On-Demand Webinar

00:00:21 Jonathan Woahn

You know, all right, we are live. Looks like we're going. So you know, we were talking a little bit about before this call, just on some of the kind of mega trends are going right now. I'd be curious to hear your take on, you know, AI, it's crazy. A year ago, 12 months ago, nobody was talking about this and now this is like everything that we're hearing everywhere. Go to all these conferences. Everybody's talking about AI and how it's going to.

00:00:44 Jonathan Woahn

Change things in their relative industry. I'm really curious to hear your take on this as a subject matter expert. You know in your domain as well as like also as an author, right? Because like those are two big areas where it feels like it could have a pretty big impact. I'm curious to hear kind of your.

00:00:59 Jonathan Woahn

Perspective on how it could impact things.

00:01:01 Paul Falcone

Now I'm with you, Jonathan. It's funny when you look at the I think it was November of 2022 that chat GP came out.

00:01:10 Paul Falcone

And in October of 2022, no one was talking about artificial intelligence. We knew what it was, but we really didn't have any concrete understanding of it. And then since November.

00:01:20 Paul Falcone

OMG, the world is falling apart. The world's gonna end in a decade. We're not going to have the need for human beings any.

00:01:27 Paul Falcone

More I don't know. Listen, no one could know what's going on right now. I think that when we think about the application in the workplace, there's a lot of good stuff that can come from it. We see what it can do in terms of talent acquisition, growing and developing the talent on your team. You know, from a leadership development training standpoint.

00:01:48 Paul Falcone

There's a lot of things that it can do. Will it cause disruption?

00:01:53 Paul Falcone

Will it create new jobs? Absolutely, and the best way I talked about it is I was doing a lecture yesterday and I said OK, who knows the Stanford arm. Raise your hands if you know the Stanford arm. No one raised their hands in the audience. They said OK, Stanford University, 1969. They released this machine that has six arms.

00:02:13 Paul Falcone

You can do things all in different ways, different times, and you see them in laboratories all the time. They're moving boxes around. They're filling vials in a biotech lab.

00:02:23 Paul Falcone

But that all came out in 1969 and that was declared the end of.

00:02:23 Jonathan Woahn

Right, right. Yep.

00:02:28 Paul Falcone

There would be no more workers. You don't need workers anymore.

00:02:32 Paul Falcone

And it did cause disruption, and it did in the short term, eliminate jobs, but at the other hand, when you look at the net net, it created a lot more.

00:02:40 Paul Falcone

Jobs and there were.

00:02:40 Paul Falcone

More fulfilling jobs, they were higher paying jobs there, you know, so it's like there's a betwixt in between, where we're watching it take jobs away that can be easily repetitive, repeated or repetitive in nature.

00:02:55 Paul Falcone

But then it should create higher level jobs.

00:02:57 Paul Falcone

Too. So just keeping it.

00:02:59 Paul Falcone

In the world.

00:02:59 Paul Falcone

Of work. I'm there, whether it's going to destroy the planet, I don't know. I hope that it's not. But The funny thing about it is, I mean, Elon Musk was the one who made the comment about, you know, the whole the, the, the, the, basically the plan that's going to fall apart because these cyber borgs are going to eliminate us. I I don't know. He's not the only one. There's some pretty high level people.

00:03:21 Paul Falcone

People out there being quoted in this space Larry Page with Google and you know it's a little scary you when you read this stuff. But the reality is I have a feeling mankind will sure.

00:03:33 Paul Falcone

This I just didn't know how close Arnold Schwarzenegger was in these movies with these cyborgs about. I guess that really is not going to happen in the next decade. Possibly at the time I was watching it.

00:03:45 Jonathan Woahn

Yeah. I mean, it's gonna be interesting because I, you know, when I was at McKinsey, I worked with a lot of manufacturing companies. And this was back in like 20 2012, 2013.

00:03:53 Jonathan Woahn

There was a lot of, like, huge.

00:03:55 Jonathan Woahn

Whole balloon around Internet of Things and a lot of robotic automation. And there was a lot of concern in that industry about taking a lot of jobs. Yeah. And it did take a lot of lower level jobs. But what we saw also happened was it created a different tier. It like elevated the level of problem solving that people were needed to get engaged in, in the workplace. And so instead of.

00:04:16 Jonathan Woahn

You know, be in the Assembly on the line now they are maintain like having doing the maintenance on this like extraordinarily complicated equipment and making sure that this like operating at its optimal efficiency, right. So like I think you know historically whenever there have been these big advances in technology it's been.

00:04:32 Jonathan Woahn

Very, you know, kind of elevates the level of, you know, human interaction. But the next question is, well, how's this? Is this one different or is it going to do the same thing, you know, like?

00:04:42 Jonathan Woahn

I don't know. We'll see. It'll be interesting.

00:04:44 Paul Falcone

It will be, I would agree with you on that an E ticket in Disneyland for those of us who remember back in those days when you used to get a ticket to go into Disneyland, you know the best rides with the E ticket.

00:04:54 Paul Falcone

It's going to be a little crazy, but everything seems to be and to your point. From your experience at Mackenzie, it's like, yeah, upscaling is going to be the new thing and talent development and talent management is going to be where it's all going, not only because the skills are are are needed in a different way because of the technology changing, but because there's no human beings.

00:05:06 Jonathan Woahn

Huge part.

00:05:14 Paul Falcone

Talent scare cities for the rest of the century.

00:05:16 Paul Falcone

It's not just from COVID, and we're going to see that all the developed countries are going to be seeing these, this labor scarcity issue and how they meet it. So you know, talent acquisition has been the assumption run an ad on indeed call ahead under I think the reality though for a lot of people is going to be you know.

00:05:36 Paul Falcone

Those solutions may not be there in 10 years. You may really need to be learning how to grow your own, and that's going to be the paradigm shift that becomes important.

00:05:45 Jonathan Woahn

This is a great segue into, you know, the conversation. What we're doing here. Let's do maybe a little bit of introduction, maybe we can get some.

00:05:52 Jonathan Woahn

Input from the audience of of.

00:05:54 Jonathan Woahn

Is here and then that actually is a great segue into what we're talking about today. Your new book, you know, leading through crisis. So I think that's a that's a very relevant.

00:06:03 Paul Falcone

Yeah, my name is, isn't it? Uh-huh. Sure. So.

00:06:07 Jonathan Woahn

For the audience who's here would love to just in the chat, please. You know, let us know. We'd love to hear, you know, two questions. First, where are you calling from or where are you joining us from? We'd love to know kind of just like, geographically, where people are located. And 2nd, we are book club and a big part of you know.

00:06:26 Jonathan Woahn

You know, being is about books and would love to hear from the audience. What is your favorite book. So go ahead and, you know, put that into the chat. We'd love to, you know, see who we've got with us today, Hershey, PA. I've never been. But it is one place I would love to go. I hear the Chocolate Factory is amazing.

00:06:47 Jonathan Woahn

Even San Diego, CA. Paul, I'm curious if any of these people you might recognize, but I know San Diego's kind of your territory even as we.

00:06:55 Paul Falcone

All I know, Eve Nasby so well. She's the best of the best and nice to see you here, Eve. Thanks for joining.

00:07:02 Jonathan Woahn

Kathy, from San Marco, California, we got a couple handful of car California, Fort Collins.

00:07:09 Jonathan Woahn

African Development Bank Group Ivory Coast. Wow. OK, that's awesome. We're international.

00:07:16 Jonathan Woahn

Lincoln NE Indiana Ohio's brief history of time by Stephen Hawking. Wow, that sounds like a that sounds like a a heavy book. That's uh, we'd love to.

00:07:26 Jonathan Woahn

Get into that one.

00:07:29 Jonathan Woahn

Paul, can you see this chat coming?

00:07:31 Jonathan Woahn

In I don't know if you have this up.

00:07:31 Paul Falcone

I can can, yeah.

00:07:34 Paul Falcone

Yeah, yeah.

00:07:34 Jonathan Woahn

Awesome. Well, this is great. We've got it. We've got an office audience here. Looks like we've got quite a few people, a lot of different places calling in.

00:07:41 Jonathan Woahn

Uh educated. Ah, I read that one. Have you? Tara? I remember blanking on her last name. That's a really. That was a really good book.

00:07:51 Jonathan Woahn

Fiction, crime and punishment. Conscious business that that one was recently recommended to me would love to check that one out results. Revolution is great, 15 invaluable laws of growth. Also that was recently recommended as well. It's awesome Paul. We've got a great audience here today. They're really engaged here.

00:08:05 Paul Falcone

It's rolling in and it is international. You're right, it's all over.

00:08:09 Jonathan Woahn

They're here to hear from you, not from.

00:08:11 Jonathan Woahn

Me. So let's let's turn this over to you.

00:08:17 Jonathan Woahn

Would love to just hear I'll.

00:08:18 Jonathan Woahn

Give my just a brief background about myself who I am and Paul, please. You know I'll turn it over to you, let you introduce yourself, and then we'll get into the bunch of the questions. I'd love to hear about this new book.

00:08:29 Jonathan Woahn

I'm Jonathan Allen, I'm co-founder and Chief Experience Officer over here at book Club and our whole mission over here is to help organizations make the big ideas that live in books, make them much more easily digestible and build common working knowledge with your teams. We're happy to talk about book club, anybody who's interested, feel free to reach out to us. But.

00:08:50 Jonathan Woahn

You know, that's about all we're going.

00:08:51 Jonathan Woahn

To say about book Club here today, Paul.

00:08:54 Jonathan Woahn

Please introduce yourself and you know, let's hear about your background.

00:08:58 Paul Falcone

Thanks, Jonathan. This shouldn't take long, about 20 minutes. No, just kidding. Just kidding. You guys, I I spent about 3 decades in human resources, so I was ahead of HR for Nickelodeon. I was head of international HR for Paramount Pictures. So with that company Viacom for about a decade now, paramount.

00:09:14 Paul Falcone

Mobile I'll also worked in healthcare and biotech. Healthcare was with city of Hope, which is a wonderful Cancer Research.

00:09:21 Paul Falcone

Hospital I worked in biotech with an organization that did blood plasma research and product development medicines. I also worked in financial services. I was in the private equity organization. I was heading up their recruitment function, so my job was to hire the new C level talent CEO's, the CFO's, the.

00:09:43 Paul Falcone

For the newly acquired portfolio companies, so it's been really diverse and in the meantime, I've been writing my 16th book, just came out last month called leading through crisis as everything is about disruption these days. But I also opened my own consulting firm last year. Last summer, 4th of July 2022.

00:10:02 Paul Falcone

And I focus on leadership training, you know, management training and executive coaching and keynoting. So that's kind of my background in a nutshell.

00:10:11 Jonathan Woahn

And that shift from working for other organizations to yourself has just gone from everything I've heard has been it's been a great move.

00:10:18 Jonathan Woahn

For you, it's.

00:10:19 Paul Falcone

Been one. Yeah. Yeah, I, you know, COVID kind of did it for me. Jonathan, after the the the COVID pandemic. I was head of HRC HR for the Motion Picture and Television Fund which is a healthcare nonprofit that services the needs of entertainment industry retirees.

00:10:33 Paul Falcone

Is basically a retirement home, but COVID started in a retirement home in Seattle. That's when it was first discovered.

00:10:39 Paul Falcone

And being over a retirement home, when people were so vulnerable, it was a challenge beyond challenge and beyond challenges. And I'm so grateful that I was there to help lead through such a difficult period. But at the same time, a number of things happened. Our daughter had a baby in Chicago, so my wife and I wanted to spend more time there.

00:11:00 Paul Falcone

We're in Los Angeles.

00:11:02 Paul Falcone

I had a new book series come out called the Paul Falcone Workplace Leadership series. Thank you Harper Collins. So the book series came out. So there were a number of things where it just felt right. And I thought, you know what? I want to work till I'm nine.

00:11:13 Paul Falcone

But I want to do the stuff that I love, and teaching is basically where it is, whether I'm writing. I'm a columnist for the Society, for Human Resource Management. I'm writing new books. #17 comes out in the fall of 2024. I've got lots going on, and I just thought, I want to enjoy myself and have a little bit more flexibility and knock on wood. It's been going great. So thank you for asking.

00:11:34 Jonathan Woahn

Yeah, it's, I mean you having an impact, which is awesome. And I think the fact that we've got such a great audience here already kind of speaks to the fact that like there's a lot of people who wanted to learn and and and learn from you and your tutelage and and you.

00:11:46 Jonathan Woahn

Know your role as an instructor so.

00:11:50 Jonathan Woahn

You know, Paul, one of the one of the big questions about this latest book that you wrote I.

00:11:55 Jonathan Woahn

I mean it.

00:11:56 Jonathan Woahn

For all the reasons that you were sharing, you know 5 minutes ago, like all these different crises that we're seeing in the workplace, you know, some of these things that 12 months ago, you know, AI has like brought up.

00:12:06 Jonathan Woahn

All these questions like.

00:12:08 Jonathan Woahn

You know.

00:12:10 Jonathan Woahn

You didn't write your book overnight.

00:12:13 Jonathan Woahn

It took time. You were thinking about it. You had to go through the writing process, go through, you know, the process of getting it edited and getting it published. And, you know, getting on the publishers Harper Collins calendar, like you saw something years ago when you first came up with this idea for this book that said the world needs a book.

00:12:32 Jonathan Woahn

To help thinking.

00:12:34 Jonathan Woahn

Think about how to lead through crisis and I'm really curious. Like, what is it that like? When did you first see that and start having the idea for this book and like, what were the signals that you saw that said, this is a book that, like, people that needs to exist in the.

00:12:50 Paul Falcone

I can keep this. I keep it easy. So I was exhausted. So is everybody else who I knew everyone was that.

00:12:56 Jonathan Woahn

So you felt it?

00:12:58 Paul Falcone

Yeah, I mean, without COVID, this book wouldn't have been OK. I'll just say that. But going through COVID was so exhausting from different. And again, we were in healthcare. So we were, you know, creating testing rooms and testing labs and isolation rooms and quarantine rooms and all the different things they in in Los Angeles, we found out on a Friday afternoon around March or April.

00:13:19 Paul Falcone

2020 then LA Unified was closed as of Monday.

00:13:23 Paul Falcone

And so many of our nurses have kids. So guess what we spent that weekend creating a stand up.

00:13:29 Paul Falcone

You know, teaching room, we we had to take some empty space in one of our facility buildings in our hospital and and turn it into a place where the employees could bring their kids. We had to have teachers that could come in. I mean, this wasn't a weekend.

00:13:46 Paul Falcone

When you have that level of of intensity constantly, the constant changing rules, the laws, the masking, the testing, the had the discipline, you know people didn't want to go well. Let me tell you one in 2020 we.

00:13:58 Paul Falcone

Didn't know what it was.

00:14:00 Paul Falcone

And we had to create a quarantine lab 1st and it became an isolation room where the residents and the patients had to be brought. Well, we asked for volunteers first and the volunteers, the number of people said yes, I want to be in there.

00:14:12 Paul Falcone

The catch was you couldn't come out and see your family again until they closed that lab.

00:14:18 Paul Falcone

If you remember back in those days, people were having the house in hospital or in in in hotels. We had to put them up.

00:14:25 Paul Falcone

And it was really difficult. And once you got past the list of volunteers now, you had to assign people.

00:14:30 Paul Falcone

And it was a union environment. So you had to assign an inverse seniority order. So the most recent hires are the ones who would get assigned, and people would cry and say, Paul, I I have a young baby at home. I didn't sign up for this job to not see my child for weeks or months. I don't know how long it's going to be.

00:14:45 Paul Falcone

It was really hard it it. It tore at your heartstrings and people died. And it was all around us. And it was a really difficult time and I.

00:14:53 Paul Falcone

Think we forget?

00:14:54 Paul Falcone

What it was like in 2020 and moving into early 2021 before they started with vaccines and all this other stuff.

00:15:01 Paul Falcone

But the bottom line was with all that change, all that craziness.

00:15:05 Paul Falcone

Harper Collins was talking to me about building a book series. There's a book out there called the first time manager.

00:15:10 Paul Falcone

And it's been around since the 80s, Jonathan. It's in its 7th edition. It's sold 500,000 copies. And they said, Paul, we want to create an umbrella underneath this. Would you write the book the first time? HR manager? I said I'm. I'm in. I'm honored that you'd ask and we're going to do the first time sales manager and then eventually marketing finance IT. We want to build out this whole thing. I said. That's exciting.

00:15:31 Paul Falcone

Love to be.

00:15:31 Paul Falcone

Part of it.

00:15:32 Paul Falcone

And the the editor said, well, wait before you write the one on HR, we want you to write something else.

00:15:38 Paul Falcone

We want you to think about this. This one is going to be important because going to want to pair this with all the other books like you pick up the first time sales manager. Oh, I should also have the first time manager blank. Could you give some thought?

00:15:50 Paul Falcone

To what that would be, and I said I don't have to. I've got the answer. First time manager leading through crisis or leading through crisis and disruption or something along those lines because everyone's exhausted. The we're building the plane while we're flying it.

00:16:06 Paul Falcone

And it's to a point where it feels like things are going to burst. I think we need to build a book that can address some of those problems in, in real time, like in the trenches. Not theory, really. What it is, what is it that people are facing out there? So that's how it came up. That was the. That was the whole topic. It was all one conversation that lasted 5 minutes.

00:16:23 Paul Falcone

But I guess it was in me and I just needed someone to kind of trigger it and as soon as I was asked about it, I said that's where I want to be.

00:16:30 Jonathan Woahn

That's where we want to be, I.

00:16:31 Jonathan Woahn

Want to I.

00:16:32 Jonathan Woahn

Have a question for the the audience that's here today? Because I to your point, I mean, a lot of your writing, Paul, is is so it's so pointed it's so tactical to really trying to help the people who are in the trenches on the frontline. Be curious from you know all these all the people who are here today. You know what is the crisis.

00:16:51 Jonathan Woahn

That you are facing right now.

00:16:55 Jonathan Woahn

Because I would love you know, Paul, there were specific crises and there's going to be some kind of framework and we'll get into a little bit more of what this is. But I would love to hear from the people who are, you know, joining the webinar today. What are the crises that they are facing in their workplace? And you don't need to give us any specifics. We don't need to know names, proper nouns, but just general categories, you know.

00:17:15 Jonathan Woahn

And maybe we can get some ideas.

00:17:16 Jonathan Woahn

Here Paul that can help.

00:17:18 Jonathan Woahn

You know, we can help relate some of the principles and ideas in this book and connect it to some of the crises that some of the people in the the audience are going through. So please throw those into the chat. Would love to hear, you know, if there's anything top of mind, you know, we'll, we'll see what we can do to to bring in macroeconomic crisis. That is a.

00:17:38 Jonathan Woahn

Fantastic one that is also very much on my mind right now.

00:17:45 Jonathan Woahn

Maybe we can start, maybe we can.

00:17:47 Jonathan Woahn

Start with that.

00:17:48 Jonathan Woahn

Our data point.

00:17:49 Paul Falcone

So it it it's funny, Jonathan. I would start with that one because it's not just crises at work. I mean, seriously, just think about it, look at where we are right now. We've got craziness in, in politics. We'll all agree with that. We've got global warming or at least crazy weather patterns which we've never seen before. We've got concerns about inflation.

00:18:09 Paul Falcone

We've got inflation outpacing the the the pay increases that people are getting, we've got homelessness issues, we've got border issues, we've got immigrants in cities that were never intended to be in the.

00:18:22 Paul Falcone

Cities. It's almost like God took the the globe turned it upside down and shook it. There's no the the the snow sprinkles are all over the place, and it's like, wait a second. You cannot think that that does not impact people at work. They cannot leave that at the door. This is something that when you take all of these external issues, these concerns that people have.

00:18:43 Paul Falcone

Look, someone just wrote extremely high turnover partner with a downturn in sales. This is happening in organizations, but you're also seeing organizations that can't find people to grow fast enough.

00:18:53 Paul Falcone

Because different pockets of industries are going through the roof, if they're stem related, you can't get them fast enough. And other organizations, traditional organizations that are kind of being pushed to the side by the Internet. I mean think about retail and the and the closures of of major chains because Amazon has gotten so big. But wait, now we have to talk.

00:19:13 Paul Falcone

About you know, the Robinson Pattman act from 1936 and you know these companies should not have these rights. I mean, there's just too much conglomeration of power and the small guys are getting squeezed out and the grocers are coming together to create, create a cooperative so that they can compete with Amazon and Walmart.

00:19:33 Paul Falcone

And what is anti competition and why did we stop looking into that and enforcing it anyway?

00:19:38 Paul Falcone

All of these things are happening at the same time, and I think part of the message is we have to find our internal peace because this is not going to slow down. Right now we are in a stage where we are being spun out in every direction to a point where we can't catch our breath and we don't know where to get our footing and I'm not trying to exaggerate here. But I'm saying that your employees.

00:19:59 Paul Falcone

Are feeling that to.

00:20:01 Paul Falcone

And how can a company be a resource? How can a boss? How can a leader be a resource for employees who are feeling this way to answer a very simple question?

00:20:09 Paul Falcone

Are you able?

00:20:10 Paul Falcone

To do your very best work every day with Peace of Mind.

00:20:15 Paul Falcone

Are you able to do your very best work every day with Peace of Mind and we have to be that calming influence. This is just too much going on out there and there is a selflessness element to that where we have to be able to put people's needs ahead of our own. What we're, what we're seeing is, is, is so.

00:20:33 Paul Falcone

Anti who I think we are as a nation.

00:20:36 Paul Falcone

Anti who we are as a, as a people on a planet. We're seeing things that we just didn't understand and it could be hundreds of years of industrial revolution. All kind of coming together at the same time impacting the environment.

00:20:49 Paul Falcone

But there's a lot going on right now that again, that that calming.

00:20:52 Paul Falcone

Influence, at least at.

00:20:53 Paul Falcone

Work is something that I think good management can provide.

00:20:57 Jonathan Woahn

OK, I have a two-part question here then because it sounds like the first step here is we think about this idea of like leading through crisis. That first step is we've got to find that.

00:21:08 Jonathan Woahn

You said inner peace, so we've got to find kind of that inner calm. Is that is that accurate?

00:21:15 Jonathan Woahn

Because there was something else that you said that stuck out to me, which as you said, we need to find ways to put other people's needs before our own in the workplace. And that is a principle. I mean, I totally, I totally believe in this idea and.

00:21:32 Jonathan Woahn

If I'm in an organization, so Philip here is talking about, you know, extremely high turnover partner with downturn in sales.

00:21:39 Jonathan Woahn

I mean that is an environment where I personally would have a hard time putting other people's needs above my own because.

00:21:47 Jonathan Woahn

I'm probably worried about, you know, if we've got this extremely high turnover and downturn in sales, like maybe the company's going to be doing a riff like maybe like, who's to say that the company is putting my needs, you know, to where it needs.

00:21:58 Jonathan Woahn

To be so.

00:21:58 Jonathan Woahn

How do how do you do that?

00:22:01 Paul Falcone

Yeah, and and and it's a very good question and I think here's the scoop, you guys, the, the.

00:22:05 Paul Falcone

Bottom line to all.

00:22:06 Paul Falcone

This stuff is the noise isn't going to stop, at least not for the foreseeable future. And careers will be jobs will be at risk. There's a lot of disruption going on there. I mean, just think about the AI. I mean, will it displace jobs that are repetitive in nature? The answer is yes. Will it eventually create newer jobs that are more enriching and?

00:22:24 Paul Falcone

Any better? The answer is yes, it's not either or. It's both.

00:22:27 Paul Falcone

And OK. And like we talked about earlier before the the call, Jonathan, when they came out with the Stanford arm in 1969, that machine that had the six different arms that can do different things, people thought that's going to be the end of manufacturing jobs and it's not it, it's they're enriched these jobs. People are making more money than net net was better for society.

00:22:47 Paul Falcone

But it doesn't happen at the same time. There will be lags. There will be gaps, there will be fear.

00:22:54 Paul Falcone

But that's coming at us from so many different directions right now. Part of this book is understanding yourself. You have to be able to look at yourself and say, wait a second, I got to take all of it right now because it's too much. I've got to be able to put it on a box, put it in a box, put his lid on that box, and put that box up on the shelf.

00:23:11 Paul Falcone

I've got to breathe deeply and I've got to say I'm going to be OK.

00:23:15 Paul Falcone

You really have to do that. There's that element of self-care.

00:23:19 Paul Falcone

That is missing out there and that's why I think the wires are exposed and that's why we're so short with one another. That's why we're not talking to each other anymore. There's too many levers in in motion right now, and people are afraid for economics. They're afraid for career. You know, they're mad at politics. They're the global this the war in Ukraine. You keep putting all this together.

00:23:40 Paul Falcone

And you feel like it's going to burst, and the first thing I'll say to everybody is again.

00:23:45 Paul Falcone

Think about yourself. Are you able to do your very best work every day with Peace of Mind?

00:23:50 Paul Falcone

And you have to be that for your employees. But you can't do that unless you can be that for yourself. And it may sound like a simple message, but there are other times in history where there was crazy, crazy craziness going on too.

00:24:01 Paul Falcone

It's still the same rule. Find the piece kind of talk about something different.

00:24:05 Paul Falcone

Just a minute. There's a we talked when we prep for this about Paul, we're gonna ask about your favorite book you have ever read. I want to talk about it for just a minute. It's called conversations with God, and it's by Neil Donald Walsh. And it's a book that I have read 15 times, highlighted, underlined, and then I listen to the book on tape 50 million times because I keep getting more and more out of it.

00:24:26 Paul Falcone

And the thing that's so important is this idea of what I do in the business world. I think where my books have resonated is they teach people how to do things like how to have that tough conversation as an example. So it makes it easier for people to to do the first step, which is all.

00:24:42 Paul Falcone

The artist, but it also has a little bit of a spiritual element to it. It's making the world a better place. It's paying it forward. It's making up your life, a gift. If you start to see things through a different.

00:24:55 Paul Falcone

Lens you start to experience it a different way and my point though, the way I've always phrased that Jonathan is change your perspective and you'll change your perception.

00:25:04 Paul Falcone

In other words, if you change your perspective, if you look at it somewhat differently, look, it's still the outcome is going to be the outcome, but you're going to experience it differently. Your perception is going to be different and I think going through tough and tumble times like this and Lord knows these may be the toughest times we'll ever see in our lifetimes.

00:25:22 Paul Falcone

There's a lot of change and people get frightened with change and I think that we have to take that collective breath and say step number one, am I OK step #2, am I being that calming influence for my family, my friends, my loved ones? Step #3, am I being that for my employees who I oversee? I'm a business owner. I'm a senior executive. I'm a first time manager.

00:25:44 Paul Falcone

Am am I being that gift? Am I giving that gift a piece of mind forward because there is a lot out there, but it all starts with me.

00:25:54 Jonathan Woahn

Paul, what I mean, it's really, I mean it's really interesting to talk about this in.

00:25:58 Jonathan Woahn

The sense that like.

00:26:01 Jonathan Woahn

You know, leading through crisis, it sounds like a big part of it is like.

00:26:06 Jonathan Woahn

We have to find the peace and the calm.

00:26:08 Jonathan Woahn

Within ourselves to.

00:26:09 Jonathan Woahn

Be able to.

00:26:10 Jonathan Woahn

Like like cause if we can't have it there's there's like zero chance. And so there's a question. There's a question in the audience. 2 questions. There's an easy one. What was the book you just cited? Remember, it was conversations with God, right? That was the.

00:26:22 Paul Falcone

Neil Donald Walsh. And it's actually a.

00:26:25 Paul Falcone

Free book.

00:26:27 Paul Falcone

Book, but it's all in one volume and and again this is not pushing anything religious, it's much more spiritual in nature, but it's about how you experience life and how you choose to experience life and what gift you bring forward to other people and who you choose to be. So that's kind of the spirit of it. Just so you all know.

00:26:32 Jonathan Woahn

Sure. No.

00:26:45 Jonathan Woahn

Yeah, absolutely.

00:26:47 Paul Falcone

Yeah. What was the second one, Jonathan?

00:26:47 Jonathan Woahn

And that's the I mean.

00:26:50 Jonathan Woahn

So the second one was and I think you you addressed this a little bit, but I do think this is a relevant question.

00:26:56 Jonathan Woahn

And I'm I apologize if I say your name incorrectly, Shabnam asked. You know what does this this said leading through crisis is much needed skill for all managers. Yet the title. First time managers may apply. The book is only for new managers. What does the book offer to experience managers?

00:27:12 Paul Falcone

Yeah. So that brings up a really, really good point. So the question was this.

00:27:17 Paul Falcone

When they were building out the first time, manager Siri.

00:27:22 Paul Falcone

It's actually part of the series makes it the title, the first time manager, but leading through crisis is really the book. If this book were disassociated with the first time manager, it does imply that it's only for first time managers and job. Now I understand your point, maybe it should have been released as its own and not had that been part of that family. But this is what the publisher needed and I was very happy to deliver on.

00:27:44 Paul Falcone

So it's part of the first time manager family.

00:27:47 Paul Falcone

But the book.

00:27:48 Paul Falcone

Itself is written for business owners, senior executives, front frontline operational managers. Because these challenges are universal, these are not challenges that are only to first time managers. But thank you for bringing.

00:27:59 Paul Falcone

That up because.

00:28:00 Paul Falcone

It does seem a little bit like, well, wait a second or is this written only for our first time manager?

00:28:05 Paul Falcone

The answer? The answer it's not, but the way it's coming out as part of the publication footprint is it'll be part of that family of books. So thank you for sharing that, that that's a that's a good insight.

00:28:17 Jonathan Woahn

On that note, Paul, I mean, what, what would you say the book offers differently for like a first time manager versus like an experienced manager understanding that like it actually is relevant to both?

00:28:29 Paul Falcone

Yeah, it's a good question. Jonathan, is when you look at my other books, you guys, what I've always talked about is teach people how right teach them, how to have that conversation. Don't just tell them you should have conversations with your employees. It's like they need to hear the words. I'm not telling them to use my words exactly right. When I wrote 101 tough conversations to have.

00:28:46 Paul Falcone

With employees, I said in the beginning, me telling you had a tough conversation with your employees. It's like me telling you how to raise your kids.

00:28:53 Paul Falcone

I don't know your children and I don't know you. I don't know your philosophy around parenting.

00:28:58 Paul Falcone

What I can say is if you can hear.

00:29:02 Paul Falcone

How a message is delivered and here with the probable response is going to be and how that conversation is going to evolve.

00:29:09 Paul Falcone

Seeing in the conversation, Evolve is probably more important than hearing the theory about it. Step one is this. It's like now what I say is make it your own. Of course, make this your own style. This is just an example, you have to make it fit your belief style and your your, your philosophy and your.

00:29:25 Paul Falcone

You know, you just approach things, but the bottom line is when people can read about it and say, yeah, when people come back and say, Paul, you were like a fly on the wall, it went exactly the way you you said it was going to go. It's not because I'm a genius. Just because I've done it for 30 years, you keep having these same conversations and you approach it the same way people respond in kind. So if your approach to things is not judgmental, is not putting people down.

00:29:39 Jonathan Woahn

You've seen it.

00:29:48 Paul Falcone

But is giving them a different lens a different perspective choice? A what were you thinking? Are you serious? You were gonna put that in front of a client. You've got to be kidding in front of the whole team and engage in public shaming. That's going to be get a certain response, which is defensive. They're angry and they're shutting down. If you have that same conversation and say I want to share.

00:30:09 Paul Falcone

Something with you that.

00:30:10 Paul Falcone

I I think maybe missing awareness, but the most important decisions about your career that are ever going to be made will be when you're not in the room, when you're not there.

00:30:18 Paul Falcone

To defend yourself. And there's something that is.

00:30:20 Paul Falcone

Me that.

00:30:21 Paul Falcone

Maybe missing awareness that could help you over the long term and will influence what's being said about you in that proverbial room at some point in.

00:30:29 Paul Falcone

The future? Do I have your permission to share? And now all of a sudden you're doing it in private and they're seeing as a coaching lesson, they're seeing that as a as a as a as a mentorship type of thing and not a judgmental. What were you thinking? Why did you do that?

00:30:43 Paul Falcone

They're like, well, wait a second. There's something here that will help me with my career in professional development. It's the same message that you're going to get them, but it's in a totally different presentation format.

00:30:51 Paul Falcone

It's the same thing here when you're dealing with crises.

00:30:55 Paul Falcone

A. It depends on what the crisis, what the crisis is. There's a ton of them out there to choose from. I picked, I think, 40 for this book. You could do 400 right? Cause there's so many out there, but these are the ones that I think are the most common.

00:31:07 Paul Falcone

But again, to that point, to me, Jonathan, it's almost like it starts with you and understanding who you are and who you choose to be relative to this concept of disruption.

00:31:18 Paul Falcone

Relative to this concept of even, I may even lose my job and my point in one of those books about, you know, M&A, mergers and acquisitions, our company may be acquired, our companies that I heard were going to be bought. What does this mean? Am I going to lose my job? Your initial reaction is protection, right? When people are running for the lifeboat, you don't always see the best side of humanity because they're all taking care of themselves. That's your initial reaction.

00:31:38 Jonathan Woahn

Right.

00:31:42 Paul Falcone

What's important is the second reaction.

00:31:46 Paul Falcone

Is your second reaction. I'm going to keep my job at all costs, or is my second reaction even if I lose my job, through no fault of my own?

00:31:54 Paul Falcone

I'm going to I'm going to help my people through this. I'm going to help them navigate this.

00:31:59 Paul Falcone

And that's the spiritual element again. So what I'm saying is it's OK to go with your initial gut reaction.

00:32:05 Paul Falcone

But once the initial hit happens, how do you define that next step that defines who you are? That is your brand.

00:32:15 Paul Falcone

And and that's what I hope to encourage people to do is to come from selflessness. The worst case scenario is we lose our jobs.

00:32:21 Paul Falcone

Yes, it's terrible, but for most of us, that is an inconvenience, nothing more. We will find other jobs. We are still part of an economy that demands good labor. We we need to have it. So it's not like the jobs are missing. We have far too few human beings, but still that that who moved my cheese. Remember that book where people feel like wait a second.

00:32:41 Paul Falcone

You moved my cheese and I didn't know. And now I'm all.

00:32:44 Paul Falcone

Thrown off well.

00:32:45

Do you go?

00:32:45 Paul Falcone

With it, are you agile or you're adaptable? Can you move with it or do you insist that your cheese needs to be brought back and you will not?

00:32:53 Paul Falcone

These are all part and parcel of who we are. The the difference is it's speeding up right now because of this conflagration of all of these different factors, we have to do that definition of ourselves a little bit quicker than we may have done in the past. But it's more important now than ever that we feel confident about who we are no matter what comes our way.

00:33:13 Jonathan Woahn

Yeah, that definition of self too is like it's not, it's a. It's a journey, right? Like it's not. It's not something that like.

00:33:21 Jonathan Woahn

You don't define it once, and then that's who you are for the next 20 years. But we are continually having to make sure that we are evolving and as we devolve, we continue to have that mental awareness of like this is who I am and I can understand how it changed. I can understand why I've changed, but we need to.

00:33:35 Jonathan Woahn

Know that about.

00:33:36 Jonathan Woahn

Ourselves, it's it's a journey, so I wish it was a destination or just like a one time thing.

00:33:42 Jonathan Woahn

Keep doing.

00:33:43 Paul Falcone

Yeah, no, it is the journey. And The funny thing too. Jonathan was when I.

00:33:47 Paul Falcone

I worked at City of Hope and I used to go for a walk every day around the campus. 3:00. That was my time. I I just need 20 minutes. But that was my walk time. The front of the campus was pediatric oncology and they had a little playground and that was where the Rose Garden was. And you'd see the parents walking with those. Remember those little red flag and the the Red Flyer wagons with the black handles and with the four wheels, the little wagons.

00:34:08 Paul Falcone

But they put the bedding in there and they put the baby in there and you know, Dad would be pulling the wagon and mom would have the, the IV pole walking side by side. And you look at that and you think you know what, that's life. That's really what it is. If you're not going through that right now, you're blessed.

00:34:24 Paul Falcone

But how can you be there for the people who are going through that? Because that could be anyone of us at anytime.

00:34:30 Paul Falcone

Change your perspective and you'll change your perception when you see things differently, you experience them very differently. So personal story for me, after I worked at City of Hope about two years later, I got I was at Paramount Pictures at the time and I was diagnosed.

00:34:44 Paul Falcone

With brain.

00:34:44 Paul Falcone

Cancer. And I went back to City of Hope as a as a patient.

00:34:50 Paul Falcone

But when I first found out about the diagnosis, and the doctor told us I was in the room with my wife and the doctor said I'm going to leave you guys for a few minutes. Just talk. I'll be right back. But I want to give you a little bit of free time. I looked at my wife and I said.

00:35:01 Paul Falcone

Honey, I know this is going to sound.

00:35:02 Paul Falcone

Really weird. My prayers are just answered.

00:35:06 Paul Falcone

And she said, what you talking about? And I said.

00:35:10 Paul Falcone

You know, she's crying, she's tearing up. She's like your son. You don't know what to do. It's like, well, this can't be. I was 37 years old. What's going on here?

00:35:16 Jonathan Woahn

Sure. Yeah.

00:35:19 Paul Falcone

And I said remember, when I used to walk around in city of hope, on my walks and I see the babies in the in the little black, the those little Red flyer wagons.

00:35:28 Paul Falcone

So my only prayer at the time was my God. If that ever happened to one of our kids, my only prayer would be taken away from them and give it to me.

00:35:35 Paul Falcone

And my prayer was just answered. It's not Nina or Sam.

00:35:38 Paul Falcone

I still tear up. I mean, it's still it's one of those things you don't forget. And I said, I don't care what I have to go through as long as I know it's not them.

00:35:47 Paul Falcone

I don't care. I'm going to be fine and luckily, knock on what? It's 22 years later and I'm fine.

00:35:53 Paul Falcone

But it spared them. And so yeah, the radiation was really hard. The 9 hour surgery was really all all that stuff. I get it. But on the back end of this, the life lesson.

00:36:04 Paul Falcone

And is I saw it differently, I saw it as a gift, and no matter what they throw at you, even ultimately, if you die, it's like that was the point of the book. The worst, I guess the point of the conversations with God was if you're not afraid to die, you won't be afraid to live.

00:36:19 Paul Falcone

There's a lot of there's a freeness there, there's there's an openness there. And again, as I say, I like to bring that level of spirituality into my books to a degree, you know, not to too much of A degree, but just a hint at those things to make people kind of rethink what is your.

00:36:34 Paul Falcone

Full relative to whatever you're feeling challenged by at any given time. So anyway, long story to a short question. Don't mind that I took you down that, that, that, that alley a little bit. But it's important perspective for something at a time.

00:36:48 Jonathan Woahn

Yeah, I mean it's perspective is everything.

00:36:53 Jonathan Woahn

Change your perspective change you.

00:36:56 Paul Falcone

Yeah, yeah. Change your perspective and change. Change your perspective and you'll change your perception. You'll change the way you experience it.

00:36:58 Jonathan Woahn

What you said earlier, your change your.

00:37:02 Jonathan Woahn

There you go. Change your perspective. Change your perception. Yeah, that's great. You mentioned something earlier that I would like to go back to just a little bit. I'm also looking at the time we've I just wanted to let the audience know we're in about 7 minutes.

00:37:17 Jonathan Woahn

We're going to do a Q&A with Paul.

00:37:19 Jonathan Woahn

And would just love if you have questions, there is a Q&A function within zoom where you can answer. You can ask questions in there and if you would like to submit questions to be answered during the Q and a portion, please feel free to do so. Would love to hear those. We'll go through those and make sure that yeah, you have a chance to get answers to.

00:37:36 Jonathan Woahn

Any of your questions you'd like to hear from Paul?

00:37:39 Jonathan Woahn

One of the things you talked about was you said in the book you go over about 40 different crises that, you know, these managers are going to be facing, are there, which do you have? Are there any like couple that come top to mind? Like, these are the ones that you know, we need to know about. We should talk about let's let's parts some wisdom.

00:37:59 Jonathan Woahn

Right here of like, you know, what are some tactical things that we could do about those specific crises right now?

00:38:05 Paul Falcone

Yeah, there there's a lot and it comes from all different mixtures of backgrounds. Part of it is here's how I approach the book. I mean, what are the things?

00:38:14 Paul Falcone

That can make people freak out if you're in a management role. OK, so the the books I write are for a management audience and you know, you think about, oh, my gosh, my employees are having pizza tonight with the union. They may be thinking about organizing. Or as I said earlier, there's them and a talk my company may be purchased and what happens.

00:38:30 Paul Falcone

There, there's these ideas of dealing with staff burnout that's hard for managers these days. They're still challenged by the remote work and making sure people feel plugged into the Mama ship. What do you do about workplace violence when we watch TV every night on the news? I've forgive me for saying this, but it's like, you know, who got shot now? I mean, this is what we kind of.

00:38:51 Paul Falcone

You become numb to.

00:38:52 Paul Falcone

But but it is a real concern in the workplace and what are we doing towards that? And what happens if there's some kind of a natural disaster we are seeing because of the weather trends we're seeing some really adverse weather conditions out there and they are impacting organizations, heat waves, floods, I mean things that really haven't been on our radar screen.

00:39:14 Paul Falcone

For for up to now, but I I think you know there's also a. How do I terminate someone? What about a layoff? And how do I lay off people? I can't do it. I've seen managers who just kind of crawl up in a ball and they're like, I can't do this.

00:39:28 Paul Falcone

And it's, you know, trying to explain to them, it's not your fault. It's just something that business businesses contract and they expand and when they contract, human being is unfortunately is typically the number one cost on their you know P&L report or whatever the expense is so high that that is something that.

00:39:44 Paul Falcone

Happens they do.

00:39:44 Paul Falcone

Have to cut down what's important for you is that.

00:39:48 Paul Falcone

You find your way to help people and I said let me give you an example.

00:39:54 Paul Falcone

And when I do Andrews, when I do these trainings, I say whenever talking about terminations terminate early in the day and early in.

00:40:00 Paul Falcone

The week don't terminate Friday afternoon at 4:45. That is a big mistake.

00:40:06 Paul Falcone

People have questions people want to know that they have access, that they didn't do anything wrong, that the company is still there to help them. And if you fire them at 5:00 and sweep them out under the rug like they never existed.

00:40:19 Paul Falcone

The problem is they become resentful and in the eyes of an unhealthy person who may have access to a weapon, workplace violence can happen on Monday mornings. It it's not uncommon that that's when it happens.

00:40:31 Paul Falcone

And so I think the reality is if you do it early in the day.

00:40:33 Paul Falcone

And you do it early in the week.

00:40:36 Paul Falcone

The access alone could be something that makes things better. It's it's it's, it's more respect for your employees. But there's a second thing.

00:40:44 Paul Falcone

Don't make people feel judged. They are very vulnerable at this point. I have seen managers who put people down at the moment of termination. Now I'm not talking about theft and embezzlement and fraud, and I'm not talking about that. I'm just talking about performance or or for a reason. And it's like what I would always say is they're human resources. Person is look, I am sorry this is happening and we do appreciate everything you've done.

00:40:55 Jonathan Woahn

Yeah. For reason. Yeah, yeah.

00:41:05 Paul Falcone

For the organization over the last two years, I just.

00:41:08 Paul Falcone

Want to let you know?

00:41:08 Paul Falcone

Thing I will be your concierge if you need help with anything, including your resume, including your unemployment application, your COBRA application. If you wanted to interview role-playing cause you haven't interviewed in a while, there's anything I can help you do. Just know that you can call me anytime. I'll always prioritize your phone call when you do something like that.

00:41:30 Paul Falcone

UM.

00:41:32 Paul Falcone

It's a gift. Again. I don't know how to explain it. People might look at me and say, oh, I would never do that if I were an. Hi, Paul. You're an HR. You shouldn't be. Look, you got to make it work for you. I know how it works for me and I share with people in my book. Just suggestions of how you might want to change your approach to certain things. But if you can even make it.

00:41:53 Paul Falcone

Where someone who feels so vulnerable and so frightened of what do I tell my family? And I don't know if I can pay my mortgage, I'm going to. I don't know how I'm going to make this work. Just calm them down and let them know that you're still there for them. That it's not like the minute they walk out of the company, they are no longer welcome in this company that.

00:42:12 Paul Falcone

It's like stop with all that.

00:42:14 Paul Falcone

Just be the you be the average beer you put yourself on the receiving end of that message as an executive coach.

00:42:21 Paul Falcone

One of the first questions I asked, Jonathan is would you want to work for?

00:42:27 Paul Falcone

You'd be surprised. The silence that you got and their heads nod and their eyes go up to the left.

00:42:33 Paul Falcone

And it's not an easy question. And the other question is if the whole world, if the whole company followed your lead, would you be happy with where you took it?

00:42:41 Paul Falcone

And those are questions that I insert in my books because I want this idea of career introspection of really raising your level of awareness about how you impact others lives is so important. And even with the conversations with God. But it said people are more people are watching you than you know. And that's not from a Big Brother standpoint. It's because we all look toward one another to see what's.

00:43:03 Paul Falcone

Acceptable. And what is role model leadership and what does it look like and what should it feel like?

00:43:08 Paul Falcone

And we also know what it's not we know what poor leadership can do and how it can tear us apart. So I'm just saying in a perspective that you feel is comfortable for you at this point in your career at this point.

00:43:20 Paul Falcone

In your.

00:43:21 Paul Falcone

Life. How can you be that gift to other people? But it's got to start with you first. You've got to be the gift to.

00:43:26 Paul Falcone

Yourself first. Then you have the you know.

00:43:29 Paul Falcone

The the the bandwidth, so to speak, to to to give it out to others.

00:43:34 Jonathan Woahn

So Paul, that was one, I mean this this leading through crisis and needing to, you know, play this role of laying people off is I mean that is one that is one of the unfortunate realities of being in a management role of having to go through that. I think that Reid Hoffman wrote a book called The Alliance. I don't know if you've read this one, but he basically espouses.

00:43:54 Jonathan Woahn

A lot of what you just also affirms what you talked about, like it needs to be. We need to kind of reevaluate that and that relationship and say, like, how can we make this personal and show an elevated level of compassion and how we think about.

00:44:08 Jonathan Woahn

You know, when we have to go through these hard times like that and it just it, he proposes reevaluating the employer employee relationship but he talks a lot about the things that you just talked about.

00:44:19 Jonathan Woahn

What? So that's that's no. Go ahead, go ahead.

00:44:20 Paul Falcone

Yeah. Yeah. No, I was just going to say, John, it's funny when you read aloud a lot of best selling books, they all seem to be coming to the same conclusions. That's what's weird. There's different ways of looking at these books, and there's different ways of approaching the model of the workplace, etcetera, etcetera and what your.

00:44:35 Paul Falcone

Role is in it, but what I find?

00:44:37 Paul Falcone

Is there's a lot.

00:44:39 Paul Falcone

Out of.

00:44:41 Paul Falcone

Consistency across the ones that tend to do better. The books that sell well seem to have that same message. People want to know. I could be a good guy and still make it in the business world. That is not about a Shark Tank. It is not about. It's not so much that I should win, but that you should lose. Now you can do that. You could be very successful at that.

00:45:00 Paul Falcone

Through crisis and disruption, or just in in in the everyday. But is that really who you choose to be? Is that really in your best interest? And that's where you need to kind of come to terms.

00:45:09 Paul Falcone

With wait a second when I'm facing a crisis. Who am I? What's my role model for myself? Am I giving to myself and being there for myself? What what needs to happen?

00:45:18 Paul Falcone

That's first of all.

00:45:19 Paul Falcone

But but secondly, how am I employees going to describe me two years from now? Let's assume we don't work together anymore. I run into one of them at the mall.

00:45:27 Paul Falcone

What are they going to say about that whole layoff situation that happened after we were purchased? Paul lost his job. We all lost our.

00:45:32 Paul Falcone

Jobs, man. That sucked.

00:45:34 Paul Falcone

Right. Excuse my French. Is that going to be all it was? Is that all it was to them or was it Paul? You know what you taught us how to exit gracefully. I mean, while we work for you, we realized this is a great way to work.

00:45:48 Paul Falcone

But when we all lost our jobs, we realized there's a way to lose your job with dignity and self respect and walk out feeling better about yourself and and like you're a stronger person before it. Maya Angelou, the the, the, the author, the poet said, you know, people may not remember what you said and people may not remember what you did.

00:46:07 Paul Falcone

But people will always remember how you made them feel.

00:46:10 Paul Falcone

And she's absolutely right. And that's a very good threshold to to look at. Look at that through that prism. It will help you become people's favorite boss. I want to be people's favorite boss. I want them to want to work for me. I want them to give discretionary effort. I want them to feel safe coming up with ideas that may make them feel vulnerable.

00:46:31 Paul Falcone

But that could lead to the creativity and the innovation that we need in our organization right now. I want that level of collaboration that's important to me that we have one another.

00:46:40 Paul Falcone

Backs I even publish. I even write about values based leadership. Talk to your employees about what are your top five or your top 10 things. For me, it's having one another's back helping people stand out and always making them be able to do their best work every day. Karma is real. What emanates from you returns to you. You cannot give away.

00:47:00 Paul Falcone

Anything that you don't already have.

00:47:03 Paul Falcone

So give that away. Give that gift. Make stronger leaders of your people, and it will only help you in your career. It cannot hurt it by design. The way the universe is built. When you give away from a good heart.

00:47:16 Paul Falcone

It's just going to come back to you.

00:47:17 Paul Falcone

In ways that you never expected.

00:47:21 Jonathan Woahn

Paul, you have a very.

00:47:23 Jonathan Woahn

You have a very abundant mindset and it seems to kind of weave through a lot of how you think about leading through crisis, how you think about leadership, how you think about. Have you ever found? Because I I have met people and I'm curious who who see abundant mindset as weakness.

00:47:41 Jonathan Woahn

And like, have you ever have you ever seen that? As? Have you ever seen that scenarios where an abundant mindset has not worked out well?

00:47:50 Paul Falcone

Yeah, sure. Of course. I was fired for it.

00:47:55

So wait.

00:47:55 Jonathan Woahn

What was that story?

00:47:56 Paul Falcone

Yeah, come on. This is important. I had a manager one time person I reported to said I have a concern about the relationship you have with your clients now. I was head of HR for a division of this company and the clients were all the department heads division.

00:48:11 Paul Falcone

That's whatever she said. I have a concern about your relationship with your clients and I said I'd love my clients. What's the problem? She said. That's the problem. I don't want them to like you. I want them to fear you.

00:48:24 Paul Falcone

And you know what?

00:48:26 Paul Falcone

That's it wasn't.

00:48:27 Paul Falcone

It wasn't the right job for me. It didn't last long. I couldn't. I couldn't thrive in that kind of environment. We just are cut differently.

00:48:33 Paul Falcone

This was someone who came from intimidation. This is someone who wanted fear to be the driver. Is it? You could be very successful in your career if that's the way you choose to take your path. I don't know how happy it'll make you.

00:48:48 Paul Falcone

But putting others down, not sharing information, making sure that you're indispensable to the company because no one knows what you know, and no one's ever going to find out what you know because you're not going to tell them because your job security, these mindsets, are real out there. And yeah, there will be people that are going to say, you know what, Paul's just too nice. My argument has always been, look, I am really, really nice.

00:49:08 Paul Falcone

I have high expectations and it's not one or the other. It's both. You can do both.

00:49:14 Paul Falcone

I've written the book on how to have tough conversations. I've written the 101 sample write ups for documenting employee performance problems to know how to structure terminations. I've written these books, but I would never want someone to look at me and think I'm anything other than nice.

00:49:28 Paul Falcone

Yes. Can I use them? Do I know how to play leadership defense, which is another book I've written? Yeah. Leadership defense. You have to have that. You also have to have leadership offense. The offense is more important, right? Using the sports metaphors. I want to know how to grow and develop and encourage and motivate. But I also have to know how to hold people account.

00:49:44 Paul Falcone

And I also have to know how to do the constructive confrontation and I have to know the documentation strategies because they don't teach this in Business School. I don't care if you've got a top ten MBA from from these, these these, you know, Ivy League schools, they don't teach leadership in the trenches. And I think that's where my books have kind of filled that gap for me that's what made sense.

00:50:04 Paul Falcone

Jonathan teach them.

00:50:05 Paul Falcone

Stuff that they're not learning in, in management, training, teaching. The stuff that even though they've got the MBA, no one's taught them this, the rule is go get your MBA, which is all theory, and now let experience be your guide and experience is going to teach you well. Yeah, you can do it that way, but you're gonna step on a lot of a lot of land mines along the way. And, you know, let me save you the 10 years and making all those mistakes.

00:50:28 Paul Falcone

Let me be the coach. Let me be the mentor. Let me sit side by side with you and walk you through this stuff.

00:50:34 Paul Falcone

That made sense to me. I'm the average bear. It's like a lot of my books have numbers, right? 96 great interview questions to ask before.

00:50:40 Paul Falcone

You higher. I don't want to read from page one to page 240 to figure out what's going on. I've got an interview with a salesperson. Quick, give me 10 questions that I can ask salespeople and how to interpret them. That's how my mind works. That's how I wrote my books.

00:50:56 Jonathan Woahn

Awesome. We got one question here. I want to make sure if anybody again if you have questions, please put them in the Q&A. Happy to to bring them up. We've got about about 9 minutes left.

00:51:07 Jonathan Woahn

Uh, you talk about you discuss everything your company.

00:51:12 Jonathan Woahn

Being bought out.

00:51:14 Jonathan Woahn

By employees, certain unionized challenges of managing a hybrid workforce are companies returning their teams.

00:51:22 Jonathan Woahn

Full time to work. Are they remaining in hybrid mode? I mean, I have to imagine that's got to be that's got to be a big crisis that a lot of organizations we're facing right now because it's like.

00:51:30 Jonathan Woahn

We were all on premise and then we went.

00:51:32 Jonathan Woahn

To COVID everyone.

00:51:32 Jonathan Woahn

Went remote and now it's like we're in this limbo state. That was like, yeah. So what are? What are you seeing?

00:51:40 Paul Falcone

This question I address it in the book and we're going to remain in the limbo state for a while. I do think the new normal going forward will have some hybrid element to it, and I'll tell you why. Before COVID ever came along, before we ever knew what zoom or Microsoft Teams.

00:51:55 Paul Falcone

The idea for having greater work life, family balance control, equilibrium was very, very strong when they pulled the Gen. Y millennials, the 45 and under crowd and the Gen. Z zoomers the 25 and under crowd survey after survey after survey comes back with the top three top five, top, whatever.

00:52:14 Paul Falcone

What keeps coming up is work life, family balance, control, equilibrium, whatever you want to call it. Other things that come up, career and professional development, corporate social responsibility and environmentalism.

00:52:28 Paul Falcone

Diversity of thoughts, ideas, and voices. We keep hearing these, OK? We know what the masses want, and companies would be smart to listen to what those trends are and then try and let that influence directions that you go in. It doesn't have to cost you much money to do these things. Maybe you need to put up a, a, a blue canister in the break room.

00:52:47 Paul Falcone

Capture bottles and.

00:52:48 Paul Falcone

Fans, but that lets employees know it doesn't cost you much or if anything, but it lets employees know that's an important value to the organization. But this idea of work life family balance has preceded COVID nyy a decade and COVID in a way, because of the remote work and the technology that was just in time to make us.

00:53:07 Paul Falcone

Realize we can do this.

00:53:09 Paul Falcone

I think that will be part of our go forward pattern. I don't think anyone's going to say COVID never happened. Everyone back to work Monday to Friday, 8 to 5 period, no exception because they're going to lose people and talent is always.

00:53:23 Paul Falcone

You know you need to hire the talent so that, yeah, companies are kind of again building the plane while flying it. They're trying to return people because they know that they can lose their sense of identity or their culture. Teamwork doesn't work as well over the phone or over a zoom. Then it does. For example, when you're sitting side by side with people and CEO's are not stupid.

00:53:44 Paul Falcone

People, they read the trades too. The loneliest, most isolated and most depressed generational cohort on this planet is not the people living in the retirement homes. It's Gen. Z. It's the 25 and under crowd survey after survey after survey. They are the most.

00:53:59 Paul Falcone

Lonely, depressed, isolated generation. That's how they're testing out. If you're a CEO, who cares, you do want your people back. You want them to socialize the isolation going on forever doesn't work. There's got to be a healthy balance. Every company will define what that balance is.

00:54:16 Paul Falcone

But the bottom line is we won't know that for a couple of years. We're still, it's going to take a couple of years to get through this whole period and my best guess.

00:54:26 Jonathan Woahn

So if the you know the book leading through crisis and the crisis here is like, because like I have experienced this, I mean we have our team is fully remote. We have people from New Hampshire to California and everywhere in between.

00:54:40 Jonathan Woahn

You know the one of the challenges that we have faced is like.

00:54:43 Jonathan Woahn

It is so much easier to collaborate when we are together in person and frankly to lead an organization.

00:54:49 Jonathan Woahn

And it's very difficult to do when we're all remote. We've got a lot of communication that we've got to figure out. And so my question on this is.

00:55:02 Jonathan Woahn

You know how? How do you help lead through scenarios like this? Where?

00:55:08 Jonathan Woahn

There is something that is better for the organization, but what is needed for individuals and what they want is kind of odds with it.

00:55:17 Paul Falcone

Yeah, the best advice I would give on that is let cooler heads prevail. I I think as as organizational leaders for those of you who are business owners, senior executives and frontline operational leaders too.

00:55:28 Paul Falcone

Extremism right now is in our favor is not our favor in our favor. Try and try right. Trying to go 100% this or you'll snap back to work or we're gonna remain 100% remote no matter what. Look, you guys, here's the scoop. If you sold the brick and mortar because you realize you can get the work done without having to pay the real estate costs, everybody by definition.

00:55:33 Jonathan Woahn

Not nursing.

00:55:48 Paul Falcone

Is remote because you have nowhere to go. That's OK that could work for your organization. OK, there will be organizations out there where most employees are essential workers. Think of a hospital, right? You can't be a remote nurse. You have to be on site. Everyone has to be on site from the janitors to the doctors. So yeah, that's going to work too.

00:56:07 Paul Falcone

But I'm saying as a rule, when there's options, when there's choices, most people in most organizations will probably see a 3/2.

00:56:17 Paul Falcone

A 401 balance per week or someone you know you we at least want you in the office once a week, or at least once you in the office four days a month, whatever it happens to be. And again, it doesn't matter. We don't have to have a a solid answer on it right now. Time will tell. Business conditions will tell. I have a son and a daughter. The one tells me Dad.

00:56:37 Paul Falcone

I miss going to work. I go back five days a week, even though I'm the only one in the office sometimes just me and the owner. I love being back in the office. I just. I was lonely working from home. I've got another child. That's like if I had to go to a company that was 8:00 to 5:00, Monday to Friday. No exceptions, no remote work I would.

00:56:52 Paul Falcone

Can go there.

00:56:54 Paul Falcone

I've got to have my downtime. What I'm saying is there's a reasonable element that's somewhere in the middle that can change over time. We don't have to say from this point forward we are 100% XY or Z for right now. This is where we are and let's just approach it again calmly. The beginning of the New Year or at the end of the third quarter.

00:57:14 Paul Falcone

And wherever you happen to be, and you know at that point in time, give it some time to see agility is the key. Adaptability, change management, this is its definition.

00:57:23 Paul Falcone

The opposite is having total control. I need to know everything that's gonna happen in the future. We got to give that up, you guys, the CEO's are being surveyed and what they're coming back. Agility is the top of the list of what is needed today among their employees because everything is changing so quickly. We don't.

00:57:38 Paul Falcone

Have a crystal ball.

00:57:40 Paul Falcone

And we need people who can move with the cheese being moved, so to speak, you know.

00:57:43 Paul Falcone

Someone moves my cheese. I move with it. I am a coachable employee. I will listen. I will learn. I will adapt and I will help. If you come from that, your career will skyrocket and you'll experience it much better.

00:57:55 Paul Falcone

Trying to lock these things in and and and fix them and not allow things to change is so anti with where the you know society and economy is going. It could hurt over the long term so just be flexible with that.

00:58:10 Jonathan Woahn

Totally, Paul. Thank you so much for joining us today. This has been fantastic. Really appreciate the stories that you've shared and and some of the insights into your book. You know, first time manager leading through crisis. This has been fantastic. I got one last question for you.

00:58:27 Jonathan Woahn

What are you reading right now?

00:58:30 Paul Falcone

What am I reading right now? It's called the Oz principle. The Oz principle is all about accountability. The the, the subtitle. I have it in front of me, get results through individual and organizational accountability, and it's one of those New York Times bestsellers. It's been out for a few years. I'm a little late on this one, but I've always heard really good things about it, and I'm enjoying it, and it takes the.

00:58:50 Paul Falcone

The The The Wizard of Oz Paradigm and it talks about the key players and the Wizard of Oz, but the bottom line is.

00:58:57 Paul Falcone

You know there's above the line behavior and below the line behavior and it's OK to go below the line every once in a while, but you're not going to solve anything. You got to get your employees thinking above the line because that's where the solutions happen, and that's where it's positive and it's optimistic and and and keep, it's an again, it's an easy picture to kind of keep in your mind.

00:59:17 Paul Falcone

But keep your people above the line and it's a great book. The Oz principle. I'm really enjoying it.

00:59:22 Jonathan Woahn

Awesome. Well, thank you.

00:59:24 Jonathan Woahn

Again, Paul, it's been wonderful and thank everyone for joining us and we'll see you next time.

00:59:30 Paul Falcone

Thank you, Jonathan and thanks you guys. Great to see everybody.

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