The show’s guest in this episode is Kimberly Wiefling. She is a force of nature and an expert in helping people turn ideas into impact. She’s a physicist by education, she worked at HP for 10 years, and then three years in Silicon Valley startups. Her superpower is turning managers into leaders, who use their strengths to achieve impossible together groups become true teams who can achieve impossible together.

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Exploring Positive Intelligence with Kimberly Wiefling

Hello, it’s so nice to be here with you today. I’m Melanie Parish. And I am so excited about this year, we’ve been on hiatus all summer. And this is our welcome back podcast. And it’s fun to go into our third season of the podcast. I love doing this podcast, I love being with you. Last year we went live, and this year, we are trying a new format, we’ve asked our guests to read the experimental leader book. And I want to hear their thoughts about it not so much about like. Hey, what did they think about the book? But what do they think about the concepts in the book? How do they apply them how to? How are they applying those same concepts in their work around leadership. So, I’m super excited about that.

And I just wanted to talk a little bit about what I’ve been thinking about in my own leadership this summer, I really unplugged I really tried to get some rest. Running a company or a couple of companies is tiring. And so, I really have contemplated the summer a couple of things. One is just the impact of joy on rejuvenation and trying to squeeze those moments of joy for myself, often they come when I’m swimming in a body of water. So, I’ve been doing some of that. And then the other thought that I had kind of early in the summer was, gosh, you know, I haven’t been having, I wasn’t very happy with the level of conversation I was having in my life. And I have conversation for a living, I ask questions. And so, if I’m having this thought, it’s really my own darn fault. And so, I started to think about what I could do to improve the level of conversations that I was having.

And so, one of the things I realized is that I could set some intention behind the interactions that I have with people that I’m spending time with. And I could actually ask better questions, I don’t have to talk about the weather, I don’t have to talk about, you know, things that are, for me, boring, you know, often repeated, often things that don’t have intimacy or depth of sharing a risk-taking element to them. And I could change that just by asking better questions when I’m in a conversation with people. So, one of the questions I asked in a group of people this summer, was what identities do you claim? What are 10 identities that you claim? And so, I want to leave that with you this week, to think about 10 identities that you claim. So, mine might be podcast host, mother, author, wife, caretaker for my father, coach, MC, see, content creator, teacher, employer. So, I’m curious about yours. And I’d love to hear from you. If this is something that’s meaningful for you. We had all sorts of interesting conversations after we did this about like, is your identity what you do or what you are, or, you know, and we realize, you know, you do the first 10, and then there’s like five others that are on its heels. So, for me, a Unitarian would be on there, queer would be on there. And you’re sort of, we realized we are, we were influenced by who we were with, as we were starting to say these identities. So, I really challenge you to have some conversations about this with people around you. And also, with yourself, what identities do you claim. And then the other thing that happened about this whole idea of having deeper conversations is that I started hanging out with all my scientists, husbands, colleagues, and for the last weekend, I’ve had these amazing conversations with scientists. And I can’t keep up in the conversations, but the ideas that they’re sharing the innovations that they’re doing, the idea that you could program analog was what I was left with from a conversation I had last night with someone those things leave me, my brain feeling expanded and stretched and curious. And if you can expand analog, it leaves it makes way for all of the things that can be expanded and recreated from the ground up. So, I’m sort of fascinated with this idea at the moment of how do we rethink things from the ground up if something’s not working, or isn’t working, as well as we want it to?

And I’m also super excited about our guests today. Our guest today, I want to welcome Kimberly Wiefling. She helps people achieve what seems to be impossible but is merely difficult. She’s the author of scrappy project management, and a whole bunch of other books. And her latest book turning ideas into impact is an anthology with 15, other Silicon Valley consultants. She’s a physicist by education, she worked at HP for 10 years, and then three years in Silicon Valley startups. And she’s worked with 50, plus Japanese companies, and with people from 50 Different companies. Her superpower is turning managers into leaders and groups into true teams who can achieve impossible together, she is described as a force of nature, and is determined to use that force to make a significant positive impact on our world. 

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Kimberly, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much. Wow, every time I hear my introduction, I just think I hope I can live up to that.

I’m super excited to get to have you here today. And, and you were kind enough to sort of look at the introduction of the experimental leader. And I noticed even when we were first getting to know each other before this, that you’re sort of using the experimental language, which I always appreciate. And I think, you know, we’re talking about the introduction today. And the format for our year is going to be that we’re going to cover one chapter meant. So, we’re going to start in September, covering the introduction, which is a little short. So, we’re not going to spend a ton of time today. But we’re going to cover it just a little bit with some key concepts. And then we’re going to just I’m going to talk with guests each week about one chapter of the book all the way through till June. So, if you want to get a copy of the book, there’ll be a way to do that. You can also find it on all the, you know, places you buy books, it’s easy to find. And I’m just super excited about this. And we were sort of exploring what some of the concepts were and I think one of the things I was most curious to hear your thoughts on Kimberly was, you know, sort of this idea, people I remember when I was first doing kind of book, podcast tour, whatever people were like, do you think leadership can be learned? So, I wanted to get your take on that question. I think it’s a great question.

Well, I know it can be because I have deeply studied the research. And boy, people get so tired of hearing me say, according to the data, according to the research, but I am a master’s degree physicists by education, so I can’t break that habit. But the Leadership Challenge, Barry Posner, and Jim Kouzes, studied for the last 30 years, the practices of the best leaders on planet Earth 100, over 100 countries, millions of data points, and they found out that people admire and willingly follow certain kinds of leaders, that they are honest, forward looking inspiring and competent, among other things. And they have five practices with 30 behaviors in total, that if you just do those behaviors more frequently, people will think you’re a better leader. It’s not rocket science. And you don’t even have to feel like a great leader. You just do these things. And I’ll tell you what, 30 things so you see how easy it is? Appreciate people. I think we can do that. Yeah, and, and the least common practice of all the 30 behaviors they found is ask people for feedback on how I impact them in their work.

Wow. I love it. I love that. I think that’s really interesting. Well, and I think that I think that you’re so wise. I mean, first to look at the data, because that’s clever of you. And so many times I think people start on a leadership journey. And then they start reading books. I know what happened to me, you know, you read the book on servant leadership, and then all of a sudden, you’re making your team lunch, or you read the book on this kind of leadership, or you have some, you know, for me, it was the Bossy guy, who told everybody what to do. And somehow, I was supposed to emulate that, as a leader. That’s what I thought I had to do as a leader, and all of those things are not good leadership. And so, I think trying to figure out a path to leadership is super important. And, and those behaviors, if we don’t know what the behaviors are, we’re going to do something. And if we have some behaviors to try, that are positive, then we’re filling our time with positive behaviors.

Right on, you know, you get the book, you write down the five practices and the 30 behaviors, you’re hanging above your toilet, or you’ll see it at least once a day, or wherever else you’re, you’re sure to see it. And then you just pick one every day, every 30 days, and you can become a better leader. Things like, develops cooperative relationships. Okay, let’s pick one day and do that, or asks, what can we learn? I bet that’s one of your favorite behaviors. Yes. Oh, here’s another one. You’re going to love this one. experiments and takes risks.

Yes, yes, I think I think that’s right. And safe to fail experiments would be how I would cut catch that you don’t want to experiment beyond what is safe to fail?

Well, I call it taking unnecessary risks, experimenting, prototyping, and learning from mistakes. And then failing forward. Of course, you don’t want to launch the Hubble telescope into outer space without making sure it’s working properly. Oh, oops, we did that. Sorry. Yikes.

Yeah, you need to calculate your risks, but right. But I think also, if you’re working on mitigating risk, you may not be, you know, you’re spending your time on worthy work. Also, I we don’t have to, you know, spend a ton of time here. I’m curious what you’re up to in your life and your leadership right now, Kimber? Wow.

So, I spent the last week with 24 people from like a dozen different countries who work for a global Japanese company. And we all met in hatters time, a little town outside of Frankfurt, Germany. And I still stayed there, because I needed a little rest after that. And it was intense. One of the people in the participants had to be virtual the whole time, because he tested positive for COVID. So, we’re carrying around the phone we’re carrying around the laptop, the iPad, and the people, the participants were awesome. They’re carrying him everywhere. I looked out of my hotel room one morning, and I see, the whole team is sitting around having breakfast, and he’s there on an iPad, having breakfast with them. It was amazing. And we had the toilet test every day. So of course, it’s a stress fest to say, I wonder when the whole facilitation team is going to come down with it. The shouting, but we went outside, we stayed outside in the park. And we mostly were out in a park a whole week. And the people were looking at us, you know, waving to us asking, Is this a yoga class? And we’re like, no, it’s a global leadership transformational? For sure.

Yeah, and I don’t know if you can speak to this. And we didn’t plan this ahead. But what were they hoping would happen from your facilitation?

Oh, so I have worked with this company since 2007. And this is the 20th time we have done this program. It’s basically 15 days over seven months. And then the old days before the pandemic, it was five days in Frankfurt for kickoff five days in Houston, three months later, and five days in Tokyo three months after that, to present their impossible projects to their executives, to say, here’s how we in the middle of this company, here’s how we envision the fabulous future and to help lead from below so the executives can get a feeling for what’s going on in the minds and the dreams of their people. And so, this is the 20th time, it’s hybrid is time last time was fully virtual, which was really hard. And we’re never going back to always in person because the final presentation when it was virtual, we had over 80 executives and managers. We never had such a big crowd when it was live in Tokyo. So, they are hoping they will turn people into the kind of leaders’ people admire lonely willingly follow that they will become a true global team that cares about each other, trust each other, they even maybe love each other. I know that’s a weird word to use in the business world, and that they will transform this company to be truly global company from Japan, not a Japanese company.

And what are the leadership skills? What are the leadership attributes that they value? What are they looking for?

Well, I’m not sure they knew. Because I asked that question long ago. Please tell me why do you want to hire us? And who exactly are the stakeholders? And what exactly is success? Because the eyes of key stakeholders in the majors have success. And they were like, I don’t know. So, I reached out to choose proven models of leadership, such as Posner cruises leadership challenge, and that is what we use for the leadership. And then for teams, of course, there’s the Five Dysfunctions of a Team. I like that model. Of course, everyone always says, Really, there’s only five dysfunctions. And then for organizational culture, they want them to understand the roots, the DNA, and then the values and action, and then aspirational, shared goals of the future. And then just really basic, scrappy project management, which incorporates design thinking, creativity, and innovation. So, it is really about becoming the leader of the future, that can lead from any chair without position or title, by behavior by communication.

I think leadership is not a position. And I think that it’s interesting to, to hold that I think it’s interesting to foster that. I think it’s interesting, how drawn we are to people who have that. And then to break it down into skill and to ponder, you know, how you help people get it. Because I’m a course creator, I want to know how to help people achieve it, get it, change it, fix it, you know, wire it. So, I I’m fascinated by all of these ideas, and I and I have a team coaching certification. So, you know, figuring out the model that you use for how to how to create team or how do you how do you be functional when you move people together? It’s interesting.

So, we use adult experiential education approach. Allah knows, you know, kn o w l e. S, just reading a book about chocolate and studying the chemical formula of chocolate, you still won’t know what chocolate tastes like, you’ve got to eat the chocolate. So, what we do is we say here, here’s a little theory or model, hey, yeah, in theory, I should be able to lose two kilograms by eating less and exercising more, trust me, I’ve been trying to do that for 15 years. But go into the learning laboratory. If you want to go into the learning laboratory, you do exercises, activities, even games, and then you say, oh my gosh, I say I value win. But when Kimberly asked me to play rock, paper, scissors, I tried to beat my opponent, when we could have both done better by cooperating, ooh, where’s this happening at work? I wonder if I might be doing this at work. And we might be able to change my behaviors and apply this insight to my real work. And then you go through this, you know, forming, storming, norming Phase Five days together working really hard. Oh my gosh, at least. almost a dozen people cried during the week, including one big six-foot-tall Production Manager guy from Texas. And I’m just saying, are you okay? He says Kimberly, get away from me. I haven’t cried this much since I was in high school. That’s emotional melody. I was not prepared for the level of emotion that we had coming out this week.

Do you think the emotion is different post you know, as we cannot have it because I do think people are different.

You know, I think we are so craving human connection. And I have never seen this kind of emotional illness in any of our previous programs. We did change a little bit something that might have contributed to that. We had this wonderful gentleman join our team called Patrick Cowden. And he created this beyond check in and checkout so every day my buddy Patrick, he has this little check in and the checkout but the first day he spends time really connecting them. And here’s this big, tall guy. He was a software engineer for 20 years doing touchy feely crap Melanie and he has a look into each other’s eyes and say, hey friend How are you really? And then they listen generously to each other, and then appreciate. And then he goes through a sequence like this truly powerful. And I think that also contributed to the deeper connection that we observed.

How are you really?

Yeah. Then he asked them, what do you need now? Really? And they start to share. You know, I hate it when someone asked me how Hi, how are you? I’m like, really? Seriously. Have you watched the news? What do you want me to say? Fine. I hate that question. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, we all crave human connection. And we’re, we all conversationally are running away from it all the time. Oh, I’m fine. Oh, he’ll be okay. What if you’re not like, what, what if you just be who you are.

You know, we all crave human connection. And we’re, we all conversationally are running away from it all the time. Oh, I’m fine. Oh, he’ll be okay. What if you’re not like, what, what if you just be who you are.

You might be fine at any given moment. But you don’t say it that way. You don’t say Oh, I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.

I love like us that we I went to authentic conversation.

I want to know, I want to, you know, I want to roll up my sleeves and be there. You know, I have a friend who’s dying. I want to sit there and talk about real things. I don’t want to pretend it’s okay.

And you know, what, if you don’t let people bring the stuff that they’re dealing with, from their life into the conversation, they can’t show up fully. They’re just a mask. I want the full person to show up. So, it’s like, hey, look, let’s talk about it. You don’t have to tell me anything that’s going to trigger your PTSD, whatever, just share what’s going on for you. So, we can support, and you should have seen the hugging. I mean, Japanese people, little Japanese guy hugging this big old production guy and they’re both crying and I’m just like, I got to go upstairs because I’m going to cry to you. I was supposed to facilitate this. And then people are telling you about their struggles with cancer and, and what’s going on with their kids or there, you know, they’re going through divorce and their kids are alienated? Oh, my gosh, you know, people are dealing with a lot of stuff. And if you think you can separate work life from personal life, that’s just not realistic. You’re a co active coach, and you do CTI kind of coaching. So, you know, right?

It’s not good till everybody’s crying. That’s not true all the time. Um, you know, it’s the, it’s the beginning of September. To me, that’s, you know, there’s the January year, there’s the beginning of September here. What are you dreaming up in your world for this year?

We all crave human connection. Share on X

Yes. So, I’ve been doing this work. I started off in 1995. With the intention, crazy intention, someone asked me what’s your big crazy dream and I said, ah, transform Planet Earth for the better. Click create community everywhere. And I read that I still have that sight. And I’m like, what was I thinking? Now here I am 20 Some years later saying, I am not going to finish it before I die. So, I’m really keen to build a community of people committed to being the highest and best versions of us, helping other people become the highest and best versions of themselves, and creating a community that’s for the greater good for the benefit of all for planet Earth. And I don’t want to have it just be me. Of course. I want it to continue sustainably regeneratively.

I love that. And I love the idea that when you can’t reach it by yourself that you invite others to join the dream. I think that’s really interesting. I think and I think that’s the ultimate leadership that you know if we can for me, if I can teach people how to develop people as leaders then it’s like the ultimate multi-level scheme that you develop when leader then there’s no end to the number of leaders that can be developed. It’s quite exciting.

Where can people find you, Kimberly?

They can find me. Well, KimberlyWiefling.com describes my work. The hard part is spelling My name properly. Wiefling.com describes my business in general, and Silicon Valley. alliances.com describes the team of wonderful people that I work with, including most of the team I was working with this week. Love to have people reach out if there’s any questions or concerns. Yeah, and I wanted to say something about Positive Intelligence before I leave, because of course, we promised. Positive Intelligence transformed our community. Earlier this year Shirzad, Shameen from Stanford University offered a grant program for coaches to say, hey, you can take the seven-week Positive Intelligence Program for free if you’re a coach. So, I got 29 of my friends to do it. So, 30 of us six pods of five. And we went through the program together. And it was such an eye-opening experience, you know how hard it is to get 30 consultants to agree on something.

Impossible…

I said, people, this is a positive intelligence program. Come on people, let’s show ourselves ready for it. And so, we went through the seven weeks. And now I’m continuing with some thinking partners to continue the practices. And it was truly transformative. And when it turns out that the saboteur’s model that they use, they exactly match the dark side of the nine Enneagram strategies, which I’ve been using for years in our leadership program. And I’m like, oh, my gosh, this is a great way to meet the dark side of all of your strengths. And I have a pretty dark, dark side.

I'm really keen to build a community of people committed to being the highest and helping other people become the best versions of themselves. Share on X

Do you want to say more about that?

Yeah, you know, I am exciting, you know, Enneagram, seven, and I have a very productive, get stuff done kind of Enneagram, eight controlling kind of person. And boy, when those things show up as restlessness where I can’t stay focused, or trying to control other people, to an extent, to any extent, it’s not good for anybody. And then hyper achiever, I didn’t realize I was so concerned with my own grandiosity. And so, it has made me look at myself in a mirror and see myself more clearly and have thinking partners that can help reflect back to me that I couldn’t see you can’t see the back of your own head. Yeah.

I think that’s interesting. And I think it’s interesting. Do you live in Silicon Valley?

I do you live in Silicon Valley, Redwood City area. And I’m surrounded by evidence of failure and prototypes and experiments, and companies that don’t exist anymore, like the silicon graphics on the back of the Facebook sign, which is now meta.

Well, I think it’s really interesting. The idea of grandiosity, I live in Canada, but I’m a dual citizen, I’m American as well. It’s one of the big cultural differences is how people see self-promotion or confidence. So, I’m quite confident. I’m not not only am I American, but I’m also a fairly confident person. And I am not plagued with a lot of self-doubt. But I’ve found it culturally difficult. So, there’s cultural competency around that as well. Right. And I find it much more comfortable to talk about myself in the US than I do in Canada.

Oh, my mentor is Dr. Edgar Schein. I’m sure you must have heard that word, guys. Dr. Edgar Schein is in his 90s. He came from Austria long ago. He taught at MIT for many years. And he’s the guy who invented the term organizational culture. I paid him to have lunch with me every month for years, like two hours. And I learned so much about how the work I was doing fits into organizational culture model. And he told me Kimberly, America has a culture and here’s the winning strategy. look good.

Well, Kimberly, it has been such a pleasure to have you on my show. Thank you so much for being here.

It went by in a flash Melanie.

I know. It’s just so fun. It’s such a fun conversation.

It is it was very good. I really love the conversation. I have no page Since we’re smallpox, thanks for taking us there.

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It was such a joy to be here with Kimberly riffling. She’s such a clear leader in her field. I love how she brings in evidence-based models for leadership. And it’s so interesting how she talks about feedback loops, which we talked about in the experimental leader. How do you learn about yourself as a leader? How do you take in information and learn? And then how do you figure out how it’s impacting others because leadership really is. It’s a circle, you’re learning, and you’re also leading others, or impacting others with your leadership. So, you want to hear from them as well, about how you’re doing. So, ask, hey, I’ve been really curious. I’ve been trying to say this in meetings, how’s that landing for you? So, ask specific questions. Don’t ask broad like, hey, how do you think I’m doing in my leadership? Leadership can be a little lonely.

And so, in New Leaders often find themselves wanting way more feedback than they get naturally, it’s one of the things I hear from new leaders is nobody tells me anything. It’s like they’re they don’t get the feedback that they’re used to getting from having a boss at a at a lower level in an organization. So that part of learning to be a good leader is learning to quiet that voice in yourself. But on a systematic level, you can ask for feedback. So, you don’t want to overtax your people by asking for feedback too often, it makes you seem needy, and you can regularly ask for feedback. And over time, actually learn about your own leadership. So, you don’t want them to have you don’t want to have been trying to get your ego massaged from feedback. You want to actually be learning about what you can do better. So, you want to ask specific questions so you can actually learn it’s been great being here with you today. Go experiment!

 

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Kimberly Wiefling

Kimberly Wiefling is the founder of Wiefling Consulting a Silicon Valley-based global consultancy.

A physicist by education, she recognized long ago the crucial role of human skills – what her engineering friends sometimes call “the touchy-feely crap”. She has worked with people from over 50 different countries.

Her book, Scrappy Project Management, has gotten her invited to speak to audiences globally. She works globally with valued colleagues at Silicon Valley Alliances.

Her keynotes and workSHOCKs enable people to make positive changes to overcome the predictable & avoidable leadership, team & organizational culture issues that damage or destroy organizations.

 

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