“The Trust Maker”
Marc Maltz describes himself as an organizational clinician, and he’s brilliant at getting the CEOs of tech companies and their senior teams to work together more effectively.
Marc has become a good friend and I have huge respect for his work and how he does it and I thought it would be invaluable to hear his thinking on some of the issues I see every day in my own work.
Whether you’re writing code or ads, whether you’re building platforms or teams, the need to unlock creative and innovative thinking sits at the heart of the world’s most valuable businesses.
And what makes that heart beat is trust.
"FEARLESS CREATIVE LEADERSHIP" PODCAST - TRANSCRIPT
Episode 110: "The Trust Maker" - Marc Maltz
I’m Charles Day. I work globally with some of the most creative and innovative companies, helping their leaders maximize their impact and accelerate the growth of their business.
It’s become clear to me, that the most valuable companies in the world are led by people who have something in common. They've learned how to unlock the most powerful business forces in the world - creativity and innovation.
On this podcast, I explore how they do it and I'll help you use their experiences to not only become a better leader, but become that leader faster.
Before we start this week’s episode, a quick update on the question I asked last week. A number of listeners reached out to say that the 15 minute versions we used to publish are very valuable, so we’re going to reintroduce them starting this week. We’ll also put them together for all of this year’s episodes so far. They’ll be up in the next couple of weeks. Thanks for your responses and for your incredible support of Fearless. If there are other areas you’re interested in hearing about, or leaders you’d like to hear from, let me know at charles@fearlesscreativeleadership.com.
Marc Maltz describes himself as an organizational clinician, and he’s brilliant at getting the CEOs of tech companies and their senior teams to work together more effectively.
Marc has become a good friend and I have huge respect for his work and how he does it and I thought it would be invaluable to hear his thinking on some of the issues I see every day in my own work.
Whether you’re writing code or ads, whether you’re building platforms or teams, the need to unlock creative and innovative thinking sits at the heart of the world’s most valuable businesses.
And what makes that heart beat is trust.
This episode is called “The Trust Maker.”
“If you don't have trust, you don't have anything. And I believe that the development of trust is a lot of work. You've gotta prove yourself. You've gotta take care. You've gotta take care of others. You've gotta work through things. You've gotta explore your own defense mechanisms. You've gotta understand who am I, and who are you? Who's around the table? What are we here doing? Do we have the right strategy? Do we trust all of our stakeholders? I mean, there's a lot that goes on in that word, trust.”
Today’s most valuable and compelling businesses solve problems at scale. Which means multiple disciplines and skills and experiences have to be able to work together in an environment that encourages them to take risks. The most important of which are emotional risks.
The only way that happens is if you trust the people around you, and the people you work for.
If you’re the leader, or want to be, ask yourself this question.
Can I be trusted?
And if you struggle with that one here’s the follow up.
Do I trust myself?
If you hesitate over either, there’s some work you need to do.
Here’s Marc Maltz.
Charles:
Mark, welcome to Fearless. Thank you for joining me.
Marc Maltz:
Thank you so much for having me.
Charles:
You do a lot of work with the leaders of very disruptive, innovative, creative businesses.as a broad question to start with, what do you see as the characteristics of the leaders who are most successful?
Marc Maltz:
Well, I think the first and foremost thing is that they're willing to share their leadership so that they, they surround themselves with people who are competent in many different disciplines necessary to drive the organization forward. And they have the wherewithal to allow them to do what they do.
Charles:
That requires a certain degree of both self awareness and self confidence, right? Because a lot of leaders, as you and I both know, get frightened, protective, hold people at bay for all kinds of reasons and-
Marc Maltz:
Control freaks (laughing).
Charles:
…imposter syndrome, all of those dynamics. what do you think gives those people that you're describing the ability to actually be that open and that welcoming?
Marc Maltz:
I think it's, it's the confidence that what they're doing is meaningful. And that they have hired and surrounded themselves or partnered with - whatever the shape of that leadership form is - they've surrounded themselves with people who they feel actually extend themselves. It's a greater than the whole. Instead of the sum equalling in the parts, it is greater than the parts.
And I think they have both the courage, the wherewithal, and the self understanding of their own limits and they're willing to talk about it. You know, there's a great way of framing this in the emotional intelligence language around first self-understanding and then self-management. Those leaders who are capable of really surrounding themselves with competence and innovation and really transforming their organizations, really hold those two capacities to understand themselves and then to manage themselves.
Charles:
And how do they go about understanding themselves? Is that something that they are born with? Is that a function of their environment? Where does that come from?
Marc Maltz:
That's a great question. I don't think there's one answer. I think there is multiple answers. There are some who've been on a life journey and have done a lot of different things to really explore themselves. everything from taking psychedelic drugs to, to literally being in therapy for long periods of time or doing it as a psychoanalysis or, having some very close relationship with a mentor or a teacher or a coach along the way. Interestingly, what I've been noticing lately in the cohort that I deal with in the CEO ranks it, it goes back to the old psychological concepts of attachment theory.
So those who have had a, a really strong good relationship with a parent, or a parental figure in their life, seem to be far more capable of digging in to try and to really step back and seeing who am I and who am I in relationship to everyone else around me?
Charles:
Because they've had the confidence of that, that relationship and-
Marc Maltz:
Early on in their development. Right.
Charles:
It's interesting because Kerry Sulkowicz, who is a former guest on the podcast, introduced you and I a number of years ago. Kerry said to me in that conversation that he believed at the time, I haven't asked him this recently, but I'd be interested to ask him again. But he believed that every successful leader he's encountered is trying to essentially repair some psychological trauma that affected them early.
Marc Maltz:
Yeah, I think repair is too strong of a word. I think those that have some form of dysfunction are certainly in the process of repairing some early on trauma or issue derived from their relationships with their parents or whatever that parental arrangement was. But I think those that are really well on their way and successful, and the type of whole person I'm speaking to about one who is truly self aware and interested in how others experience them. I think they've moved beyond repair, right?
They've had those life experiences. They've been able to put it into perspective. They've been able to understand who they are in relationship to the other. And they've been able to then really act in a much more productive way ultimately.
Charles:
And by the other, you mean everybody else.
Marc Maltz:
Everybody. It doesn't matter whether it's my cofounder, my partner at home, my partner in work, my investor, my board, my leadership team, my engineer, my, whoever it is. That other.
Charles:
So their own willingness to explore themselves and to understand, to come to an understanding about who they are, why they're here, on some level. I mean, how far does that journey go?
Marc Maltz:
I was talking to an executive this morning over breakfast and he and I somehow got onto the conversation of France. Because we were, I know, because we were talking about Brexit and what might happen next. We both started talking about the fact that French executives usually all come from the same school. They've all, as part of their training, gone through some form of psychoanalysis, usually Lacanian. And they're all trained in Sartre and the existential movements and all that.
And we sort of step back for a moment and we're thinking together and this person wasn't French. We started thinking about the fact that even with that intense kind of development or time, it's still missing the one sort of introspective piece and the one sort of piece that's often missing in executives. Which is the true interest and thinking about and asking, what do you think of me? So this whole engagement of the other is something that's pretty foreign in, I think Western society as a whole, definitely in American business, probably in a lot of European business. But I find that to be the differentiator for the executives that I work with who are truly developing amazing businesses and amazing organizations.
Charles:
They are willing to ask other people, what do you think of me?
Marc Maltz:
Absolutely. And they're wanting that feedback and that engagement. You know, it goes back to some of the basic concepts of, of relational psychology, which is if you believe in Freud, Freud thinks it's all about development of Ego and Id and all this seminal work that you did as a pre-youth and all of that with your parents. But the relationists, all really believe that it's your day to day. It's who you engage on the day to day and that everyone has influence on your identity. And that's sort of the school I come from. And in that school we're not necessarily repairing, we're building. We're building on my engagement with the other.
Charles:
Which makes the choice of who you spend time with incredibly important.
Marc Maltz:
Very important. But you also have to, as a CEO, you have to force yourself to spend time with those that you may not want to. You have to listen to your employees. I mean the best of the CEOs I know, even if they have an organization of two, three, five, 10,000 people, they're still engaging the workforce on a steady basis. They'll still have lunches and breakfast with groups of people. They'll still sort of dive down into the organization and have a coffee from time to time. They're interested on taking the temperature of the organization.
Charles:
And they’re not doing that as a PR event. They're not doing that so you can stand at the town hall every year and say, "Look at the CEO, he's, they've had 23 all." They're doing it because they want the information-
Marc Maltz:
That’s absolutely right.
Charles:
... and they want the, they want the understanding.
Marc Maltz:
Right.
Charles:
And what matters to those people.
Marc Maltz:
That's absolutely right. That's why I mean, you know, the whole Duncan thing, Seymour Duncan and the whole, the idea of the various different size groups. And if you move beyond 150, it's almost impossible. You know, I've worked with CEOs who've worked with 500 to 1000, 2000 - actually, I'm working with one right now as almost a 3000 person organization. And he still makes the time and the effort to get to know the new engineer, the new sales person, the new customer service person. Even though he has a substantial organization developed, has a full leadership team he trusts, but he still wants to know what are people thinking internally.
He treats internal community and they're also a public company. He treats internal comms as important as external comms.
Charles:
Which happens almost never.
Marc Maltz:
Right. How many organizations actually do that?
Charles:
Yeah, very few. Even, even to the extent of communicating basic information.
Marc Maltz:
That's right.
Charles:
They're very bad at that. in those examples, have they thought about how they're getting that information because one of the challenges of leadership is you become isolated, right? You and I have both worked with lots of people who've said some version of, I feel lonely, right? They work with people like you and me because we give them a place to have safe, secure conversations and to be empathetic and to understand them. Are they constructing pathways into the organization? Are they consciously and overtly thinking, I need information from here and here, and so therefore the way to do that is this. I mean, how much of this is organic and how much of this is planned?
Marc Maltz:
Yes. Well I think it's part organic. It has to come from the person to begin with. I have seen it shaped by a really good chief people officer-
Charles:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Marc Maltz:
... who has said, you know, you need to do this, let's find a way to help you do it and then get coached on it. But it's not done alone. It's done in partnership with your executive team because your executive team has to be very comfortable with you going anywhere. You have to have a very strong head of HR, head of people who is building the infrastructure to support that on an ongoing basis. And remember the, the really good CEO is doing it, not as a one off, but teaching the rest of his or her executive suite to also be doing it. So it's not a one off event. It's what the executives and what leadership does in these situations.
Charles:
The construction of a leadership team is talked about a lot, but I think in many cases misunderstood or perhaps is treated passively. A lot of CEOs inherit significant leadership teams and will change some number of the players, but don't really think comprehensively in my experience about how do we cast this so that it really does reflect the values, the behavior of the organization that I want to build that to your earlier point brings the skill sets that I don't have. How much work do you think needs to be done with senior leaders in terms of helping them to understand how you cast this team is everything in terms of your success?
Marc Maltz:
I think that's where I spend most of my time. I think in most of the work that we do, do I coach the CEO? Absolutely. But I probably spend equal amount of time with his or her C-suite coaching them on how to engage the organization. How to be aligned as a first team. I mean I'm a real, I'm a very strong believer in Patrick Lencioni's concept of the first team. And I really believe that an executive team has to be there for the company first, not for their divisions or departments that they run. So a CTO has to be there representing technology product at all as a company, not worrying about how many engineers am I going to be able to get on my budget this year. Or how many product managers can I hire or whatever that is.
The best of CFOs have to be there around what is it that the company needs. The best heads of revenue. I find that working with that executive suite to become truly a first team, that they trust each other. That they can have frank open conversations. That they can really talk about what's going on and explore what's going on inside the organization is critical.
Charles:
Given that reality, if you are working with a CEO who's just been given the role, what's your advice to them in terms of casting the senior leadership team or and evaluating it before you even cast it?
Marc Maltz:
I had that conversation this morning as well with a CEO has been around about seven years. But has now changed out his executive team twice and is probably in the process of doing it one more time. I think that CEOs need to hire first and foremost the skillset. I think one of the skills that every executive needs to have is some level of emotional intelligence. So to me, I put that in actually as sort of the baseline, you have to come to this game prepared to actually have these skills. But beyond that, then it's about, okay, does the person fit chemically? Do they have the, the wherewithal to really both relate to me but relate to all of their peers and really sort of get on in this environment.
Understand of course our marketplace, our product market fit, the scaling job ahead of us. And I think that where I see most mistakes made, people hire people they like or people that on paper look good or people that a board or somebody said they needed to hire. They rarely take that extra effort of trying to develop a relationship with them in the hiring process, in that interview process. And really trying to understand who is this person and how do they fit culturally. And I think that's critical. You know, we read about these long interview processes at like Google and elsewhere, well there's method to that madness. Does this person fit relationally?
Charles:
And I find you get a lot of CEOs, and I've made this mistake myself when I was building one of our businesses. Where you’re so enthusiastic about what you're doing and eager to convince the person on the other side of the table for all kinds of reasons - including self validation that that person wants to join your company - that you spend the most of the interview selling. You never ask any questions or very, very cursory ones and to your point, by the time they walk in the door, it's already, you've already done the damage.
Marc Maltz:
It's too late.
Charles:
When you see a leader who's going through the third leadership team, where's that coming from?
Marc Maltz:
With this particular CEO it's back to what Kerry was saying. I think he is obviously repairing things in that psychological state. But I do think that helping CEOs understand that they're developing communities of practice and those that really care about it, let me step back and just simply say that those that really care about creating psychological safety for their organization and their employees have to go through some process of really discovering who is it that I'm hiring?
Does that, can that person join me not only in the task of getting my market to product, I mean my product to market, but also join me in the, in the process of creating psychological safety for our people.
Charles:
Which from the standpoint of unlocking creativity and innovation is fundamental, right? If you don't have psychological safety there is no chance that that's happening.
Marc Maltz:
No, because how do you fail?
Charles:
Right.
Marc Maltz:
I'm going to get beaten up if I fail.
Charles:
Why should I risk this idea?
Marc Maltz:
That's right.
Charles:
Why should I risk being wrong? So I want to come back to chemistry, but I want to ask you this first. Have you come across a leader who has built a successful business in the absence of having a really compelling and clear vision about what that business was trying to become?
Marc Maltz:
Yeah.
Charles:
So it is possible from your experience to, to build a business organically without saying three years from now we're going to be here. Vision is not everything.
Marc Maltz:
Um, I find vision is necessary but not as important as mission.
Charles:
How do you differentiate them?
Marc Maltz:
So vision is what do we want to be someday, three years out or something? You know, you always, I think, wasn't it Kurt Lewin who did the whole thing on driving and restraining forces sort of in the forties and 50s and 60s or something, stated this very well. Where we always psychologically need something to drive towards. So that's the vision thing. But without that mission that really tells me what business am I in today and how am I getting there, you're dead in the water. I find that to be much, much more important. So having a very cogent, real strategy.
Charles:
So mission for you is job one.
Marc Maltz:
Is job one. Strategy is job one. That's mission.
Charles:
And how do you define strategy?
Marc Maltz:
Strategy is what do I have to achieve by the end of this year and next year? Where am I financially? What is my product market fit? How does my product expand? How do I compete? What does it look like to compete? Who's in the marketplace with me? The business fundamentals.
Charles:
So really practical.
Marc Maltz:
Yeah. Very practical.
Charles:
With hard answers, hard in the concrete specifics.
Marc Maltz:
Hard answers. Yeah.
Charles:
With real definitions.
Let's talk about chemistry. You talked about chemistry a couple of times. What does chemistry mean from your perspective?
Marc Maltz:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Wow. That's pretty powerful. Chemistry for me is everything about how the person dynamically exists in a system. So chemistry has to do with gender, has to do with race, has to do with sexual identification, has to do with roles and responsibilities, has to do with my upbringing, has to do with everything psychological. Everything about being in a system with others. The chemical part is, to sort of riff a little bit on the whole metaphor, is do I throw flame retardant on it? Or do I allow it to thrive?
Charles:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Marc Maltz:
And do I explore what's working and what's not, as opposed to moving to some defensive posture? One of the smartest things that I've ever read in the world of psychology is how Harry Stack Sullivan redefined defenses, psychological defenses as security needs. These are things we need to do to protect ourselves from something. I, as a CEO, have to be pretty good at exploring, “all right, why do I need to feel secure here? How do I sort of open myself up a little bit? How do I truly empathize with the other and see where they're coming from?” Those are developed skills. And we know that from the emotional intelligence literature and research, right? We know we can develop empathy if we want to.
Charles:
So having that understanding provides the foundation on which - maybe foundation is not quite the right word - but provides the environment, I guess, in which chemistry can actually - to your point - either be nurtured-
Marc Maltz:
Right.
Charles:
... and then developed, or can be crushed.
Marc Maltz:
Crushed.
Charles:
So how specific do you think leaders have to be in terms of understanding ... I just came out of a meeting with a CEO whose company has literally codified this is who we are, this is how we show up, this is how we behave. We have nothing less than a manifesto. We remind each other, we hold each other to account to it. It was very impressive, because you see-
Marc Maltz:
Nice.
Charles:
... it very rarely, right? I mean, you see that kind of stuff very rarely. How important do you think it is for the leader - whether the company itself has taken those steps - how important is it for the leader to have done the work to be able to articulate this is the environment that we are going to provide and create here, so that we are clear about the kind of chemistry we're looking to create with people as they enter this environment?
Marc Maltz:
My view is that it's the CEO who has to gather the right leadership team, and the team needs to do that work. There's a great old article by Collis and Rukstad that was first published in the 90s, when they were- when they were both Harvard business, uh, school professors. I think it was eventually published in Harvard Business Review in the 2000s. But they try to simplify the whole idea of mission, vision, and values, and they talk about why values, mission, and vision, are absolutely key to a successful strategy. And that the four together is what the executive team is responsible for. That's where culture comes from, too.
Charles:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Marc Maltz:
Exactly what you just described. He has now, or she, and hopefully the team has participated in that process, they have developed a very aligned, consistent environment to go and be successful in whatever area they're in.
Charles:
How many leadership teams do you come across that actually have that understanding, that that's their responsibility?
Marc Maltz:
I would probably guess less than 10%.
Charles:
Yeah. And is it hard when you enter in an environment like that, in your experience, to be able to help them understand that that is in fact their primary role?
Marc Maltz:
Yes.
Charles:
Because they're focused on their own areas of responsibility and being the defenders of and the advocates for the vertical. Because that's how they've been successful, right? Their career path has been driven through rising through vertical structures.
Marc Maltz:
That's absolutely right. Yeah.
Charles:
And so they have to then suddenly shift their mindset to saying, no, actually, it's about the horizontal now.
Marc Maltz:
That's right.
Charles:
We're all in this together. Which is a massive shift.
Marc Maltz:
Huge shift.
Charles:
Emotionally as much, I mean, much more emotionally even than intellectually. Right?
Marc Maltz:
Right.
Charles:
You can help people understand the intellectual part. How do you help somebody go through the emotional shift of saying, "Stop protecting, start supporting."
Marc Maltz:
You know, that- that is really both the challenge and joy of a good coaching relationship. You know, when you sit and you really work with a team and the individuals on that team, and you really help them develop relationships with each other, and then become sort of a cohesive, high-performing entity unto themselves, they can actually track the shift themselves. And the way it's most pronounced is they become very comfortable openly giving each other feedback. We have found that the most useful tool in getting a team together and act as a first team, is to start forcing a different kind of performance feedback regimen. That it's never written, it's always live, and it's always the team as a whole. And I would contract with that team to be able to facilitate those conversations by bringing forth parts of conversations that we've had one on one, into the group as a whole. And so I would say, "So, Charles, you know, may I remind you, last week when you and I were talking about Marc, you had some very poignant things to say. So maybe you want to share those now." And if the person is feeling like they can't, "Well, can we explore what's going on in the room that's preventing you from being able to talk about that stuff?" If you can get to that place ...
Charles:
Really powerful.
Marc Maltz:
Very powerful.
Charles:
So fear is obviously the big block in all of these dynamics.
Marc Maltz:
Fear is the big block.
Charles:
When you're working in that kind of environment, what are the drivers of fear that you most often are confronted by?
Marc Maltz:
I think the biggest one is failure. I'm gonna fail at my job.
Charles:
Failure as they've defined it.
Marc Maltz:
As they've defined it. Right. I'm not gonna be successful, I'm not gonna do the job I'm here to do. The company's not gonna be successful. I mean, that's where all the projection and everything else comes in, is that you know, those that don't wanna own it and look at themselves often say, "Yeah, but look what's going on over there. That's why I can't get my job done."
Charles:
Absolutely.
Marc Maltz:
It's that kind of thing.
Charles:
I'm always struck by - and I've talked to clients about this quite often - but I'm struck by the fact that in almost every situation where I've run this experiment, you can get even the most successful leaders to take you from where they are today, running highly prestigious, highly successful companies, they have powerful public profiles. You can get them from that position to living under a bridge by themselves, penniless, based on five decisions that they would make. If you did that, what would happen?
Marc Maltz:
Right.
Charles:
If you did that, what would happen? Right?
Marc Maltz:
Yep.
Charles:
Five steps later, they're living under a bridge by themselves-
Marc Maltz:
That's right.
Charles:
... and so the fragility with which they walk around everyday is palpable, actually.
Marc Maltz:
Very much so. And not only that, but the pride in what I'm doing, people's egos, I mean, all of this is built into this. To me, it's the special CEO who can say, "If I can't get the organization to do it this way, then maybe I'm not the right person."
Charles:
How often do you find that?
Marc Maltz:
Very rarely, although right now I am actually working with a CEO who is contemplating stepping down. And he's contemplating stepping down because the organization has been so successful, and has grown to a stage where he just feels so out of sorts that it's messing with him. And he's recognizing that oh, yes, could I be coached and develop the skills for this? Probably. But will I enjoy it? And he's very conscious of the fact that he doesn't think he would.
Charles:
There are so many people that we encounter who have not yet reached a point in life where they have the ability to walk away without consequence to their own financial well-being, and their family's financial well-being. And so they, in my experience, repress the question of, "Will I enjoy it? Will I like it?" Because there are, from their perspective-
Marc Maltz:
Right.
Charles:
... broader issues at play.
Marc Maltz:
Right. I have to work through it.
Charles:
Right, exactly. What choice do I have?
Marc Maltz:
Right.
Charles:
Which I think is one of the great flawed arguments, because it just perpetuates misery.
Marc Maltz:
Terribly flawed argument. I mean, his whole view is that look, I'm one of the larger shareholders of this company, because I'm a co-founder. It's like, if I find somebody to manage it better than me and take it to its next logical step, I'm gonna be very happy!
Charles:
Yeah.
Marc Maltz:
Right?
Charles:
For sure.
Marc Maltz:
That's a very smart way of thinking about things.
Charles:
Right.
Marc Maltz:
It's to really look at not just the skillset of the team around me, but also my own skillset. Am I really equipped for this?
Charles:
And it comes back to, I think, the point you made earlier, which I see as well, which is the best leaders treat the entity- treat the organization rather, as an entity in its own right.
Marc Maltz:
That's right.
Charles:
Right? They treat it as an- essentially a living organism.
Marc Maltz:
That's right.
Charles:
And my point is always, if you're not responsible for the entity, then nobody is.
Marc Maltz:
That's right.
Charles:
If you're worrying about yourself, if you're worrying about this person over here, if you don't want to fire that person because you're upset about how they're gonna be affected, all of that stuff betrays the trust and the confidence of the entity.
Marc Maltz:
That is right.
Charles:
Right? You are responsible for that. And that, I think, is a difficult thing for a lot of leaders to grasp.
Marc Maltz:
Yeah. Because they're responsible for the health and wellbeing of the whole.
Charles:
Yes.
Marc Maltz:
It's what Herzberg used to write about, and still writes about, about that businesses are essentially communities. And that CEOs have to understand and treat the community as a whole, the system as a whole, not just its individual parts. And that, in our studies, particularly on organizational resilience, particularly coming out of 9/11, that is what we saw as the true differ- differentiator between companies that succeeded after extreme trauma, and companies that didn't. Those that succeeded had very complex, integrated communities in which psychological safety was a reality. They were extended families. Even though they were thousands of people, they were still extended families.
Charles:
I'm always intrigued by people who describe companies as families, because my question - instinctively, in those dynamics, in those situations - is can you fire somebody? Right? Firing somebody from a family is impossible.
Marc Maltz:
I should be cautious about how I use the word family. By family, I mean that we are related, and the relationship is in the roles in the task, right?
Charles:
We are joined by something beyond-
Marc Maltz:
We are joined by a primary task that we are all here to achieve, right? And I don't mean it in the familial sense-
Charles:
Right.
Marc Maltz:
... I mean it in that we are here together to make something happen. Which is why I like Herzberg terminology around communities better-
Charles:
Yeah.
Marc Maltz:
... because communities thrive, or don't.
Charles:
Yeah. Yeah.
Marc Maltz:
Right? And there's a lot that goes into community. There's caring for both those who can afford taxes and those that can't. There's making sure there's a main income source for the community. There's making sure that you take care of the garbage, the police, the fire, all of the fundamentals in the infrastructure of the community. And that is really what Herzberg gets at, which is that executive teams that think of these as, like you said, living organisms, tend to be much more successful.
Charles:
And to add to that, give people the ability to use their strengths in service of the community. Because to the point you made at the very beginning, other people can fill in the other stuff-
Marc Maltz:
That's right.
Charles:
... that's supposed to get done. And that works its way all the way up to the leadership, right? Because the most successful CEOs, I think, are the ones who have fully understood, "This is what I bring to the table. This is what I'm best at. Let me leverage that. Let me stop worrying so much about all the stuff I'm not very good at, because we’ll find somebody here who can do that stuff."
Marc Maltz:
Right. That's right.
Charles:
Um, trust I think is implicit within all of this- all of these things we're talking about.
Marc Maltz:
Absolutely.
Charles:
Trust is fundamental to unlocking innovation and creative thinking.
Marc Maltz:
Yep.
Charles:
What do you find gets in the way of trust in- within organizations? And from a leadership perspective?
Marc Maltz:
I think there are many things that get in the way of trust., probably the first and foremost is do I know who is sitting across from me.
Charles:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Marc Maltz:
Yeah, it's the relationship. And you know, Lencioni talks about trust as the threshold. If you don't have trust, you don't have anything. And I believe that the development of trust is a lot of work. You've gotta prove yourself. You've gotta take care of others. You've gotta work through things. You've gotta explore your own defense mechanisms. You've gotta understand who am I, and who are you? who's around the table? What are we here doing? Do we have the right strategy? Do we trust all of our stakeholders? I mean, there's a lot that goes on in that word, trust.
Charles:
And what gets in the way of those things happening?
Marc Maltz:
Dishonesty. Fooling oneself. Not knowing oneself. I think it really does come down to those two fundamentals of knowing, who am I? And then managing myself accordingly.
Charles:
What I think is fascinating and perhaps obvious, but worth saying out loud anyway, which is that there are so many leaders that I think we've both encountered who are in it for themselves. They are taking the job. They want the title because they are dealing with some probably long since developed issue of self esteem, other people's esteem, right? I mean, they're literally working their way up Maslow at a pretty ...
Marc Maltz:
They're the repair people.
Charles:
Yeah. But there's- but there's a lot of that around, right? And so you-
Marc Maltz:
There is a lot of that around.
Charles:
You see ...
Marc Maltz:
The majority.
Charles:
The majority, I was gonna say. And so you see-
Marc Maltz:
Or at least 50%.
Charles:
Right, exactly. And so you see a lot of behavior that's driven by that kind of ego- egocentric, self-centered, fear oriented-
Marc Maltz:
Yep-
Charles:
Navigation, and if a leader can recognize that, and understand that the opportunity that lies beyond that for them, and for the organization, it- it becomes very powerful, but that's a very difficult transition for a lot of people to make.
Marc Maltz:
And it's also at the heart of trust, I mean, to link back to what you were saying, you know? If I can't do that, then I may never even care to trust who's across the table. I mean, how many times have you or I heard an executive say, "But I hired him or her to do this." Rather than trying to understand what's in their way, and how do you help them be successful?
Charles:
And what else might they bring-
Marc Maltz:
Right-
Charles:
If not that?
Marc Maltz:
Yeah.
Charles:
And I think, this is really the fundamental shift that's happened in leadership in, uh, well, in the last 10 years for sure, maybe even the last five years, right, where we used to, we- we... You and I grew in an environment in which leadership was totally about organizational design-
Marc Maltz:
Oh, yeah-
Charles:
It was the person who sat at the top of the org chart-
Marc Maltz:
Yeah-
Charles:
Everybody did what that person said, and decided. Utterly hierarchical, and we all grew up learning, A, how to play that game, and B, to revere the person at the top, because they ostensibly had the most control. What's clearly shifted now is that leadership is about being in service to the people that work in the company-
Marc Maltz:
Yes-
Charles:
Fundamentally, right?
Marc Maltz:
That's right.
Charles:
Through, and through, and through-
Marc Maltz:
Yeah. Not that they all be... actually live that-
Charles:
No-
Marc Maltz:
But it's the idea-
Charles:
But I think the most successful leaders, certainly in my experience, are the ones who manifest that much more often than anybody else does-
Marc Maltz:
That's right. That's right. I think that's truly the job of the CEO, create an environment where that's true, where it's the upside-down pyramid -
Charles:
Yep.
Marc Maltz:
You know, we're all here, and, you know, that first team is that pinpoint at the bottom with the upside-down pyramid, that first team are the ones who are here to enable, and resource the rest of the organization, and clear the way, so they can go be successful.
Charles:
Yeah. I interviewed the CMO of Procter & Gamble about a month ago-
Marc Maltz:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)-
Charles:
And he said exactly that. He said, "Leadership is a weight bearing position."
Marc Maltz:
That's right. That's exactly right.
Charles:
Yeah. And he shows up that way. You can tell very quickly, I think, which leaders are actually believers of, and behavers of that kind of approach to leadership.
Marc Maltz:
Absolutely.
Charles:
I wanna talk about how a company makes progress, We've talked about what it's trying to do, we've talked about how you bring people on board with it, we've talked about how you establish an environment in which they can be successful. How do you see the best companies measuring progress today? I mean, obviously financial dynamics are an important part of it. But there are many other criteria, I think, these days for determining is this company moving forward, and making progress? Does it have momentum?
Marc Maltz:
So, I mostly deal with organizations that are startups, and somewhere between A rounds, and growth. We have a couple of clients who are truly in their growth stages, and well on their way, and more formidable beings, but most of the organizations I deal with are evolving. And in those, the executives have to be very comfortable with constant change. Those metrics are changing year to year, maybe even quarter to quarter, and you're constantly fine tuning and adjusting whether I'm doing OKRs, or whatever methodology I'm doing to sort of track performance.
And I'm sort of the school that believes you've gotta keep it simple, and that you've gotta attend to both the technical and the human side of the coin. So, the technical side are the performance metrics, whatever those performance metrics are, in whatever division you're in, but the human side is around, your pulse surveys, your ongoing organizational feedback, what feedback methodologies you institute in the organization.
And then, on monthly basis, we always believe in some form of formal retrospective in teams, and in quarterly basis, we always says... you know, you need to do... And retrospectives are not just on the technical side, they have to be on the human side, they have to be on team performance, and individual contribution to that team. And I think that's the way to go.
Charles:
Is it difficult for individuals to stand up, or to be involved in a process like that, and be honest with themselves and with each other about the contribution they're actually making?
Marc Maltz:
Yeah. I mean, look at Netflix, they've built a whole culture, and organization around that model, right? Everything's centered on the team, the team focuses on both technical and human, and by the way, if you're not doing the job, or you don't wanna do the job, we'll help you leave. In fact, we'll pay you to leave-
Charles:
Right-
Marc Maltz:
(laughs)-
Charles:
I mean, they incentivize people to leave-
Marc Maltz:
They incent you to leave, because you... whether you're burnt out, or you wouldn't fit, or the organization has shifted, or the team has shifted, and the work has shifted, and it's not something you... Whatever it is, "Let us help you."
Charles:
And interestingly, they incentivize the manager of those people-
Marc Maltz:
Yes-
Charles:
Right? To encourage them to leave.
Marc Maltz:
That's right.
Charles:
But they actually overcompensate. They want you out so bad, and if you don't wanna be a part of it, they'd rather have... they'd rather pay more-
Marc Maltz:
Right-
Charles:
To have you gone. Just to wrap, you and I touched on this a little while ago, but I'm curious to get your thoughts on this. Obviously the podcast, looks at how do you unlock creative thinking through the lens of getting past the fear that we all experience? And we had a very interesting conversation about the different ways that fear shows up-
Marc Maltz:
Right.
Charles:
And I suggested that in my experience of these conversations, and in my own work, what I've seen is that there are basically four ways. Fear is either something for people to overcome, and so, they have to find a way to get over this restraint.
Marc Maltz:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)-
Charles:
They use it as a catalyst, they're more afraid of today, and the status quo, so they feel compelled to move forward.
Marc Maltz:
To drive forward. Right.
Charles:
They use it as a thermometer, a reostat, essentially, which says, "If I don't feel anxious, or fearful about something, it's not interesting insight. I haven't pushed the envelope far enough."
Marc Maltz:
Right.
Charles:
Which I think is a really interesting insight. And then, you added, intriguingly, the notion of people who actually claim, or don't experience fear, that in many cases, that's the most dangerous form of leader-
Marc Maltz:
Right.
Charles:
The ones who have no relationship with fear.
Marc Maltz:
Claim they are fearless.
Charles:
Uh, do those- do those definitions still resonate with you?
Marc Maltz:
Yes. And what I would add to that is, uh, what we've discovered in many years of dealing with resistance in organizations is that fundamentally all fear, all four of what you just described, is based in the fear of loss. So, I'm going to lose something. I'm gonna lose my job, I'm gonna lose some part of myself, I'm gonna lose some opportunity, I'm gonna... Whatever that is-
Charles:
I'm gonna lose control.
Marc Maltz:
Lose control. I mean, the list is endless, right? When we used to process and run resistance workshops with organizations, we used to generate those lists of, "What might you be afraid of?" And the lists are endless, and have everything. Fear of success, right? In that, we have discovered something that I think most psychologists know, is that the only way to really overcome fear is to talk about it. And the only way a leader can help someone who's fearful, and anxious is to empathize, is to try to understand why they would feel that way.
It's like, think about, you know, uh- uh, being a parent of a teenage girl. I run into this all the time. She could act in some way, you know, uh, she could be nasty to me one day coming home from school, or something, and I can get angry, or I could step back, and say, "Hey, what's going on?" The leader needs to always step back, and say, "Hey, what's going on?" and to be trusted enough that that person will now say, "I'm afraid of X, Y, or Z."
Charles:
Which brings us back to the very first point you made, I think, which is in order for any human being to be able to do that, leader or otherwise, they have to have a strong sense of self,
Marc Maltz:
"Who am I?"
Charles:
"Who am I, and why does that reaction cause me to react, and how do I understand myself well enough to be able to move past that?"
Marc Maltz:
Right.
Charles:
"And to be able to engage you in a way that is actually most helpful to you?"
Marc Maltz:
Absolutely. And that sort of goes down to something that I see all the time, particularly with newer CEOs, which is they never understand that just holding the title of CEO means that they're going to be seen in a particular way, that the projections are mighty, and they're dumbfounded. "But I like everybody. Why would they think that about me?" Because you're the CEO. It's not about who you are, and I think to build on what you just said, is the best leaders are the ones who are able to separate, "What is me? Because I know myself well enough. And what is being put into me" -
Charles:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)-
Marc Maltz:
"By the other, and how can I help that person with that?" Not, "How can I defend against it, and put up the wall?" "How can I help them with that?"
Charles:
Yeah. It's very true, and I think you're right. I have exactly the same experience, and it's, uh, I think it's particularly true,with people who have risen, to the earlier point we were making, out of a vertical, because they have a very hard time separating themselves from the collegiality and camaraderie of being peers-
Marc Maltz:
Right.
Charles:
To having to- to now having to be separate. "Well, we're gonna hang out. I'm still me." "No, you're not. No, you're not. When you rolled your eyes yesterday when you had that job, they didn't care. When you rolled your eyes today, they're worrying about whether they have a job here."
Marc Maltz:
That's right.
Charles:
Right?
Marc Maltz:
That's right.
Charles:
It's a very interesting dynamic. The responsibility of leadership, which I think is understood on one level, and completely not understood on many of the most important levels these days.
Marc Maltz:
I think you're right.
Charles:
Marc, thank you so much. What a great conversation.
Marc Maltz:
This has been a lot of fun.
Charles:
Thank you for joining me.
Marc Maltz:
Thank you, Charles.
