Wake Up Eager Workforce 
Episode 136 Transcript

Episode Preview:

In this episode of the Wake Up Eager Workforce podcast, Suzie Price is joined by Douglas White to unpack the power of emotional fitness in leadership. Together, they explore how emotions—often dismissed or avoided at work—are actually critical signals that shape trust, clarity, and performance.

Through grounded stories and practical insights, the conversation reveals why regulating emotions isn’t about shutting them down, but about using them to guide better decisions and stronger connections. They discuss how emotional fitness equips leaders to handle conflict with calm, create safety in teams, and shift from reactivity to resilience.

Whether you’re navigating stress, leading people through change, or striving to build healthier workplace dynamics, this episode provides a practical roadmap for turning emotional awareness into a leadership advantage.

Read the transcript for Episode 136 below and discover how emotional fitness can transform the way you lead, connect, and perform.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Suzie : have you ever felt stuck with your team like there are problems but nobody can agree on the best solution so nothing changes everything kind of just stays the same can be frustrating it can be hard to deal with there are solutions in today's episode I'm gonna walk you through a powerful and practical facilitation tool called Team Problems Team Solutions it's a simple structured process that I have used for years with clients to help large and small teams at all levels talk about their challenges co create solutions and move forward with clarity and commitment whether you lead a team or you work on one this process will help you create more connection more ownership and more progress and I can't wait to share it with you let's dive in Michael hit it

[00:00:46] intro : welcome to the wake up Eager Workforce podcast a show designed for leaders trainers and consultants who are responsible for employee selection and professional development each episode is packed full with insider tips best practices expert interviews and inspiration please welcome the host who is helping leaders trainers and consultants everywhere Susie Price

[00:01:12] Suzie : welcome to the wake up ego Workforce podcast where we help leaders build a high commitment low drama wake up ego workforce and a life you can't wait to wake up to I'm your host Susie Price and this episode is sponsored by Priceless Professional Development clients hire us over at Priceless Professional Development for four main reasons 1 we help them make better hiring decisions 2 they want to become proficient and expert in using the Trimetrix assessment throughout the employee life cycle 3 to help leaders lead more effectively and 4 to help teams work better together and today is about teams working better together if you find value in today's episode please be sure to follow and like the and share the wake up bigger workforce podcast with your team and on social media today's episode title is From Friction to flow a Simple Process for Solving Team Problems together this is episode 1 36 the show notes and you're gonna wanna get them'cause we're gonna have a great handout that has all the details that I'm gonna walk through today I'm gonna give you a real life example priceless professional. com forward slash solve team problems priceless professional dot com forward slash solve team problems all lowercase one word that's where the show notes are high performing teams do not avoid problems they name them and solve them together

[00:02:36] Suzie : so how good is your team at that about that naming the problem and then being able to solve it sometimes it's hard to get the issues out into the open without it turning into blame or defensiveness or disagreement and so that's why I love this facilitation process and I'm so happy to share it with you Henry Ford said this very simple and very important truth which is if everyone is moving forward together then success takes care of itself so it's the moving forward together thing that we need to create it can be challenging especially today there's some reasons why this matters more today than ever a lot of people are not all in at work Gallup Organization a global analytical firm says the lowest in a decade Only 31% of US employees are involved and enthusiastic about their work so a lot of people are not happy and that's from a 2024 they're not engaged they're not interested so you've got lack of buy in already happening all around us on in an organization and then the power of a team executing effectively matter the executive team can come up with a beautiful strategy but if it's not executed effectively then there's a huge loss and so Bain did a study and said 40% of this great strategy gets lost in the execution and execution is all about agreement on what they're doing and clarity around what they're doing and wanting to do it and buy in so we're gonna talk about all of that how this process helps with some of that and then if you have an aligned and energized team team focus effective teams that are aligned can improve transformation efficiency gains by 30% so if you're executing well there's a lot of gain that's a Mackenzie well regarded Mackenzie report and then there's a big impact on teams not working effectively poor communication on a team or with leaders and the organization which happens you know we all all see that all day every day and in the loss of communication has big impact on big companies they can lose according to one study $62.4 million a year on average from this poor communication piece so this little tool has a lot of power you know that poor communication or that lack of execution has shown up in in unfortunately airplanes not being fixed and repaired and then loss of life or you've got at a bank when they had these false accounts fake accounts that were put together because incentives were misaligned with the reality I mean there's lots of examples of this that have been in the news over the years and those examples that get in the news all started way down the line where teams stop talking you know

[00:05:28] Suzie : people stop sharing and working together effectively so a bottom line if teams aren't at every level aren't talking and they're not taking an action to align repeatedly there are breakdowns in the work and it has big effect one it can just make you miserable at work and at worst it could cause some life threatening or reputational damage or or others so it it's just satisfying to work um where people aren't rowing together if you think about you know pro teams or basketball teams when they're working together effectively you know the synergy that happens or I think about when I'm working with people and it's and you can feel the synergy and how good that feels and how electric that feels and that's that's waking up eager you know so people aligned and so that's what I am so passionate about this work Carnegie is another business person who said you know famous business person and he highlights how alignment turns individual effort into extraordinary results so you've got these all these wonderful people who figure out how to work together but this is what he said teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision the ability to direct individual accomplishments towards organizational objectives it is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results that's teamwork it's fuel I love that fuel cause you know I like me some car analogies if you follow any of my work cars are in it all the time right it's the fuel this is the fuel so what specifically do you do as a busy leader to get people talking about problems in an honest and authentic way you you probably have some tools that you're using great share those with us when you see this on social media or as you share this episode with others but how do you help people efficiently and effectively brainstorm solutions to those problems so we want to we want to agree on what the problems are we want to then come up with solutions and then have a process so that we can pick some solutions and move forward and so we have a lot of differences in the room we got different people with different levels of experience and different ways of working and different priorities how do you manage all that that's the magic of this process I found it probably 15 years ago or so working with teams and I was trying to help them pick do this thing you know align around issues this is the best way that I have found so that people will pick a solution and get the buy in and move forward so I'm gonna share in a real example of this process there's a lots of ways this one happened to be where I was already giving them feedback we had done in person one on one focus group discussions or one on one focus one on one so discussions with individuals in this division to figure out what the challenges were they didn't want to do anything online or virtual they really wanted to get to what are the problems and then I was presenting themes around the discussions to the executive team and then the executive team was a great team this is a great company but they did have some differences on the team we're having some challenges on the executive team and they weren't executing as well so I did this process with them so I laid out all the themes and I gave them a list they had it in front of them and then I gave each of the team of the executive team it was I think it was 10 or 15 people in the room on the leadership team and they get each had three larger post it notes and a marker and then I asked them to look at the feedback themes and then for them to cause I had a whole list of what was discovered in the focus groups to pick the top three for them that they thought the executive team should work on and address the issues to help this division improve and so they had to put pick pick 3 and put one on each post it note so 1 2 3 and then I once they had that I wanted them to rank their three that they picked what was their No. 1 what was their No. 2 what's their No. 3 this is a great process they were picking from the problems that I had

[00:09:32] Suzie : given them sometimes they're you're asking them to select their from their own data bank you know what they're going to select to put on those post it notes so you can go either way so then what we did is I had them go around the room I had the CEO go last so always advise the key leader in the room I'm gonna put you last in responding so that everybody has to go before you and so that it sets everybody up to not defer or pick what the CEO did are said sometimes that happens so we just give the hit CEO the the nod around that up front and then they are to select and share their No. 1 go around the room give me the post it note and then tell the group what they picked and why they picked it so as you're going around the room you see the energy going up cause everybody's kind of excited to share what they picked and why they picked it and why it matters and as they would give it to me I'd put it up on the flip chart or on the chalkboard that we had in the room and then I would every time I would get a post it note I'd say okay does this new No. 1 go with the previous No. 1 that was selected or does it go in its own category we want three to five categories from this discussion so I want I wanted them and then it's interesting the energy that comes in about that it sounds silly right so but they're like oh no no no that one doesn't go with that one it's its own category and no I think it's this category so it gets everybody talking now it's their categories and and it helps you now you're now grouping like items that they've selected into categories that are manageable for discussion so we go around the room everybody shares their No. 1 and now I say okay now I want you to look at your No. 2 and if it was already shared you can do a pass but if there's something you wanna say about it you can do that or if your No. 2 was not shared yet let's put it up on the board and then every time we put it up on the board which category does it go in and so you start to see the post it notes you'll see like answers and you just whatever they say there's no wrong answer everything is good everything they share is good you're listening you're getting them talking and now you're creating something in front of the room that now becomes okay these are the key problems that we're talking about focusing on and so we do the same thing with No. 3 go around the room and literally this sounds as I'm talking it through having to talk it through is more than the actual delivery of it what's happening in the room is energy interest when I was giving them the feedback about the survey everything was just there was nothing going on and everybody was just kind of like head down but as they're now talking about them they're now taking ownership of what they just heard it's it's a beautiful thing and then now they're picking what they're going to work on so now the commitment has now gone up then we have our five groupings I asked them if there's anything we would change in the buckets because you've got these categories with these post it notes and you can do this virtually by the way with an Excel spreadsheet which I have one that I use for this too you group them that way it just the conversation is gold and it just gets everybody talking and talking about the right things and then I ask them let's come up with summary headlines like you do for a newspaper article how would we summarize each one of these buckets that we've got here so we've got the buckets they give me the headlines 20 or 30 minutes later we're gonna take a break and I give them two colored dots or I give them the annotate I turn on the annotate if I'm doing it on zoom and where they can check and they can check pick two of the categories out of the 5 and they can use their two dots on one category or they can use you know on two categories that's their vote and so then I'm gonna during the break look at where all the votes showed up and then I'm gonna tell them okay we've picked two problems to pick to tackle for today I think sometimes people don't don't tackle problems cause there's so much going on or they don't wanna talk about the solutions and move towards all of this because it's just too much it's overwhelming now we've just synthesized it we've made it easy to facilitate is to make something easier

[00:13:31] Suzie : next we want to now take these two problems and we dive a little deeper to gain some more consensus around the problem with some simple and impactful questions I want them to think about the problem and think about the feedback that they'd heard and then I want them to somebody a couple people different people speak up who here will be willing to describe the problem what it looks like what it sounds like how it shows up here they're talking about the problem a little bit more they might have already covered it ask the question don't skip over it and then other people can chime in there's more that anybody else would like to say about the problems and you do it for each problem and then you said let's headline it it again we want to define it into two sentences and for each problem and so I get them to do that now they are fully owning it I've got new flip chart pages up and it's like these are the two problems that we're going to tackle and then we're going to talk a little bit more about who or what has stopped us from solving the problem that's a question that I really like you to ask what other problems does it cause and then if this were no longer a problem what difference would it make so don't skip through those have them talk about it so now all of this is creating by him okay so now we've got our problems we're going to brainstorm potential solutions so I want you to be thinking about what solutions would help address this issue and when we're brainstorming I've got a new flip chart page up or if I've got a board up if I'm using zoom there's gonna be no censoring or correcting ideas everything goes even strange ideas strange ideas always lead to interesting things so if you have an idea lift put it up there okay so I'm gonna capture all the ideas and then we're gonna take a break and I'm gonna group like items again and you could do it with post it notes as well um so you just capture all the items so you pick one of the problems okay so what are some of your solutions and everybody list them and it's a lot of excitement going in the room everybody can't wait to share what they think ought to happen you group like solutions or you put another checkmark if somebody said yeah I had that one that was the one I was gonna say too so you start to get some buy in on the solutions take a quick 5 10 minute break as a facilitator bucket or group again the like items so if you have categories and you might go ahead and create a simple headline you know this one is about incentives and this one is about communication and you know you can do that to speed it up and then what you do so now you've got all these potential solutions how do you decide now this is the gold in this you're gonna use this Decision Grid box on the left hand side it's major improvement and minor improvement there's four boxes and up the top it's difficult to do and easy to do your favorite box is box No. 1 which is this is a major improvement and it's easy to do and then your next favorite box is No. 2 which is it's a minor improvement and it's easy to do then you've got your third favorite which is major improvement but boy it's gonna take some work and then minor improvement difficult to do that goes out the window allows you to categorize people are jumping up and excited by the time you get here they're telling you where each one goes so you could put it on a flip chart you could number you know the the solutions this is No. 1 No. 2 No. 3 or a B C d and then you put you know those numbers on the grid and then voila and you can tell them to place it you know if the grid is easy to do is zero to 100 if it's you know really easy to do maybe it goes far to the right and if it's kind of easy to do you know cause sometimes they can't decide whether it's difficult or or easy you know you can kind of place it you know the intensity of how easy it is and what how up the major improvement goes up to the top you know those little things like that gives a great visual and then what you're gonna do is review all the major improvement easy to do items first duh right and then the minor improvement difficult to do minor improvement are next and then you know we just go through it and then and then your your questions are is this something we should do if so what are the benefits are there potential barriers for implementing these what are they what potential actions could address these barriers what can we commit to doing differently starting today who will chair or take ownership of these decisions and let's pick a date so you can you know break it down you might for each group say those questions a little differently but that's the follow up you just follow the formula it works it doesn't fix everything overnight but it did give this executive team a plan of action of something they had been stuck on a long time it's a way to talk about what isn't working and take ownership that's non threatening it helps build trust clarity and forward momentum and folks this is what a great facilitative process does that's why I love facilitation facilitation tools a good facilitation process makes it easier for teams to come together and then this is the equation that you want to talk about when you're talking about this process is this equation that is crucial and it's Ed equals RD times CD you'll see that on the handout Ed effective decision equals RD the right decision multiplied by commitment to the decision an effective decision is always picking the right decision so that process is helping us figure out you know what are the major improvement easy to do major improvement a little harder to do decision solutions you know what are the right things to do and then but now we've got commitment to the decision so this process say it takes an hour to go through this process what you have done is turned it all around

[00:19:08] Suzie : you gotta have the right decisions this helps you do that by all these questions you gotta ask questions you gotta get people talking and you gotta listen and as a facilitator capture all that and use these processes you will have commitment to the decision you're gonna get more effective results this process helps a team clarify and agree upon problems come together on solutions I hope you can see how well it works and how easy it is it's a little hard to describe cause you have to be in the room with it but I'm hoping that this one story is helpful but I have used this with city governments sales teams human resource teams non profit boards and more no matter the industry or the team makeup when people are given this safe structured space to be honest and work together real change starts to happen so high performing teams don't avoid problems so we need to give them a way to help solve those problems together and this process does that and you know when those issues linger and they're unspoken there's frustration disengagement and drama you know we've got this whole large group of people who are basically unengaged and so this simple structure is a way to surface issues and find solutions productively it changes things for teams and it can reduce drama and increase commitment I believe every leader and coach should know this process so again it's team problems team solutions it helps teams surface what's getting in the way and brainstorm how to move forward it's tapping into collective wisdom could you see that with the team I hope I painted a visual that was good enough we do this with city managers and so you've got all these when we're when we're hiring in a city when I'm helping and other consultants hire and do hiring templates and so you've got all these different people in a city think about all the different biases everybody has they're not even teams you know but we have them go through a similar process about picking priorities sharing those priorities why they matter grouping them together it's a process you can use in so many ways so it's part of the dashboard process and I have videos on that on my website you can use it for new teams to help new teams figure out what their norms are going to be that could be a way you could use this if you got a lot of conflict you could use that what's our problem you can go direct to it if there's been change or stress if productivity or morale is dipping let's get people together and come up with some action planning basically anytime you need to take action but you can't agree on what action to take this is your tool so what do you need you need I talked about flip charts or shared document virtually that you can use and I'll be happy to share the dashboard process that I use just reach out to me I've got a virtual of it that has helped big groups of people come together and talking about priorities and coming to some agreement you can use a larger post it notes markers or typing assistant and then those color dots or use annotate on zoom to do that so some tips you want to be calm and curious be relaxed get comfortable with the process there's no judgment just exploration your job as a facilitator is you put on your facilitator hat you're not the leader in the room you're not telling everybody what to do it's gathering their content and helping them see it and use it you're not gonna jump to solving too soon you're gonna give people time to talk about the problem don't skip over those questions let people fully express the problems first encourage shared ownership again not that leader we gotta fix it this is what I said effective decisions equal right decisions multiplied by commitment to decision and you gotta allow silence when people are thinking and they're writing the problems or they're writing out their solutions or brainstorming let the silence sit cause that often draws out deeper thoughts and then a follow up tip always schedule a follow up meeting or a check in with the team to revisit progress

[00:22:50] Suzie : give times and people need accountability they need to know that there is gonna be some follow up especially if there's been some history of lack of follow up and then a great way to debrief the whole exercise is hey I'd like to get a little feedback from you about today what stood out to you about the process a very general question like that is you'll be surprised at what people say I Learned this I saw this I liked this this is the first time we ever did this what surprised you about the process it's another good question how can we keep this momentum going cause there's always good energy in the room do you have suggestions and it's amazing what they'll say and then just revisiting the actions that they shared that they were going to take or maybe have them share back to you the actions that they're gonna take and when they're gonna follow up that's really what a good leader does is have them do that last part so see the handout it's useful it it outlines all of this it reminds it has the formula on there that I talked about the effective decisions formula priceless professional dot com forward slash solve team problems this process ties together individual accountability with collective success and here's another quote we're about to close it out here Basketball Hall of Famer Phil Jackson summed it up perfectly the strength of the team is each individual team member so everybody's thought and input matters he didn't say that part I'm saying that but back to the quote the strength of the team is each individual member the strength of each member is the team isn't that fantastic so we've got to work together there's a lot of power in that so this process brings individuals together by helping them make good decisions together that's a good way to feel good about work to feel more involved and enthused about what you're doing and to feel like you have a voice that's the thing okay so we're closing it out I'm gonna do a final summary but I'm going to go to and it's this is a good segment for the next part this is one of my favorite parts of the show we've been doing all year emotional well being 2.0 aligning with your excellent segment it's a very short segment a couple of minutes with the insightful and soulful Douglas White he's the CEO of Soul Integrated Athletics and a former Major League pitching coach with a 17 year career across some of the top Major League Baseball organizations four time minor league champion has been part of two World Series winning teams and his focus today is helping athletes and all of us he's working with leaders and some of our audience and we're talking about integrating our emotional well being with high performance so he's always bringing us short clips about and practical wisdom about how to navigate emotions you know big problem on teams sometimes is people don't feel free to express or they're frustrated you know what do you do with those emotions how can you use them to fuel rather than derail your excellence so Douglas is on this is segment No. 12 you can listen to all the segments plus the podcast episode that we initially did which is priceless professional dot com forward slash well being you can look at all that there but let's listen to Douglas and what he's gonna remind us of today

[00:25:51] Douglas : hello everybody Douglas White here again emotional well being 2.0 aligning with your excellence what I want to chat with you guys about today is so very important and at times can seem so subtle I don't want to say so unimportant but it's so nuanced that it seems very very very easy oh I could just speak this way but there's so much more to it how do you speak to yourself how do you speak to others but what we wanna tune into here is are the words that we're using and the effect they have on our body when we're using them meaning how do we feel when we're speaking the way we're speaking the most obvious examples are when you speak rudely to yourself when you're critical or judgmental to yourself it is so very important that we notice how we are speaking to ourselves or others but right now I'm focusing on how we speak to ourselves because think about this if you're not aware how you're speaking to yourself and you're not aware how it feels when you speak to yourself in that manner you're literally spending maybe all day long putting a thumb on top of yourself pushing yourself underwater making yourself upset all day long not realizing that that is literally why because of how you're choosing to treat yourself to speak to yourself I know for me this is one of the most important things I'm working on right now and actually for the month of July this is recorded in July July 2nd actually that's what I'm working on that's what I'm focusing on the most how am I speaking to myself and anytime I catch myself speaking to myself rudely critically with judgment I stop I retrace my steps and then I speak to myself in a manner that I know I want to I speak to myself in a manner the way I know my soul would speak to me the way I know my most cherished loved ones would speak to me the way I know my dog would speak to me yes I got a dog her name is moon we'll talk about that another time so how do you speak to yourself and then how do you speak to others choose your words wisely but here's the ticket to this it's not about the words as much as it is about how you're feeling when you're using the words because if you go back and listen to the other segments about our emotions you'll be able to tune in quite quickly to oh when I say this word I feel this way when I say this word I feel that way these are so important so just observe if you can this week how do I speak to myself and then once you notice that wow how often am I doing that something that will be so amazing to help limit the resistance in your life hope that is of some assistance to you guys as always love you peace

[00:29:44] Suzie : I like how Douglas is reminding us how we speak to ourselves and how we speak about others to ourselves that paying attention to the words we use and how they make us feel does that word work is that word you know helpful it's gonna have a direct impact on our emotional well being and we can choose our words and how we choose to focus so speaking to ourselves with judgment or criticism even subtly can weigh us down throughout the day without realizing it you know so some set of words that I have been enjoying lately is self evaluate but don't judge so try to disconnect you know so immediately after a training session I used to not read the evaluations because I knew I was so sensitive I put everything that I could I did the best I could do wasn't always the greatest but it was all I knew how to do and to read the evaluations right away I just decided I would not read them but I would let some time pass so that I could read the evaluations and not self judge cause you know when you're self judging every little comment now sounds like oh it's a terrible criticism when in fact it's just us being sensitive so anyway so let's pay attention to be kind to ourselves Douglas will be back on our next episode and I just wanna kind of reiterate the quote that we started with before we kicked into Douglas segment with Phil Jackson basketball great where he said the strength of the team is each individual team member so we each each team member brings value or why are they even on the team right and the strength of each member is the team so we're gonna build each other up build ourselves up and then build others up the more we do it for ourselves and look for strengths the easier it becomes for us to see and cherish other strengths it's really hard to cherish and value others if we don't cherish and value ourselves so I'm so thankful for Douglas for reminding of these reminding us of these important things that they do come into play in the work that we do every day and the people we work with and the teams we work on so to go back to what we started with today I want to do a summary of what we covered naming problems out loud creates clarity and shared ownership that's what this process is all about uh team problems team solutions facilitation process this exercise this process brings the team together around solutions not blame it encourages honesty responsibility and action great leaders don't have all the answers they can create space though for the answers to emerge with this process and doing this process regularly builds a high commitment low drama team culture and that's what we are all about here so that's why I was so excited to put a podcast episode together about this go to priceless professional dot com forward slash solving team problems you'll find the step by step handout

[00:32:39] Suzie : that outlines this process let me know how it goes let me know if you use it let me know if you have any questions let me know if you would like to get the link to the virtual worksheet that I use when I'm doing dashboards with teams and and groups and such that you could kind of take that and make it your own we do post a lot on LinkedIn we've got a wake up ego workforce podcast page on LinkedIn and then I have of course my Susie page so I'd love it if you would share this episode if you see it like it comment on it maybe share some thoughts on what you do to help teams solve problems and get to solutions we've also got some at the show notes priceless professional dot com forward slash solving team problems we have some additional facilitation tools I've got two episodes with my favorite facilitator in the world Michael Wilkinson he wrote the book secrets to facilitation which is my favorite book in the world it's not in the world but it is a favorite book that I revisit so go listen to those episodes Michael's an amazing facilitator and it just is so dynamic and those those are in my mind great episodes so check those out we have a couple of team improving team communication episodes that this would kind of go with this episode and one is six tools for better meetings these are good little tools that can help you continue to use your facilitator Juju hahaha bring that expertise to help the team be effective so go check those out and then if you're using our assessments we've got I've got a team building session success the podcast is very detailed around if you're using talent insights the disc and motivators what are some tips to make that a really great meeting okay so whether your team is thriving or struggling make time to pause reflect and solve problems together that is a powerful process take the time and it took this time to explain it it is so easy to to facilitate this just do it and you'll be amazed at what happens let me know how it goes you might be surprised at how quickly tension turns into teamwork and so thanks for tuning in keep leading with clarity connection and commitment and remember how you lead matters lead with purpose reduce the drama and keep building your wake up eager life one step at a time one choice at a time if you found value today again please be sure to follow us like us and share the wake up Eager Workforce podcast with your team and on social media I'll see you on the next episode we've got a really great interview that I had with a ultramarathoner and it is fantastic it's called living intentionally he's pretty inspirational he's doing some crazy things but it really is inspiring and that'll be our next episode just so tune in thanks for being here take care

[00:35:22] Outro : this episode of the Wake Up Eager Workforce podcast was brought to you by Priceless Professional Development thank you for tuning in if you enjoyed today's show head over to Priceless professional.com to gain access to more professional development resources