Vertical Development: What it is and Why You Need It

Vertical Development: What it is and Why You Need It

0:03

Hi everyone, and welcome to today’s webinar, Vertical Development: What it is and Why You Need It, hosted by HRDQ-U, and presented by Ryan Gottfredson.

0:14

My name is Sarah, and I will moderate today’s webinar. The webinar will last around one hour. If you have any questions, please type them into the question area on your GoToWebinar control panel, and we’ll answer as many as we can during today’s session.

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Today’s webinar is sponsored by Ryan Gottfredson.

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Leadership training is a 366-billion-dollar global industry. Despite that 75% of organizations say their leadership development programs are not very effective.

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A primary reason for the lack of development effectiveness is because they almost solely focus on horizontal development, think tooling up, instead of a vertical development bank leveling up.

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Ryan Gottfredson helps organizations vertically develop their leaders so that they can more effectively navigate the change, pressure, uncertainty, and complexity that they have to navigate.

1:06

Learn more at, www.ryangottfredson.com.

1:09

Now I’d like to introduce Ryan. Ryan is a cutting-edge leadership development author, researcher, and consultant. He helps organizations vertically develop their leaders, primarily through a focus on mindsets.

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Ryan is the Wall Street Journal and USA Today, best-selling author of Success Mindsets: The key to unlocking greater success in your life, work and leadership.

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He is also a Leadership Professor at the College of Business and Economics at California State University, Fullerton, connect with Ryan on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and ryangottfredson.com.

1:45

Thank you so much for joining us today, Ryan.

1:48

Hey, thanks for having me and thanks for the great introduction, Sarah.

1:51

It’s great to be with all of you, um, Happy New Year, which hopefully will get us off to a good start to the new year with this workshop today.

2:00

I’m curious if there’s any of you that are on, if you’ve heard from me before or seen my material before and what I want you to do is just in the question box, chat in a yes or a no. I just want to say we’re going to test this out. I do want to be make this pretty interactive.

2:20

So I’m going to test out the functionality here with GoToWebinar.

2:24

So it looks like Peggy, hi, Peggy.

2:28

But I’m seeing a lot of no’s, which is fine, which is good. So it’s great to meet all of you. There’s Marias who started from me before RI, hi Maurice.

2:37

So what I also want to do is I want to get a sense of why you’re here, so that I could speak more to you and what you want to get out of this session.

2:47

So, I think I’ve got Sarah set up to do a polling question here, and the question is, is what best fits you?

2:54

I am.

2:55

What option number one would be, I’m interested in improving the development of leaders, that either as a consultant or within your organization, or be, I’m a leader interested in improving the development of my direct reports, or my roll ups.

3:09

Or see, I am a leader, or an aspiring leader interested in improving my development, and I believe this is setup where you could select more than one option.

3:19

Yes. Why?

3:22

Yeah. We have some responses coming in. You can select any option that fits for you.

3:28

So you can select any option there, multiple options, and we’ll give you, we have some responses streaming in. We’ll give you about 10 more seconds here.

3:36

If you haven’t voted, you can do so now, and then we’ll share those results.

3:42

Perfect.

3:43

And this is great. This is what I’m seeing here on my end. About 60% of people are saying, I’m here to figure out how I can develop leaders in my organization, or as a consultant, or a coach. But 66% is I want to improve myself as a leader.

3:58

And that’s, and there’s about 30% that want to improve the, their direct reports, or roll ups. And really, I think, where you’re at is what I was planning on targeting. So I think we’ll be on track here.

4:11

So thank you for participating in that poll here. So let’s dive into this.

4:18

And I want to start by talking about leadership development as a whole. And I think that there’s problems with leadership development. And I imagine that you have seen some of these problems, but I want to categorize these problems with leadership development.

4:32

So I think that there’s some known spoken problems. I think that there’s some known unspoken problems, and what I also want to talk about are some unknown unspoken problems.

4:46

And so, I want to dive into each of these, and, in fact, let me start and let us start with the known spoken problems. And I actually want you to chat in your response, again. in the question box is, what are some of the problems with leadership development that you feel that are known and readily spoken about?

5:05

I’m curious what you come up with here, So give you a moment or two to chat in the chat box, or the question box, sorry.

5:23

Good, I’m seeing.

5:24

So, I’m seeing a lack of emotional intelligence, from Charles burnout, or leadership style or not good leadership style, not be able to adapt to change.

5:33

Poor, critical thinking, I’m guessing our lack of diversity.

5:37

Leaders don’t have time to put into practice, they’re too busy, yeah, Good one.

5:45

Leaders are promoted without being taught how to lead. Yup.

5:49

Good, there’s some other comments on emotional intelligence, lack of self-awareness, which is connected to that lack of balance, which is connected to burnout, really good stuff here.

6:03

Yeah, good. So let me, let me maybe point out a few things that I think are aligned with some of those comments. My answers aren’t the only answers here, but I think that what is known and readily spoken about is that leaders are facing increasing change, pressure, uncertainty, and complexity.

6:24

And this is really challenging for leaders.

6:27

I’m gonna come back to that here in a little bit.

6:29

I also think that what is known and readily spoken about is that these market forces are unlikely to decrease, and I think that we are worried about leaders’ ability to navigate the now as well as the future.

6:46

So, let me, let me just kind of pause here and just check in with you. Give me a scale of from 1 to 10 with how much you agree with these known spoken problems that I’ve identified.

7:01

Alright, so a 10 would be that you strongly agree that these are known spoken problems.

7:09

All right, Mary is going above and beyond. Give me 11. All right, good. So, we seem to be an agreement here. Good.

7:16

I’m going to have you do the same thing with some known unspoken problems, here, that’s where I’m going next. So, what are some problems with leadership development that are known but not readily spoken about?

7:28

And let me highlight a couple that I think are out there.

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one is that the majority of leaders are not very effective So, what research has found is 75% of employees State that their direct leader is the worst and most stressful part of their job.

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And 71% of organizations report that they are not confident that their leaders can guide them into the future.

7:55

So that’s The First.

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What I’m calling known unspoken Problem majority of Leaders are not very effective, also leadership development is broken.

8:05

Over $300 billion is spent on leadership development every year, yet 75% of organizations rated their leadership development programs as being not very effective.

8:20

So I’m, I guess as I present these, I’m curious what you think.

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Would you agree that with these problems associated with leadership development, do you agree that majority of leaders are not very effective or not as effective as we would like any ways, and that leadership development is broken?

8:43

Let’s see what we’re seeing here.

8:47

Good!

8:50

So we see some agreement, some kinder.

8:57

Yes and no.

8:58

All right, fair enough.

9:06

Yeah.

9:11

Yeah, Good point, Mark.

9:12

I think the definition of effective is too diverse, Well said. I agree with you.

9:18

Good.

9:19

Um, yeah. Elizabeth says, I think it asks a lot of leaders so that they do fairly well, but the demands are really high. Right?

9:30

So if I was to summarize what we just have seen with our known spoken and now our known unspoken problem, if I was to summarize this with a quote, it would be this: The development of leadership effectiveness must at a minimum keep pace with the rate of change and the rate of escalating complexity.

9:50

And I don’t think that we’re doing a terrible job in leadership development.

9:54

But what I do think is that our current leadership development practices are not keeping up with the rate of change and escalating commitment or complexity that leaders are currently facing.

10:08

So, and particularly during the covert pandemic complexity has been going through the roof.

10:13

I’m just not sure our leadership development has improved to that same degree.

10:20

This gets us into what I’m going to call our unknown unspoken problem.

10:26

So, if, despite heavy investment, leadership, effectiveness, and leadership development is inadequate, or not, at least, not, at the level that we need it to be, does this suggest that we may be overlooking something?

10:41

And I actually think that it does, and that’s really the purpose of this webinar. I want to identify what is missing. I want to articulate why this missing piece is a game changer, and really a wave of the future, And I want to demonstrate how I can help you with this missing piece.

10:58

So, I believe that this missing piece is what I call vertical development.

11:03

And I’m not the only one who uses this terminology, but I’m curious, and we’ve got another polling question here.

11:09

Is on a scale of 1 to 5 rank how knowledgeable you feel you are about vertical development? So, a five would be, oh, yeah, I am an expert in vertical development. one would be, I’ve never heard of vertical development before, so you could do that in the poll.

11:28

If Sarah wants to launch that, or you could also type that into the question box. Either one will work, alright?

11:33

Yes. Let’s get this poll launched.

11:37

Alrighty.

11:38

You go, we’ll give, yeah. We’ll give you about a minute or so here to submit those answers.

11:54

All right.

11:55

So I’m seeing on, the majority of us, have, have not, or have little knowledge about vertical development. So hopefully, this will be a great introduction for you, for those who have heard about vertical development, I hope to give you some, really, some clarity, but also some depth as we dive into this topic.

12:14

Wonderful.

12:15

Thanks again for your participation in that in that polling. So I think what is really important for us to understand is that there are two forms of development.

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There is what I call, horizontal development, and there’s vertical development. Let me define each of these for you. Horizontal development as adding more knowledge, skills, and competencies to what we have.

12:38

The focus here is on helping us to be able to do more than what we could do previously. So this is a lot like downloading an app onto an iPad.

12:50

Now what happens when we download an app onto an iPad, is it broadens the iPads functionality that could now do more than what it could do previous.

13:02

And this is good, I’m not saying that horizontal development is bad. This is good, it’s a necessary form of development.

13:08

Um, but what we need to understand about this is, when we download an app onto the iPad, while that allows the iPad to do more, it doesn’t necessarily allow that iPad to operate any more effectively.

13:25

It doesn’t, it doesn’t operate more quickly. It can’t navigate more complex systems or things.

13:33

It’s kinda stuck in that regard.

13:36

But that brings us to the topic of vertical development, vertical development, and this definition is a little bit of a mouthful but aren’t that all unpack it for you. Vertical development is elevating our ability to make meaning of our world in more cognitively and emotionally sophisticated ways.

13:54

So, the focus here isn’t on doing more. It’s on being better.

13:59

We’re not adding an app to the iPad to broaden its functionality.

14:03

We are upgrading that iPads internal operating system, so that it can operate more effectively. It can do more complex things, and then it can navigate a more in a more dynamic way.

14:17

So, let me, let me bring to life, hopefully, this, this definition for you a little bit, and let me have you put an answer in the question box to this question, how do you think that most people respond to constructive criticism?

14:38

See what we got, OK? We got pushed back guarded negative defensively, not well, depends on how it’s delivered, right? So that’s good.

14:47

Um, don’t welcome it. Get a lot of defensiveness.

14:53

All right, So I think what we can ask ourselves is getting defensive when we receive constructive criticism. Is that cognitively, and emotionally sophisticated?

15:07

Now I don’t think it is, right, I think it’s justifiable. What we’re doing in that moment, is we are making meaning of constructive criticism as an attack.

15:17

And when we see it as an attack, of course, we’re gonna get defensive that makes complete sense, but that’s not the only way to make meaning of constructive criticism. Right. The next level, up, in terms of cognitive and emotional sophistication, might be what some of you have said, which is, it depends on who delivers it, and how they deliver.

15:37

Now, that feels a little bit more cognitively, and emotionally sophisticated, too.

15:42

But I think the highest level of cognitive and emotional sophistication is somebody who says, I don’t care who delivers that, or how they deliver it. I can gain value from constructive criticism. It is something that I can learn and grow from, and I welcome it.

16:01

It takes cognitive and emotional sophistication to get there and it’s not easy. And it’s also something that’s actually connected into our body’s nervous system.

16:12

Right. When we react defensively, that’s usually a knee jerk amygdala hijack.

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But it’s not, it’s an indication that our window of tolerance isn’t very wide.

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And somebody who is more cognitively and emotionally sophisticated has a wider window of tolerance.

16:33

So this is what vertical development is. It’s about improving how we make meaning of our world, and more cognitively, and emotionally sophisticated ways. Gimme in the in the question box.

16:45

Just type in if this makes sense to you. So maybe on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being, yes, this makes sense. one being doesn’t make sense at all.

16:53

I just want to make sure that I’m coming across clearly here.

16:57

And if, if we’re not getting it yet, that’s fine, we’re still going to dive into, into this in greater depth.

17:06

So we’re seeing some higher numbers, which is good. There are a few forces. And here are the lowest numbers. All right, so let’s try to bring a little bit more clarity here as we dive into it. So.

17:20

So, this is, and I guess, what we can do if we look at this three-dimensional box, is that we can paint a picture of where we are at, or where our leaders are at, right. How much knowledge do they have?

17:34

How much skills do they have, but also, how much mental maturity and development do they have, which is along this vertical development plane, and if it’s helpful for you, we can map on the Have to be model here, right? How much knowledge do I have, or what are the things that I can do? When we talk about vertical development? We’re not talking about having and doing.

17:57

Those are app language. That’s kind of an app download.

18:02

When we talk about vertical development, we’re talking about tapping into our being, that we’re upgrading, our internal operating system.

18:12

Now, there’s a difference between, or let me demonstrate the difference between horizontal and vertical development. So, for, let’s say, for example, this is not uncommon. At least with the organizations I’ve been working with, is they want to enhance the agility of their organization as a whole, but also their leaders and their employees. And if we wanted to take our horizontal development approach to this, we might say, OK. Here are the things that you need to know and do to become more agile.

18:40

Alright, and we might engage in some training or workshops around improving balance, gaining clarity, and implementing different agile practices.

18:49

That’s not that that’s bad.

18:52

I definitely think that could be incrementally helpful. I just wonder if it’s ever going to be transformational and helpful.

19:00

And here’s why.

19:00

It’s because if we want to become agile at the organizational level, or even at a leader and employee level, we’ve got to elevate leaders and employee’s capacity to embrace failure.

19:13

That means that they’ve gotta be OK, looking bad at times, and that’s just not very common in organizations, they’ve gotta be willing to embrace uncertainty.

19:24

In other words, they’ve got to admit that they’re wrong at times, they’ve got to embrace problems as part of the journey, and they’ve gotta be willing to put themselves on the back burner for the betterment of the organization.

19:39

And it’s just not common to find this, because so often leaders and employees are primarily focused on looking good, being right, avoiding problems, and getting ahead.

19:55

And if, if we’re focused on looking good, being right, avoiding problems, getting ahead.

20:01

Or if we, if we start to implement some more agile practices, are those ever going to really work, if we’re hung up on our own, you might even call them insecurities, which we all have myself included.

20:17

But we could do something about that, right. We could heal these insecurities, so that we create space for failure, that when it happens, we don’t freak out.

20:28

But we look at this as an opportunity to learn that we, as we go from where we are now to where we want to go, of course, we’re going to encounter problems. And if we continually try to avoid problems, we’re probably going to get stuck in the past.

20:46

So, for almost any topic, we can make it a vertical development effort or a horizontal development effort, and we’re always going to be more successful focusing on the vertical aspect, because it gets at this deeper level of how we make meaning of our, of our world around us.

21:09

And so I think we can ask ourselves out of horizontal and vertical development, what is easier?

21:15

I think Horizontal development is easier, right? This is what we’re used to. All of our high school and college classes were primarily horizontal development.

21:22

Let me give you some more knowledge and skills, so that you are empowered to do more when you get out into the world, but there’s very few high school or college classes that ever focus on improving our capacity to embrace uncertainty.

21:36

Alright, so horizontal, because more commonly focused on, but is it, well, it transforms our leader’s ability to navigate, change, pressure, uncertainty, and complexity.

21:47

Again, I think it could be incrementally helpful, but probably not transformational helpful.

21:55

So what one of the things that’s really unique about this is that there has been research over the last 50, 60 years coming out of this, the realm of developmental psychology, and what developmental psychology has been around since the 18 eighties.

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And from the 18 eighties, up until the 19 sixties, the primary focus was on child development. Because we could see children develop in their cognitive and emotional sophistication almost right before our eyes.

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Children develop vertically develop.

22:32

Naturally, it’s as if it’s a function of time.

22:36

But what really developmental psychologists started to question in the 19 sixties was, do adults develop, because the understanding up until that point was adults really don’t develop.

22:48

But they started to question that in the 19 sixties, so over it since the 19 sixties, for about 50, 60 years, we’ve had researchers diving into adult development.

22:58

And what they’ve found is that adults, one, they can develop, but that the majority of adults never develop beyond the level that they enter adulthood with.

23:11

And, in fact, what they found is that there’s three primary levels of adult development.

23:17

And I call these minds, 1.092 in mind, three, because, as you’re gonna see, is they represent us operating with different internal operating systems.

23:28

So what the research has found on this is that when we look across all adults, 64% operate in mind, one throughout their adult lives.

23:39

They never get beyond their base level of vertical development, 35% get into mind, two, and only 1% get into mind three. But these numbers look very different.

23:51

When we look at executives, and you’ll see why in just a minute, but 7% operate in mind, 1.02% operate in mind two, or 85% operate in my two, and 8% operate in mind three.

24:06

And if you’ve ever read the book, Good to Great by Jim Collins. He talks about level five leadership, people that have this humility and this intense will to succeed.

24:17

Right? This combination and what Jim Collins really talks about is a mind three point all lethal leader, it is a vertically develop leaders, somebody with a high degree of cognitive and emotional sophistication.

24:32

So, let me, let me walk you through the three different mind levels, and I’m trying to keep track of the questions, if any questions come in. I know Sarah is also gonna have my back with any questions. But if you have any questions about vertical development, or as I walk through each of these three different mind levels, don’t hesitate to chat those in. And if I could jump onto that question quickly, I would be more than happy to do so.

24:58

So let me walk you through these three different mind levels, and help them come to life for you.

25:03

All right.

25:04

So mind, one point O is what I call self-preservation mode, And what you’re gonna find with each of these levels is that we have, our internal operating system is programmed to fulfill certain needs, and also that because we have these needs, they have associated fears that go along with it.

25:26

Right, so it, my oneself preservation mode, our primary focus is on our safety, our comfort, in our belong.

25:34

That’s just how we’re internally wire, and I’ll give you an example of, or a visual of this here, in just a moment.

25:40

But, when we have these needs, we also have the fears around being exposed, being uncomfortable, and not fitting in.

25:49

And there’s some, there’s some hallmarks about this mind.

25:52

one level that these developmental psychologists have identified is, we have a tendency when we’re in my one-point O, to join and identify with tribes.

26:03

This could be social groups. It can be church groups. It can be professional groups, or friends, or family, or whatever it might be.

26:10

Because these groups will help us fulfill our needs and quell archer’s, they’ll help us to be safe, to be comfortable and feel like we belong.

26:20

And, oftentimes, what we are willing to do is, we’re willing to give up our power and independence in exchange for the safety comfort and belonging, right? So, my one people, one point, oh, people are saying, I don’t want to be the leader.

26:33

I’ll let you tell me what’s: what you want me to do, and I’ll go, and do it provided you give me safety, comfort, and belong.

26:40

This is why we only see 7% of executives in mind one point, because very few my one-point old people ever wanted to step into leadership positions.

26:50

And when we give up our power and our independence, we are more dependent thinker’s. again, you tell me what to do. I don’t want to make the decision. You just tell me what to do. And I’ll go along with it.

27:03

So that’s mind. one point O and whenever I talk about mind one point, oh, here’s the visual that comes to mind.

27:10

This is a huddle of Emperor Penguins in Antarctica.

27:13

Right? And when we’re in mind, one, our focus is to get to the center of this hub.

27:20

Because when we’re in the center of that huddle, that’s when we feel the most safe, the most comfortable. Right, it’s warmer there and the most like we belong.

27:29

And so oftentimes my one point, oh people, they’re willing to jostle for position to get to the center of that huddle.

27:39

That’s my one point. Oh. Here, I haven’t seen any questions come in, so, again, if you have any questions, chat those in, or put those in the question box.

27:50

Mind to point, you know, we’re here when we get here. We’re operating with different needs, it’s not like the needs of safety, comfort of belonging, fully go away.

28:00

We just care about things more than being safe, comfortable, and feeling like we belong, such as standing out, advancing, and being of value, right. We’re willing to get out of our comfort zone in order to do this, right. That’s a mind to point old person when we’re here.

28:18

We also have the fears around being obsolete or redundant.

28:23

We fear fault, failing, falling short or losing and we fear not being seen of value.

28:31

When we’re here, we’re not dependent thinkers.

28:34

We are independent thinkers, you see, if there’s a whole bunch of my one people that are willing to give us their power, and independence to, have somebody else tell them what to do these mind to know, People are like, Well, put me in that position. I will tell you what to do, right? So they say, I’ve got, if I’m in mind to, oh, I’ve got a whole host of mind, one point, all people, that can help me accomplish what I want to accomplish so that I could stand out, advance, be, seen a value, be recognized and win.

29:06

Some other elements about mind to people as they’re willing to pushing back against their tribes’ bullies, they don’t go along with everything their tribe believes.

29:15

And they develop their own set of personal beliefs, and they oftentimes hold quiet rigidly to these personal bullets, right? They’ve kind of had to get break outside of the mold to take on these beliefs, and they’re there. They identify pretty strongly with these beliefs.

29:31

So that’s a mind to versus on line two-point old person doesn’t care about getting in the center of the huddle.

29:38

What the mind to point all person wants is they want to they want to be up on a hillside.

29:43

They want to be in a position where they can be seen and recognized by all of the other penguins in the colony. And, in fact, they want to be in a position where they can even direct all of these penguins in the community.

29:54

This is why we see 85% of all executives operate in mind, too.

30:00

All right, this is about them utilizing the power and independence that their employees give them, so that they can accomplish the things that they want to accomplish, that’s mind to point out.

30:15

Give me, give me a yes, maybe or no, in the question, just to make sure we’re tracking along. Are you tracking log? Give me a yes. Give me a kinda or give me a note.

30:27

Alright, good.

30:28

We’ve got a kind of, Charles, if you have any questions, chat that in.

30:35

Good. All right, we’re tracking along. Thank you.

30:38

All right, let me get you to mind. three points on mind. three hours, you’ll see is quite different than mine, 1.01 to 0, when we’re here. Again, it’s not like we’re not concerned about our safety comfort and belonging. But that’s just low. On our priority list, when we get to mind three, we’re focused on being a value. we’re focused on contributing. And we’re focused on elevating others.

30:59

And we have those healthy fears of not being of value of taking from and not lifting. And of limiting and stifling others.

31:10

When people in mind, three, they are not dependent thinkers, and they are not independent thinkers. They are inter-dependent thinkers. They can hold multiple and complex perspective simultaneously, right? We can take any sort of political topic, and let’s just take gun control, for example.

31:26

We’re going to find people that rush off to one side and other people that rush off to the other.

31:31

My three-point old people, they don’t rush to one side or the other.

31:36

Right. They recognize that there’s pros and cons to either position, and they’re just willing to sit in the complexity of that.

31:44

At least for a while, before they come up with a certain position, but there will generally be willing to hear the perspectives of multiple stakeholders. They are more purpose, and long term focused, right?

31:57

When we’re in mind one point now, we’re really concerned about the short-term. Am I feeling safe? Comfortable on like I belong right now.

32:05

If we’re a mind, to our eye advancing, am I getting ahead? Am I being recognized right now? I want to hit my short-term goals. So I can get that shiny metal or that shiny ribbon, whatever it might be.

32:18

It’s only those in mind three pointed out. They don’t care about the short-term safety, comfort of belonging or recognitions are standing out.

32:26

They just want to make sure that we are successful in the long run, and they see and value the systems that go into the outcomes.

32:35

I, I’ve been I was told that maybe there’s, uh, a couple of people who registered that are from Boeing, if you’re somebody from Boeing, do you mind just chatting in?

32:46

Yes, in the question box, I’m just curious if any of you are, I’ve got a couple of questions in the meantime. Does this change with age? Well, if people do change, they generally do it, you know, as they age.

32:59

So if they do vertically develop, um, it will happen.

33:04

But they’re, what research is finding is that, again, 66%, or, sorry, 64% of all adults never get beyond mind one.

33:17

So, vertical development is not a function of age. What it is, it’s a function of effort.

33:24

So people can vertically develop is that not a lot of people do the other question.

33:35

Can you be a great dewar and director of getting things done in mind to zero but not be liked by your team or develop your staff? Yes, and in fact that’s why I think often happens is that the doers, mind, two point, zero, doers, they’re all about doing.

33:51

They get promoted into leadership positions and leadership really requires a mind three-point O mentality but they never shift and they really struggle in their leadership.

34:02

So I think that that’s what’s really common. And why we see such poor leadership statistics, such as I’ve mentioned earlier, 75% of their employees say that their boss is the worst and most stressful part of their job.

34:17

Are the people born into mind three, RD Uber Cress, I get really good question. What research is finding is that this is connected, are vertical development is connected to our body’s neurological system.

34:31

And when we go through trauma and that could be at any point in our lives, that impacts our ability to make meaning of our world in cognitively and emotionally sophisticated ways. This is interesting.

34:45

And to me, what is really meaningful about talking about vertical development, is because when we understand this, we understand that if we want to help people vertically develop, we’ve gotta help them heal their mind. We’ve gotta help them heal from past trauma.

35:02

What statistics this suggests, is that 70, more than 75% of all people have been through significant trauma in their lives.

35:10

But then there’s people and one of the reasons why I ask if there’s anybody from Boeing on, is because over the last week, I’ve been really fortunate to have the experience of having a couple of phone conversations with Alan Mulally, the former CEO of Boeing and also afford.

35:26

And, and he is somebody that I would categorize as a mind, three-point leader.

35:32

And I think we would see that his impact on Ford during his tenure there, is evidence of that, but one of the things that he talked about, you share an experience at Ford, where he, he was mulling over the idea of with their F 150 shifting from, I think it was steel to aluminum and, and they were looking at the numbers. And what it, what it said is look, aluminum is going to give us better value on the truck.

36:01

Yeah, in terms of, that’s going to reduce the rate, increase gas mileage, it doesn’t have any safety deficiencies, they kinda saw, like the trend was, and it’s, I believe it was going to be a little bit cheaper, but, and so the trend was, they really should move to aluminum.

36:18

But to move to aluminum, they would need to shut down their production for a lot, at least three weeks.

36:25

And they said they were going to post a $3 billion loss by shifting to aluminum.

36:32

And because it’s going to slow down the pipeline, and a lot of people were like, I don’t think we should go to aluminum. What are you going to tell Wall Street?

36:42

And what Helen told me was, Look, I will talk to Wall Street, but we’re making this move, not because of some short-term hitting our numbers this year.

36:52

We’re making this move because we want to be a competitive player in the long run, right? He’s got that long term focus.

37:02

Um, got another question here from Carol. If people have strong personalities, can a leader vertically develop until they recognize their delay derailleur? The answer is, yes, I think. But I’m also learning that it is a little bit contingent upon how much trauma that they’ve been through in their lives.

37:21

And the more trauma, the more deep, internal work that they’re going to have to do.

37:27

But I think everything starts with awareness, and that’s one of the things, reasons why I like talking about these three different mind levels.

37:36

Is it because it creates a framework to help us to become more aware. And, in fact, I’m going to give you some tools that will help in this process as we move forward.

37:47

So, good.

37:51

Yeah, good, glad we’re seeing that, this can be, got a comment from Patricia, I can see how this discussion can be useful and conversations around who gets promoted to higher level leader roles and for long term succession planning? For sure, in fact, I just got done listening to a great book today, and it’s called The Greatest Night.

38:10

It’s about William Marschall back in the 12th century and early 13th century, and a really fantastic book, but all, I, all I’ve heard, as they’re talking about these different kings in the ah javan, in Empire, and in France, and things like that.

38:28

Is there all mind to point all leaders?

38:31

And it’s all about politics, and intrigue, and things like that. There’s nothing about, mind, three, point zero. How do we improve the well-being for everybody?

38:40

There was just none of that going on, so, right? And there’s a lack of succession planning, unfortunately, which led to a lot of issues.

38:48

All right, good, little sidetrack.

38:50

So I’m going to stretch our Penguin metaphor here because I’ve kinda been asking myself, what does a mind three penguin look like? Because they don’t want to be in the center of the huddle. They don’t want to be up on that hill.

39:03

Well, my three point, all paying one recognizes that look, if you know anything about emperor penguins, they are 30 to 50 miles from their food source for at least four months when their eggs are being incubated.

39:19

And so a mind, three-point O Penguin might think, well, what if I could bring the food source to the colon, right? And that’s what these mind three penguins are all about there. How do we improve the colony?

39:34

even if it’s an expense to us? So we don’t want to feel safe comfortable, Like we belong. We don’t necessarily want to stand out, advancer, get ahead. We just want to add.

39:45

And that’s this mind, three-point old leader.

39:49

And these, these different leaders speak in different languages. As I mentioned, mine through one point, oh, people, when they get constructive criticism, they get defensive into.

39:57

Now, Mine, to point out, well, it depends on the person delivering it and how they deliver.

40:03

My three is it’s a gift.

40:07

And the thing about it is it’s a mind three-point person understands why somebody would get defensive into now, because they’ve probably been there before.

40:15

But a mind, one person has a really hard time understanding of mind, three-point helpers, They just don’t have the cognitive and emotional sophistication to get there.

40:25

We can see a similar pattern with change.

40:30

And remember, here’s the percentages of the different people who speak these different languages.

40:46

So, these are the three different mind levels. We got mine, 1.092, and mind, three-point L, And, I think, we can make a really important designation here.

40:56

And, that is between mind, 1.1 to point out and mind, three, because where is our focus when we operate below the line?

41:08

Right, it’s on ourselves.

41:10

When we operate above the line, it’s outwards.

41:15

And, that’s really powerful. In fact, I want to share with you a video that I think you’ll find equally powerful that talks about this notion. And it is based upon this adult development research and psychological development research that I’ve been tapping into.

41:30

So, I’m going to hit play here, and I think we’re set up for this to go.

41:35

I’m gonna see if I need to make any adjustments. So if I If you can’t hear anything, let me know, and, Sarah, let me know if you can hear anything, but I’m going to hit play.

41:47

All right.

41:49

Right, Right?

41:55

Where am I?

41:56

Yeah.

41:59

No!

42:02

Oh!

42:06

Our location describes how my life right now.

42:12

OK, curious and committed to line.

42:16

If we are below that line, they’re close, Defensive.

42:19

I can lead to two B, right?

42:22

Stop right now and simply ask yourself, Wow!

42:25

In this moment, my above the line, the line.

42:29

Typically, when you click on the line, so who thinks about the world, for example, they believe there is not enough.

42:38

It could be that there’s not enough money, or time, or space, or energy, or laugh.

42:44

People below the line also believe that their story about the situation is right.

42:49

People below the line also agreed that there was a threat out there.

42:52

Something or someone is threatening by design for approval, control, security, and people below the line, See the situation is serious, the deeper the line they are, the most serious things.

43:07

People below the line, tend to behave certain ways, as well, they tend to kinda, too, find alternate link, Got it.

43:14

Explain, Rationalize, and justify.

43:17

Get overwhelmed.

43:19

Only conflict, conflict for the sake of winning.

43:22

When people are above the line, learning and growing are more important. Right?

43:28

They believe the old people, the circumstances of the allies. Good. But that growth.

43:33

They believe that from a distance, almost everything is funny, call above the line lifting with curiosity, city three, speak Unarguably question. Oh, that release and live a life of play.

43:48

Now, knowing what you know about being above or below the line. Where are you?

43:53

Genomics. You consider this question.

43:56

We’re hard wired to go below the line, literally, I missed program to threat and when it does a chemical cocktail courses through our veins.

44:05

And we go this reaction was designed to help us survive in the presence of the real threat to our physical survival.

44:13

An issue for modern day leaders, is that often our brains can’t tell the difference between a spectra physical survival, and it’s tied to our ego or identity.

44:23

We react and get defensive when we experience a threat to our ego.

44:27

So in many ways, the below the line is natural and normal.

44:31

When we are below the line of state, literally brain, state, of high creativity, collaborations, innovation, and relational connection, we’re simply trying to survive.

44:44

Just stay calm time, survive on that.

44:47

So the first activity and conscious leadership is location, location, location.

44:54

Now, moment, where am I telling ourselves and others the truth about our current location begins the great conversation?

45:04

All right.

45:05

So, there, there’s this idea of above and below the line.

45:09

Hopefully, you found that powerful, and I think it really takes watching that even a few times, and you can look it up on YouTube to really digest if there’s a lot in there. And I think that, to your point earlier, there’s a lot of leaders just in survival mode. And when we’re in survival mode, that’s just it’s an indication that we’re not as vertically developed as we could be.

45:32

And we could always vertically develop. That’s one of the things that I love, talking about vertical development. But let me get it. Let me get a question for you in the chat box here is, as I went through mind, 1.09. Oh.

45:46

Could you see how there’s, that you fit in multiple different mind levels? Do you see multiple mine levels in yourself? Give me a yes or no on that in the question box.

46:04

Yeah, right, so, we’re gonna see a lot of mine levels within it, so it’s one, it’s helpful to ask the question. What is my vertical altitude, right, That is one helpful question.

46:14

Another helpful question is, what is my center of gravity, right? Because the reality is, is that we spend a certain amount of time in each of these different mind levels.

46:26

So the, the other question, is there a, so what, what is my center of gravity, where am I spending the majority of my time, and how do I shift, how do I move the needle? So I’m spending a higher percentage of my time in mind, three.

46:43

I wanna give you an example The power, and if I had more time, I add a couple of other videos, so I’m gonna skip through these videos really quick.

46:50

But let me give you an example of the power of focusing on vertical development. I’m going to use sat.

46:56

Steve Ballmer and Satya Nadella, as examples so these are the past CEO of Microsoft and the current CEO of Microsoft.

47:04

Now, both of these men have similar programs on their computer. They have a similar background to both extensive within Microsoft, even within Microsoft, they had a similar background.

47:14

So I think they have similar programs, they have similar knowledge and similar skills.

47:20

But if you know anything about these leaders, they have very different internal operating systems. Steve Belmar, whenever he got on stage, it was a rock show. There was loud, music dancing, it was all about inspiration.

47:31

There’s none of that was Satya Nadella. When he’s on stage this, it’s time to elevate through clarity and purpose.

47:37

Steve Ballmer never came up with the initial mission statement during his tenure as CEO, but that was one of the priorities of Satya Nadella when he took over.

47:47

Steve Ballmer saw his competitors as evil. He never wanted to work with Apple or Google or Facebook.

47:53

But that’s one of the first things that Satya Nadella started to do.

47:56

He saw that collaboration with competitors would expand their customer base, which it’s done, Steve Balmer Institute, a stacked rate performance management system, which killed the culture at Microsoft.

48:07

But Stetson Adela says that see, the sea and CEO stands for Curator of Culture.

48:14

Because the leaders who focus on culture understand the long-term benefit of that investment.

48:20

It rarely has a short-term benefit, but it surely has a long-term benefit and here’s the long-term benefit.

48:26

During Steve ballmer’s tenure as CEO Microsoft Stock price was essentially the same.

48:32

Satya, Nadella took over in 20 14. Their stock price is up over 10 times what it was.

48:39

It has been a remarkable turnaround.

48:42

That’s the power of putting in a vertically, developmentally vertically developed leader, who then encourages vertical development within the organization.

48:54

So the benefits of vertical development are when we vertically develop and help people to vertically develop, we get more out of horizontal development efforts.

49:05

We elevate leaders’ ability to navigate, change, pressure complexity, uncertainty. We’re upgrading their internal operating system to go from dependence to independence to inter-dependence.

49:15

And it’s the only way to transformation only move the needle in our leadership development, effectiveness and leaders’ effectiveness, right?

49:26

Horizontal can be incrementally helpful, but it will never be transformational helpful because it doesn’t get at this internal neurological processing associated with vertical development.

49:40

OK, so then the question becomes, how do we go about vertically developing, whether for ourselves or leaders in the organization, I think the key can be found in our definition of vertical development.

49:51

If we want to vertically develop ourselves or vertically develop others, we’ve got to focus on our meaning, makers, how we see and make meaning of our world. Well, what are our meaning makers? They are our mindsets, the mental lenses that we wear, that shape how we see and interpret our world, our mindsets, are foundational to everything that we do.

50:12

How we see our world, such as, do we see failure as something to avoid, or something that says something about us, right, that I’m a failure.

50:21

Or do we see failure as an opportunity to learn, to grow in a signal that we’re pushing the boundaries, right?

50:28

How we see failure shapes how we think about it, how we learn from it, and how we behave in the face of it, and that shapes how we succeed in our life, our work, and our leadership.

50:38

And so when I work with organizations to help them vertically develop their leaders, I primarily, I, it, promote these ideas of vertical development, and I focus on mindsets as kinda the vehicle to help us vertically develop.

50:57

one of the things that I have that’s available, in fact, I’m going to invite you to take this, is, I have a mindset assessment that you can take.

51:04

And this will give you your mindset, the quality of your mindsets, relative to over 20,000 people who have taken my mindset assessment.

51:13

And when I work with the organizations, I can, I produce a collective mindset report. So for this group of leaders, or for this group of employees, what is the quality of their mindsets as a whole?

51:25

And if you wanted to snap a little kinda picture with this QR code, you can get a link to the mindset assessment get some discounts on either my audiobook or e-book. If you want the print version. Amazon’s probably the best place to do that. I’ve also got some mindset exercises and some more things, even that I’ll talk about here.

51:44

I’ll bring this back up in in a moment but let me show you what a collective mindset report looks like.

51:51

So I focus on four different sets of mindsets. This is one of them from fixed to growth. And this is an example group that I worked with.

51:58

Or we had 46% of them were in the bottom quartile on this continuum from fixed to growth mindsets.

52:05

When we look at close to open, yeah, they have more open mindsets, which is good.

52:09

When we look at prevention to promotion, more positive, when we look inward to outward, We’re seeing 62% of them had more of an inward mindset, which is very much indicative of either a mind, one point, or mind, two level, in which they’re operating.

52:26

And so this is a opportunity to help leaders, to become more aware of their mindsets.

52:32

It also, even as we look at this, we can get a quick sense of, what’s the culture in an organization, because what’s the culture of an organization other than the collective mindsets of the people within it?

52:46

So, so that’s oftentimes where I start. I have a variety of workshops that I engage in to help people develop their mindsets.

52:54

In fact, this is just a study that was done, that showed how a growth mindset training immediately impacts the quality and quantity of feedback that leaders provide to their employees.

53:09

So even a single one-off training has been shown to have valuable effects. So I do one-off workshops or keynote address. I also do a series of workshops or, or even implement programs. So, I’m working with an executive team, right. Now we’re on the tail end of that. We did some workshops initially. We did two months of coaching. and now we’re wrapping it up with a couple of other workshops that has deepened their Self-awareness and giving them the tools to be able to vertically develop.

53:41

one of the tools that I implement is a digital mindset coach. This operates on an app, or a program called Cue Stream. It’s a micro learning tool.

53:51

that where every other day, they leaders are people who take this, get a series of questions, or exercises, such as a journaling exercise, or a short video, that is designed to activate and strengthen their positive mindset neuro connections, right? Vertical development is connected to our neural system.

54:14

And this is one of the ways, and it’s a proven way to help leaders vertically develop, and as I mentioned, I do some coaching as well, one-on-one, small group.

54:23

And can as part of that also do some 90-degree feedback around vertical development and mindsets.

54:31

So, to wrap this up, let me summarize what we’ve done here. We’ve done a lot here.

54:37

We have problems with leadership development.

54:40

And we have largely overlooked vertical development, yet, it is the key to transformational improvements in our development efforts and the actual development of our leaders. If we really want to move the needle on our leader’s effectiveness, or on our own effectiveness, we’ve gotta focus on Vertical development.

54:58

The engine of Vertical Development is mindsets, and when we understand this, I hope this gives you clear clarity, again, on how you can elevate yourself, your leaders, and your employees.

55:13

So, hopefully, this has been a good introduction to Vertical Development. I think most of you kinda said that you weren’t really knowledgeable at this at all, so hopefully you have some clarity here. But I’m happy to take any questions.

55:23

We’ve got about five minutes left, but, and I’ll bring up this slide. again, if you want to get access to that mindset assessment, or, or to my book, Success Mindsets.

55:33

So, let me, I don’t know if, Sarah, you’ve maybe have done a better job at keeping your eye on the question box, and I have, at least, in the last 10 minutes, have any questions come through?

55:44

Yes. So, as Ryan said, we have about five minutes here, if you have any questions, please put them into that question in an area. And we’ll answer as many as we can today. And I don’t believe we got to this question from Charles here, and please correct me if I’m wrong. But Charles asked, does your executive leadership team need to realize this concept for people to be successful at trying to get closer to mind three?

56:13

Yeah, really good question. And he goes on to say, meaning, if your C suite is like bulmer, then I assume you have to decide, is this the right place for me?

56:21

And the reality of that is, yeah, yeah, it is really difficult.

56:26

It is really challenging for a mind, 30 liter two to operate under a mind. to point. Or a mind one leader, it is a really challenging circumstance. Can it be done? And can it be done effectively, Yes.

56:40

But it is, oftentimes it is I personally a struggle for that mind, three liters.

56:48

And oftentimes that mind two liter perceives the complexity that the mind three leader is willing to go into it as almost resistance.

57:00

And the mind to leader is oftentimes, resistant, a mind, three leaders, because they’re a little bit, they want to protect their ego.

57:07

So, so that’s surely a phenomenon, and what it speaks to, what your question speaks to, is the importance of at the top, to have a mind, three leader.

57:19

And because they set the tone for the rest of the organization, I think that that is why Microsoft has been as successful as they have, is because they’ve got a mind, three-point old leader at the top.

57:30

Um, the problem, one of the problems, is a lot of leaders, they move up the ranks, or they want certain positions, because they want the rewards of leadership, more than maybe the responsibilities of leadership.

57:42

And it takes a vertically developed person to be excited about the responsibilities, the leadership, and not care much about the rewards of leadership.

57:55

I think we have time here for one more question before we conclude our webinar today. And we had a question come through from Marianne. And Maria says, Is a high EI leader automatically a mind? three point a leader?

58:08

Yeah, great question. I think it’s an indication of it. I think there’s more to vertical development than just emotional intelligence.

58:14

But emotional intelligence is a vertical development concept.

58:20

one of my biggest pet peeves about emotional intelligence and how it’s kind of trainings that are out there around emotional intelligence as we have a tendency to boil it down to being a horizontal development topic. Right? Here are the things that you need to do to be more emotionally intelligence.

58:36

But emotional intelligence isn’t a doing thing. It’s a big thing.

58:41

And so I think that as we help people vertically develop, they become more emotionally intelligence. And so, when people do have emotional intelligence, I do think it is a signal that they have greater cognitive and emotional sophistication.

58:59

Oh, great, and Ryan, that does bring us here to the top of the hour, so thank you so much for your time today.

59:07

Yeah, for sure. Thank you so much for having me. It’s been a pleasure to be with all of you. If I can be of help or a resource to any of you moving forward, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me. Go to my website at ryangottfredson.com. Shoot me an e-mail, I got my e-mail that I can share with you here. Connect with me on LinkedIn. What would love to be of any help or support that I can be? So, really, thank you for your time today, and I wish you the best of 2022.

59:32

Thank you, Ryan. That was great. And today’s webinar was sponsored by Ryan Gottfredson and, as he mentioned, you can learn more at www.ryangottfredson.com and connect with him over there. And that is all the time that we have for today. Thank you all for participating in today’s webinar, Happy Training!

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