The show’s guest in this episode is Tara Landes. For over 25 years, she has helped 300+ small business leaders tackle operational challenges. A certified change management practitioner and licensed influence trainer, she leads Bellrock’s management training programs, graduating 950+ students, and has delivered nearly 100 presentations to organizations like TEC Canada and CPHR BC & Yukon.

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Unlocking Operational Excellence with Tara Landes

Hello. I’m Melanie Parish. I’m an author and an executive coach, a team coach, and it’s great to be here with you today.

Hi. I’m Mel Rutherford. I’m McMaster University’s first transgender department chair, and I’m the co host of the experimental leader podcast.

Well, I’m curious what you’ve been thinking about these days. 

Well, I’m, you know, I’m serving in the role as department chair, and in this leadership position, I’ve had recently a couple of experiences where people have asked me to to start investigations, and one of these requests came from from high up in the in the university, and one of the requests came from a group of students, but some, you know, somebody that they thought was not being professional, behaving appropriately, and they asked me to start, start an investigation, and and I didn’t, in either case, and I thought a lot about what what this means, and I think, you know, people think, well, you’re going to go in, you’re going to ask some students, some questions about how they’ve been treated, and then you’re going to take disciplinary action. But in order to do an investigation, you actually have to have some comparator data you have to have. So to do an investigation, you have to ask not just the students in, you know, say the lab that that you’re wondering about, but also a bunch of other labs, so that you’ve got a baseline or a comparison and that, frankly, is going to get expensive. You don’t want to do a bad investigation. You want to do a well designed investigation. But then the other thing I thought about was, why would you do this unless you had a plan, both a plan for what you were going to do if you saw significant differences between labs, and also a plan for what you’re going to do if you don’t see significant differences between labs, and if you don’t have any sort of plan to what, what you’re going to do with your data and what and how you get, how you’re going to interpret your results and what you’re going to do with your results, why would you do this? It’s going to be expensive either way. So those are my thoughts. 

I think it’s really interesting. And you know, you and I have twins together, and it’s much the same. You know, when you’re when one of your kids comes to you and says, Mom, so and so did blah, blah, blah, and then, like, then if you weigh in, you’re, you’re choosing something. But there’s more skill in a coaching approach, where you ask someone what skills they have that they might use to solve the situation that they’re in and and as a leader, I think it’s a good I think it’s a big trap in many circumstances that you’re going to know the Truth. Sometimes, when I do work with teams, there’s assessments out there where I can ask, do an assessment, and ask a bunch of questions, and then I can be the holder of the truth, and I can disperse that truth to a team. I don’t like it. I don’t like to know the truth. I think it’s much more meaningful to have conversations with people and then share what they’ve said, where they’re the holders of their own truth.
If they’ve been through the experience, they know, you know. They know the class, they know the students, they know the situation, they know their curricular goals. Why am I the one who’s going to jump in and tell them what to do?

Yeah, and it’s also it assumes that there’s some exact truth of how people are supposed to behave all the time, and it doesn’t leave room for variance and difference in the way that people are and what they contribute in a workplace or in An academic setting for you, or in a workplace like, it’s, it’s, it’s very interesting. Well, I’ve been thinking about something totally different in leadership. I so I’m in Mexico, and I’m studying Spanish and and I’ve been thinking about, like, as a coach. I’ve been a coach for 25 years. Is, what do I need to do to stay at the top of my game? And it’s sort of a cross between two things. There’s sort of the knowledge base like, you know, I’ve written a book in leadership. I’ve studied leadership. I talk about leadership, and that’s sort of an expertise that I might bring to my work. The same for teaching master, high level coaching in a coaching school. I do both those things, and that’s sort of an expertise which is fine and good, and I can get more expertise, but it’s like a diminishing return the further I get in my career around expertise. But I think the thing that I’m doing by learning a language I just started doing karaoke a couple of weeks ago, trying new things is to change my neuro pathways, make my neuro pathways more flexible. And I actually think that may be the most valuable thing that I bring to my clients and my leadership is that I don’t do the same thing all the time, and that I’m actively trying to expand the options that I have in my in my thinking. So that’s what I’ve been thinking about.

Yeah, that sounds like it. It might be valuable, and also might be fun, yeah, and it’s really fun. It’s I think, when you’re in the same career for a really long time, you and I both been in our careers for a really long time, I think that when you’re doing the same thing year after year, it doesn’t get stale. It’s still really, really interesting. But I think that to feel really alive. It can be really useful to stretch in areas of bravery, into the unknown, in and you could do that in a really negative way. You know, you can be really naughty, but you could also just do it by tackling things that you that aren’t particularly easy and aren’t even profitable, but just for your own enjoyment. So it’s an interesting journey.

So Melanie, do we have a guest today?

We do. I’m super excited about our guest today. Our guest today is Tara Landis, and for 25 years, she’s helped small business leaders tackle operational challenges. She’s a certified change management practitioner and a licensed influence trainer, and she leads Bell rocks management training programs. They’ve graduated over 1000 students and with organizations like TEC Canada and CPHR BC & Yukon. 

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So Tara, welcome to our show.

Thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited to be here, and I’m so excited because of what you were just talking about. Melanie, you know, trying new things when we when we look at the management research, when we look at the literature on motivation, trying new things is really important in terms of self motivation, even if it’s not directly related to your field. When we’re teaching our classes, one of the icebreakers I use is, tell me about something, or tell all of us about something new that you’ve tried for the first time in the last six months. And I always, I feel so sad for the people who don’t have an answer, and it’s not because they’re put on the spot, because I tell them the question in advance, but you know, even trying, like a new kind of food or or going to a different neighborhood to take your evening walk. All of these things really help with motivation, just from a personal perspective, forget about your career.

I think it’s interesting even, even like to sit in a different place, in a church, or when you go to lunch and in you know, a place that you eat with the same people every day, just pick a different place and see what happens. Like it the because I’m a Systems worker, if one person moves in a system, the whole system has to adapt. And so it’s really interesting for the entire system when you make movement like that, although I will have to, I will say sometimes people don’t like it. That’s my chair.

That’s true. That’s, I mean, that’s all about change management, right there. But I encourage people to to embrace the change. And you know, the other chair might even be better. You don’t know until you try. Could be?

It could be. Tara, what have you been what new things have you been doing in your life?

Well, I’ve been really focused, actually, on on influence training. Dr Robert Cialdini did some research in the 80s that he published. And I just find the whole thing fascinating. So I’ve been going through a certification process. And getting really deep on this. You know, I’ve been talking about persuasion and influence probably for a quarter of a century, and I finally decided to deepen my practice. And instead of having I find that when you’re really interested in something, you can go pretty deep, you can learn a lot of nuance. And so that’s what I am completely absorbed by right now,

I think that’s really interesting. Sorry, go ahead.

Mel, oh, yeah, that’s interesting. The concept of of influence, and and, and being a practitioner of influence. Are there any do you have any questions about, like, ethics, or, you know, free will.

100% actually, we talk about ethical influence and ethical persuasion. So there are all sorts of methods of persuading people, of course. I mean, you can use money that sometimes works. You could even use, you know, violence in some organizations or countries even, but any of those kinds of things are really not long lasting. And so ethical persuasion gets into something, you know, if it’s good for me and it’s good for you, then we go on that persuasion path. Of course, the tech techniques can also be used for for evil. But that’s not, certainly not my intention at all.

I sometimes talk with people about negotiations and how they can do them incredibly collaboratively, and it’s it’s a great way to use influence when you’re negotiating a salary or I see relationships that break down because of sort of hard headedness in the negotiation process where you’re taking something from someone. When I have a conversation about someone becoming my client, I often say, I often let my clients choose what they’re going to pay me within a range, and I give them the reasons they you know, sometimes somebody wants to be my highest paying client. There’s, there’s something in it for them. When they’re in that position, they can ask for things I don’t usually offer. They may just feel good that that’s the relationship that we’re having, especially because I have relationships for decades with my clients and and so it’s an interesting way. And I think in employment negotiations saying, you know, I’d really like to make this work. Is there any way we can get me to a number that’s higher? Is it it’s not you’re putting yourself on the same side of the table as someone as opposed to, I’m going to need this. You’re going to have to give me this. So it’s like a zero sum friction. Yeah, it’s a zero sum game, but it’s usually not with the person that’s hiring you.

Yeah, it’s interesting. You’re hitting on a couple of different principles of persuasion. One of them is the principle of liking we and it’s, it seems obvious, you know, we want to all things being equal, we’d rather do business with someone that we like compared to someone that we don’t like. But how do you create liking if you don’t even know the person or don’t know them very well, you imagine the situation where you’re negotiating for a salary, say, with someone that you don’t work for yet. How do you do that? Well, the principle of liking really involves finding things that you have in common and even just spending 10 minutes talking about those things. If you can just spend that little bit of time, it makes a huge difference in terms of what people are willing to do for you. Another thing you can do is offer them a gift first and a gift again. It’s not doesn’t have to be financial, but doing, offering them a compliment can be considered acting on reciprocity. So you know, I love, I love the glasses you’re wearing right now. Those are really making you stand out, just that that small act can then cause someone to feel, Oh, I should also do something in favor for you?

Yeah, it’s interesting. It’s very interesting. How are you experimenting in your work these days?

Well, this is a great example. I mean, I’m I’m practicing these influence principles. So I’ll pick a principle on a on a given day or a given week, and decide, okay, I’m gonna really work this one and see what happens. So for example, a couple weeks ago, we were doing a facilitation with a client, strategic planning. We hadn’t worked with them before, so I ask them what they do when they get off track in their conversations, when they’re meeting and, you know, someone goes down some sort of rabbit hole. And they said, We all shiny squirrel, because you’re, you know, paying attention to some shiny thing. Oh, squirrel, squirrel, you know. Anyway, when I actually got in front of them for the facilitation, I brought them a stuffed a little stuffed squirrel, little stuffed animal. I couldn’t find a shiny one, but I brought them a stuffed squirrel. It was my gift. I gave them this gift. At the beginning. Well, I got to tell you that squirrel got a workout over the next few days when we are in session. And they really just sort of enjoyed the process of when someone started going down that other place lightheartedly, you know, tossing it at the person. Okay, enough already. And then, as opposed to, you always take us down the wrong path, which, you know, it just kept the mood lighter. So it felt some reciprocity with me for them saying, oh, you know, thank you for the squirrel, which you don’t usually bring stuffed animals to an adult facilitation, but there you go. But it also worked with each other in terms of the light hearted nature and really feeling like they were on the same team.

I think your department, Mel, is really interesting because it’s a large number of professors who are sort of equal, so they’re all sort of leading from influence. What do you? What do you? Is there anything you notice about that, that you want to talk about? I think it’s an interest. You have an interesting ecosystem for, you know.

It seems like a commitment to listening and a commitment to the relationship is it really gives you, gives you an opportunity to influence. One of the things I’ve noticed that in order to be influential. You have to be influenceable. You can’t you can’t come in, dug into your position, or you you won’t get anywhere. But if you you know you’re interested in listening and hearing what what somebody’s values are, what somebody’s goals are, and then get creative and together build the solution. I think that’s an effective way to influence, but also, but not just influence, but also to get, get everyone to what you know, what their most, what their highest priority is.

Yeah. I love that.

Yeah. I love this glimpse of like, in order to be influential, you have to be influenced. It’s sort of what I was talking about, about opening your mind at the beginning, and I hadn’t thought about those two skills being so intertwined, but sort of that I love that equilibrium between the two.

It’s really, there’s also, there’s also a piece under motivation when it comes to influence, about consistency. So if you are operating in a group of peers, let’s say there’s no leader who’s going to throw down the gauntlet and say, This is what we’re doing. It can be really helpful on the front end of things to decide how we’re going to behave. So whether you call those core values, or whether they’re just sort of your meeting rules, you know, people like us show up on time. People like us allow others to speak. People like us don’t interrupt whatever it is. If you state those things, then, with the principle of consistency, people are far more likely to follow them, and if they don’t follow them, it makes them feel uncomfortable. They want to get back to that equilibrium. So having any sort of group of the colleagues that you’re talking about, Mel just really stating, you know, because a lot of times we don’t, well, we’re all adults here, we know how we’re supposed to behave. And next thing you know, someone’s like scarfing down their food right on the camera, or you walk into a group and none of them have their cameras on, or, you know, whatever it is, if we can just say, these are our expectations, man, it just avoids so much conflict that’s really interesting.

I’m also curious what you guys think about the role of bravery in being influential as a leader.

I love that question. Leaders have to go first. Sometimes leaders have to be willing to be vulnerable. And from they, I think anyway, I’m I shouldn’t state it so emphatically, but I do think they need to be willing to to put themselves out there before they expect others to do so.

It’s an opportunity, right, like, like they can and, and it’s an opportunity to model something that they hope for. Yes, how do you think about bravery, Mel, as a leader in in terms of being influential?

Yeah, I think that. Again, I’m like, the bravery comes into the being willing to listen, being willing to be open, being willing to question your own position, like I’ve come here because I think we need to, you know, adopt this process. The bravery is listening to other people who have other views and want to adopt a different process.

Yeah, and I think there’s also bravery and not knowing, like going, Oh, wow, I don’t know. Let me. Think about that, like not even responding in the moment like it, and not deciding as a leader, but like staying in neutral to see what emerges with time, I think is sort of brave as a leader.

I think
one thing a leader can do to be really effective is explain the purpose of what it is that we’re trying to talk about. So for example, is this a decision making meeting, or is this an airing of the different alternatives? And if it because once you set that tone again, people can be more consistent if we’re making a decision here, it’s a different kind of meeting than if we’re just looking at the options. And the options meeting is really important too. I don’t mean to diminish it. It’s just they’re different.

I really like that. And when I circulate an agenda ahead of a faculty meeting, I note whether it’s a discussion or decision. And that’s I actually, I actually encode that in the font color. The Font Color of a decision is different than the font color. Font color of a discussion.

I love that. I just hope you don’t have any color blind people.

Good, good, good question. I think sometimes small business owners trip up in this where they know they’re supposed to be collaborative, especially as business owners, but sometimes their business can go awry when they’re asking for input. When they like they they can ask for input, but sometimes they need to not ask for input because they know which direction they want. And it’s not a democracy. It’s literally, you know, a solopreneurship or or a small business. And I see this. I’ve seen this many, many times in my career, where someone becomes sort of almost a victim to their employees, because they ask for input, but then have a preference, but they’re not, but they’re trying to figure out how to be collaborative. It’s an interesting dance.

Yeah, and they, I too, see that a lot, and I think it is important again, if a leader, can state what their intention is, yeah.

And I think it’s also good to ask yourself, as a leader, what do do I have a preference on the outcome here? Because if you do, then you may want to present that as where you are hoping this is going to go. And now, are there any, are there any barriers or bottlenecks to that that people can see instead of asking, Well, what should we do this? Because you want the answer. Sometimes you need to have the answer you want.

When you lead, and I will, I will say that I’ve seen that in particular, I’m thinking of a particular example with a leader who very, very smart man who really wants to bring everyone along and be collaborative, but has a very clear idea of where he wants to go, and ends up asking them 8000 questions to almost like it’s, it’s like he’s hunting buffalo or something, Like he’s trying to corral them into the pen.

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That was pretty fun. I really enjoyed that conversation. What stood out for you?

Well, the this conversation about what it what it takes you know about influence, about influencing people and what it takes to be to be influential. Really interesting to think about.

Yeah, and I really love this idea that, like that there’s sort of two sides of the coin. There’s the being influenced by others, like like taking it in and changing internally, and then also helping others be in like, to be an influence on others. Like, I love this idea of the two together. I don’t know that I had put that together before today in the same way. And I, I really love this idea that influence is something that you can foster in yourself, and then that helps foster it in others too. It feels like a it feels like a shortcut, somehow to me.

Well, it’s been great being here with you today. It’s been great being with everyone on podcast. Go experiment.

Go experiment.

Important Links: 

LinkedIn – Tara Landes

Website – Bellrock

Tara Landes

For 25 years, Tara Landes has been the secret weapon 300+ small businesses leaders have used as they
solve operational challenges. She is a certified change management practitioner from The Prosci
Institute and a licensed influence trainer from The Cialdini Institute. She is the lead faculty member for
the Bellrock management training programs, having graduated 950+ students and counting. She has also
delivered almost 100 presentations to organizations like TEC Canada, Engineers and Geoscientists of
British Columbia (EGBC), and Chartered Professionals in Human Resources of British Columbia and
Yukon (CPHR BC & Yukon).

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