Building Deep, Meaningful Connections with Dr. James Pogue
Watch/Listen here or on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts“I believe as the leadership team goes, so goes the rest of the company. So if you don't have that consistent and significant sustainable growth, you've got some work to do.” — Mike Goldman
Dr. James Pogue, CEO of JP Enterprises, focuses on strengthening leader-team connections to drive innovation, creativity, and performance.
The Importance of Trust in Leadership Teams
Trust is the key element in leadership teams.
Meaningful connections between leaders allow for accountability and high expectations.
Effective teams push each other to greatness through trust and respect.
Why Strong Connections Matter
Leaders must articulate their vision clearly.
Authenticity and transparency drive team alignment.
Deep connections help remove obstacles ("wobbles") that prevent teams from working effectively together.
Do Leaders and Teams Need to Like Each Other?
Respect is essential; liking each other is secondary.
Like and love grow over time, but trust and respect are foundational.
Differences in personality, styles, and approaches should be acknowledged and leveraged for success.
Navigating Disagreements and Polarization
Leaders don’t have to agree with team members’ beliefs but must believe in them as individuals.
Disagreement is not a problem—disrespect and division are.
Leaders should embrace diverse perspectives while maintaining a shared vision.
What to Do When Trust Is Broken
When belief in a team member is lost, leaders must assess if it can be restored.
If parting ways is necessary, it should be done with respect and acknowledgment of past contributions.
Disconnection should be handled in a way that preserves relationships beyond the workplace.
Common Leadership Challenges (The "Wobbles")
New Leadership: First-time CEOs or leaders often struggle with alignment.
Growth & Change: Mergers, scaling, and new strategies create friction.
External Events: Natural disasters, political shifts, and societal changes impact team dynamics.
Technology & Innovation: New tools can either connect or divide teams.
Loss & Loneliness: Personal hardships affect workplace engagement.
Diversity-Related Tensions: Race, gender, age, and socioeconomic differences can be leveraged as strengths rather than sources of division.
The Role of DEI in Connection & Loneliness
DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) has become a divisive issue for some organizations.
Leaders should focus on creating connections rather than getting caught in ideological battles.
The exclusion of any group, including those in leadership, can hinder progress.
How JP Enterprises Helps Organizations
Uses the Connection Quotient Assessment to measure trust and connection within teams.
Provides executive coaching, policy development, and team workshops to strengthen leadership alignment.
Focuses on turning "wobbles" into opportunities for deeper connection and improved performance.
Empowerment Without Accountability
Many organizations empower individuals but fail to hold them accountable.
True leadership balances support with clear expectations.
Leaders must have the courage to challenge behaviors that hinder team cohesion.
Final Thoughts: The Power of Deep Connections
Personal relationships matter. Even in business, we need people we trust and respect.
Leaders must invest in building strong relationships both professionally and personally.
Key takeaway: Meaningful connections are the key to both individual and organizational success.
Thanks for listening!
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Mike Goldman: Dr. James Pogue is the CEO of JP Enterprises, a professional services firm with a global clientele focused on strengthening the connections between leaders and teams, which lead to increased innovation, creativity, production, and profits. JP Enterprises works closely with leaders who are driving transformational change, helping them align people, plans, and processes with vision and vision.
Dr. James Pogue, welcome to the show.
Dr. James Pogue: Thank you, sir. Appreciate the invite. Appreciate being here with you.
Mike Goldman: Yeah, really excited, about this. we were introduced to each other, through, through someone,who,Dwayne Farley, who I trust, very much kind of got me started in, working with a group called Vistage, which has been incredible for me. So any friend of Dwayne's is an automatic friend of mine.
So I warned James before this, there's only one right answer to this next question, [00:01:00] so I hope he gets it right.
if not, we're going to have to end the show early, but, James, from all of your experience, what do you believe is the number one most important characteristic of a great leadership team?
Dr. James Pogue: Well, you know, I'm glad you gave me a little bit of a heads up because I was going to go one direction was really focused on the leader, but to your point, the team is a different piece. And I like the, I'm going to land on this idea of trust. trust built upon meaningful connections between the leaders and that they are that allows them to be able to push and pull and require and expect great things out of one another and to know that I'm pulling and I'm pushing you and I'm poking you and I'm driving you not because I'm a knucklehead not because I don't care, but because our obligation is to provide great service, either to our clients to our members to whomever, and that we trust one another that the idea of trust of doing that is more important than me making you feel uncomfortable, than me scratching you, than me, sort of, you know, you [00:02:00] pet a dog the wrong way, and it's like, oh my goodness, that, that didn't feel like, that didn't feel great. But it's, I'm doing it for the purposes of us being great, and us being able to push and pull one another, and being able to trust one another, slash expect of one another,tThat in order for us to be great, you will make me feel uncomfortable and that's going to be okay.
Mike Goldman: Thank God you gave one of the right lie. There's not one right answer, but you gave one of them. So you get to stay on the show and that's great. so of course, I mean, and that is what we're going to drive into today.
Every, everything I want to talk about with you, because you are the expert in building those connections between leaders and their teams.
So let's take your answer and drive deeper to talk to me, all the things you said, you know, why is it. So important that there is that strong connection between leaders and the teams versus, Hey, if I got good, smart people that are going to do what I tell them to do, that's all I need. Why is that connection so important?[00:03:00]
Dr. James Pogue: Well, the challenge here becomes this idea that what, why are we here, right? Why are we here? are we just here to produce widgets and produce them faster and better and stronger? Like, why are we here? And the leader, the primary leader, the CEO, the chairman of the board, has developed a vision. that they're trying to push and pull the team to execute on. And In order for that vision to be transferred for them to understand it, we have to be able to one be transparent and be authentic and all of these wonderful terms and words. But as I've been struggling to as I continue to struggle to smarter and better at this work, I tried to use the simplest words possible.
Like if I can explain it to a fifth grader, then by golly, the CEO of any organization ought to be able to understand it. And so when I locked myself in a room with me and a marker and a whiteboard, what came to my mind over and over again, what comes to my mind is this idea of being deeply and meaningfully connected. our ability to [00:04:00] be authentic, our ability to be transparent, our ability to drive our ideas and our vision, or if we happen to be one of the team members to hear the vision of the leader to allow ourselves to be open to that is based upon this foundation of connection. And there are things that get in the way. Of this foundation of connection and those wobbles as I call them can preclude me from being able to hear what it is you're trying to get me to understand the vision you're trying to get me to see the direction we're trying to go and all the why's behind it. So we can identify those wobbles. Turn the temperature down on them or use them to pull us together. Then we have a much stronger opportunity to be successful.
Mike Goldman: So I want to dig into those wobbles, but before we do just to dig a little deeper on that word connection, if I'm a leader of a team, I've got my team around me, does connection mean, you know, we all have to [00:05:00] like each other, we all have to be friends with each other, or could you be connected to someone?
Feel, feel that what you call the, you know, deep, meaningful connection. Could you feel that for someone you don't like very much? Like where does like, and friendship, interact with connection
Dr. James Pogue: Yeah, I think that it comes down to these two words that I go back and forth with a lot. respect and love or respect and love slash like, and then which one would, which one works, which one should we be leveraging? And, the answer is both, you know, in the initial business context, you know, I'm hired by you.
I don't know you to really like you. I just know that I respect you and I want to work for you. You're right. And I have something that I offer and then something that I can give. So no, we don't have to like each other, not in the beginning, but in order for us to have a long term, relationship that grows and pushes and is innovative and is creative and is productive and that is profitable over time, that light comes into play. You know, it's often [00:06:00] the difference we talked about between mentoring and coaching. I don't have to like my coach, but my coach can help me get better. my coach can help me get a lot better. Right. But they may not. I may not like them. Right. But they're teaching me certain kinds of techniques.
Now, a mentor is a different kind of a relationship that the like and love part of the mentoring relationship is stronger. But for the coach or for the leader, no, the like part is not a requirement. The respect part is absolutely a requirement.
Mike Goldman: related to that, the other way I want to kind of dig into that word connection a little bit is in the polarized world that we live in, that we have lived in, you know, for a while now where there are. People on the right and people on the left, people who believe what we believe and then all the maniacs who believe something different than what we believe.
you said something when I was poking around your website, I'm going to [00:07:00] quote you poking around your website and preparing for this, and I loved something that you said that I want to quote you. And I want you to just play with, you know, talk about a little bit. You said, I don't have to believe in what you believe.
I just have to believe in you.
Dr. James Pogue: That's
Mike Goldman: Which I thought was so profound. Talk about that a little bit.
Dr. James Pogue: That's right.
again, we are in a, business marketplace, a relational marketplace, a political marketplace, an athletic marketplace where dissension discord and a version of chaos. is the norm. And perhaps there is great energy and great opportunity that can come from that kind of,dynamic between folks. But I think that what also can happen with that in order for it to be supremely successful, I have to stay with this idea that it is not critical that I agree with the person in front of me. It's not, but it is critical that I believe in you. In fact, I may have hired you specifically [00:08:00] because you and I see things differently. And so, but I have to believe that you are a successful person, a good person, a grounded person, a transparent person, a productive person, you know, these are the critical things that I have to believe. And then we have to figure out, we have to do the unbelievably hard work of figuring out how to work together, particularly when we disagree. Right. It's one of the things I speak to people about when I bring them onto our team. Right. I'll ask them the question during the interview. What's gonna be our first argument and how's that gonna go? predict it forward. You've been talking to me now for an hour or so. I've been talking to you. You've done your research on the website.
I've done my research. What are we gonna fuss about? Right. and I, my expectation is that you play chess five moves out. you tell me, well, James, you know, look,you come at things this way and you have certain kinds of expectations and demands and requirements. And I don't operate that way. One, one time was a person, she says, look, I am a, an [00:09:00] out loud processor. And I like to do that over time and you seem to be the person who wants the results now and there's going to be times when I say, hold on, I need a minute to think about that. And that's going to be a point of conflict for you and I, and she was 100 percent right, I when I'm trying to move I'm trying to move. Right? And I was on more than one occasion. hey, hold on a second. How about we take five minutes and then we'll come back to this. it's annoying to me. It will, again, it's like petting a dog the wrong way. doesn't mean that I, she's not wrong and I'm not right. But it was the way that we needed to learn how to operate with one another.
Because I believed in her. I believe that she's smarter than me in certain very important ways. She sees the world in ways that I don't even know exist. And I require that she bring that to the table. if I'm requiring that she bring that to the table, am I going to complain about how she's bringing it? I might want to be a little bit more [00:10:00] flexible in order for us to win together.
Mike Goldman: What happens at, and this question may get us into some of the wobbles, which I want to get into, but what if you, you're the leader of a team and you've got somebody on the team, you've lost belief in, you don't believe that they are, that they've got the right, Goals in mind. You don't believe they're aligned.
You maybe you're losing belief that they could actually get the job done.is there a way to get that belief back or is it kind of, Hey, once you've lost that belief, maybe you're better off parting ways.
Dr. James Pogue: I think the answer is yes, but I think it's incumbent upon the leader or the person who has the best level of maturity in the situation. To say we've got a, we've got a fracture here, fracture in trust, fracture in respect, fracture in belief. And we need to talk about the best way to navigate through this because it may end up that we're not going to be together anymore.
We're [00:11:00] not going to be in a relationship anymore, right? We're going to have to go our separate ways. But can we find the best way to do that? Can we find a way to do that in respect? love, even though I do not like you, we can part ways respectfully. Even if I don't respect your business acumen anymore, or we just, our ideologies have gotten to a point where the clash is too strong, I got to respect that you brought to the table your ideology. You expressed it in a way that I could understand. And now I'm certain that I disagree to a point that we can't work together. We didn't get to the point of, not working together based upon me not believing in you. It's because I believed in you that now I know we don't agree. Right? So I think that we have to honor the path that brought us to the point of disconnection. And that will allow us in the long term be able to go back to that person, [00:12:00] open a beer, sit on the beach, put our feet in the sand when we're all a little older and a little grayer and talk about each other's grandkids. Because at some point done with this part of our work, right? It's not going to be about making widgets. It's going to be about how do we make the world a better place? and how do we try? How do we push against the ocean? You know, and sometimes you win and sometimes you don't, but you try to do it with people that you respect.
So, if there comes a time when the fracture is so great that we gotta go opposite directions, so be it, but let's do that respectfully too. Let's do that based upon all the transparency and vulnerability that we share together. We owe each other that.
Mike Goldman: That's so important. I love that because there are, you know, and I've been in situations as a guy that coaches leaders and leadership teams, I've been in situations where the fracture has been so great that the right thing to do is end that, that part of the relationship respectfully. And I like what you [00:13:00] said that it's kind of a bigger view of the relationship too, but at least that part of the relationship, ending it respectfully.
And then frankly, I've been in situations where, man, for the life of me, I thought there was no way back for these two people. But they figured it out and it was like, wow, it surprised me. So, so to that end, let's dive in.
And we've probably already started talking about it to some degree, but you mentioned some of the obstacles, some of the wobbles that get in the way to building that deep and meaningful connection.
what do you see as being those biggest obstacles or the wobbles you see most often?
Dr. James Pogue: Sure, so, I think in today's world there's two sets that we like to play with. And the first set is, these sort of, Somewhat traditional business components. New leadership is a huge one, especially if the new leader, your new senior leader, is their first time being that leader. A new CEO, it's a first time CEO.
that's a challenge. A second would be different versions of growth, mergers and acquisitions. We're trying to grow [00:14:00] and scale. These can all be wedges. people apart. But the way that I want people to think about it, anything that's a wedge can also be a magnet. If we look at it through the lens of let's connect first, let's connect through it. Right. Another might be, environmental issues, whether it be the hurricane, whether it be the fires. Whether it be the school shooting, whether it be any of these, if a political election, things that sort of happen around us that are so big that we can't stop them from happening, a political election is not quote unquote an act of God, but it's massive. And it happens around you and regardless of you, much like a hurricane does. So there's those environmental issues. There's also technology. Technology is absolutely, it can be a wedge issue, or it can be something that pulls us together in significant ways. I'll add two more for context, loss. Loss is massive. James loses his [00:15:00] spouse, or his, and it could be through, through, she passed, or divorce, right? When I lose something, that does something to me. How are you going to lead me In the midst of me navigating that I could have lost my house in the fire in the flood, could have lost my favorite pet, as my sister said to me one time loss is loss, who am I to tell you how it's going to impact you. Right. The last one I'll say is loneliness. Loneliness is huge. One in four Americans right now, one in four, raise their hand and say, I am lonely. Great Britain and Japan have people at the senior levels in government whose responsibility it is to try to address the loneliness epidemic that is out there. We live in a world where we can create a bubble. Of people or things that we think are supporting us but aren't real humans. And that's we remain lonely, you know, and there's a there's a word, [00:16:00] hedonia it talks about, I feel good. It makes me feel good. I get that dopamine hit from the likes on my Instagram or whatever might be the food that I'm eating the sugar spike or whatever, right?
The short term relationship that I had with her or him, right? But then there's Eudaimonia. Yeah. Which is life is good. My life is good, right? Not I had a good time. hedonia, but life is good. Eudaimonia, and pushing towards this life is good idea is how we can work our way to that loneliness perspective. So there are those pieces that cause it cause fractures in our rearview mirror.
we had a whole series of sort of quote unquote diversity related aspects that also were wedge issues. Race. Gender, sexuality, age, socioeconomics. You've got money, you live in that neighborhood, I don't. geography. You're from the west coast, I'm from the east coast. You're from China, I'm from the UK.
You're from [00:17:00] Australia, I'm from the United States. These were also pieces that were wedge issues between us. All of these things that I've mentioned can also be components that bring us together. We have to be able to measure it, a roadmap to get us from where we are to where we want to be, then execute on that roadmap. And leaders have to have the courage to jump off the cliff, face first, holding hands with somebody, knowing that there is a way to accomplish these goals on the way down.
Mike Goldman: So I want to get back to measuring it and I know you've got a tool that helps identify these things and measure it that I really want to drill into with you, but I want to hit, you know, I've been writing down some of those wobbles and wedges, you know, that you talked about and I want to hit, I'm going to, I'm going to bring two together that may or may not fit together, but the last two you mentioned of loneliness and then the diversity related.
Okay. Things and there, there are two things come to [00:18:00] mind that I think are having massive impacts, but I'd love your thoughts and most of all thoughts on how as leaders we should be thinking about this. But when it comes to, to loneliness, you know, we have got, what's been going on for Several years now is the whole, you know, remote work, hybrid work.
More and more companies are starting to bring people back to work with which some leaders look at as a good thing. And other folks are not, you know, there, there's definitely different views on being at work or not. I know my 28 year old daughter wants to never go into an office again. And man, I think.
That's how I built some of my best friends in the world and closest relatives is being with them and bonding. So you've got this whole people working from home all of the time or some part of the time that, that I think could impact the loneliness. And then the other thing I'll throw in, and I apologize if I'm throwing too much in kind of one, one question.
But the [00:19:00] other thing I throw in as it relates to diversity and I put them together because if you feel like you need to hide something about yourself or you don't fit, that's gotta cause, you know, some portion of the folks that are lonely, man, it's not cause they're working at home. It's because somehow they feel different or they're treated differently or they're not treated differently or whatever the problem is.
But, yeah. You know, I don't know when people are listening to this, but when we are recording this, there is with the new administration, a major kind of war on everything DEI and an attack on everything DEI, which. regardless of which side of the political spectrum you're on, I think has an impact on that loneliness.
So talk about that a little bit, the loneliness and the diversity and how as leaders, we ought to be thinking about that.
Dr. James Pogue: Sure. So, One, I think that the way that you entered it is [00:20:00] right. These are complex issues that have unfortunately simple outcomes, right? And the, this sort of what I now call so called DEI, right? Because I don't know how you define it. I don't know how the person is listening to this to find, I have no idea. So I have to pay them the respect of saying what you think is right, right? But here's what I believe to be the truth is there's a lot of people that did very well economically from the quote unquote DEI movement whether you were on the for it or against it or exploring it or whatever.
Some people did very well. Particularly some of the detractors, there are people that made their careers off of fighting against so called DEI, right? So, let's come all the way around on it, right? But what is, what continued to happen over and over again, it was being used as a wedge [00:21:00] issue between you and me, right?
and it was not being measured. And then, well, I should say the mindset being we're going to use whatever we can to come together. It just so happens to be some version of DEI or some version of something that's in front of us. We're going to bring ourselves together. We're going to figure out how to do that.
That is going to be the vision that the leader has. So it doesn't matter to me if you're a pro or con, bring those ideas to the table because the end result is we're going to be a tighter knit group as a function of these conversations. And that's, that was always, is always, will always be my mindset moving forward.
So let me give an example of how that, what that looks like. have to recognize that all the shiniest flag, in the DEI space would probably be gender, race, LGBTQ generations in there somewhere. Those are the shiniest flags right now. They're not the only ones, probably the most powerful is socioeconomics, [00:22:00] right? when we take the shiny ones, And figure out how they think about how they've been used as wedge issues to keep you and me from connecting. And instead of that being the outcome, switch it, how do we use it to come together? Who's it? Who are the groups that it's wedging apart? So let me just pluck one and say it's race. More often than not, my white friends are wedged away from this other group. Right? It doesn't matter what the other group is. My white friends over here are being wedged against. Now, if I say Latina, if it's about race, Latinos and African Americans, sometimes they're wedged against each other, but also our white friends are wedged.
If we're talking about Asians and Latinos, there may be wedged against each other, but also our white friends are being leveraged out. So, now let me add in gender. Right? If we're talking about the two primary and numerically genders, we're talking about male and female they have been [00:23:00] wedged against each other, right? If I start to add these up in generation the same way, there was a time when it was our millennial friends and our baby boomer friends wedged against each other. You add these up in some of the calculations that we've done and you get. White, male generally over 45, probably under 65. That population that probably identifies heterosexual, that group has been wedged out of these conversations in very powerful ways.
Here's the big problem with that. Many of those men hold levers of influence. Many of those men are good men trying to do the right thing, stumbling forward, trying to think about how can I grow my organization? How can I bring people together? But they've been excluded from the conversation and wedged out instead of brought in. Final statement, I don't know [00:24:00] anybody who's Latino, Asian, LGBTQ, a gender other than male that can't raise their hand and say, you know what? Some white guy helped me out. He mentored me along. He coached me. He did this. He did that. I know zero people that are successful that are one of these underrepresented groups.
They can't point to a white guy or two or 10 and say they helped me. How did these, so how did this happen? How did we get convinced? That this massive group of highly influential people that have helped out many of us, if not all of the successful people I know,how did they all become the bad guy? How did we get convinced of that? And then what did that do to us? Some of my best friends could have been one of those people, but I've been pushed away from them. Some of the good mentoring that I needed, the good coaching that I needed. And speaking from, uh, I'm speaking for the people that I've worked with. [00:25:00] They've been distant from the mentoring and coaching that they needed because that leader was excluded out. And let me put some pressure on those men too. Some of them should have leaned in stronger. They were the leaders. They were the people with the influence. They were the people that should have said, we will not have any kind of committee or task force, etc.
That I don't understand how it's going to operate and work. I'm not going to fund ergs without them having measurable impacts. You got to be able to count it. We do it with everything else. I told the C suite one time they had a task force,that had been meeting for a year, to around DEI related, issues. And I said, well, how many hours did they put in? We do the calculations. How many, how much are these people paid? We do the calculations. So this committee spent this many man and woman hours working on this effort. Did you get that much of an impact? Did you get 10 times that much of an impact? Because that's what you would require of any other committee. [00:26:00] Their answer across the board was no, even those that were in support of it. how can you say you're going to reinitiate it you don't have a measurable impact to the organization that is of value? So we all have to own part of the responsibility for being better. And if we're not, careful. wedge issues will continue to push us apart, and they'll, it'll get so specific that it gets to the point where the only one that understands me is me, and now I'm lonely. Right? The only people that know my struggle are people like me. aren't the only people that can empathize. aren't
the only people that can love you. Those aren't the only people that can elevate you. Those aren't the only people that can coach you. Those aren't the only people that can, can encourage you. And if that's what we think, then we end up in this space where loneliness is our only option. And [00:27:00] I don't think that's good enough. I think we deserve better.
Mike Goldman: That is so powerful.
and it comes back to what you said right at the beginning of our conversation and, you know, walling yourself away and say, I gotta come up with a way to talk about this where a fifth grader will understand. and in talking about deep and meaningful connection, right?
Cause you could, what's so powerful, I think, and what you said is it's not. DEI is good or DEI is bad. It's who's going to argue that deep and meaningful connections with the people you're working with and working for and your clients, your teammates. There's benefit there, personal and business.
There's no argument there. So, so couching it in that different way of deep and meaningful connection is so important. So thank you for that.
Let's get to, you know, how do you and your team identify. On it in a company on a team. How do you identify [00:28:00] where the issues are and help leaders?
connections. how do you go do that?
Dr. James Pogue: Sure. So once we have identified that the organization, or they've identified that they want some help, And they see some disconnection. They see some unhealthy disruption. Well, what we would do is come in and initially talk to the senior team and say, what is your intentionality around this? What is the, what is your value proposition for doing this work?
We know why we do it. Why do you want to do it? Right? we've had a hiccup in innovation and creativity. We're just not where we need to be. our productivity has slipped. We see it connecting the profits in some kind of way. Okay, all of that's fine. Then I try to identify,what's the push. How much do you want to put zero to 10, 10 being go all in, turn the fire hydrant all the way on to something else. Right. And that helps to shape the next couple of steps, which is.
We have what we call our Connection Quotient Assessment. The first part of that Connection Quotient Assessment is a [00:29:00] survey that we send out, takes down, I don't know, 10, 15, 18 minutes to execute, depending on how much deep thought you give to the questions, that asks,respondents around these, areas of these wobble and wedge issues that we just talked about a moment ago. And ask them to sort of measure 0 to 5, strongly agree, strongly disagree, how they, how the examples relate to them. And then we pull from that, trends. And we slice that information by any number of demographic issues and demographic issues they give us the departments within the organization or the levels within the organization, or if they want other demographic pieces gender might be an example, race may be an example. age or time at the organization, years at the organization, maybe additional examples, and then based upon the intentionality that they provided us before, we can then begin to build out the roadmap. But we supplement that with individual interviews. that are those questions that are formed and framed based upon the data that we've [00:30:00] received. And then we do a series of focus groups to fatten out the story. So we're just not giving straight up data. We also have some qualitative research that's aligned with that. And then we present to them this comprehensive road map that says here's where you are. Here's where you want to be given the drive that you have zero to 10. Here's that what we suggest that you do. may be executive coaching. may be policy and, practice and procedure rehab. may be something we call our no nonsense experience, which are, long term conversations that we have with groups of people. Seven, eight, nine people talking about an issue, say that issue is loneliness in the workplace and working towards solutions on that, right?
How do we go from an EAP that's over there? To a highly active set of behaviors, organizational behaviors that drive us away from individual loneliness or organizational loneliness to a team mentality, right? So we'll have those kinds of things may take place. That's an example of what might happen in a no [00:31:00] nonsense experience. So and then we evaluate at the end and then repeat and and over time because it took a little while for you to get lonely. It took a little while for you to get wedged out. It takes a little bit of time for you to come back together. But we often see the immediate result we hear is somebody is listening to me, to the groups who have felt disenfranchised.
Someone's listening to me. And I'm not talking about our traditionally underrepresented groups that say that. I'll go back to it is our white guy friends and colleagues that say somebody is listening to me. Right. the midst of all this, somebody slowed the world down, you know, the team, our leadership said this is important enough for us to slow down and say, Hey, Bob. Hey, Mark. Hey, Samantha. Hey, Julie. you doing? Let's talk about this loneliness thing for a little while. Let's talk about how bringing people back to [00:32:00] work. Is that a solve for loneliness? if we are going to bring them back to work, how do we bring them back to work better? If we can't bring them back to work because they're all over the world, how do we execute on activities and engagement that is not just, woohoo, we're throwing a virtual party, but it's, hey, I care about you.
I heard something happen. I care about you. Nothing. I have a very good friend, a long term friend, I should say, maybe not a very good friend, but he said something on Facebook. He says, you haven't checked on me on a regular basis, even if it's once a month, once every six months, once a year, something like that, then I don't expect to see you at my funeral.
Mike Goldman: Wow.
Dr. James Pogue: I like that.
Mike Goldman: Now, by the way, there's something wrong with that statement, whether he's there or not, I, depending on what you believe, I don't know that he's seeing them, but I get the point.
Dr. James Pogue: But I, you know, I like the snarkiness. I'm a snarky guy. I appreciate it. I don't expect to see you at my funeral. Cause my response was, We could keep the meal bill, just a lot [00:33:00] lower. Like if you, Hey, you haven't talked to me in two or three years, not sure that, you know, attending my funeral is the right option.
Just dial in, just dial in virtually, you know, it's fine.
Mike Goldman: How much of this I'm thinking about some very particular. Challenges going on and a couple of clients that I work with. So, and if you don't know this, the, these interviews I do on the podcast are my way to get free coaching from people who are smarter than I am. So I can go help my clients that look really smart.
but. You know, there, I imagine there is a good amount of this, which is, you know, as a company here, the things we're going to do, like, yeah, you know, if we bring folks back to work, here's the way we're going to do it. You know, here's how we're going to collaborate and connect when we're together, you know, as a team, here's the way we're going to connect with each other.
There's a whole bunch of team and company things, but I guess the question I have in my head is how much of this comes down to. Individual [00:34:00] attitude. And let me give you an example of what I'm talking about there. There is a situation where a leader on one of the teams that I coach makes very, very quick, and he admits too quick, impressions of people.
This person's a good. You know, a helpful, productive, creative part of the team. This person's lazy. They're not really trying. They're no good, but I need them on the team. You know, really, you know, good list and bad list, right? and of course it's more nuanced than that, but I see there's a lot of leaders that do that.
they make quick impressions. Maybe it's a first impression. Maybe it's not first, but it's a quick impression of someone. And then there are. you know and this has nothing to do with the typical, you know, D E I kind of, populations. It's more of, you know, Hey, there seems to be this click on the team of the people that [00:35:00] the leader really likes.
They're really part of the team. And then I'm part of this other group of we're not really in, and I don't think the leader trusts me, you know, how much of it comes down to, Individual members of a team, individual leaders and their own attitudes and how they manage those attitudes, how they cope with those attitudes, how much of it comes down to that versus company wide policies and procedures.
Dr. James Pogue: I think one leads the other. the company wide policies and procedures are driven, changed, adjusted, enforced based upon. The behaviors, And so if our behaviors, we don't have a bias decision making. that's our mindset. Then you have to build out the policies, practices and procedures to execute on that, you know, any snap decision, whether snap is one second or snap is 10 minutes or 10 days is replete [00:36:00] bias.
Thanks. And that's okay. You know, many of us were taught to use bias growing up. Nobody told us to use the word bias though. They said, find some way of connecting with the person you're interviewing with. You went to the same school, you're part of the same fraternity or sorority. They live in Florida, your grandparents are from Florida. we were taught to leverage bias in these ways. Okay. that's what it is. But I'll go back to something that I said, towards the beginning. It is up to the person or persons see it happening, who have the organizational maturity, the personal maturity to call it out in a, in the best possible way. and say, let's do something about it. And so is there individual,responsibility there? Absolutely. 100%. But I'm always the, the kind of person that leverages it up towards the leader. The leader has more responsibility, has more expectation. and that, and if they know [00:37:00] they've got this challenge and their responsibility is to surround themselves with people who pressure test their ideas. Hey, James, you're on that snap decision thing again. And just to help poke me, I'm not gonna change. That's how I got here. But I need to surround myself with people that are going to help me. I think there's also something that I've been working on and working with people on that may lend itself to being important this conversation.
And it's this idea ofempowerment without accountability. We have grown and groomed a group of professionals, within certain areas of your organization, different components different departments, or generationally. Or years in the organization, and we have empowered them to do whatever they want to say, whatever they need.
Hey, your voice is important. Your voice is going to be heard, but we don't say you can say whatever you want, but you're held accountable for the word that you use. left out the last part, [00:38:00] right? We said to them, Hey, your presence here is valued. We really need you here. We really want you here. But we didn't say how you show up matters. How you show up matters. We didn't say you can be sparkly and, you know, wear what you want, do what you want to do with your hair, and decorate yourself in ways that are important to you. We didn't say, and that will impact people, and the extent to which you know that it impacts people is the extent to which you are responsible for that, right?
We didn't say those pieces, the accountability pieces, we empowered without this accountability, and some of it based upon fear. What if I tell that person with the purple hair, they need to have a more traditional color and I'm the boss. Am I going to get in trouble? I don't want to get in trouble. Now we're making decisions based upon fear and most decisions that come out of fear are wrong headed decisions. So you have to find Madam CEO, Mr. CEO, [00:39:00] Mr. Director, Madam Director, a way to tell James with his purple hair that you can wear that purple hair, James, but let me just be clear. Our clients aren't the kind of people that react well to purple hair. So you're going to have to be so good. You got to outpace that, right? So let me help you work on some strategies to help make that happen. Maybe you could out your purple hair long before you get there. Maybe we can figure out how to ensure that we can use your purple hair, not as a wedge, but as a tool to bring people together. Right? So I think that empowerment without accountability.is part of the challenge that continues to pervade many organizations, and it goes to your point on the, is it individual responsibility? Individual behavior? Yeah, and that those individual behaviors and responsibilities, there's more of it. When you get to the top, at least it should be, it [00:40:00] be held to a higher standard, to the high standard, to the standard of the CEO, and when the CEO can't do it, let's hope that they have the capacity, the decision making,the, be circumspect enough to surround themselves with people who will poke them in the eye with a stick, love, them be successful.
Mike Goldman: And I think where this all comes nice and full circle for me and thinking about this is, you know, we have over. The last decade or more become so fearful, I think, as leaders, as a society, but let's talk about leaders. We become fearful about calling out somebody's purple hair. You know, or, you know, or their body odor or the way that, you know, we've become fearful of pointing out that we're going to get in trouble because, you know, that's not DEI, right?
I've got everybody has a right to kind of let their freak flag fly and do what they want. We've become so fearful about pointing it [00:41:00] out. And I think where this all comes full circle, where you can point it out and stay respectful.
Is if you have built deep, meaningful connections with your people, you could have those discussions
Dr. James Pogue: right.
Mike Goldman: having a fear.
Oh my God, I walking on eggshells. I'm going to say the wrong thing and then they're going to go to HR and I'm going to get sued. If you've got that deep, meaningful connection, man, you can have that discussion and talk about it openly and honestly.
Dr. James Pogue: exactly right, you know, and I go, if I go over here across the street, to the non DEI wobbles and wedges. And think about how you would handle that. would you handle it if Maria, in our strategy department, lost her child, lost her 15 year old son in a car accident? How would you handle that? She's different now. She's a different person. She's the one person on your team who's lost a child. She's underrepresented. Right. [00:42:00] She shows up every day as the one person, the only person in the meeting that's going through that. And it weighs on her in ways that we can't possibly imagine. She has to drive by a school every day on the way to work.
We all did before. We work across the street from a school. There's kids playing in the background. How does that impact her differently than it would impact you? What if we started to think about it that way? Then take the muscles. That grow from exercising that way of thinking and apply them in other spaces, take technology.
Some of us are scared to death of the AI thing, right? We were barely learning how to use Excel in a decent way. Google Docs is, Hey, I've mastered Google Docs. Hey, I can put together a PowerPoint in my sleep. Not as good as some of these other folks, but I'm with it now. Ai. Wait a second. Right? How is that driving us apart? Hey, Marcus, why don't you go ahead and use chat GPT and develop some content [00:43:00] for our marketing strategy? have you thought about using that? well, of course I have. He says he can barely spell chat GPT, let alone go and try to figure out how to use it. So if we can take any of these other examples and apply them our teams. There are things that we would think about doing maybe there are things that we would try to strategize or we might get to the place of I don't know what to do really quick then know we need to go out and get some help. Because Marie is not the only person that lost something, someone, she just the only one that told you. Right. We didn't, we don't know that Michael over here, his divorce hit him hard he's gutted. he's drinking more now than he is ever drank in his life. And he's just a really good at hiding his budding alcoholism. How do we show him love? How do we show them respect? How do we manage our expectations properly? How do we try to [00:44:00] understand? Even if we, how can we cognitively empathize? I understand what's going on with Mark. If we can't emotionally empathize, I feel exactly what Mark is feeling. So I think that the, in today's, marketplace of wedges and wobbles. We might be better off focusing on the things that are happening in our lives with our teams that seem to be disconnected from quote unquote or so called DEI because they apply to us all. Groceries are more expensive. It applies to us all. Hurricane hits and half my neighborhood was wiped off the planet applies to us all, right? Loneliness can apply to us all. So I think that the best way to deal with difference. Is to focus on the area of difference. applies to you or your team directly and then use those muscles that you build, that understanding to apply [00:45:00] to the areas that are less comfortable for you or for me.
Mike Goldman: for a leader or a team that, that really buys into the importance of this and man, I think everybody should, how, if they want to work with you, where do they go? How do they get started? does it start with the connection quotient? And do we want to give people a link to get there or let's tell people where to go and how to do it.
If they want to, if they want to find out more or entertain working with you.
Dr. James Pogue: Sure. So, firstly, the easy part is jamespogue.com right? that's our website. If you just want to get a sense of what we do and how we operate, or if you want to reach out, you can do that through the website. No problems. If you want to check out the connection quotient, a version of it, sort of our,our mini version of it.
You can go to
getmyCQ.com I'm spelling it out like people can see that getmyCQ.com. You can check that out. I'm on all the appropriate social media sites, the LinkedIn, the Instagram, the Facebooks of the world, reach out at any one of those and let [00:46:00] us know if you have interest or if you have a question, you want to follow up on something that we talked about here. and I'll say that one of the things that we're doing, particularly in Asia, and maybe it'll make its way back to the States, is a version of relationship coaching, which is to say relationship between leaders and teams are real relationships, right? And they are deep and they are complex and they are often very long term. same thing can be said of relationships. And what's been interesting is we're working with professionals. Hong Kong, who are trying to build out their businesses, one of the things they've learned is that this loneliness piece a function of how hard they've been working in the office. It's a function of things they've been trained to be over time, and they don't have the capacity to bring people in or to make available that they're available to be loved and want somebody to walk the next part of life with. You know, it's, as I said, when this part of our lives is over and we're on our last 10, 15%. [00:47:00] And we have, we have the opportunity to sit on the beach, you know, or to watch the movie or to go for a walk. We want somebody there with us.
You know, I just came back from visiting two days ago, a friend of mine that, he had a stroke. Wasn't a major stroke, but it's a stroke. And he's my guy. I love him. Where else am I supposed to be, right? He and I are deeply and meaningfully connected. And after the doctor left, and after the nurse left. And after his significant other was there and after his cousin left, I said, Hey, the hell is wrong with you? You need to get your life together. We're supposed to grow old together. You and me are supposed to grow old together. And it's not okay that you're not taking care of yourself. You owe me and I owe you. We're supposed to talk about our great grandchildren together. And you're cheating me out of this experience. [00:48:00] I need you you need me. Right. And so we owe each other that we owe each other our best, even when we're at our worst, and heck you'll I owe you my worst when I met my worst. Because you're my person, my friend, and if that's, if all I've got to give you is my worst, then by golly, you're going to get it, and I expect you to help me. And so how do we say I love you, I respect you, I need you, I require of you, in a way that brings us together, instead of ways that push us apart.
Mike Goldman: Wow. Beautiful. There's no questions I could ask you after that. Like, that's a beautiful way. That's a beautiful way to end it. So I'm going to, I'm going to let us end it there. But man, I always say, if you want a great company, you need a great leadership team. Dr. James Pogue, man. Thanks so much for helping us get there today.[00:49:00]
Dr. James Pogue: Glad to be here. Thank you so much for the invite, this was fun.
Mike Goldman: Thank you.