, um. Using that to move the business forward and and asking the team if we’re going to niche, what is that niche going to be? And we understand that we work with people really well that want to shift, want to make changes. They’re really bright. They’re usually engineers, they’re it folk. They’re uh. But entrepreneurs that have grown their business and want to take the next step with a new team. We’re part of small business organizations through Vistage, and so these are the individuals that haven’t grown so large that they’ve lost sight of the human being, uh, and need that extra support.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team. What’s a website?

Dr. Robin Miller: Where w w w. Articulate. A r t I c u l a t e r c like rc cola. But it stands for real and clear. Articulate. Wrc.com. Go out to our website, find out what we do and how we can support you. And we would love to reach back and create a greater, stronger relationship.

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

Speaker4: Thank you. Lee.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Women in Motion.