Christian Napier 00:14 - 00:25 Well, good morning, everyone. Welcome to Teamwork, A Better Way. I'm Christian Napier, and I'm joined by my wizard behind the curtain, my confidant, my best friend, Spencer Horne. Spencer Horn 00:25 - 00:30 Spencer, how are you? Oh my goodness. Oh, I feel so special today. Christian, thank you. Spencer Horn 00:30 - 00:42 Good to be with you. Love having you on the show. And I know our guest will, too, even. We're just hooking up right now, and I'm so excited for our conversation today. Spencer Horn 00:42 - 00:44 Can't wait to go. Christian Napier 00:45 - 00:51 Well, let's not delay it any further then. Why don't you go ahead and do the introductions? Super excited to meet our new guest today. Spencer Horn 00:51 - 01:08 Yes, today, Christian, we have Danielle Jolie Bennett. And I want to go with the long bio. Sorry, Danielle, we got to put you on there. put you on the screen here so people can get to know you. Spencer Horn 01:08 - 01:35 She is the CEO of Radiant Legacy Collective. She's an author, speaker, and founder of multi-brand strategic architecture platform serving entrepreneurs. specializing with franchise professionals, executives, and federal-facing clients. A service-disabled U.S. Navy veteran with more than two decades of leadership across military operations, aerospace. Spencer Horn 01:36 - 01:49 This is exciting, Christian. I mean, think about it. I mean, this is so great, this experience. and enterprise environments, and she's known for turning pressure into performance and complexity into clarity. Spencer Horn 01:49 - 02:23 Her experience spans mission-critical operations, large-scale defense programs, program recovery, franchise business ownership, business transformation, leadership development. And I love that she has taken all of this experience and she's put it together into what she calls the leadership voltage framework and taking these factors such as clarity and alignment and resilience and making them measurable. I can't wait to hear how you do that, Danielle. And so that you can really make them more manageable with inside organizations. Spencer Horn 02:24 - 02:55 and her work bridges the gap between strategic leadership theory, real-world organization performance. I even think she has a PMP, which for the project managers who listen to this are gonna love that. We have a lot of them, Danielle, who listen. And that's just giving her a repeatable system for stabilizing teams, because some teams feel in the chaotic world right now that we have, the Bonnie world that we have, not even VUCA anymore, it's just, it is, It is pretty crazy out there, they need stabilizing. Spencer Horn 02:55 - 03:20 And scaling impact and leading with integrity under pressure, so, so, so important. And she's been doing more than consulting work. She works with executive round tables, masterclasses, media appearances. She's got all this work that she's doing to really help executives create clarity and chaos and really help leaders rediscover their authority and influence. Spencer Horn 03:20 - 03:39 And I love this, especially from this military perspective. I think the whole idea of hard skills and soft skills, Daniel, didn't that even come from the military? It did, yes. Yeah, and so she's teaching soft power for hard systems, and I like that take on it. Spencer Horn 03:39 - 03:52 And so we're going to learn a little bit about that. But she's developed this body of work that includes leadership voltage. And these are published works, Christian. Leadership Voltage, Profit Under Fire, Grace Through Fire. Spencer Horn 03:53 - 04:11 And she's got a new book coming out that is currently in progress. Danielle's got a new book across every platform and her voice should reflect strategic authority, operational credibility, human depth, and courageous execution. That's a bio. I love that so much. Spencer Horn 04:11 - 04:14 Thank you for being patient and letting me share that. Welcome, Danielle. Danielle Bennett 04:16 - 04:27 Yeah, I appreciate it. I actually have to let other people read that because I don't believe it when I read it. So but it sounds great when it comes from you. So here we are. Danielle Bennett 04:27 - 04:33 Right. I mean, and, you know, I came in real hot to this meeting. So I appreciate your patient patience. But I think that's a lot of what we do. Danielle Bennett 04:33 - 04:56 Right. We don't you know, Brene Brown called this this lock through in her new her latest book, you know, that lock through time. But when you're at work and you're moving from one one to another to another, you don't always get that lock through time and you have to have something that resets you while you're frantically putting yourself onto camera so that you can have the interview and not ruin the time that we promised we would be at. Danielle Bennett 04:56 - 05:04 So that was something that I was extremely excited to do here today. So I appreciate your patience and thank you for having me. Spencer Horn 05:04 - 05:09 I think we're glad to have you. Christian and I both understand that dynamic, don't we Christian? Christian Napier 05:10 - 05:12 All too well, yeah, of course. Spencer Horn 05:13 - 05:31 So would you start us off, Danielle, and explain, just give us a little bit of history, I mean, from the story of being in the Navy and working on some of these, I mean, submarine programs and how that led to what you're doing today. Just give us your backstory, if you will. Danielle Bennett 05:32 - 05:42 Yeah, for sure. I mean, I actually started coaching when I was like 14 years old and I had no idea what I was doing. Right. And I think we all start when, you know, at some point, you know, I was coaching a soccer team. Danielle Bennett 05:43 - 05:49 I wanted them to be at my level at that point. Right. I didn't know what that, I didn't know I was going to fall in love with leadership at that moment. Right. Danielle Bennett 05:50 - 06:01 Because I thought leadership was telling somebody what to do, when to do it, how to do it. And everything was going to be good. You know, 14, you're like, Hey, I, I, I've been practicing for like 10 years. You should be able to do this. Danielle Bennett 06:01 - 06:19 And then you move into, I left small school, reality hit you in the face, right? I went to UW Platteville, found myself kind of veering off my path, joined the Navy. That's where everything kind of changed for me, because they developed leaders from the very beginning, from the bottom. and the top, right? Danielle Bennett 06:19 - 06:53 We want to see everybody have the leadership authority, which is where the soft power for hard systems really comes into play. Because we understand rank, and we understand, okay, so if you're on the quote, unquote, I don't like this, but top of an organization, right? When you say something, the weight of your words is impactful. We need to make sure that at the bottom or at every rank within that organization, that our words are just as weighted and we understand so that we can move forward. Danielle Bennett 06:53 - 07:01 So that's kind of some of the work that I've been working on. So when I walk out, I don't have to be in an authoritative mode. Everybody already knows I'm in charge. They know I'm a program manager. Danielle Bennett 07:01 - 07:25 They know I'm the boss of the business. They know that my job is to lead, but I have to fill in the gaps of that leadership part that we so often lead out of leave out of team dynamics, we leave it out of executive leadership, we leave it out of these places, and then we find ourselves in a new type of experience. Now no longer is, I'm in charge, do what I say, working. Danielle Bennett 07:26 - 07:46 And I feel in now that we're moving there. So in 2025, you know, well, I would say after I got out of the Navy, so I did a lot of things in the Navy, went from enlisted to officer transitioned out, I got medically retired after my fifth, fifth and final deployment. Um, and that was that we could talk all, all day about that. So we won't. Danielle Bennett 07:46 - 08:02 So then we, when, when, when we, when we look at, okay, so I came out, now I had nothing. I didn't know it was kind of like coming out, um, a breakup that was almost as bad as my divorce. Um, so then, so then now that the Navy is no longer part of who I am. Okay. Danielle Bennett 08:02 - 08:23 When, and then I started, uh, program managing. And it was kind of a lot like the same, right? I was leading a dynamic team across multiple divisions and a platform to one goal. And throughout that, I kept asking my team, especially the leaders on my team, how are we consistently meeting and achieving our goals while nobody else in this organization can? Danielle Bennett 08:24 - 08:38 Because I wanted to be able to help and push forward where we are, right? Is it that we have better meetings? Is it that we are more autonomous? Is it that we're pushing authority to where it should be? Danielle Bennett 08:39 - 08:58 What are the factors? Well, we really weren't able to explain it, but my teams continue to develop and grow. And that's what, to me, the real measure of a team is not how fast I can perform and how much money I can provide you, but how fast can I perform? How much money can we actually make? Danielle Bennett 08:58 - 09:09 is our team coming with us. And that's the most important part. So when you get to the top, you want your whole team to be there with you. So that's where I started really kind of pushing all this together. Danielle Bennett 09:09 - 09:37 2025, kind of fast forward about five, six years. In 2025, I underwent some major trauma within my family, within my own life, and started writing this, writing down, what is it truly that has caused um, our teams to grow in different ways. Clarity is a huge part of that. Um, the try to balance that I introduced in, in my book is another part of that. Danielle Bennett 09:38 - 09:53 Um, and then, and then moving forward kind of, uh, with momentum. So one of the things I studied while I was writing my book and it was my favorite thing. So I like to talk about is kinematics, right? The forward motion of, uh, or the forward movement of motion. Danielle Bennett 09:53 - 10:10 I am not an engineer. So any engineers that listen to this, you know, I'm sure I got that wrong, but. Um, as, as we, you know, do these things, that's, that's kind of where we're at. So, um, fast forward, you start to see, um, you know, that Dick, I don't want to call it dictator, but I don't have a better word for it right now. Danielle Bennett 10:11 - 10:27 So, you know, when you have that top down leader that just says, do what I say, not what I do, you stagnate your organization fairly quickly. So, uh, introducing something that we can do, uh, without that. Well, started studying emotional intelligence. So. Danielle Bennett 10:27 - 10:39 Well, what do we not see? No bridge. So the work we're doing right now is bridging the gap between that operational performance and the emotional intelligence so that we can bridge the gap and measure that in real time. Spencer Horn 10:41 - 10:58 I love that idea of kinematics, right? It seems like it's a lot easier to move directions when you're actually moving forward, because then you can shift and make adjustments. Even small adjustments can have great outcomes. I love the questions, what is enabling us to succeed? Spencer Horn 10:58 - 11:08 Sometimes, you know, Christian, we succeed in spite of ourselves, right? But how do you replicate that? How do you sustain that? It's like, okay, what did we do that worked, right? Spencer Horn 11:08 - 11:11 And I think that's such an important question. Christian Napier 11:14 - 11:46 And if I might kind of tack on a question of my own here, Daniel, one of the things I found really interesting when you were explaining it is that post-military service, you found yourself in an organization and you looked around and said, Why is my team excelling while others are not? A lot of people get in a situation where they feel like, I can't succeed here because the organization does this or that, or doesn't do this or that. And so I'm curious if you can just kind of elaborate on this experience a little bit to say. Christian Napier 11:47 - 12:10 You know, none of us probably work in the ideal organization. If it was ideal, it'd be fantastic, but we all face challenges. And so I'm really curious just to, if you could just kind of, you know, expand on your, on that particular experience a little bit, talk about how you were able to build a team that could succeed even in an organization where by and large other teams are failing. Because a lot of people feel disempowered. Christian Napier 12:10 - 12:24 It's like, the culture here is terrible, blah, blah, blah. I can't make this work. And yet you found a way to do it. So I'm just curious if you could share with us a little bit how you made that happen. Danielle Bennett 12:24 - 12:33 I would love to, Christian. That's a great question. Because for a long time, I wasn't able to pin down what it was. But the very first thing we did is we gave ourselves an identity. Danielle Bennett 12:33 - 12:47 And then what we did is we redefined what failure looks like within our teams. So what does failure actually look like? What does it mean? So I walk into teams typically that are struggling, um, or programs that are struggling. Danielle Bennett 12:47 - 13:16 They're, they're, um, they're no longer in the black where they're projecting an ETC or estimate to complete that no longer works. And so what I've been able, or what I've been trying to do and make sure that we're able to do that is. Is find, find a new relationship with failure for one, and then establish what it is that you do on this team. I don't, don't really want to be making all the decisions. Danielle Bennett 13:16 - 13:38 So pushing those decision pieces back down to where they go. And that was one of the things that we found was replicable. You know, when I, when I wrote leadership voltage, I was, I was trying to find this bridge, this gap between Um, you know, they, the Brene Browns of the world who I mentioned earlier, and, you know, the Mel Robbins and the Angela Duckworth or, or Cameron Ains, um, of the world. Danielle Bennett 13:39 - 13:59 Uh, so I, you know, I was doing a lot of study where's that bridge and finding that we work with humans every day. So there's going to be places where we're going to have to have to say, okay, we work with you in this specific space. We need you to, um, now. or excuse me, let me restate what I'm trying to get at. Danielle Bennett 13:59 - 14:19 So if I have a team, I walk in and I want the contracts team to answer questions about contracts. I want the program team to answer the programmatic questions. I want the financial team to answer the financial questions. And that's where you start looking at team dynamics. Danielle Bennett 14:20 - 14:54 And once you get into team dynamics, it's really about putting the right people on your team so that you can move momentum forward quickly. And once you can build momentum in a positive direction, that's where I start to see a major shift, not just in our mindset, but in our team dynamic, but also in the results we have. And finally, we just have to remove can't from our language. And I don't think that word specifically has any place in leadership. Spencer Horn 14:55 - 15:22 Well, I love what you're doing with the, really the sharing, you know, delegating the decision-making is really important. You know, you talked earlier, Danielle, about this idea of the command and control leader, right, who takes on so much. Think about what happens when you have a leader like that. You're not sharing People think of delegation as just giving tasks away. Spencer Horn 15:23 - 15:50 But when you share the ability to make decisions, now you create ownership throughout the entire organization. And so, as you were talking about earlier, what's our relationship with failure? Well, if it's just the command and control environment, our relationship is the boss's fault. Instead of saying, I have ownership, I have responsibility, that changes it. Spencer Horn 15:50 - 16:14 And then, as you say, if you can say, we don't say can't. Well, if it's responsibility that I'm confident in, whether it's the financial area or the or the ordering, then I can succeed at that. And you start teaching them this idea of ownership that then can grow as they grow through the organization. And I love that. Danielle Bennett 16:15 - 16:25 Would you... I don't know. Can I just real quick state one thing there? I don't know if it's so much teaching as it is unlocking, right? Danielle Bennett 16:26 - 16:33 We all have the capability. We all show up to work wanting to do the right thing. We want to move our mission forward. We want to be better. Danielle Bennett 16:33 - 16:49 We want to do things. I don't think anybody gets out of bed while they're making their bed in the morning and says, I am going to do my absolute worst today, right? So making the space for our teams to do that, I think, is the biggest key. Spencer Horn 16:50 - 16:54 Yeah. So how do you unlock? What is your process to do that? Danielle Bennett 16:56 - 17:15 Oh, yeah. So it depends on the team dynamic, right? So the very first thing we're going to do is we're going to, if you haven't done one, we're going to run a disc, a disc assessment across your team to get a understanding, a little understanding of where you're at from a, how do I communicate with you? Um, and then I'm going to run the leadership voltage index. Danielle Bennett 17:15 - 17:37 It's going to give me an understanding of, of where, where you are leaking some of that energy, um, that could be pushed back in. And intuitively I was doing that before I came out with a leadership voltage and the leadership voltage index. Now we can measure that. Not only can we measure it in real time, we're starting to work, or we have been, I have been working with AI for a long time. Danielle Bennett 17:37 - 17:55 I developed a system that actually, while you're inputting a command can, can look at where you are in that relationship piece of, of the work. So that's how we're able to start to cross over, but really we start with the disc assessment, which I really am very much in love with. Spencer Horn 17:57 - 18:05 Where do we leak energy? Give us some, some real life examples. How does that show up where, where a team and individuals are leaking energy? Danielle Bennett 18:07 - 18:32 Well, have you ever been in a daily standup and, and you know, you think that you said something very clear, Hey, today we have to get this done because it's, it's very important. You walk into that meeting thinking that you gave the right direction or at the right time, and that everybody understood because you gave it to, what was it, maybe five people? And then you maybe followed up with an email. So where are we leaking that energy? Danielle Bennett 18:33 - 18:56 Well, me as the person receiving that doesn't agree with this decision because it's actually gonna be opposite. You made a decision as a leader that is actually taking away from the work that we're doing right now or something in that nature. That is a common one that I have. Another common one is I say that, hey, by the end of the day, you need to give me that report. Danielle Bennett 18:56 - 19:15 You send that report to me and then I say, well, this isn't what I wanted because all I gave you was a very small snippet of what I truly wanted because I know what the answer is, but you didn't. Right. So I think that's another place. Um, and I've been working within matrix organizations for a long time, right? Danielle Bennett 19:15 - 19:55 So as a senior program manager or as a product line owner, I don't own the, the quote unquote, the responsibilities of everybody that works on my team that comes from the management. So when you don't get on the same page there, you're putting something into a program or a project, you think you have all the resources, it looks good on paper, and then we don't follow up. I don't know how many times we've seen that. So when you don't follow up, now you have a perfect schedule that is very written very perfectly for the perfect executive who thinks that everything should be perfect in life, but it's not, right? Danielle Bennett 19:55 - 20:11 I hit road construction on the way to work today. I got a meeting that was scheduled over top of something because I have a 0% yield in my first rate production, which is terrible, right? I have to re move. So we're leaking energy in a lot of different places or the voltage that I'm saying. Danielle Bennett 20:12 - 20:28 And if we can shore up or that's a Navy term, right? Kind of like stop the leaking, if we can shore that up, then we can refocus the energy to the right place and start to build the momentum that we really need. Christian Napier 20:28 - 20:36 All right. Can I come back to something that you mentioned here? You mentioned the leadership voltage index. Well, that's a very interesting sounding thing. Christian Napier 20:37 - 20:51 So can you describe for us in kind of lay terms, what is this leadership voltage index, what does it intend to measure? Uh, and how does it impact the performance of an organization? Danielle Bennett 20:52 - 21:04 Yeah, absolutely. So this is something within my book that I already, or that I have introduced called the triadic balance. The triadic balance comes from, um, three energies that are what I call energies. Okay. Danielle Bennett 21:04 - 21:37 You call it whatever you want, but I'm calling them energies because it's easier for me to explain, uh, of shadow ash and gray. So you have your fire, your protective energy, you have your shame spirals, the email that you may not send because you're afraid of what it will look like. And then you have grace, which is our integrator, which is able to do that. So what we can do is we can measure these very simple responses And then across an email, across a conversation, across a meeting, we've been able to measure this. Danielle Bennett 21:37 - 22:15 The leadership voltage index comes from a series of questions that track across each of these energies, which puts you into a position where you know on um, what I call the four, four planes of leadership, uh, strategic, operational, emotional, and relational, um, planes of leadership, you know, where you are from, from MIA Ash forward leader Ash forward being, um, if I'm not careful, I'll burn everything down. Right. We see that a lot in the operation side of things, maybe not so much strategic, uh, when we, when we forget this. Danielle Bennett 22:15 - 22:32 So, um, we've given it an assessment. that we have our teams take. And when the team, the results of that are mapped across the four planes. And then I know how to communicate with you because I've already done a disk. Danielle Bennett 22:33 - 23:05 And what we're measuring is, can I sustain superior performance over a long period of time across this team? So do I remember that they're human? Do I know that there are things that are gonna give, Do I, am I, am I measuring for, for instance, in a project, am I measuring for when I get to summer seasonality, a lot of, a lot of teams slow down into the summer. Can I, can I find a way to increase that so that that's where we're at with the leadership voltage index. Danielle Bennett 23:05 - 23:14 We're giving this every six weeks. Um, and we're working towards being able to measure this just across your interactions on a day to day basis. Spencer Horn 23:16 - 23:24 You know, you've led high-pressure military and enterprise environments, Daniel. What actually breaks teams under pressure? Danielle Bennett 23:28 - 23:59 Communication flow. Number one, in my experience across all, and I'm talking high-stakes drills, I'm talking high-stakes situations where you're actually, so you drill a situation, the very first thing that happens is communication breaks down within that chaos. there is nowhere to go with the communication or there's no one who's supposed to be there to receive it. Um, or another one is I didn't give you enough authority to make the decision that you need to make in order to move the project forward. Danielle Bennett 23:59 - 24:28 Um, but 100% I see the, in my experience is communication breaks down in chaos and, and, and then we don't, we're not able to document that. and then learn from it, right? So we have these every day, and we're not learning from them every day, because we don't have a way to measure it across all the teams in each location. We can measure how you communicate. Danielle Bennett 24:28 - 24:58 We can measure how you accept leadership. We can look at the Myers-Briggs, and we can say, oh, yeah, this person is, for example, INTJ, or this person is a DI in the DISC profile. That's great, where's that gonna take me and how does that lead me dynamically while my program is in process? And I need to be able to not only balance my team, but I need to balance the effectiveness of what I'm doing. Danielle Bennett 24:59 - 25:02 And that's where I see these breakdown the most. Spencer Horn 25:02 - 25:14 And so in those conditions, it seems like leaders, instead of getting clear, just often double down on pushing harder. And what's the impact of that? Danielle Bennett 25:16 - 25:21 Burnout. It's very, very quick. Right. Um, you know, and, and you're going to get it for a while. Danielle Bennett 25:21 - 25:30 People will pretend they'll put a smiley face on though. They'll come to work. Um, but in the background, um, they're doing as little as possible. I promise they're not doing as much as they could. Danielle Bennett 25:30 - 25:50 We're not talking about your 20, you know, your top 20 or top 10 performers, right? We're talking about everyone else that's in the middle of this 80%. that we're trying to lift. If we lift the middle, if we can lift the middle, we get a huge return on investment by doing a small amount of work, which is just getting to know the people that are working there. Danielle Bennett 25:50 - 26:11 Our top 20, in my experience, and this doesn't come from an actual study, it comes from my experience, the top 20 is going to be the top 20%. They're going to be your top 20 performers. They live, they love, they just live in this space that they're in. But the rest of the team comes to work to get a paycheck. Danielle Bennett 26:12 - 26:22 And we need to be able to reduce the workflow for that and boost that part of our team. I hope I'm answering your question. I went the right direction here. Spencer Horn 26:23 - 26:55 Yeah, and so what I'd love for you to share, if you can, is, I mean, the idea is if we're leaking voltage, right, obviously we push harder, we're getting burnout, when we can actually conserve that energy, so it's not about working harder, it's about getting clearer, it's about getting aligned as you talk about. Can you share an example of how you've applied this process in a real life scenario and how that's worked? I mean, this is what our listeners like, hey, does it work? Spencer Horn 26:55 - 27:02 Can we prevent burnout? Can we measure this and change and get a result? Can life get better? Danielle Bennett 27:03 - 27:21 We've all had, so we've had these customers, right? We've had these customers who, put us on that, Hey, if you don't get this right this time, we're not going to work with you. So I'm going to give you a real life example. Um, I had, and I'm not going to use, um, names of, of, of that, but I'm going to give you a real life example here. Danielle Bennett 27:22 - 27:45 Um, back right before COVID, I was handed a project, um, that was with a group. Um, there's three small projects within this in a, with, with a, um, a customer that, has not, has, has not worked with us for 10 years. Okay. So it's been 10 years since they've worked with us because of how our interactions went last time. Danielle Bennett 27:45 - 28:15 In this case, they're being forced because by the prime contractor to find competition. So they're helping us develop this competition. The, what we did when we walked in here is we immediately established Um, respectful, uh, relationships within that team, because everybody that was on that team, we all walked into that first meeting, um, with. With this thing, whatever this is looming over our heads. Danielle Bennett 28:15 - 28:28 Right. Um, and then what we did is we just asked, how can we help make sure that we communicate with you the best? And then we put that right into our plan and our process. And then. Danielle Bennett 28:28 - 28:50 When we had a deviation from that, or even in the submarine world, we call this a tripwire, right? When I was about to hit something, we would hit that, let's say a week in advance. We would know what is going on. And we would clearly let our customer know, hey, I'm behind on this milestone this week. Danielle Bennett 28:50 - 29:00 This is what I'm doing to get better. And it turned out that for this specific customer, that's really all they wanted. They wanted the communication. They felt like we were just in a vacuum, right? Danielle Bennett 29:00 - 29:30 They paid all this money for a product and they were sitting in this uncertainty and that's how we were able to do that. Within the team, within the team dynamic, we established that very clearly as well. The project engineer worked very closely with the project engineers on that company because I don't need to have all the answers. I'm only going to have 5% of the information, but the project engineer is going to have 50 to 80% of the information when talking to the project engineer on the other team. Danielle Bennett 29:30 - 29:58 So we aligned the teams. We aligned ourselves and we aligned expectations and we created a line of communication that went up and down the customer. would come to us and let us know when they had an issue and we would go to them and we would work on it when we had an issue with them. We got to a point where the customer was working with us to write the statement of work because we wanted to make sure it was that clear. Danielle Bennett 29:58 - 30:14 When you can get your customer to come to you and ask you how to write the statement of work for a program that they're going to put out, that's where you really want to be because this is a long-term relationship now. That's just one example. I have hundreds. I mean, I could talk all day on this. Christian Napier 30:16 - 30:39 I love it. I want to come back to the 80% just collecting a paycheck thing. I think that's a real thing. And it seems to me, based on what you're saying, that one of the responsibilities we have as leaders with this group of 80% is at least understanding what they're collecting a paycheck for. Christian Napier 30:40 - 31:17 Like, okay, well, yeah, I come in, I clock in and I clock out, I do my job, maybe I do the minimum required. But what is it that is motivating me to take that particular strategy or direction? Are there things going on at home that might be difficult that are applying a lot of pressure on me and I just don't have the mental bandwidth or energy, or have things happened in my job where maybe I've applied for two or three different jobs in the company, and I haven't even got it in a sniff of an interview. Christian Napier 31:17 - 31:47 And so I start to wonder to myself, well, why should I even try? Because when I try to take an initiative and I try to expand my my skills or responsibilities, I just get shot down. So I'm curious, you know, from your perspective, putting the leadership hat on, you know, what do you think about understanding why the 80% are acting the way that they're acting so that we can take appropriate measures to help them feel like, hey, you're part of something that ultimately is bigger than yourself? Danielle Bennett 31:49 - 32:15 Oh, I love this question, Christian, because this is the messy middle that I talk about so much. this messy middle of a place where either you're forgotten or you're not talked to, or you're always doing something wrong, right? When I go down to a production floor or a team floor, I'm rarely talking about work, right? You have a manager for that, you have somebody. Danielle Bennett 32:16 - 32:31 I wanna know how you feel. I wanna know if there's anything that I can do to help you do your job better. And I'm going to listen to every single one of those. Um, and trying to make that rounds, like for me, I start Tuesday at nine, right. Danielle Bennett 32:32 - 32:50 Um, and in the summer here, it's shifting over just to Wednesdays because I have a new program, but I want to walk around. I want to talk to you. I might, I might sometimes talk, but when you ask about activating the middle, or that's what we're talking about, activating that middle. Um, not everybody loves to work just to work. Danielle Bennett 32:50 - 33:17 And we, when we understand that, And they might be a single mom or a single dad, divorced, whatever the case is. They might, they might be down to one car. I'll happily give you a ride to work, help you find a place that you need to do so that you can come in and give your a hundred percent. Um, because if I can get 80% of you all five days in that middle, I already know that I'm going to increase productivity that week. Danielle Bennett 33:17 - 33:27 Um, some of the things that I've done. I'm final push for that. I brought in, you know, lunch every day for three weeks straight. You know, as the leader, you have to be there too. Danielle Bennett 33:29 - 33:42 You have to show up. That's kind of like, that's kind of like a requirement. You have to show up. And then on top of, on top of just being in that space, you, you, you also have to really actually care. Danielle Bennett 33:42 - 33:50 I cannot go to that person and ask them about their family. And then that's it. I have to go one or two questions deeper. Right. Danielle Bennett 33:50 - 33:56 Hey, their daughter's graduating. What's her name? You know, what school is she going to? Can I send a card? Danielle Bennett 33:57 - 34:04 Right. Is there something I can do? And I really got that. This was it. Danielle Bennett 34:04 - 34:27 Colonel Hackworth wrote this book about face. And it's a story about how he went from, you know, gung ho army person into, you know, the Vietnam War is a really good transition, but he talks about how to build teams in there. And I've taken some of that. First of all, if you can eliminate the middle, that's even better. Danielle Bennett 34:27 - 34:42 If everybody's a leader on your team, start with that. Give them an identity. Let them know, hey, I might be making one piece of a widget, but this widget goes on an airplane. So we're aircraft manufacturers. Danielle Bennett 34:42 - 34:53 Find the end goal. Give them something to relate to. Um, give them, give them a place to show up and say, Hey, I worked on that. That's going to be in this. Danielle Bennett 34:53 - 35:13 That's going to be out in the world for a long time. I think that's, that's one of the, the most things we can do is just walk down and connect because how many times you go to work, you do your job, or even, even if you're, if you're like me, sometimes you sit, you're stuck at your desk on a meeting back to back to back to back to back. So. Danielle Bennett 35:14 - 35:36 If you don't make time for that. Um, and I put it right into my schedule, but just getting to know your team, getting to know the people that, um, that are pushing this forward. That's going to be our first thing because a, a very good leader, I think the differentiator between a very good leader and a non very good leader is just that is how do I connect with my team? Spencer Horn 35:37 - 35:42 Is this what you mean by the human centered leader or system? Danielle Bennett 35:43 - 35:47 Yeah. Yes, absolutely. 100%. Find the human first, right? Danielle Bennett 35:47 - 36:02 See them as a person before you see them as a tool or a transaction or whatever it is that you have bucketized your right resource. I don't even like to use the word resources. I like to use team members. Spencer Horn 36:03 - 36:31 Some people even use like FTEs. Yeah. How many FTEs or how many units of labor is it going to take to create the widgets? So how do you balance then, as a leader, these hard metrics, the execution output, with that soft power, with those people skills and trust, behavior, all of that? Spencer Horn 36:32 - 36:44 How do you balance that? Because some people are listening, well, you know what? I pay you, that's your reward. And like you said, I mean, not everybody just goes to work because they want to work. Spencer Horn 36:46 - 36:58 I mean, some of them are looking for meaning in their lives. Some of them are there because they have to be there. Some of them are there, I mean, for so many reasons. They just don't wanna go crazy at home. Spencer Horn 36:58 - 37:04 So we get to provide a place for them all. How do you balance that though? Danielle Bennett 37:05 - 37:38 Well, that's why leadership is lonely, right? Because I mean, that's our job is to connect with the people that are working for us and, and find the ways and you tap into what they do best. I don't know how else, um, for me, it just seems like intuitive. Um, and I don't, I don't mean it to come off condescending by any means, but when you can, I'm not saying that we sit here and don't care about performance and, and, Uh, what I'm saying is we care about performance and people at the same time. Danielle Bennett 37:39 - 38:06 How do you balance that? Well, you, you treat it like it's a requirement, like it's a deliverable, like it's something that is part of what we're doing. And I learned this when I became the, um, as a, it was an availability coordinator, uh, when we were in the Pearl Harbor Naval shipyard, um, as a supply core officer. I would, that's not a normal job that, you know, a captain is going to give, um, to their Lieutenant. Danielle Bennett 38:06 - 38:24 And at that point, um, I had to figure that out myself. Okay. So now we have, we have this, we have this, you know, war machine that has to get out, but I also have people's lives that I have to balance with. Um, and I, and I think you really do that by, by giving authority at the right level. Danielle Bennett 38:24 - 38:29 And yes, it's hard. I'm going to be wrong. Sometimes you're just like, okay, you're sitting there. You want to check in, but you don't. Danielle Bennett 38:29 - 39:12 It's kind of like growing with your kids in some instances. So the way that I have been able to sustain this is because I am not managing every task within the project, the team is able to take ownership. And once we have ownership and buy-in, that's when we really start to see the time that comes off But really, for me, it's very much about intentionally scheduling the time within your day to connect with your team in order to build them and understand where they're going. Christian Napier 39:23 - 39:34 We didn't have a chance to warn you that when you say something that Spencer finds quite impactful, he'll punctuate it with a sounder. So that's what that was. Danielle Bennett 39:34 - 39:36 Oh, well, that took way too long. Christian Napier 39:38 - 39:46 Well, I think we were a little hesitant because, like, well, we didn't get a chance to talk about the sounder. But then Spencer just reflexively was like, oh, I'm pushing the button anyway. That's right. Danielle Bennett 39:48 - 39:58 That's right. When we had our pre-interview for this, right, I thought we connected fairly well. because of where we are. And I just wanna be very clear. Danielle Bennett 39:58 - 40:15 I think the difference between the team dynamics, because they're there, and also the individual dynamics is, as leaders, we have to know how we show up, because how we show up motivates our team to show up, and how our team shows up impacts the final goal. Spencer Horn 40:16 - 40:39 How do you, if you're leading a team, how do you identify when there's misalignment? What shows up when the team is not aligned? This sounds like an obvious question, but I mean, I think it's important to, you know, clarity as you've been talking about it so much. And I mean, what are the things that are happening? Spencer Horn 40:39 - 40:39 What are people saying? Danielle Bennett 40:41 - 40:51 They're not, they stop talking, right? They move on. It's a matrix. If you're in a matrix organization, this is really simple and really quick to tell. Danielle Bennett 40:51 - 41:13 They start working on other projects, right? You know, you have 50% of their, you have 50% of this team members time and they start working on another project and you're like, oh, so I'm getting 0% of this time. I could say, oh, they just didn't have time or that was my higher priority. Or I could ask them, Hey, were you not working on my, my project? Danielle Bennett 41:13 - 41:24 Because you have a question that needs to be answered that you're that nobody's answering. But for me, a lot of times it was silence or. On the opposite end of that, right? Um, delays, right? Danielle Bennett 41:24 - 41:56 You start to see an impact in, in the program metrics, like, Oh, my now, not every schedule shift is because of this. Let's be very honest. But when, when you're in the middle of something and you don't understand what's going on and you're afraid to tell anybody about it, the schedule shift is twice as much as it should be. And you will take every, every bit of twice as much because you want to be so very certain that you're you're correct, that you're afraid to be 80% accurate or 60% accurate. Danielle Bennett 41:56 - 42:09 60% can move the ball forward to the next person. 80% is almost guaranteed. When we wait for perfection, I think that's another time where I've seen specifically working in a lot of engineering spaces. Spencer Horn 42:10 - 42:33 So what's one thing I as a leader get to stop doing immediately to, I mean, I'm hearing, I mean, one thing is stop waiting for perfection, right? Move forward, even if you have not the whole picture, but what else? I mean, what can I do to stop right now? I mean, just one thing. Danielle Bennett 42:33 - 42:53 Ask. I mean, if you're struggling with one person specifically, one metric specifically, just ask, how can I better communicate with you? You can take a leadership assessment, right? We can get a disc assessment your way right now, and you can find out how your team is communicating. Danielle Bennett 42:53 - 43:12 But I think when you, when you just ask, I think you really get into a better position. We are, we are trained that we have to know every answer all the time. I. If I had to know every answer on all my programs, I wouldn't be able to focus on anything else, right? Spencer Horn 43:12 - 43:24 So stop thinking that you have to have all the answers. Stop thinking that everything you're saying is connecting with everybody. Figure out how they communicate and get their input. Danielle Bennett 43:25 - 43:26 Absolutely. Christian Napier 43:27 - 43:58 Yeah. So my last question kind of comes back to the voltage concept, which I think is quite interesting, because voltage, I guess if you were to say, OK, let's look at water moving through pipes. And I'm not an engineer either, so I could be screwing this up. So any engineer people, my degree is in accounting, so this is an accountant's version of it. Christian Napier 43:59 - 44:20 Voltage is just a measure of pressure, like how much pressure you're pushing through a pipe. And amps is the measure of the current that's actually flowing. And multiply those two, you get watts, which is power. And then you have resistance, which is measured in ohms, which can reduce things. Christian Napier 44:20 - 44:43 And so I'm curious to hear from your perspective Oh yeah, the ohms, you know. using this voltage analogy and approach, which I think is super, super interesting. Where are organizations failing predominantly? Is it in the amount of pressure they're trying to push through the pipe? Christian Napier 44:43 - 44:58 Is it the size of the pipe? Is it the amount of resistance that is impeding things going through? I know it's an imperfect analogy, but I'm just curious if you could kind of expand on it a little bit, because I find it super interesting. Danielle Bennett 44:59 - 45:09 Yeah, I would love to. And I, and I understand, um, the non-engineering version of, of this and you're absolutely right. How much pressure can you throw through a pipe? Um, same thing, right? Danielle Bennett 45:10 - 45:20 If you overload the circuits, you're going to fry the whole team, right? And now you're repairing constantly over and over and you're doing this rework. Resistance in my experience. I love that you said resistance. Danielle Bennett 45:20 - 45:45 Resistance in my experience comes from misunderstanding or misalignment within the team. So it's not, I don't want to do this. I don't understand how this is going to affect me, because that's the very first thing, and the team that I'm responsible for, or my time. So we have to be able to put something in front of these leaders that gives them the clear picture. Danielle Bennett 45:45 - 45:57 And I'll spend the time doing that, right? Spend the time saying, OK. And if you have to do it individually, when I coach my softball team, I have a individualized plan for each of them for a reason. Right. Danielle Bennett 45:57 - 46:26 When I coach leaders, I have an individual plan for each of them for a reason. So in in my experience, it comes from misalignment in the top and all the way down to the bottom and in the Navy. We made it very clear in the military, and this is what I've been able to take with me, or one of the things, very clear from the top to the bottom, what is the goal that we are all trying to achieve together? What do we need to do? Danielle Bennett 46:26 - 46:47 What is the mission accomplished? What does the definition of done look like for this team? And if you can ask, for me, I talk with their janitorial staff about my programs all the time. I talk to anybody at the front desk, HR, all these people have an opportunity to be part of the team. Danielle Bennett 46:47 - 47:13 I invite them to all of my team picnics or team lunches or anything like that, because anybody that is in the organization pulling it forward needs to understand. So first is clarity of mission, right? We have to know what we're doing. And then when you get into that, resistance stage, when you get into that resistance stage, I really just start to individualize the plan for the people. Danielle Bennett 47:14 - 47:35 But in my experience, teams can handle a lot if they're aligned. If there's not uncertainty or even insecurity, if I say that lightly, I know a lot of leaders who are insecure. Um, and I think we all do, right. They're insecure with the decision they make. Danielle Bennett 47:36 - 47:45 So now they micromanage it. Well, we have to allow our teams to fail while still moving forward. So how can we do that? We can feel forward faster. Danielle Bennett 47:45 - 47:57 Um, we can add, you know, we can put, uh, I wouldn't say more resistance, right? We want to get rid of that resistance if we need it down flow, um, somewhere. Sometimes we do need a break. We do need a stopping point. Danielle Bennett 47:57 - 48:19 We do need some resistance. We do need a switch or whatever the case may be. But at the end of the day, when we meet our teams where they are, and we show them that we're human, just like they are, they're gonna move forward with us because they really do believe in the mission. So the number one thing, I don't want my teams just believing in me as a leader. Danielle Bennett 48:19 - 48:24 I want them believing in the mission. I want them to believe in what we're doing. What are we producing? Where is it going? Danielle Bennett 48:24 - 48:35 Whose lives are it saving? That's where I really see it. But most organizations, the breakdown is expectations at the top and understanding at the bottom. Spencer Horn 48:53 - 48:56 Chris, should we end up with our lightning round? Christian Napier 48:57 - 49:02 Oh yeah, I think we needed a lightning round. I mean, we're talking about voltage here. We need a lightning round. Spencer Horn 49:02 - 49:12 Exactly. But maybe before we do that, we want people to be able to reach out to Danielle. Christian Napier 49:14 - 49:24 Yeah, how do we do that? Listeners and viewers, if they're interested in learning more about what you are working on, how you could potentially help their organizations, how do they connect with you? Danielle Bennett 49:25 - 49:47 Absolutely. So, you can connect with me on LinkedIn, Daniel Jolie Bennett, J-O-L-E-I-G-H. Daniel Jolie Bennett, danieljoliebennett.com is also a website where you can connect with me. And if you're really getting into that leadership space, and you really want to watch me do it anyway.com would be a great place to go. Danielle Bennett 49:47 - 49:57 That's going to get you your first disc assessment, and then it's going to help you grow. That's That's my, um, my entry point for, for most leaders. Spencer Horn 49:58 - 50:06 All right. Watch me do it anyway.com. That's my keynote speech. Love it. Danielle Bennett 50:07 - 50:21 I mean, we just get rid of the word. Can't I'm just, I mean, if I could delete that from everybody, I would, it's just so limiting in, in how we run our lives. Um, if somebody else's fear imposed on you. Spencer Horn 50:23 - 50:24 Yeah, I agree. Christian Napier 50:24 - 50:25 Let's get to that. Spencer Horn 50:25 - 50:36 Here we go. Are you ready? Just like one word, short answers, uh, Danielle, just whatever comes to mind. So one word that defines great leadership. Danielle Bennett 50:36 - 50:36 Clarity. Spencer Horn 50:38 - 50:41 Pressure reveals or pressure creates. Danielle Bennett 50:43 - 50:45 Resistance. Spencer Horn 50:46 - 50:51 Most underrated leadership trait. Danielle Bennett 50:51 - 50:58 Ooh. Get this one, I'll come back to that. That's, I like it though. I will just say communication. Danielle Bennett 50:58 - 51:10 You talk about it and I know authenticity came to my mind, but communication's gotta be top notch. Not how I talk to you though. You know, not what I say, but how I say it. Spencer Horn 51:11 - 51:15 How I say it. Clarity or execution, which matters more? Danielle Bennett 51:17 - 51:18 They both matter the same. Spencer Horn 51:20 - 51:21 One habit every leader should build. Danielle Bennett 51:25 - 51:25 Learning. Spencer Horn 51:27 - 51:31 Big mistake leaders make under pressure. Biggest mistake. Danielle Bennett 51:33 - 51:35 Micromanagement. Spencer Horn 51:35 - 51:39 Yeah, pushing harder, right? Soft power or hard systems. Danielle Bennett 51:41 - 51:49 They have to be together. How else do we create effectiveness? They're together. Spencer Horn 51:49 - 51:51 One word that describes high-performing teams. Danielle Bennett 51:55 - 51:59 Oh. Growth. Spencer Horn 52:00 - 52:02 Leadership is learned or earned? Danielle Bennett 52:04 - 52:09 Both. You have to understand it, but you have to earn it as you go. Spencer Horn 52:09 - 52:12 Finish this. Great teams thrive when? Danielle Bennett 52:15 - 52:26 Well, I could say when they have gone through the leadership program at Radiant Legacy, but I won't. Great teams thrive when they're aligned. Christian Napier 52:29 - 52:33 All right. Fair enough. Awesome. We got through the lightning round. Christian Napier 52:34 - 52:58 That was a fantastic conversation, Daniel. We appreciate you spending an hour with us. And Spencer, You know, we had Danielle share her ways to connect, but if people also wanna connect with you, as you've helped people build high-performing teams for many decades, well, I won't say many decades, it might be aging, but for decades, let's say that way. It has been many decades. Christian Napier 52:58 - 53:03 It's okay, I'll own it. What's the best way for them to connect with you, Spencer? Spencer Horn 53:04 - 53:21 You linked in, and Christian, I shaved my hair so they can't see my gray. But if I open the button here, now she can't. How about you, Christian? And same, I know Daniel, doesn't he have great questions? Spencer Horn 53:21 - 53:23 Oh, absolutely. Danielle Bennett 53:23 - 53:24 I do. Spencer Horn 53:24 - 53:41 I do like them. I love working with, he always comes up with the best analogies, and Christian, you're doing so many good things in the world, and going around speaking about technology and your experience, how can people find you to come light their world on fire? Christian Napier 53:42 - 53:47 Oh, wow. Just look me up on LinkedIn. That's a great place. I'm happy to connect with people there. Christian Napier 53:47 - 53:48 Sounds so understated, Daniel. Danielle Bennett 53:48 - 53:55 I just told you, just look me up. Humility is such a big, important part of leadership. Spencer Horn 53:56 - 53:58 agreed. That is true. And Christian has it. Christian Napier 53:59 - 54:10 Well, thank you from the Mutual Admiration Society here. It's been a fantastic hour. Danielle, thank you for joining us. And listeners and viewers, thank you as well for your time. Christian Napier 54:10 - 54:15 We really appreciate it. Please like and subscribe to