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Hosted by Masi Willis and Shannon Scott, Lead Like You Mean It is a leadership podcast for those who want more than inspiration—they want impact. We’ll help you lead from the inside out, with tools that stick and some truth that stretches you.
Everything Made Beautiful (00:39)
All right, we are back and I'm just gonna start out and say I am traumatized. We have just had an experience. I think we probably need to let our listeners in on so that I can have a moment to recover. Yes, it is. ⁓ Everything is an experience with us, right? It just doesn't seem like life is an adventure for us. I've said before, but in case you haven't heard, I live in a barn.
on a farm, ⁓ horse farms all around us, and my little barn, ⁓ yes, I have running water, and yes, I electricity. It's more of a gambrel roof, small little house. ⁓ we just had a creature enter into our presence, which is not new for me, because every place I've lived,
I've always had issues with animals getting inside my house. Yes. But I have a particularly irrational fear of phobia. I would call it like a hyperventilating moment. And I don't like these creatures. ⁓ They're crunchy. They are really fast.
But I happened to be sitting on the sofa and we were about to get started when I saw something out of my left eye move. I kept telling myself it was a shadow until I could see those little things that stick up on the top of their heads on top of my napkin holder. And yes, my friends, we had a black palmetto size roach. I can't do it.
My heart is still beating. I actually felt the hairs on my arm because I know of your fear of them. mean, you knew I was going to be no help. You were going to just leave. Yeah, I may not recover. So I chased it. It went several different places under a few things. I then thought, get the spray. I sprayed it and it turned around and ran the opposite direction. And I'm trying not to scream or do anything to alarm you when it decides to go under the
refrigerator. I mean, of all places, the freaking refrigerator. can't be under there. And the Lord just brought it back out for me to stomp. It's about to stomp on it. I squished it with a paper towel. Sorry, Mimmo. I can't talk about it. ⁓ I will say that I would have had to move. The thing that the Lord has done for me, and this is... If I'm lying, I'm dying. I have not seen...
one ⁓ singular roach the entirety of the time I've lived in Tennessee. I've never even seen one. Really? In any place or you mean in your home? Never. I have never seen a roach in Tennessee. I didn't see them at my work. I have never ever even had one in my house. So I guess I have to stay in Tennessee forever until I die. For all the... I hope that doesn't happen because I'm ready to come back and be a peach with me.
So of all the reasons people move to Tennessee, most often it's about the tax and the income tax. No income tax. Maybe that should be top of the list. No cockroaches. I've never seen one and I have told all my friends, don't tell me if you've seen them. none of my family's ever seen one in my home. Anyway, this cannot be a podcast about those detestable.
bottom of the food chain, horrific. You know, I have a theology about roaches. well, please do share because you have a theology about a lot of things. believe that ⁓ roaches were not created by God. He did not create a roach and then set it on the ground and say, this is very good. Like he said about the rest of creation. So I think that roaches are a result of the fall.
So I think when there was first sin in the garden, when Satan was overcome by pride and he fell and was excommunicated, think roaches somehow developed then. And when we are in eternity, they won't be there. So my question is to you and challenge to lead yourself well, lead like you mean it. ⁓
Your podcast is called Everything Made Beautiful. It is. So. No. So no, not them. Not them. They're just excommunicated. They don't get to be made beautiful. Okay. There we have it. the bottom of the food chain. There we have it, people. We don't need them. Yeah. Anyway. Okay. No more animal talk. Now that we have.
moved on past that. Today we get to talk about the I in the mile framework for people development. And last week we talked about the mirror. So crucial for us as leaders who are first leading ourselves before we're ever leading anyone else to turn the mirror on ourselves, to understand our tendencies and to understand our action out of those tendencies and to get
really, really curious about what our tendencies are, what are the knee-jerk actions and reactions that we have, and how can we begin to change those actions because that's where we can adjust the pattern is with our action. That's where we do the hard work. Yes. And so, so that's all great. We've talked about looking at ourselves. We've even talked about our personal tendencies and what some actions are for us. But if all we do is look at ourselves,
Nothing's going to change. So that is only information and information does not change us. Information is not transformational on its own. There must be an application and in this case the I in the MyL framework is implement. So we have to actually implement things that lead toward transformation. when we, you know, we talked a lot last week about ourselves.
But this is a leadership podcast and so a lot of people listening are leading other people. So with that in mind, we have found that most leaders fall into one of two categories and there isn't really another one. You're either good or you suck. Good or you suck. Yeah. But we would say you're either intentional as a leader or you're accidental as a leader.
So just talk for a little bit, especially for those who are leading teams and leading people, what does it look like to be intentional versus being accidental? And how can we determine which kind we are? Yeah. Well, I'd like to start by just encouraging our listeners and thinking through, I got a text yesterday ⁓ from a friend and hard time right now, just not
a great leadership move on her organization's part. And she agreed that just leadership sucks. looking back over, I think about just what are the cliche things that people say, people think for us to be able to get into this intentional accident. What are some cliche stuff that people say out there about leadership? Number one is sometimes
We use leadership like we use the word producer in movies. used to shoot films. So like which producer? The one that paid for it, the one that actually did it, the one, there's so, when you say I'm a producer, it can be watered down. And I believe I have a true feeling that leadership has gotten watered down. It's the next book I read or it's the bullet points I bring into my team. And so,
When we're intentional or accidental, I believe that the world in leadership form has gotten really accidental. are, especially in the Western world, we are fast paced, we don't pause, we don't take time to recharge, and there has to be an intentional program put in place for us to take the mirror and actually change.
Take the knowledge and have a behavior shift. We have to choose to do that. I was talking to one person that was like, hey, you know what, just come in and fix all my people. Get them to align and they need to execute. We got things to do. This can't possibly be a reflection of me or my leadership. It's their problem. The crazy thing was I was sitting there thinking, dude, you are the one that needs the work.
The problem with your team is you. And unless that leader wants to do the ⁓ turn the mirror, and then goes, but now how do I actually change, actually adapt? ⁓ That's the first step. But then when that happens and people implement, it takes thinking through where am I naturally accidental and where
where can I become intentional if I know that often in conversations when people say to me, Macy, did you really think about blah, blah, blah, blah, blah? If I'm accidental, I allow myself to go, what, they don't think I'm good enough? They don't think I can do a good job? Why are they asking me that? Of course I've thought through all those things. What do you think, I'm an idiot? An idiot? Yeah. No, I'm not an idiot. And then I respond out of that accidentally. I'm like,
I say all those things. Or at least sound that way in a snarky reply. Exactly. Intentionally, I have to think what are the actions I'm going to do to change? And those are the type tools we use for you to have those visuals or have that Rolodex of or the toolbox. Right? If we compare it to the toolbox and building a house,
I don't walk into Home Depot and say, I've got a plumbing problem and just walk to the plumbing aisle and hope to know what's going on. I actually had to dig into the back of the toilet, figure out why is it running all the time and determine what is the exact part I need. And then I've got to go to Home Depot to the plumbing aisle and find the place where the plastic bulb, whatever those things are, those rubbery bulbs are on the back.
you've got to do the same thing with yourself. You can't just walk into the world of Macy Willis and hope there's some aisle that has a tool. I've got to know what is, when am I accidental and what tool do I need to use to help me change that? Well, and that's what's such a great thing about you as a leadership coach. That is what you do is you help leaders by giving them a toolbox and showing them all the tools that are in it and how to use them. And in that Home Depot analogy, I would say,
What's even better than you going to the plumbing aisle and trying to find the rubbery bulb is to talk to the guy with the apron who knows where everything is in Home Depot and he can say, it is right here. ⁓ And so until you learn your way around Home Depot, what a gift that there's somebody standing there who obviously knows what to do and where it's located. Well, it makes me think about just what I'm doing in my backyard. having some, that's why the bug was here.
Yeah, you told us in the first episode that you, we were talking about gardens and greenhouses and you said yours was a disaster. Apparently you felt really compelled to solve that. Yes, I did. And I have become, I am a, a leadership coach, but I am now the horticulturist to the gardener. Yeah. You have hauled plants from a wholesaler where you just drove your truck in there, like you knew what was going on and started loading up.
Yeah, I did. yeah, and then here's the accidental, I opened the bed of the truck, pulled the top back and my flat tire that I had the other day is in the back of my truck. Taking up all the space. All the It is an F-150 tire. Yes. Anyway, we digress. Let's go back. But thinking about that, what your analogy you were talking about going to the store is like the gardener. They need a horticulturist and they need someone who's studied.
the plants understands climate. You need to be a leader that is parking cars and making chicken and flying people or selling tires or preaching. Be what you are to be. And then partner with someone who is the horticulturist or the coach that can help you get from those mirror details, a little plant card.
all the details on the back of it, all of your people into now how do we implement change? Yeah. How do we create an environment where these different plants will flourish? I can tell you, speaking of tools, that one of the things that you taught me and that then I then took to my team, ⁓ that
really transformed our interactions as a team more than anything else is a tool called the communication code. love it. So we're going to talk through it in just a second, but let me tell you what our pain point was. ⁓ And that if I was going to be accidental, I wasn't going to figure out how to solve. I was just going to assume that everybody was an idiot and couldn't get on board. ⁓ But being intentional, I thought, I think there's a tool.
because Macy taught it to me that can help us and it transformed it. I no longer lead that team and they still use that tool. So we would get in meetings. I led about eight other women, which is an interesting thing unto itself. And we would get in meetings and I can lead a meeting. It wasn't like, what are we doing? But I'd have my agenda and at some point things would go sideways.
not necessarily with me as the leader, but among the team. And it usually was around feedback on something we had just done. An event or Sunday morning or something like that, poking some holes in just like in attempt to make it better, but we got people taking stuff personally or that sort of thing.
⁓ or feeling judged or condescended to and the meetings just going sideways. And so I would find that in my one-on-ones. I would find it in team meetings. I'd find it with them peer to peer with each other. And it was finally like, we are all smart women. We all know what we're doing. We are competent. This is not a competence issue, but we are missing each other. And the communication code came to mind. It was transformational. So I want you to, this is one of many.
tools. But I want you to talk about this one today specifically a little bit because this is a really practical way to show what implement in the mile framework looks like to take. Well, now I know that we're having problems communicating, but knowing doesn't solve anything for me. This communication code took it to implementation, which led to transformation for my team. So what is the communication code? ⁓ And again,
There's 35 layers deep on all of these tools, so we won't be able to get into the whole thing, but just high level. What could people expect from the communication code? Yeah. Well, I want to give some credit here. ⁓ Jeremy Kubicek and Steve Cochram, the co-founders of Giant who powers these tools that we get to use. We use other people's,
content as well. Such good content. Such good content. There is the communication code book that Jeremy released last year that is also helpful if you guys want to go take a look at that. big picture of the communication code is think about it like Morse code. ⁓ Think about it when you have Morse code. I know Morse code. I know it's dashes and dots and
I'm sure you do too, but do you know how to read Morse code? I know what it sounds like. hear? And I don't know what it's saying. Exactly. So you think about when we go to a foreign country with another language, we may listen to someone speak and they're saying full sentences, but we have no idea what they're saying. If they didn't give us their language or allow me to really look at it, I wouldn't know it. think about the communication code as you would
⁓ Morse code and we can transmit. Communication is not transmission. There has to be transmission and receiving. And so if we could give our receivers our code, then they would show up knowing what to expect. And so the communication code has five codes. Critique, collaborate, clarify, care, and celebrate.
Critique, collaborate, clarify, care, and celebrate. Correct. And all five of those codes, for the most part, could give an indicator what I'm about to transmit so that the person receiving knows they can receive it. Critique, think about it. I'm at the end of this project. We are about to deliver, and I am inviting you.
to ask all the hard questions, poke all the holes, because I want you to care enough to make sure this thing is going to go off well. And so what you have done is created a safety then for people to critique because you've invited it and you also are prepared to not take things personally because you know it's coming. And to compare it to what we just talked about, intentional accidental.
If I accidentally show up speaking the code, I always speak, I could quite possibly offend someone. So when you saw that conflict in your team, someone, and I know your team, so there are a lot of nurturers, lots of guardians, so present voices, and there's natural nurturers take things personally. Sometimes connectors can as well. So when we're intentional, we give that code.
The second codes collaborate and that's, hey, I don't have this thing fine tuned. Let's all get together. Let's throw ideas on the board. Throw out what you think. I don't know. I haven't fleshed out anything. But I want someone else's wisdom, expertise, creativity. Then when I'm finished, I'll probably take it back, figure out which one's the best and we'll come back and critique later. So I want you to collaborate with me.
Now, if you're a pioneer or you're a guardian, you may walk in going ahead logically and poking holes in things because you're such a strategic guarding the line. When you hear someone invite into collaboration, you need to think about refraining from asking all of the questions. This is your idea moment. On the flip side at the critique moment, that's where pioneers and guardians and creative pioneers could be really great. ⁓
honing things for you. Yeah, it's good. The third code is clarify. And clarify is a couple of different directions. Let me clarify what you're saying. Did I hear what you intended to say? Did I hear it right? Hey, when you said that in that meeting, I just wanted to come back around that in our one-on-one and I'm asking for clarification here. What did you mean when you said that? Yes. Okay.
Or it could be, let's take it out of the emotional side of things. And it could be, when we were talking about that project, I heard you say that the budget is $40 million. Does that mean for me, on my side of this live experience, or is that the whole entire event that's gonna happen? Yeah. Bringing clarity. One of the voices, the creative, they're so innovative in their thought process. They see things that
we don't quite see yet. It's a forewarning that they have and it's a palpable way that they see stuff. it's in the, imagine the creativity happening inside their head, the solving of the problem or the innovation coming. It's never been done before. So to get from their minds to their mouths is hard. So it might be broken and almost like gibberish and unfragmented in a way.
And so really realizing if you've got a creative on the other side of you to be intentional is to realize what they're saying isn't dumb. You might actually need to help them shape. Hey, that sounds like an unbelievable idea. Could you sketch something for me on that? Or can you help me know and clarify for me, am I understanding this right? Because it is so brilliant. I want to make sure we deliver on that brilliance. But if you just show up to that
creative and go, well, that sounds like the dumbest idea I've ever heard. Sounds to me like you don't know what you're talking about. For real, that sounds like the ugliest sign we're going to be posting in that live experience. So clarity helps make sure we're all on the same page. it invites, when we ask questions, I used to this to my mom sometimes, was, can we just not use the why questions? Well, why would you do it that way?
Think about if we start asking questions that feel like we're poking holes already, then on the other side of that defenses come up or passive aggression can happen. So just saying I'm walking in because I need clarity or I wanna make sure that you're clear, we're there. The fourth one is care. This is a funny one because I find that couples,
This is a strong word that needs to be used often, as well as in organizations is care is listen to what I have to say. I don't need to be solved. I just want you to care in the moment, understand it might've been overwhelming. Some people have to process out loud. So those that need to process out loud are very different than those who need to quite possibly solve the problem immediately.
But care is literally saying, I just need you to care in this moment. females and males are very distinctly different. And so if you come into a business and your leader, I walk in, I'm like, it was so frustrating to me that such and such and so and so happened, but, know, ugh, it was so frustrating.
And then that leader steps in and is like, well, did you think about this? Did y'all consider doing these things? Hey, hey, I'm good. It was frustrating. But we got the semis loaded. They got taken care of and they unloaded on time. There were no wait time costs. It was frustrating because we missed these points, but we solved it. So being able to say, hey, I need you to care or let's make it personal for those of you that are married. If a husband comes home or wife comes home,
and the spouse is at home and you come in and go, hey, honey, how was your day? And she's like, ⁓ well, I had a flat tire and our son has four cavities and the books that we were to return to the library are now lost. It has been quite the day. And his response is, well, did you hit a curb? Why'd you get the flat tire?
Where'd you go to get taken care of? And I've told you, he doesn't need to be eating all of those candies. And where was the last place you had the books? How do you misplace four books? Didn't you read that last night? So you see if she was able to know the code and he did too, and she was to say, hey, yes, let me tell you about my day. I need you to care right now. It was quite the day, but I got it all solved. Yeah. But here's what happened. It diffuses. Don't you think, let's just pause on care for a second. This is...
probably the one that if it does not already exist inside a team will be the most difficult to cultivate. And I say that because some people's natural speed is not care. A hundred percent. And to decide to care, basically to decide to embrace empathy or compassion and just create a space that isn't
a Solve It space
It might feel disingenuous. So like, yeah, go ahead. Yeah, I care. When they don't. So how have you seen, especially because you've worked in a lot of organizations that are almost all men with maybe one or two women, how have you seen that?
play out in a way that people can get their heads around that might feel like that just seems weak or that I didn't come here to care. I'm paying you to do a job. Well, we have to validate that both, you know, people call them hard skills and soft skills. ⁓ I don't think that soft skills is right. It's more like hard head and heart, but the hard work is the hard work. And what
some people believe we know that we make decisions two ways. We either think or we feel. And the thinkers know how to feel is not what they start with. And feelers actually can remove, can think core values and people, but they are capable of getting to logic as well. So in this, I actually will give you an example. I worked with a team of people, had a fantastic leader. was amazing. Pioneer connector.
And so that connector second voice is the lens through which he shows up as a pioneer. So think about he puts his glasses of connection on. Therefore, at times, because he's so strategic and military and future driven, that connector can come across inauthentic. But I thought he made a really great point to me, and it was a learning moment for me.
was I kind of called him out on it. And was like, I called him out. I needed to have called him up. But he walked in one morning and was like, so, hey, how was your weekend? And go dogs, man, what a game. I was like, yeah, I know. He's like, so, how was it? And I'm like, okay, what do you need? Because I know you're sitting here asking me these questions because you need something.
I don't even remember how he responded.
But I believe he came back around and said, Macy, I wanna ask you a question about this from your coaching perspective. I'm trying. And it's not natural for me. But when I try, you gotta give me some credit and you gotta trust that it might not feel authentic to you, but it was an authentic intentionality. It might get better. So we have to be really careful that when someone might,
drive with core values and people and they come in real punchy and we need to do this, this and this and this and we turn around look at them and go, what's wrong with you? Well, what if they're trying to intentionally show up how they think you want them to react? You know, it's doing to others as they would want done to them. So we have to be careful that whatever comes natural to us and unnatural to someone else, give them grace.
Well, and I hear you saying just because care doesn't come naturally to you doesn't give you a free pass not to implement it. A hundred percent. Yeah. I had a leader tell me once, I'm so sorry. I didn't give you mercy. I'm just not good at it. And I was like, well, you're not exempt. Right. Find it and figure it out. Yeah. It's intentional. Yeah. Versus the fifth code celebrate. And I think we
We don't do a great job of this either. No, I think of all of the codes, this is the worst for us as humans. ⁓ We work and work and work and work and work towards a goal. And then we make that goal. It's like, yay team, onto the next thing. And if there's even a yay team. Yes. Even if there's that, I try to start every single one of my coaching sessions with teams, with my friends.
It's my last episode, I talked about what's my win at 5.30 every day, my alarm goes off. That's my celebration of the day. Just a quick moment to think about that. I start my meetings with, I need to see everyone gets to celebrate. Tell me something great that's happened since the last time I was here. It can be personal, it can be professional. We're going to celebrate. So intentionality around celebration, it takes a lot.
Because if you've worked on a live event or you've worked towards a goal for four months, six months, and then you load it out or the goal is reached and you move on, what do you actually do to be overly intentional with celebration? So critique, collaborate, clarify, care, and celebrate. If you took those five codes and you had them in your back pocket, like you said,
you will see transformation happening when you give that code before you talk. Now you don't have to robotically go in there and hey, I'm going to critique. No, but it would be an interesting, and this is what I did for a while, my agendas for my one-on-ones with my team became the communication code. we would.
begin with celebrate. And sometimes there might not be anything in the critique. The critique one is the one that scares everybody. And sometimes there might not be any critique. And so it's fine to skip over that. But that just helped keep the codes in front of us. They also could come with the communication code in mind. So they might be coming with a critique of me as a leader. And when we got into critique, I knew if I'm going to be intentional.
I gotta have my thicker skin on and I gotta not take this personally because I want to be a great leader. But it gives them freedom. It also gives me something to be holding people accountable to. Something that isn't just nebulous and we should just all be people who are sweet. And it's like, wait a second, that doesn't actually work when we're missing deadlines or we need to talk about going over budget or something like that. The other thing I would say, the importance of celebration.
Not only are we not good at that in a corporate or business perspective, but a lot of us aren't good about it personally. 100%. And so having a mindset where we know I'm going to be asked to celebrate when I get in my one-on-one with Macy or when I get on this team call or this coaching moment makes us be on the lookout for the things that are.
worth celebrating in our lives. And that's just a personal application. But I find that if I'm looking for it, I'll find it. Because we find what we're looking for. If I'm only looking for what went wrong so I can fix it or improve it, and I'm a continuous improver, it's very rare that I'm like, that is good enough. It just doesn't usually happen with me. But if I'm putting the same amount of energy into finding something to celebrate, not making it up.
but just paying attention to all the good that's already happening. It's going to impact my wellbeing, my state of mind, my emotional health and maturity. So it isn't just, you guys should do this at work. Communication code, like Macy used the marriage example, it works in relational equity, works at work, it works in the grocery store if you know how to celebrate well. I even think about Jeremy who wrote the communication code.
And I love this that they do it and I would love to do it if I had the space for it. But inviting friends, couple friends, to come over for a harvest celebration dinner or a spring celebration dinner. And they have a big, let's dine around the table and let's celebrate something in our lives. Or if you're out there and you have children, the intentionality of conversation around the table, when you think about the communication code today,
We are more connected than we have ever been in the history of the world. Let's think about all the ways we can connect. We've got email, we've got cell phone, we've got the World Wide Web, we've got Snapchat, we've got Instagram, we've got TikTok, Twitter. I mean, I'm older, so I'm sure the kids could tell me all the other things. Yet, we're more disconnected than ever. are so much more disconnected than ever. And so with this code,
And when we think about it, when we're intentional and we invite, when your kids come home from college, like sit them around a table and say, hey, let's all eat, but everybody go around and celebrate something that's happened to you, your friends, school, whatever you want to. Husband and wives that maybe you're an empty nester and you've got to try to figure out how to redate each other. Why don't you start by each dinner, let's celebrate something that happened today. ⁓
The code itself and all of these tools, can end up telling, don't write celebrate, I write win. Tell me what was a win for you. Same thing. The code's a concept. Once you get it in your mind and you have the image and the picture, the visual, you start using it just naturally. It becomes your leadership language. Yeah, so good. Well, this week we encourage you.
to find a way to implement even just one of those five Cs of the communication code, share it with somebody, share it with your spouse, share it with a college-aged child, share it at work, and see if you can ⁓ recognize the ways that it helps break down some of the communication barriers that you experience as a leader. I hope these tools are helpful. I believe that they create for us
a way to lead like we mean it and really show up well.