Mentorship, Sponsorship, and Leadership Pt. 7

Welcome to the Leadership Sovereignty Podcast. I'm your host Ralph Owens along with Terry Baylor. In today's episode, we'll touch on topics such as giving yourself time to learn and play the new game that you're in, learning how to communicate business value and its utmost importance and how to leverage the power of reducing your learning curve.

So, Raf, I love that analogy. Right? Because so per one of my previous lives, I've met I I was supposed to be the next Ozzy Smith. It just it didn't happen that way. But I love baseball.

Right? So my daughter, I think as I shared, she plays softball. So, you know, we go to the cage and I'd see these guys training, right, cricket. And Raph, to your point, right? I am intrigued by the game.

So, of course, you know, I have friends who who play the game, and I'm like, bro, you gotta get me out there. Now here's the thing. Do I have all the requisite skills to play cricket? Yes. Because, I mean, I I played baseball in college.

Right? So I played at a at a pretty high level. So I know how to swing a bat. But the thing is they don't call it a bat. I know how to throw a ball.

I think they may call it, they call it a ball because it's balling when you're pitching. But here's the nuances of it, right? The swing is at a totally different plane, right? The way you throw that ball is totally different. The field is positioned differently.

You don't catch the ball with a glove. I think they're catching the ball with like bare hands, right? So, but do I have all the requisite skills that are transferable to that game? Yes. Do I know how to play that game?

No. So I think it's the same way as we traverse throughout our career, right? You have the requisite skills to do the job that you've been rewarded with or that you've earned? Yes, but it's gonna take time. Gonna have to spend time with folks who know the game.

You're gonna have to get a coach, You're gonna have to practice, right? Get in front of the mirror and practice presenting.

I've done it, yeah, Yeah.

Right?

Absolutely.

Right, sit your family down. Okay guys, I need to know that when I'm done here, can you, did you under, do you understand what I'm communicating? Right. Because essentially, that's essentially who As IT guys, that's who we're talking to.

Mean, thank you.

Just any

of this makes sense.

It's a perfect audience to be dead on. If I can get my teenagers to understand this level, then I can get the boardroom to understand this. True.

Again, right? And it's not about aptitude, it's about interest. It's about how can I communicate this in a way that it communicates to your need, right? What you're looking for. It's not an aptitude thing because that's another, I think transformative aspect of IT and where we are today versus where we are in the 1990s and the 2000s.

We went into those rooms thinking, these people, they don't understand IT, they're not smart. No, they're just smart in a different area.

Right, that's right.

Right? And so we would be, you know, IT was a little condescending man.

A little arrogant, yeah.

It was.

Yeah, I remember But now

there's been a shift, right? And so practice communicating business value. I was on a webinar yesterday and basically the whole gist of it is, if you can't communicate business value, you will no longer exist. You will cease to exist. We have to, as IT communicate business value.

So no, analogy. And again, give yourself time to learn, give yourself, because you're gonna put the time in, but give yourself the space and the grace to learn and grow. No, that's great stuff.

This is the one thing I'll add on to that because I've had to live this. Yes. You have to understand that it's a new game. Yes. You have to get something or someone who's going to help you understand that game.

And yes, you have to give yourself patience, but, and I put this on there. You have to accelerate your learning quickly because you are being expected to perform a job, right. Or a task or to achieve an outcome. Right. So we don't say that with the underlying message that, Oh yeah, just take three years to go figure it out.

It may be okay for you to do that in your particular situation, but nine times out of 10, you moving into this new position because you got a shot. Right? And you taking your shot. So you just understanding that these are the elements that you have to use in order to achieve, you know, a favorable result, right? And the timeframe that you do it in is based on your own personal situation.

So Ralph, I'm so glad you said that because I'm a throw a book reference out and Ralph, both of you and I have read this book. I actually got the audio of it and I'll go back to it from time to time. It's the first ninety days.

Oh yeah.

First ninety days. That book will And that book is transformative no matter where you are in your career, right? It gives you a framework on how to approach your first ninety days, And I'll use another sports analogy. My son was a sophomore and he was on the varsity and there were pretty high profile guys on this team. And the coach was challenging him hard.

Son, you got to cut down your learning curve. So Terrez, he would come home, he would watch film, he went out and got the Kobe Mamba book. He's like, look, I gotta figure out how to cut down on my learning curve.

Right?

I'm not gonna get three times in the rotation to get it.

Coach wants me to

get it in one and a half rotations. And so I think that's a very important key to emphasize. And how did you cut down that learning curve? Books, webinars, mentors. Right?

Actually you having a mentee will help you cut down your learning curve, right? Because one of the things that we've learned is, man, every situation is a learning moment. Even a teaching moment is a learning moment. So all those things go to the collective for your growth.

Yeah, that's it. That's fantastic. Yeah. Now that is great. That is great.

Another point that we talked about was dealing with multi generational views and the impact of that, right? As we are leaders in our perspective spaces, we have individuals that we lead that basically come from different generations. I know that from, and again, I'll speak for myself, the team that I lead, I have some young folks, younger than my own kids. Right? And then of course, I have leaders of my own that are from a whole nother generation, tying all that together and to achieve a favorable outcome.

Akbar, what are your thoughts on that?

Yeah, I mean, that kind of speaks to what we mentioned before about, being able to, to pivot and adjust. That's, that's kind of the, the workforce that we're dealing with right now. It is, it is a different mindset. There's a, a different, expectation of the business and of the employee. You know, it's, it's a, it's a unique time to kind of be in, in a, in a leadership role when you start realizing that, you know, most of your leadership directives are based off of what you were taught from a previous generation in an environment that, to be honest, just doesn't necessarily exist in the workforce anymore.

It's, it's shifted quite a bit. And, and I think, especially as we're talking about, technology, since it is, so pervasive across almost all industries, there's a huge number of individuals coming into this field now that have a different understanding of, of what that would actually mean and what that means for them. There's priorities that they had that we didn't necessarily have or just didn't necessarily exercise as it relates to, you know, personal life versus, work life, balance. So I, I, I think some of that, some of my earlier challenges just were just had to deal with me even coming to terms with the fact that there are different different, expectations from a different generation of people. And, you know, for a while, I kept hitting my head against the wall trying to wonder why won't they get this?

Why don't they understand that the job is a job? You stay here till it's done. And this thing is now Monday through Friday, eight to five. That's where it ends. And that's just not how I was raised, but I do understand that that's their mindset.

And now I'm not saying that that it's about a capitulating to that that, idea, but it's, as you mentioned before, it's about bringing those together. How do you balance their expectations with the expectations of the organization? And to some extent, you know, the organization is, is a, is a big frigate frigate. It's not going to pivot on a dot. Going to move in that direction eventually.

But in the meantime, you're going to have this cross generational, employee count that you're going to have to work through. And so you've got to find a way to also kind of help steer the ship, but also steer expectations for individuals that are gonna be on, on the, in that, in that environment. So it's, it is, it is still a, a, I think the wording was before, it's still evolving. It's, it's a process, right? This is a, this is something that is still moving forward that we're having to learn.

What does this mean for my leadership role? How I actually lead and what it is that I'm actually providing for both the organization and for my employees.

Yeah, that's fantastic. I've heard it say it this way. I mean, and you're right. You're 100% right. It's a very, very unique time to be in leadership because most of the owners of organizations or senior leadership or baby boomers, or they come out of that generation and how they were raised and what they work ethic means, things of that nature.

Most of the people who are the workers coming into the workforce, gen Z, Zen X millennials, right? Completely different expectation and trying to balance the two right to a favorable outcome for the organization is I think part of that art, that creativity, right? Terry, what do think about that?

Man, I'm just trying to get the trash taken out on Tuesdays and Fridays. So when you

figure that out, let me know.

Me know. Because I experience it every week, right? Where highly intelligent, teaching yourself digital animation and claymation and highly motivated. But then these minimal tasks, these things that have to do purely with what we determine as core values in terms of this is just what you gotta do, right? This is, you know, we heard it this way, right?

I was trained this way. You do what you have to do so you can do what you want to do. This generation is no, I'm going to do what I want to do. And then when I get time, I'm going do what I have to do.

Yeah. That's exactly the way they think. I've tied it to, you know, okay, if you want to do what you want

to do, then you're going to have to do what you have to do first.

I'm going to tie it to what you want. Right. But this is along the way. Right. Instead of doing what you have to do being the goal, the goal is to do what you want

to do. But in order to get there, you're to have

to go through this path. But yeah, no, I see it.

And I think here's the thing though, Ralph. So we're gonna go back to 1920. I don't I forget when that book was written. And I think one of the philosophies or techniques that we've learned is you gotta create an eager one. Yes.

Because as a human being, the number one thing that drives us is what we want.

Thank you for listening to the Leadership Sovereignty Podcast. We hope that you not only enjoy the content, but gain something to help you on your leadership journey. Feel free to reach out to us on X, Instagram, and LinkedIn under the handles Leadership Sovereignty. And until next time, stay safe, peace, and blessings.