The Impact of What’s Unsaid with Steven Gaffney

Bart Sayle 

Hello and welcome back to 3 Lessons from Breakthrough leaders. I’m Bart Sayle, founder of Breakthrough Global, and this podcast is all about giving you insider tips and the know-how from the world’s foremost leaders and creative talents, distilling their knowledge and experience into three lessons, which we guarantee will help you and your companies to unleash their potential.

 

Bart Sayle 

In this special episode, I’m joined by Steven Gaffney. Steven is an esteemed expert in change management, honest communication and high performing teams with Fortune 500 companies like Amazon, Marriott and Allstate, as well as the US government and military among his clients. They all invite Steven to share his transformative insights on communication, leadership and driving business success. He captivates audiences with his expertise, his inspiration and leaving them empowered. Steven has authored more than four groundbreaking books, including Just Be Honest, Honesty Works and his latest one, Unconditional Power.

 

Steven Gaffney 

I feel privileged to be talking to you. You’re excellent at what you do, and I’ve known you so long.

 

Bart Sayle 

I’m so happy today to have Steven Gaffney as our guest, and it’s taken quite a while to hook him for this, but I feel really privileged to have you here, Steven.

 

Bart Sayle 

We met at a type of conference, and I always remember that we just ended up sitting next to each other at this and there was a guest speaker. I can remember as being admonished a little bit because we were talking with each other rather than listening and  it went from there. And now, one thing I’ve seen over the last year or so, you’ve been on lots of podcasts.

 

Steven Gaffney 

I have.

 

Bart Sayle 

And what’s your what’s your experience been on this range of podcasts that you’ve been on?

 

Steven Gaffney 

Well, I’m really looking forward to, obviously, this one with you, and specifically because of what you do around Breakthrough, I think it connects so well with teams. And just being on many, many podcasts, some are more prepared than others, so it just depends. But I’m really excited about this one because of your focus on Breakthrough connects so well with making teams great, which is what I do.

 

Bart Sayle 

Well, it’s the same for me, because I’ve always thought that what you do and what we do is very complimentary, and I’ve learned a lot from you, actually in that time.

 

Steven Gaffney 

Well, thank you.

 

Bart Sayle 

Lesson One: The Power of Honest Communication.

 

Bart Sayle 

So when I first met you, you were talking a lot about honesty and truthfulness in business, which, if anything, has become even more urgent and more needed over that time. Do you want to start there on how your journey has progressed from that to now working with teams in a much more holistic way?

 

Steven Gaffney 

Absolutely so the genesis of my business was starting with honest communication. But what I mean by honest communication is really not about the truth or lies. The big problem is not what people say. It’s actually what they don’t say. So we’ve never really focused on people are liars, and we got to get people to be honest. It’s more of everybody kind of withholds. And I call that lies of withholding. And whether we call it that or not. The point is that the biggest problem is never really what people say. It’s what they leave out. I’ll give you an example, Bart. I was doing a session, and this lady said, ‘Well, that’s not always true. I gave feedback to my peer and told him he was dropping the ball and I was getting my unsaid said. He didn’t really like that.’ And I said, ‘Okay, fair point, but why did you say that?’ And she said, ‘Well, I I care about him, and I care about what we’re up to, and I’m trying to have us all work better together, so we are better servicing the customer.’ And I said, ‘Well, did you say all of that? And she said, No.’ I said, ‘I would contend what tripped you up is not what you said, it’s what you left out.’ So I started there, and then I had a client of mine say, ‘Well, you’re teaching all this honest communication. Can you do that with teams?’ I had done it in seminars, but not with an intact team. And so this is many years ago, and when she said that to me, I was like, ‘That’s a great idea.’ And she said, ‘Kind of like rebooting a team, right? And get the unsaid sad and move forward.’ So that’s how that started, with the teams, and now that is the biggest chunk of business we do, and we specifically do that with leadership teams.

Steven Gaffney 

Yeah, they do.

 

Bart Sayle 

And you know, you brought up a couple of points that we meet as well. So every company we work with, you know, we’ve got our Breakthrough Tools, proprietary tools, and one of those is a Breakthrough Feedback Frame, we call it. And every company we work with, they have a favourite Tool out of our toolbox there, and feedback is one of the main ones that people really want. And I think it’s something that’s missing. And if you think about it, when, when we’re educated and socialised, you know, from a young age, nobody really gets trained in feedback. So what happens, certainly not in our education, maybe afterwards, and maybe in businesses and so on. But what happens is that feedback isn’t trained, and so we see it as criticism, and we give it as criticism, and so it gets labelled with that, and people fear that Of course.

 

Bart Sayle 

I suppose that’s a big reason for the unsaids being unsaid. Is it? Is it? Is it fear?

 

Steven Gaffney 

Well, I think people are afraid when somebody says, you know, ‘can I give you feedback?’ It’s like, probably not gonna be a compliment here, that’s, you know, or, ‘Can I be honest with you?’ It usually isn’t. I want to tell you how terrific you are. So there are certain phrases that were like, Uh oh. But here’s what I have found out, people actually are craving for feedback, especially when there’s problems. And what I have found is, over the years that poor achievers, poor performers, often receive poor feedback. And I’ve worked with a lot of people and say, ‘Well, no, I’ve had that conversation,’ and I’ll say, ‘Well, what did you actually tell them?’ And when they tell me the feedback they gave them, it’s not specific. It isn’t with suggestions. It’s kind of just vague. For example, we need to service the customer better. We need to improve our communication. I need you to collaborate better, but it’s not that actionable. So the problem is that somebody hears that feedback, especially from their boss, and says, ‘Okay, all right, I got to communicate better. I have to collaborate better,’ and they have their own version of what that means, but often it’s not the version that the boss had or the leader had. And so I really encourage people through a framework that we have, and I’m sure you have a framework too about giving specific feedback that is actionable and they can move forward. And so often when people get specific feedback, they actually can move forward. So a lot of reasons why people are poor achievers is because they’re receiving poor feedback

 

Bart Sayle 

Absolutely. So I’d like to get back a little bit, because this is intriguing, the unsaids, yeah, yeah. So if you think about that, the unsaid it’s still there isn’t it in any conversation, so that, in a way, is constantly influencing what’s actually said in the open.

 

Steven Gaffney 

Yes, yeah, we have our conversation in our head, and often we just don’t realise that if we inform people of what’s the conversation in our head, it would really help out the other person. I’ll give you another good example. We were brought in to work with this leadership team, and we always do an analysis of the team and do these interviews to produce a report and find out what people are really not saying and what needs to get said. And what this team said was, ‘We don’t think our boss trusts us.’ In other words, the leader who was my client, who hired me to do the session for his team. And when we really dug deep, the reason for that was because he asked a lot of questions, and people thought, well, he doesn’t really trust us. So I asked him, ‘Why do you ask all these questions?’ And he said, it’s not a matter of distrust. It’s a matter of educating myself, helping people think differently, but we’re just all need to learn stuff together.’ And I said, ‘Did you say that?’ And he said, ‘No, I’ve never said that.’ So here’s what we did. At the very beginning of the session, he said that he got his unsaid said, and people like, ‘Oh, I got that.’ So here’s the real headline out of this. He didn’t have to change himself. He still could ask all the questions he wanted. He just needed to give the framework and the context of why he was doing that. So often, if we just explain why we’re doing something, it actually helps the other person hear it and they can move accordingly. So actually, trust can be immediately repaired when we get that unsaid said.

 

Bart Sayle 

And that’s another thing that we’re coming across all the time, this this need for trust and the lack of trust.

 

Bart Sayle 

So by honest communication, Stephen’s not talking about. Not telling lies or dishonest people. What he’s talking about is the power of open, authentic, truthful communication, and what that can deliver. And the biggest enemy is not lies. The biggest enemy is what’s not said. In any relationship, what’s not said is constantly held in what we call the background, and can be present in many conversations, even though it’s never communicated. But what it does, it manages what can be said. So remember this, that the unsaid manages what can be said. And particularly for leaders out there with your teams of seven or eight or more. Imagine what could be held in the background by so many and never communicated. And this is very important. It might be very important from a business point of view, but it’s certainly important from a relationship and a trust point of view. The more the unsaid can be said, the more trust you build between you and your team. So here’s a call to action, and it will require courage, which I know you all have. Next time you meet, share one thought with your team that you’ve been holding back, get that unsaid said, and you’ll be surprised at what happens.

 

Bart Sayle 

Lesson Two: There’s a Difference Between Performance and Achievement.

 

Bart Sayle 

So now your work is focused mainly on building great teams. Yeah?

 

Steven Gaffney 

Yes.

 

Bart Sayle 

So taking teams and helping them build themselves, from, I don’t know, from good to great to better teams, yeah, yeah. So tell us something about that.

 

Steven Gaffney 

So our whole framework is called Making Teams Great, but it’s all around consistently high achieving teams. And on purpose, we use the wording achieving versus performing. In other words, we’re not advocating high performing teams. We’re advocating consistently high achieving teams. And the reason for that is the word performing can be confused with hard work versus achieving is about producing results, which is what’s critical in today’s work world, right? And so an example where this comes to play is where you might say to somebody, ‘Hey, can you get this done?’ They go, ‘No.’ And you say, ‘Well, why not?’, ‘Well, I’m getting all these other things done.’ And he said, ‘Well, we need to get this done.’ And they go, ‘Well, what do you want me to do? I’m working hard.’ And of course, the response is, I’m not questioning your work ethic. It’s all about producing results. So some people just get so attached to the way they’ve always done things and what they’re doing, instead of looking at the end result. So I had a client of mine just switch out performing with achieving, and look at their entire bureaucracy and say, Are we really performing are we achieving? The other thing is doing it consistently. Right? We’ve all been parts of teams or participated in organisations in which people are very pushy and we’re able to accomplish something great. But that’s not about doing it one time. We want to do it consistently. So how do we create teams that are great or consistently high achieving teams, and that’s why the wording in that and what that means is incredibly important, especially in today’s work world.

 

Bart Sayle 

Well, what one thing that that resonates with me is that a lot of companies that we meet, or a lot of people within those companies, they’re very input focused. They’re not necessarily outcome focused. This even happens with, with our own company, where people can get very tied up with, with the input, you know, well, ‘Well, I sent the email.’, ‘Well, yeah, well, I’ve worked hard this week.’, ‘Well, we’ve been, you know, we’ve been working late.’ And it’s all about input, input, input, but really, the question to ask is, ‘Yeah, that’s great. Thank you. But what have you accomplished?’

 

Steven Gaffney 

Yes.

 

Bart Sayle 

And as soon as you ask that question, or what have you achieved, you move from the input. And in a way, performance is more about the input, isn’t it?

 

Steven Gaffney 

Yes, yeah, and I love how easily you explain that. Input versus output. Because it is so true, people often will defer. ‘I’m working really hard.’ And really that’s not the issue. Maybe an issue with some people, but it’s not really the core issue. The core issue is, what are we accomplishing? You know, one of my clients is Amazon, and people may have different feelings about Amazon, but I love not only because they’re my client, but I love the company because it’s founded on the principle of servicing the customer. It’s all about the customer. And even no matter what we’re doing, what is our end customer, and even if it’s an internal customer? Again, are we focused internally? Are we focused externally? So I work with a lot of teams where they may not be servicing the overall customer, but they have customers within the organisation, and they’ve forgotten that. A good example of that is some functional areas, like maybe sometimes HR or the legal department or procurement. And they’re very focused on following process and procedures, which can be really critical. I’m not doubting that, but it’s like, who’s the customer? And they act like policing versus partnering with the business areas. And I’ve worked with a lot of clients who are fantastic in switching that culture into it’s not about policing, it’s about partnering. So even when we look at this whole thing, about input, output and a whole aspect, it’s so important, because it is really about the customer, whether it’s the external customer or the internal customer. It’s all about who are we servicing?

 

Bart Sayle 

So you’ve talked about performance. You’ve talked about achievement. How about coming to more of the specific things you would do with a team? So if you imagine, you know, I was reminded last week, actually, that I met up with somebody that I’d worked with in the year 2000 and he was at this Programme and and he got up on stage and told a story about his first experience with me and with Breakthrough. And he was, he was a senior vice president in this company back there in 2000. He said, for the first day, he was thinking, ‘What are we doing here? There’s so much we should be doing instead of spending three days here in this hotel, and I don’t know where it’s going, I’ve got much more important things to do.’ And he said, then overnight, he got some type of epiphany and realised this is exactly what they should be doing. He reminded me that I called him out on that Programme because he said, he said something like, ‘Well, we don’t have a team. We need a team.’ And I said to him, ‘No, you do have a team. It’s just that. It’s it’s not a good team, it’s a dysfunctional team.’ And he said he always remembers that. So what is it that really make makes a team? Because, you know, like you, I work with leadership teams. Some of them call themselves committees.

 

Steven Gaffney 

Yes.

 

Bart Sayle 

I don’t want to bring politics into things. But my answer to them is is, well, a committee isn’t a team. If you look at the US Congress, look at the committees they create, would you say they are teams? So I think it can even start with how you identify yourself, if you identify yourself as a committee, that’s not necessarily a team. So what is it that makes a team?

 

Steven Gaffney 

Well, I think you bring up a really important distinction that, you know, I learned from Alan Weiss, and of course, we’re both familiar with Alan that, yeah, a team wins and gets challenged together, a committee wins or loses separately. And I bring up that distinction. I think there are five characteristics of a consistently high achieving team, but one of them is our, you know, team wins and get challenged together, committee wins or loses separately. And I’ll tell people the easy way to figure this out…

 

Bart Sayle 

That’s a great distinction, that’s a great distinction.

 

Steven Gaffney 

Yeah, it is. And when you think about it, it’s very easy to tell whether a committee or team by this. Not when times are good, but when times are bad. Are we pointing fingers? So a committee is thinking, I’m going to represent my own area, and I got to get my own agenda solved and try to negotiate, but a team works together first we win or lose, so if a member of my team drops the ball, I need to confront them, but how I confront them has everything to do with whether it’s a team or a committee. If I’m in a committee, I’ll say, ‘Hey, look, you’re dropping the ball.’ Or I might not even say anything, because, like, good luck, but if I do say something, it is like, ‘Hey, I feel like you’re dropping the ball and not my problem. But just want you to know.’ But if I approach it like a team, I would say, ‘Look, I feel like you’re dropping the ball. What can I do to help you? Because we all need to work together.’ So it’s that last part that’s often missing, but it’s so critical. So when I bring that distinction up with many quote, unquote, teams, they realise there really been a committee. And my experience is most teams in the workplace are really committees. They’re just not upfront about it. But the good news is, when you switch that around leadership teams, when they become a really great team, they move the entire organisation, because it all comes from the top. So it’s a really important distinction. I appreciate you bringing that up, and it’s something for people to think about.

 

Bart Sayle 

Yeah, absolutely. And then the other thing I come across with teams is, and particularly a dysfunction within teams, is the inability to work together, but because they can’t reach alignment. So one of the things in the way of teams really performing and achieving what they can is how able they are to reach alignment or not. And often, when they’re not reaching alignment, one of the things I’ve discovered is that what they’re holding out for is agreement, not alignment. And those two things are very different, but many people don’t get that distinction. You can align without agreeing with with everything. And if you think about it, with a, you know, an exco team, which may be anywhere from 8 to 12 people, expecting full agreement on everything amongst eight or 12 people, it’s never going to happen. So at some point you’ve got to align. And align is about letting go of things as much as moving towards things.

 

Steven Gaffney 

I love that. That’s a great distinction, because it often implies letting go of our ego and thinking about what’s for the greater good. And it’s so important. And what it’s coming up for me, as you’re bringing this up, is how often organisations to try to get agreement. They take a great idea and they water it down to get everybody to agree. And then people are like, Well, why did we even have this meeting? What did we really even accomplish? I mean, we’re moving the needle slightly. Let’s be bold and work together. And sometimes it’s about giving things up for looking for what’s the greater good. But so often, people are so attached to their own area. So I love that distinction. That’s a brilliant distinction, Bart. Alignment versus agreement.

 

Bart Sayle 

You can use it, Steven.

 

Bart Sayle 

Performance does not necessarily mean achievement. I believe this is one of the most important distinctions that’s often ignored. As you’re listening to this podcast, think how many podcasts there are on high performance and high performance teams. It dominates the podcast world. But for me, the biggest distinction is to create not just a high performing team, but one that is high achieving. Performance is an input. Achievement is an output and much of the work we do with our clients, particularly at the beginning, is shifting their mindset from an input organisation to an outcome focused organisation. It’s the same with every team. Think about the teams that you’re a member of or a leader of. A team wins and loses together. Real teams confront issues together, offer help to each other, offer support to each other. Leadership teams can become just committees in disguise, rather than teams. Teams need creating and recreating frequently. You don’t just form a team and it’s there to run forever. It’s like hygiene. One shower just doesn’t do it. You need one every day or more. So with a team, you need to create it and regenerate it frequently, particularly under times of stress and overload. That’s where the team really needs to be brought together again and again, formed again and built again.

 

Bart Sayle 

Lesson Three: Uncertain Times Require Breakthrough Leaders.

 

Steven Gaffney 

If there was one thing people needed to focus on to have a breakthrough in their organisation, what would that one thing be?

 

Bart Sayle 

For me, I think culture. I think culture is the glass ceiling we put on a lot of things like innovation, like leadership, like motivated workers and so on. So I would start by looking at culture and seeing where you can get breakthroughs with that. Now, some people, they find it difficult to let go of things within culture, so they think, ‘Oh, well, we’ve got a great culture,’ and we’ve got – the number of times that I hear, ‘We’ve got a great culture, we’ve got a strong culture. It’s got great values.’ But one of the things I would be asking is that, ‘Yes, that’s how it’s grown up, and that’s how it’s been in the past, but are you ready with that culture for the future?’ And people are afraid of revolution, one of the things I always say is it’s not about revolution, it’s about evolving your culture and looking at it and making it more relevant to today. And making it more meaningful for today. So that would be the first thing I’d look at.

 

Steven Gaffney 

I love that, because I think to a person who doesn’t have your expertise related to Breakthrough, what I would think is okay, here’s a tactic, a strategy, to have a breakthrough. But what I think is so brilliant about what you’re saying is actually it starts with a culture. You can teach somebody a strategy, but what I’m really getting from immediately, from this conversation, if you leave out the culture, you can make, potentially, maybe incremental results in a breakthrough or whatever, but you’re not going to have that breakthrough culture. So really, what you’re talking about is not only the strategies, but the bigger place to start is having a breakthrough culture. And if you don’t have a breakthrough culture, you’re not going to have breakthroughs. And I hadn’t really thought about it that way.

 

Bart Sayle 

Yeah, and you know, there’s so much written about culture these days when I first started, or before I started, when I was in the corporate world myself, because that’s where I got a lot of the experience to actually work in Breakthrough. When I was in that world, culture was, wasn’t really talked about what I’m going back now, 30 years ago. What was talked about was organisation. So, organisation design, organisation structure, seeing the organisation as a machine, in fact. And it was my insight that that actually it was culture that was limiting a lot of things. That’s where I started to work on that. I remember I took a sabbatical from Unilever I was working with at the time, and that sabbatical, in that year or so, I learned as much about culture as I could, and that’s what formed the first Breakthrough Programme. So I look at culture and and work to simplify it, because there’s so much written about it, so much said about it. And from those days where it was never talked about, now everybody’s talking about it. But I see culture simplifying it as this. It’s the collective beliefs, the collective mindset that comes from those beliefs, then the behaviour that comes from those mindsets, and also the language that supports all of that. So if you think about that, you can look at culture in some very simple distinctions, and you can see whether it’s working or not working. So are your beliefs empowering beliefs, or are they limiting beliefs? Are they keeping you in a cul de sac, or are they allowing you to grow. Mindset. You know, one of the things we say is that you cannot outperform your mindset. Yeah, so if you think about that, and you think about a team who everyone’s got individual mindset, but there’s a collective mindset there. What are the limiting beliefs that that team has about what they can and they can’t do. You know, and that collective mindset really is going to allow them to grow or not. And then we’ve got the behaviours that come from that we can look at those, we can measure those. But importantly, and I think something that’s neglected is the language. So what’s the language, or the use of language? I call the use of language, languaging. So it doesn’t matter, like what your particular natural language is. How are you using language, and are you using language in a way that that allows growth, or is your language used in a way to so that you end up resigned or even cynical, you know?

 

Steven Gaffney 

What’s an example of that, Bart?

 

Bart Sayle 

Well, an example I always use is three words that you can remove from your vocabulary. As a leader, when you’re leading people and you want people to follow. So in those particular situations, there’s three words, three simple words that I would remove from my vocabulary. One of them is try. So yeah, so are we going to try and reach this vision, or are we going to reach this vision? Because try has a it has two effects. It programmes ourselves, the inner voice that you talked about, if we’ve got lots of trying there, then we’re not going to accomplish much. But it also programmes our audience, consciously or unconsciously. Because you know, if you’re having a party this weekend, Steven and I know you have parties every weekend, but if you’re having a party, and you say, ‘Hey, Bart, come to Washington to my party.’ And I say, ‘Steven, I’ll try and get there.’ What do you know?

 

Steven Gaffney 

Well, that’s, yeah, that’s not gonna happen, right?

 

Bart Sayle 

It’s not gonna happen, is it? Because we use try, we use try instead of, will not so instead of try, use will or use will not. That’s an example with one word, you know, the other word I would put in there is hope. You know, ‘I hope to double my net worth next year.’ Well, who’s responsible for that? So, you know, not only are we programming ourselves with that type of language, we’re programming our audience, and I think for for leaders, it’s really, you know, carefully using the language that’s going to really push things forward, expand things, go into the world of what’s possible.

 

Steven Gaffney 

When you bring up the word try. The way I put that in our framework either way, is it’s not really getting the unsaid said. So when somebody says, I will try to do that, what I’m really saying is, I’m not going to do that, but I don’t want to say that because I’m worried you’re going to get mad at me. So I’m going to say, I’m going to try, but I’m not really going to do that. And the problem is, the other person hears it and goes, ‘Okay, they’re going to probably do that.’ And they’ll, you know, it’s just all get messy. It’s just interesting how people use language as a way to not be called out or have the tough conversations.

 

Bart Sayle 

It’s like a loophole around commitment. Another one is if, and this comes up a lot when, when I’m doing one on one coaching with leaders and and they’ll say again, something intentional, and then follow it up with if. And then there’s, then there’s all the reasons why it won’t happen. The if, yeah. So what I will say if? They say if, I’ll say, do you mean when? And it’s strange, because they’ll do a double take, their eyes may move when I say, do you mean when? And as soon as I say when, then something will happen. Because they’re rewiring. They’re putting it on a timeline. You see, if is not on a timeline, but when, if I say, so, when is that going to happen? They have to then commit to something on the timeline.

 

Steven Gaffney 

Yeah, I love what you’re saying. So if, hope and the –

 

Bart Sayle 

And try.

 

Steven Gaffney 

And try. Yeah, those three things. You know, it’s interesting what you’re bringing up, because, you know, the whole unconditional power that that distinction, right? So we, you know, when we’re in a good mood, we’re smarter, and there’s kind of three of our minds.

 

Bart Sayle 

Sorry, you’ve written a book about this, haven’t you?

 

Steven Gaffney 

Yes.

 

Bart Sayle 

It is actually a great book.

 

Steven Gaffney

Thank you. And the reason why I’m bringing it up is because it connects well with what you just said around, if, when, and hope. There’s kind of three overall mindsets, moods in the book. And it’s it’s all about when we’re in a good mood, we’re smarter and how to move forward despite our circumstances or conditions. There’s the powerless mind or mood set, which is, what difference can I make? I’m only one person. And then on the other extreme, there’s the unconditional power, which is the desirable state, right? I’m going to make this happen. But the in between state is what I am connecting really well with what you’re saying, and that’s being conditional. Conditional mindset is I’ll get that done as long as they do this, or you could say, if they do this. The problem is that shifting the power away, and that’s why being conditionally powerful is not as desirable as what we want to be as unconditionally powerful where we’re recognising their conditions, but we’re focused 100% of our energy on what we’re going to do about it. So I love what you’re saying around those words and shifting the language, because when we shift the language, we shift our mindset, which is really about making things happen, which is critical in today’s world, because there’s always conditions. But it still comes back to, what are you going to do about this?

 

Bart Sayle 

So let’s go to uncertainty. Then the level of uncertainty seems to be increasing daily. Not just in the corporate world, in everyday life, in the political world, everything. And one of the things that we know from from human systems and human psychology is the need for certainty is one of the most fundamental human needs we have. And in the absence of certainty, in uncertainty, it breeds fear and it breeds all sorts of misinformation, et cetera, et cetera. So I think what we’re saying today to leaders and companies and clients is that they need to be able to master uncertainty in some way.

 

Steven Gaffney 

Yeah, in fact, I would offer for them to reframe uncertainty. Uncertainty creates opportunity, so you focus on the uncertainty or the opportunity first, as far as being a leader, what I’ve said to my clients is this is a time for great leadership. Because when times are easy and there’s no problems, anybody can lead, but this is about who’s going to be a great leader. So this is an opportunity to see who’s really a great leader and who look to be a great leader, but is not. The other thing is, uncertainty does create opportunity, because if we bring certainty to the marketplace, that really helps. Here’s an example that relates to our AI and what we’ve created as a whole system. We have put all of our content, our core content of the consistently high achieving teams, online with video based and an AI overlay, which means that you can go in there and ask the AI, you know, I run a team that is having issues with trust, and we need to collaborate better with other organisations, and we need to increase the bottom line, the AI answers it based on our private, closed system, based on that content, and then cites also which videos to watch with your team. And the reason why I’m bringing this up related to uncertainty, is because that’s a way to get content out that helps your team look at all the different opportunities that are out there. And it also responds to what people need, which is they need training. They need information. They need content in a cost effective way. And this allows, when the leadership is dispersed, or people are dispersed, to get training out as quickly as possible. But also it creates a 24/7 coach that we all need, right? You just ask this AI within this closed system. So there’s a lot of different opportunities. The point that I’m trying to make is that with anything in life, when we can look at the uncertainty, or we can look at the opportunity, or another way is ambiguity creates opportunity. So great leaders focus on the opportunity, not the uncertainty.

 

Bart Sayle 

It’s now a cliche that we live in uncertain times, and while there is a lot of uncertainty, what we do know is that we also live in exponential times. And that velocity and acceleration is increasing all around us in every aspect of our work and our business and our life. And artificial intelligence is a great example of that. But what about people? People, they crave certainty. It’s one of our fundamental human needs. The need for certainty and uncertainty breeds fear, and in the vacuum of uncertainty, it breeds misinformation. And we see that all around us, and it’s so easy to get hooked into it. Steven reframed it. Uncertainty, instead of fear, creates opportunity, and that’s the mindset we need in these uncertain times. That’s the mindset that makes a leader into a Breakthrough Leade. And as a Breakthrough Leader, you need to lean into uncertainty and see it as the proving ground for trust and innovation, team performance and team achievement.

 

Bart Sayle 

The Hot Seat questions. Okay?

 

Steven Gaffney 

Okay.

 

Bart Sayle 

Are you ready for this Steven?

 

Steven Gaffney 

I am.

 

Bart Sayle 

Okay. What inspires you in life?

 

Steven Gaffney 

What inspires me, really? I know this sounds so trite, so that’s what, but I gotta get the unsaid said, I’m just saying it. But it really is about making a difference. I mean, that’s really the big driver. It’s not about money. It’s not about just doing seminars. It’s not about producing content. It’s about that people use this and improve their lives. And specifically what I love is in that realm of relationships, teamwork, obviously, because that’s our content, but that really inspires me. And so when people say, I use this and this produces great result, or I had a client of mine turn around his relationship with his teenager, all kinds of really neat stuff that inspires me and gets me so excited.

 

Bart Sayle 

Great. Great. Steven, what brings you energy and motivation on a day to day basis in your everyday life?

 

Steven Gaffney 

Well, making a difference, obviously, as we were just talking about. But if I were to say kind of one emotion and again, it’s, I don’t know how to say this without it sounding touchy feely, but it really is about love. But it’s not only about love for other people, it’s about loving the work. It’s really love. I believe love is the North Star. And it’s even a good way to frame up our life. So when we’re doing something and looking at our future, it’s not what are we good at and what we’d be doing next. It’s what do we love to be doing? So often I’ve worked with even executives who are looking at what’s next for them, I’ll say, ‘Well, what would you love to do?.’ And people say, ‘Well, I’m really good at this.’ I’m like, ‘No, no, no, what do you love?’ And you know, what’s really interesting is some people have not really thought about it that way. But anyways. For me, it’s all about love. It really is, can I share one interesting story where this really hit home is, this is, I don’t know, maybe 15, 20, years ago, I was about to do a session, and the CEO, before introducing he talked to her leadership and said, Look, it is all about love, and that’s what I love for each other, caring for each other, but loving the customer, loving the work. And she really showed me how we can talk about love, or however want to language it, but in the workplace, and how critical it ultimately, is important. So people may get hung up on the word love, but it’s really about passion, excitement, or whatever we want to say, but I believe love is the North Star to life, and that’s the frame to look at everything of how we interact with others.

 

Bart Sayle 

That’s brilliant. Okay, so you can take one book to a desert island. What would it be?

 

Steven Gaffney 

The Bible. And here’s the reason why, it’s probably different. I’ve never read the Bible, and I’m not that religious, but I long to be more spiritual, and so that’s one book that people often cite, and there’s so much insight, and I’ve never read it. So if I had to take one book, you know, there’s many books I haven’t read, obviously, but that’d be one book that I would think that would there’s just so much stuff in there and and just to give you, get you thinking in life and moving forward. So it’s probably the Bible.

 

Bart Sayle 

And what, what current book would you recommend for our listeners?

 

Steven Gaffney 

Well, well, if somebody wants to start in the consulting business, I always recommend Million Dollar Consulting. If they’re running a small business and wanting to get it back on track. One of the best books I’ve read over the past year was Traction. Is what they call entrepreneur operating system, but it’s all about small business growing. So that was a really brilliant book. And then I’ve read some, you know, Never Split The difference was around negotiation, but EOS really helped us organise our business a lot more effectively and be a lot more focused. So it just depends, right, what I’m thinking of and what category we’re talking to.

 

Bart Sayle 

That’s great. What about leadership?

 

Steven Gaffney 

Huh. Well, one of the best books I’ve read over is old, old book, but I always recommend it, because, you know, big part of leadership is managing change. And the book is called Switch, How to Change, When Change is Hard. What I loved about that book is it gave what to do. But the stories in there are about everyday people who change their entire organisation. So it wasn’t about the CEO doing it or whatever and things like that. It’s really so it left a lasting impression, because anybody can produce massive change or not, anybody, people can produce massive change in their entire organisation. But often people say, Well, I can’t, because I’m not the CEO, or I’m not the key leader. I only have this position. So I love the book, Switch, How to Change When Change is Hard. although that’s not a direct leadership book, but it’s such an important aspect of leadership.

 

Bart Sayle 

Yeah, excellent. Well, Steven, this has been fantastic, and we could just keep going on. I know that, and I’m sure, I’m sure we’re going to have another podcast, because I’ve really enjoyed it.

 

Steven Gaffney 

Thank you all. Take care. Bye, bye.

 

Bart Sayle 

Thank you for joining us. Remember to hit the subscribe button and join for our next set of lessons, or listen to all of our previous lessons. They’re a gold mine.

 

Bart Sayle 

And if you have questions or comments, email us at bartsayle@breakthroughglobal.com, or connect with us on LinkedIn at Breakthrough Global. We’d love to hear your own leadership stories. We’d also love for you to share this episode on your socials and review and rate this podcast on the player of your choice.

 

Bart Sayle 

Thank you to our production team at Breakthrough Global, Julia Soltysova and Victoria Okoroafor and at Fairly Media, Robin Leeburn and of course, thank you to you for listening. For any business inquiries, you can also reach us at contact@breakthroughglobal.com and have a wonderful rest of the day.