[00:00:00] Announcer: This is the Build A Vibrant Culture Podcast. Your source for the strategies, systems, and insights you need to turn your dreams into your destiny. Every week we dive into dynamic conversations. As our host, Nicole Greer, interviews leadership and business experts. They're here to shed light on practical solutions to the challenges of personal and professional development. Now, here's your host, a professional speaker, coach, and consultant, Nicole Greer.
[00:00:29] Nicole: Welcome everybody to the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast. My name is Nicole Greer and they call me the Vibrant Coach and I have got an amazing author on the show today and she's way more than an author. Let me read her bio so you can get your head wrapped around all this. So today on the show, I have Irma Neal. She is a seasoned financial coach, leadership expert, and author of the book, _Leading in Chaos_. And if you're on the YouTube, look what I got in my hot little hands. All right. So _Leading in Chaos_. It's insights to lead through the storms with decades of experience, guiding individuals and organizations through organizational turbulence and leadership challenges. Irma has become a trusted voice in developing strategies to navigate uncertainty with resilience and empathy. As the owner of Onyx Rising, a firm that specializes in inclusive cultures and financial change management, Irma is passionate about helping leaders embrace love and care. What a concept for a culture, love and care! That's a thing. She is all about building that and she gives people powerful tools for overcoming chaos in the workplace. Her book _Leading in Chaos_ is a reflection of her belief that leadership rooted in love and empathy can guide organizations and teams through the toughest of storms. Irma advocates for using compassion and understanding as strategic approaches to leadership, especially in moments of crisis. Irma is a former deputy mayor of Indianapolis, vice president at two Fortune 500 corporations, and the owner of three small businesses. She's recently widowed. Irma has one son and two grandbabies. Irma, I want some grandbabies. How did you do it?
[00:02:09] Irma Neal: Oh, they are a blessing. I'll tell you, it is so much better than being a parent. It really is. There's nothing like those grandbabies. You'll see!
[00:02:21] Nicole: I know, I got to have a couple weddings before I can have grandchildren.
[00:02:25] Irma Neal: That's very important. Yeah. My one son did do it the right way. He did get married before he had the kids. So that was good.
[00:02:32] Nicole: Oh that is good. That's what I've been encouraging mine since they were itty bitty. I'm like, let's do things in order. It makes life easier. Yeah that's fantastic! Yeah, I got all my girlfriends and including my new girlfriend here, Irma they're having the grand babies and I'm just jealous. But anyway, it's all good.
[00:02:49] So we're going to talk about leading in chaos. And I just love your foundational belief, I just love it, that love and empathy can guide an organization. Will you talk a little bit about love and empathy in the workplace? I think that's a fantastic concept.
[00:03:04] Irma Neal: Well, I think one of the things that runs through my mind all the time is people don't come to work intent on making mistakes, intent on doing, all of us bring our whole selves to the job. Right. And so as leaders, it is our responsibility to tap into the trigger that makes them good, and that is praise when it's deserved. Talking about if something goes wrong, it's the behavior. It's not the person. You split those two up and you just lead with, I see you, I respect you, I know that you have worth, I know that you are going to do the right thing as we try to move this organization forward. And I think the other key thing is making sure to communicate the vision, the goal, and how that person fits into that goal. That each of them have a part to play in that goal.
[00:04:10] When I was in DC, I stepped into something I, I wasn't expecting. I mean, it was every day my mouth would drop open and I'd say, Oh my God. Oh my God, what is going on? Is there such a place as this in the workplace? It was incredible. Things I had never seen before, things like two drug overdoses on heroin inside a 30 day period in the office. In the office! And I'm from the Midwest, so my values are a bit different than the East Coast. So, I had to learn how to navigate all these different things. And I think that the foundation was what my parents gave me: love; a respect for everybody; everybody's got worth; deal with the problem, don't cover up anything, deal with it openly, honestly, transparently, and it gets there. And the other thing I never do, I've led lots of organizations. I never read a personnel file before I meet that person.
[00:05:19] Nicole: Yeah You get your own first impression, don't you?
[00:05:21] Irma Neal: First impressions, and they will let you know who they are. As I found out in DC, they will let you know who they are pretty quickly. Yeah.
[00:05:32] Nicole: And you know, in your book I love the way you've got it laid out. You've got these management insights. They're like what I would call like little nuggets of goodness that are throughout the book, and right before chapter one, you've got management insight number one: "There's no such word as can't." When you hear about when she arrived in Washington, DC, you're going to see how she lived that out. And then you've got in here, "In all things get understanding," which is actually from Proverbs 4:7. So, you know, try to understand what's going on before you start making a lot of changes, right? And then number three: "Never give up on anybody. Miracles happen every day." And that's from Life's Instruction Book by H Jackson Brown, Jr. So she's got these little nuggets that she's put in there and then tells you a story. So chapter one blew me away. You talk the name of it, listen to this chapter name, everybody, "TVs, Fish Fries, and Sex." Okay. So you thought this was a leadership program and it is! But you left the Midwest, like you just said, you went to Washington, DC to work inside the government and work underneath Marion Berry's administration. Is that right?
[00:06:37] Irma Neal: That's correct. Yeah. Uh huh.
[00:06:39] Nicole: Yeah. tell us what, what your first couple of weeks were like. We heard about the two overdoses, but there's, there's more.
[00:06:47] Irma Neal: There's a lot more. It really just blew me away. You know, I walked in and staff people had TVs at their desk, not all of them, but a lot of them had the TVs, and they were looking at the stories, and all that stuff at the time. And I equate that now to cell phones, now employees have cell phones. You walk into an office or something and the receptionist got her cell phone. She's looking at her cell. It's the same concept. They were looking at their televisions and all that.
[00:07:21] Nicole: The screens
[00:07:22] Irma Neal: The screens. Yeah. All the screens. So one of the first things I did was I told the management team, you have to tell your staff to take the TVs home, that they've got till Friday to move the TVs out.
[00:07:38] And one of the managers, I'll never forget, Miss Tate. She said to me, "Are you going to tell Marsha that she has to take her television home?" Marsha, by the way, was one of the bullies in the office, right? So I told her, I said "I'm not going to tell her, you're going to tell her."
[00:07:56] Nicole: That's right, that's your role..
[00:07:56] Irma Neal: If you can't tell her, then I'll handle it. And then I find out that in the same management meeting, this is the first management meeting! One of the other managers said, "Well, Ms. Neal, while we're at it, you ought to stop them from frying fish on Fridays." Says the whole floor smells like fish because they have a fish fry on Friday. I said, are you kidding me? I've never heard of such. So I said, okay. Immediately, the fish fries got to go. Then the next thing I heard was, "And you know that empty office back there with that couch in it, you know, it's empty right now It's the one that..." I can't remember the guy's name who had that office But he brought in a couch and do you know that there's sex going on in office? [ laughter]
[00:08:44] Nicole: And you were like, I gotta my resume together.
[00:08:49] Irma Neal: Oh my god, what is to come, what is to come? But anyway, inside of two weeks, all that was taken care of. And what I found incredible is how many of the staff --there was 120 staff members at that time-- how many of them were craving the kind of structure and stuff that I immediately started putting into place.
[00:09:13] Nicole: Mm-hmm.
[00:09:14] Irma Neal: And what I learned from this, and this is where the title of the book comes from, what I learned from that Washington, DC experience is that no matter how bad things are, somebody is benefiting from the chaos. Somebody in the organization or someone is benefiting from the chaos. They want to keep it going.
[00:09:35] So finding that person i s not that difficult to do in organizations-- but finding that person and then nurturing them is one of the things I really honed my skills on in DC. So yeah, that was the first few weeks. I was there three years and two weeks.
[00:09:54] Nicole: Yeah. So you know, not many people are gonna have that kind of experience, but I love what you just said about people crave that structure. I mean, I, I think that is so true. People want to know it's safe and that somebody's paying attention. We have a leader who's conscious and, you know, looking around and I think people want to go to work because they actually want to do well, like you said earlier. People don't come to work to make mistakes. They come to work to have like fulfillment and it's hard to have fulfillment in chaos. I know that.
[00:10:24] Irma Neal: Right, exactly right. And there's nothing like the joy of seeing an organization turn around. It is just an incredible experience. It really is, and how many people come to the rescue. I mean, there were times when I wanted to quit. In fact, one time I did call home, my old boss, who was the attorney general at the time. And I asked him, I said, can I get my old job back? And, and he said, give me a few days I'll do something and before I could make the transition to go back, something really big happened. And that was that my office was broken into. I talk about this in the book.
[00:11:10] Nicole: Oh, yeah. Tell that story. Listen this, y'all. This is crazy.
[00:11:14] Irma Neal: Yeah. You know, I usually locked the office, but over the weekend, I left on Friday, came back on Monday. The office door was wide open, and the office had been destroyed. And one of my really sentimental art pieces had been thrown on the floor and the glass broken. But what was really interesting, it looked like there was a bullet that had pierced the plexiglass window. And so I look at it, and it wasn't fear. It was anger.
[00:11:46] Nicole: Yeah you're like
[00:11:47] Irma Neal: was anger. And so I went out and told the busybody in the office. This is a quote. I told her, I said, "If you wanted me to go home, you should have left me alone, and I would have been gone. Now I'm not going any-effing-where until I get ready. So you tell them I'm not going anywhere." So that was really the turnaround. And I think back on it, cause I was pretty young, but I think back on it, and it was just that resilience that I had learned growing up and going back to that word, you can't, no such word as can't, I can do this.
[00:12:26] And then I found that I had a lot of allies because none of us do it alone. None of us make big turnarounds in our lives or in our careers without other people. So I had a lot of allies when they saw what I was about and there weren't all these personal agendas and all that kind of stuff, so, yeah, it was an experience, but it made me fearless. I mean, by time
[00:12:51] Nicole: That's right, you know, I got bullets coming at me and they destroyed my office. Okay. Game on.
[00:12:56] Irma Neal: Game on. And by the time I got to corporate America, it was nothing. I mean, was a piece of cake, you know. So, I wouldn't take anything for the experience. And the reason I wrote the book is because I tell these stories and people say, Oh, no, that didn't... oh, you ought to write a book. You ought to write a book. So after I lost my husband, I needed something to channel that grief and stuff, so I wrote the book. And you know what I found is, I had started keeping a diary. I wrote the book from memory. But when I went back and looked at the diary that I had misplaced in a move, there was a lot more that happened.
[00:13:37] Nicole: Oh yeah.
[00:13:38] Irma Neal: didn't include in the book
[00:13:39] Yeah, I forgot about that one. Yeah. I forgot about that one.
[00:13:44] Nicole: That's fantastic. All right. Well, so that's chapter one. So that's probably got you hooked right there. It's like, I want to hear more. All right. So then she has management insights right before chapter two. And in there she says: "Identify and introduce yourself to the power brokers. Make sure they know your name." Will you define, first of all, what is a power broker?
[00:14:05] Irma Neal: I define that as all the people that are above you. The people in charge, the people that you might not come across in your everyday life.
[00:14:17] Nicole: Yeah
[00:14:17] Irma Neal: But find ways to know the organizational chart, and one of the most important people in the organizational chart are those administrative assistants, executive assistants, the gatekeepers.
[00:14:30] Nicole: Oh my she's not kidding.
[00:14:32] Irma Neal: Yeah, because if you know the gatekeepers-- there's one instance in the book where I was under political fire, and the idea was to blindside me publicly with television cameras and all that, to blindside me publicly. And the person that saved us was the gatekeeper. The gatekeeper for one of the council members who was behind me. She didn't know she was saving me, but she just called to ask some questions that let me know, okay, this is the plan. So, instead of me going in there blind, I was prepared.
[00:15:06] Nicole: Yeah I always, I always kid but I'm not really kidding, that the administrative assistants, they're running the show. they're keeping everything flowing,
[00:15:16] Irma Neal: exactly
[00:15:17] Nicole: the stuff's going out in the mail, the emails are happening,
[00:15:20] Irma Neal: And they know what's going on. They're hearing the conversation. They're privy to all the information. Yeah, that has served me for so many years. I'll tell you, for your listeners, if there's one thing you can do that will help your career, is to know those gatekeepers, treat them right,
[00:15:38] Nicole: Mm hmm.
[00:15:39] Irma Neal: And cultivate a working relationship, a good working relationship with them. It will pay off every time, every single time.
[00:15:47] Nicole: I always joke. They know where the coffee filters are and the skeletons. They know
[00:15:51] Irma Neal: Exactly right. Exactly right, yeah.
[00:15:55] Nicole: And then you have a second management insight in here, which is number five: "When you encounter difficulties, just ask for help. You never know who will come to your rescue."
[00:16:05] Irma Neal: That's exactly right. And it comes from such unlikely places. In my career, I've never applied for a promotion. Never. They just kept coming and they would come from-- like the biggest one, when I went from government to corporate, the person who, who said my name to IBM,
[00:16:27] Nicole: Right?
[00:16:28] Irma Neal: was a person I didn't even know she liked me. I didn't even know she thought that way about me, but you never know, you just never know. And then when you're in trouble, and I'll give you an example that happened just yesterday in my meeting with my marketing person. She is building a business called Bombshell Bakes and she's going to have a dessert truck. Right. So.
[00:16:48] Nicole: Oh my gosh I love the name. Don't you love the name?
[00:16:51] Irma Neal: I love it. Yeah. And she's really good too. But anyway, she got a disappointment about the truck yesterday. I just asked, I said, how are you doing? How things going with the dessert truck? And she almost busted out crying. She said, just yesterday, I got word that the mechanic is not going to be able to finish the work. I'm in Evansville. It's in Indianapolis. Just at her wit's end. And in that conversation, because she had that conversation, my partner and I and her worked out how she was going to make that happen. Just because she asked for help. You just never know where your help's coming from. And too many people try to select who they want. But help comes from unlikely places if you just let people know you need help. And that, again, is a life lesson. That's not just work. That's just life. When you're having trouble, ask for help.
[00:17:45] Nicole: Yeah. So I love what you're saying. I read something just yesterday that was similar to this. There was a young gal. She's about 19 years old. She's driving home from college. Her car breaks down and this guy pulls over, and she's scared.
[00:17:59] Irma Neal: Yeah.
[00:17:59] Nicole: Because she's like, Oh, you know, is he friend or foe kind of
[00:18:03] Irma Neal: Right. Right.
[00:18:04] Nicole: And she said he went in the front of her car and waved and said, I got a baby that's just your age. And if she was on the side of the road, I hope somebody would change her tire. He goes, lock your doors, but pop your trunk, and I'll change your tire, and you just sit right there in the car. And so she did, you know, she's 19 and then, you know, she's like, okay, this guy is a really good guy, so of course she jumps out of the car, she's got a selfie of her with this guy, you know, it's just the greatest little story. You, know, people do have good hearts, right?
[00:18:36] Irma Neal: Yeah Yeah I did
[00:18:36] Nicole: It's like what you said before, love and empathy go a long way in this life
[00:18:39] Irma Neal: Yeah. Exactly right. Yeah.
[00:18:41] Nicole: Yeah. All right. I love that. Okay. So chapter three is called, "You can't leave." And this is one, I want you to tell the story, but her management insight here is: Assess the opportunity with facts, not emotion; make sure you have identified the elements and the environment you need to succeed; and never take a tougher job for less money. Boy, that management insight number seven, you can take it to the bank. Literally. Never take a tougher job for less money. So talk a little bit about chapter three, "You can't leave," and those two management insights.
[00:19:14] Irma Neal: Well, what was happening then is I was transitioning to Washington, DC from Indianapolis, Indiana where I'm from.
[00:19:23] Nicole: Yeah
[00:19:24] Irma Neal: And the staff, if you create the right kind of environment, your staff and management don't want to see you go. And that's what was happening there. They didn't want to see me go. They kept saying, you can't leave. And, the Attorney General, prosecutor and attorney said the same thing, you can't leave. And so I thought, well, this means I need to leave. Because you're depending on me too much and it's hampering my personal growth.
[00:19:57] Nicole: Yeah
[00:19:57] Irma Neal: You know, I'm going from managing a staff of 50 to managing a staff of 120+ in Washington, DC, which is a beautiful city. It's our nation's capital
[00:20:08] Nicole: Oh I love Washington, DC.
[00:20:09] Irma Neal: it's our nation's capital. It's the hub of everything that's going on. And it was more money. In fact, it was almost twice as much. Really
[00:20:19] Nicole: Got to take that.
[00:20:20] Irma Neal: Got to take it. Right. So I kept hearing, you can't leave. And I'm thinking, I sat down with the facts. One of the things I learned through my whole career, and I think it's because I'm an African American also, is that you have to deal with the facts. I can't help how you feel about me emotionally, or because I'm black, or because I'm a woman or all that. That is stuff that is beyond my control.
[00:20:51] Nicole: That's exactly right.
[00:20:52] Irma Neal: And so I deal with the facts. All the facts said to me, this is a move you need to take. Okay. But what was interesting, and this is one of the things I didn't put in the book, was that I went to Washington, DC and-- they, they recruited me. I went there to check it out. The first time I said, absolutely not. And I didn't know half of what was to come, but I said, no, it's not enough money; there isn't an infrastructure for me to succeed. And the reason I came to that conclusion was because the office at that time was way down in the chain in the Department of Human Services. It was way down. It was like two or three under. Before you get to the top, you're like two or three levels down. Too much work, just assessing what was going on. I said, no, I'm not going to do it. So then a few weeks later, they come back and this time it is the mayor. The first time it was like his assistant or... I can't remember, but this time it was actually him. And he's saying we need to give this one more try. Come back. Give me one more try. So at that one, it was a whole higher level and they changed the bureaucracy. They move the
[00:22:18] Nicole: So
[00:22:18] Irma Neal: Organization
[00:22:20] Nicole: Even government can change. Don't miss that
[00:22:23] Irma Neal: They moved the organization up so that I was a direct report. And then that's when I said, okay, I'll do it. But then I don't know, some of the stuff I went through. I think about it. Some of the things I went through, would I have done it even then? Probably so, because like I said, the lessons I got out of it. I mean, I got lifelong friends. My very best friend in the world is Diane. That's who I talk about in the book because she was, we just went through the war together and it just made me strong. It just made me fearless, so
[00:22:57] Nicole: Yeah, that's
[00:22:57] Irma Neal: thankful for that.
[00:22:59] Nicole: Yeah, and you know, that's the thing and when she's saying fearless I'm curious Irma if you thinking about this But like a lot of the people I coach a lot of the people that are in my training sessions when I'm doing trainings They talk a lot about confidence, you know, or I need confidence and and I'll and I think what you're saying is as well I went through this storm. I went through this chaos and that just gave me all the confidence in the world, which means now I'm fearless. Like I
[00:23:24] Irma Neal: Exactly
[00:23:24] Nicole: Bring it on you know I mean, cause I'm going to use my brain and then I love you because you're like, love and empathy. I'm gonna use my heart
[00:23:32] Irma Neal: Right
[00:23:32] Nicole: Maybe even my guts or
[00:23:33] Irma Neal: Right
[00:23:34] Nicole: soul, right, to navigate this thing
[00:23:35] Irma Neal: Exactly.
[00:23:36] Nicole: Like it's all good!
[00:23:37] Irma Neal: Exactly. It's all good. Yeah. And, and so many times, like I said, in chaos, there's so much noise, it's hard to get focused. So that's the thing to just stay on goal, on target, block out the noise. And then sometimes, there are plenty of times when I went in the office and did the deep breathing exercises and
[00:24:02] Nicole: Right.
[00:24:03] Irma Neal: Yeah, you know, had to do it.
[00:24:05] Nicole: Mindfulness. She's talking about mindfulness,
[00:24:07] Irma Neal: Exactly.
[00:24:08] Nicole: Maybe it wasn't labeled that at the time. I don't know, probably was, but that's awesome.
[00:24:12] Speaker 2: Are you ready to build your vibrant culture? Bring Nicole Greer to speak to your leadership team, conference or organization to help them with their strategies, systems, and smarts. To increase clarity, accountability, energy, and results your organization will get lit from within. Email her at nicole@vibrantcole.com and be sure to check out Nicole's TEDx talk@vibrantculture.com.
[00:24:39] Nicole: Okay, so then we move on and in the book, chapter four is called Drugs. And so in here she has two management insights. One is number eight in the book, management insight number eight, if you're keeping track, if you're writing things down. "Keep your own counsel... when your internal instincts say it's time to move on, do it." So that's like listening to your soul or your gut, right?
[00:25:04] Irma Neal: As women, we as women have that.
[00:25:07] Nicole: Oh yes.
[00:25:07] Irma Neal: We really do. We have it. And so when you hear that little voice and it says, okay, it's time to do this, then you need to listen to it. I don't think that we as women use that superpower that we have as much as we should, and keep your own counsel. With that I mean, that doesn't mean don't listen to others, but again, take in the advice and then make your own decision based upon your values, your background, your goal for your life, and weed out all the, because people are full of advice. I mean, a
[00:25:49] Nicole: Good, bad, and otherwise, right?
[00:25:50] Irma Neal: Good, bad, and the other, right! If I hadn't kept my own counsel, I wouldn't've gone to DC because even my mother said, don't go. She said
[00:25:59] Nicole: wanted keep you safe.
[00:26:00] Irma Neal: Keep me safe, exactly. I was coming from this Midwest slow city to the big leagues, so yeah.
[00:26:07] Nicole: Yeah and here's the thing I think kind of the word that's buzzing around in my head when it says keep your own counsel, it's kind of a religious word or a spiritual word, but it's like you need to discern before you decide. That's what I tell a lot of people. I'm like, you don't have to decide today. You have to discern, you know, sit with it.
[00:26:26] Irma Neal: Sit. You hit it on the head. Sit with it. Be still for a minute.
[00:26:31] Nicole: Yes. Yes. Yes.
[00:26:32] Irma Neal: Yeah. Yep, you hit it. You're absolutely right.
[00:26:35] Nicole: Right. Okay. So that's management insight number eight. And number nine is: "Don't let the feelings of others blur your vision of what's best for you." And of course, this is right before chapter four, which is called "Drugs." So tell us a little bit about that, the vision for your future. It's kind of the same thing we said about mama doesn't want me to go. But tell us a little bit about what happened here.
[00:26:58] Irma Neal: Well, that one, I'm trying to, this is several years ago, but I,
[00:27:04] Nicole: You want me to tell you, it says, "Call 9 1 1. John has OD'd in the men's room. John was on my staff and he had just overdosed on heroin in the office bathroom, unconscious with a needle still in his arm. He had overdosed on heroin in the workplace during working hours in the office, 500 feet from his desk."
[00:27:22] Irma Neal: Yeah, and that one, that's where my values were in conflict with what was the process. Because my Midwest values say to me that if somebody uses drugs on the job, they get fired. They are terminated, right?
[00:27:39] Nicole: Right.
[00:27:40] Irma Neal: And so in DC, that wasn't the policy. The policy was that drug addiction is a disease and that the employee needs help and they should be able to go to an employee assistance program for that. All well and good. My values said, okay, I'm helping John. What about the rest of the people? What's the impact on the rest of the staff? What's the impact on the job, on the performance? What's the impact on me getting to the vision? Is it the one or is it the many? I chose my internal value system and said, no, he's gotta go. I gotta fire him.
[00:28:29] Nicole: Yeah
[00:28:30] Irma Neal: I can't risk the rest of the people and what we're trying to do. And, to his credit, the mayor backed me, he says, do what you need to do. He says, I got to tell you, he's going to get his job back, but it's going to take him a while to get his job back. So that'll give you time to do the things you need to do, to get the organization ready. It was all driven by these federal incentives that were being paid at the time to government. So I did, and he took me through arbitration and all that stuff. And I explained where I was coming from and why he did what I did. In the end, he did get his job back. But again, you know what I did the day he came back? I knew he was coming back.
[00:29:16] Nicole: Tell me.
[00:29:17] Irma Neal: We went arm in arm around the office, and I said, he's back and he's clean.
[00:29:23] Nicole: Big deal. It's a big deal.
[00:29:25] Irma Neal: He's back and he's clean. And do you know that that gentleman, John, became one of my staunchest supporters.
[00:29:35] Nicole: Of course.
[00:29:36] Irma Neal: He really did, because I guess it forced him to look at himself or the desire to get clean. I don't know what it was that made him get clean. But in that period of time, he did and he did get his job back and I didn't hold it against him. I didn't feel like I had failed. In fact, I felt success that he was back and he was better than he was when he left.
[00:29:59] Nicole: Yeah. You know, gosh, we all make mistakes. Maybe we don't overdose on heroin in the bathroom, but you know, like varying degrees of mistakes. I mean, it's a mistake is a mistake. And if somebody
[00:30:09] Irma Neal: exactly
[00:30:10] Nicole: can make up for it and come out on the other side and learn from it. I mean, that's the thing we need to celebrate.
[00:30:16] Irma Neal: That's exactly right. That's exactly right.
[00:30:18] Nicole: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:30:19] Irma Neal: And the context is important here too, because then we didn't know as much about addiction as we do now. And there weren't the same level of resources that there are now. So, I have asked myself if I would have handled it differently today than I did back then. But there's no use second guessing what's happened.
[00:30:39] Nicole: That's right It's in the past.
[00:30:40] Irma Neal: It turned out good.
[00:30:40] Nicole: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:30:41] Irma Neal: It turned out good. So
[00:30:42] Nicole: Yeah. And so you've already said this, but Management Insight 10, if you're writing these down, is "Always do what your value system says is right, even when the rules say you are wrong." So that just exemplifies that. And many of you who listen to the podcast, you know that I'm a big believer in figuring out what your personal core values are. I think a lot of people are working in the wrong place, doing the wrong things. It's a misalignment of values. You
[00:31:06] Irma Neal: That's true. Very true
[00:31:08] Nicole: your unique ability, like you got to figure out... I have a little methodology called S.H.I.N.E., Irma. And the first thing I try to work with people on is self assessment. Like, how are you hardwired, what are your values, all that kind of stuff, because then it'll inform you. And a lot of that is on the inside. It requires discernment.
[00:31:25] Irma Neal: Exactly. Right. I love it. That's exactly right. Yep. I agree.
[00:31:29] Nicole: Yeah. All right. So management insight 11. "Despite the noise around you, stay focused on the results you want to achieve." And then, and then chapter five is "Troublemakers and Misfits." And gosh, you know, why can't these troublemakers and misfits behave? I just don't even understand. But I call the misfits and the troublemakers turkeys, Irma, when I talk to my leaders, I'm like, listen, you're going to have eagles on your team and you're going to have turkeys on your team. And the eagles, you know, they fly high. You say, go out and do it and they take off and they go do their thing, and they come back with what you've asked them to bring you. And then the turkeys are just, you know six feet off the ground. You know, they're just talking and gossiping and all that. So I think that's really important. So talk about misfits and troublemakers just a minute. What do we do with these people?
[00:32:18] Irma Neal: Well, they will take a lot of your time, that's for sure. The thing is to try to, as you said, try to gauge the internal wiring. And that you do through good conversations with them. And again, I go back to everybody has value. So part of what we have to do as leaders is figure out where their value fits into our mission and goals and vision of whatever. They do take a lot of time, but it's worth it in the end because they do become the strongest allies you have if you can convert them. Yeah, if you can convert them and there is one failure in the book that I talk about, one person I wasn't able to ever...
[00:33:09] Nicole: wake up.
[00:33:09] Irma Neal: Wake up or yeah, ever change. And you'll have that too but they take a lot of time, but in the end they're worth it. And I got so many examples of the misfits turning around. I never will forget this one. This was before I even got to DC. She was the worst office gossip you ever... just kept stuff going all the time.
[00:33:31] Nicole: Stirring the pot.
[00:33:32] Irma Neal: Oh my God. And so we had this thing called the idea contest where I said, okay, staff, give us all the ideas you have to make the organization better, just give them to us, right? And we're gonna implement those, we're gonna assess them and implement them and stuff. You, guess who had the best idea in the whole office?
[00:33:52] Nicole: Miss gossip.
[00:33:53] Irma Neal: She did. She eliminated one whole job.
[00:33:59] Nicole: Wow.
[00:34:00] Irma Neal: And that just taught me right then, never try to guess where the good ideas are coming from.
[00:34:06] Nicole: That's right.
[00:34:07] Irma Neal: The message can from anybody.
[00:34:09] Nicole: Irma, I love what you're saying about they can take a lot of your time, but you know, this has been going on since the beginning of time where like, what's wrong with him? Why does he do that? What is his deal? You know, like the leaders are like I don't understand. And it's like, right. You don't understand because you didn't have a mama like Irma did, you know what I mean? Or you didn't have, you know
[00:34:26] Irma Neal: Right.
[00:34:26] Nicole: Some people aren't lucky when they grow up, or blessed or whatever word you want to use there. And they don't, they don't know any better. And so they need a leader
[00:34:35] Irma Neal: right
[00:34:36] Nicole: who helps them know better.
[00:34:36] Irma Neal: That's right. That's exactly right. A leader who helps them know better, who sees them,
[00:34:42] Nicole: Yes
[00:34:42] Irma Neal: who's not judgmental about it. Again, getting back to their value, that they are important to the organization. But it can wear you out though. There's no doubt about it.
[00:34:53] Nicole: Frustrating as all get out. Yes.
[00:34:55] Irma Neal: Especially when you got a lot of them,
[00:34:58] Nicole: Right, right. Yeah. You got to pick the one who's doing the most damage, and try to work on that one. Yes.
[00:35:03] Irma Neal: Exactly, you got to pick your battles there too.
[00:35:05] Nicole: Right. And I have a philosophy I tell my leaders: here's the thing, coach them into the organization or they'll coach themselves out.
[00:35:14] Irma Neal: Exactly. You hit it on the head. You hit it on the head
[00:35:17] Nicole: Just keep trying to bring them in and eventually they're going to wake up and do one of two things: they're going to change. They're gonna wake up or they're going to be like, I don't need this. I'm out of here. And you
[00:35:27] Irma Neal: Yeah, and what I saw happening in DC is that the staff started to turn against them. So a lot of the stuff I didn't have to deal with because their co-workers were telling them, Hey, you don't do that here. We don't do that.
[00:35:41] Nicole: Right. That's not how we roll.
[00:35:42] Irma Neal: You know, that's not how we're doing this.
[00:35:44] Nicole: Yeah Yeah because back to what Irma said at the beginning of this podcast, you know, she was putting structure in place. Again, people want to be safe. And so what do you need to be safe? You need structure. You know, like I have a roof over my head right now. I'm really lucky. I'm really blessed, right? I got a front door with a lock on it. All of these structures are very good. They keep me safe. And so when you start to put that in place and people are like, oh, that's how we roll and it feels safe, they will come to your side and advocate for you when you're not even in the room so I think it's huge.
[00:36:12] All right. Management insight number 12: "When presented with what seems impossible choices, select one." I love this so much.
[00:36:21] Irma Neal: Yeah, because, so, so many times we get into, Oh, they're all bad. Well, yeah, they're all bad. They may all be bad choices. But as you know, no decision is a decision. And usually when you let things fester, they get worse. They don't get better. So decide the path, go down that path and make it work, do everything you can to make it work. So no right or wrong answers, just different paths or different choices.
[00:36:53] Nicole: Yeah, you know, in that S.H.I.N.E. Coaching methodology that I mentioned just a minute ago, one of the things I tell people is you need to make a choice. It can be little, you know, just get through the doorway on this thing and just take a look around like what I call a "next right step," which is the N in S.H.I.N.E. It's like, you don't have to choose 100%. You can say, I can choose to take a next step on this choice and get in there and look around. What's going on in here and what's the deal?
[00:37:17] Irma Neal: Exactly
[00:37:17] Nicole: And they go that's not the right one, back up..
[00:37:19] Irma Neal: not the right one. Back up. Right. Exactly. But if you sit frozen, you make no progress.
[00:37:25] Nicole: Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay so this one, I love more than anything because I preach employee performance management, development, like a crazy woman, like, I don't know, Billy Graham or something. That's my thing is staff development. So management insight 13 "Staff development is crucial. The key is knowing which ones to develop." Yeah.
[00:37:50] Irma Neal: And that comes again from an atmosphere of inclusion, of giving everybody a chance to shine. One of the things, and I'm sure you're like this too, nobody sits in a meeting with me without saying something. Everybody's gotta talk. Everybody's gotta have a chance to be heard. And from those instances, you begin to develop, see what people can do, and then again, the real joy is just seeing them come alive. I mean, there's nothing like it, just seeing them get better and better and better, and I always say, you've heard this before too, we as managers, we're supposed to work ourselves out of a job. We're supposed to get it so good that it's running without us. And we're there to do the visioning and the strategic planning and all that stuff because the organization is running!
[00:38:46] Nicole: That's right. That's right. What you want is a self managing department.
[00:38:50] Irma Neal: Exactly. Exactly.
[00:38:52] Nicole: And then, you said this thing about you never said promote me. They just were like, there's Irma. She's killing it. Promote her. She's doing stuff. So here's the thing. When you can get promoted. I've told people many times. I'm like, if you don't get your department self managing or your area, then they're going to be like, if we take her out of there, it'll fall apart. But if they know she's got John going now. She's got Stacy going, she's got Juan going. She's got all these people going. We can get her out of there. In fact, let's promote Juan, you know?
[00:39:23] Irma Neal: And there are indicators to it too. Like the thing that DC prepared me for, because it was a government office that was financially driven. I mean, we had to meet certain financial goals in order to get federal funding and all that stuff. So if you couple that with meeting the profit margin and you're running a smooth operation, of course the company wants you to do that again. And again.
[00:39:56] Nicole: Fix another problem!
[00:39:57] Irma Neal: And again. Go fix it. And that's what happened with me. I ended up being the fixer, in several organizations.
[00:40:04] Nicole: Yes. Yeah, Irma and I are long lost sisters because that is so funny you just said that, fixer. Because I, I had the same experience. I was in property management for many, many years. I ran really beautiful class A apartments. I was in Frederick, up near DC. I was Columbia... Yeah I was around
[00:40:23] Irma Neal: I love Columbia. I lived there for a long time. Yeah
[00:40:26] Nicole: Oh! I was in King's Contrivance. So,
[00:40:29] Irma Neal: Oh, Okay.
[00:40:30] Nicole: Yeah. Yeah, so I was up there and I took this big, beautiful apartment community out of the ground. So you know how long ago this was? Long time ago, like 37 or eight years ago. But, but I took this thing out of the ground and then they're just like, Oh, well, let's give her another one. And then give her another one. And then of course, you know, the apartment business kind of ebbs and flows with the economy. And so when the economy was not great, they would like, "Put her on that one. That's a mess. And see if she can clean it up." You know if you could be the cleanup crew, like Irma, it goes a long way in your career. Okay. So speaking of cleanups, management insight number 14 in Irma's book and don't miss it, it's _Leading in Chaos: Insights that Lead through the Storm_. And hey, this is an Eric Hoffer award winning book, by the way, people. Buy it. All right. So when you believe you have resolved a huge problem, don't be surprised if you see it again.
[00:41:22] Irma Neal: Don't be surprised if you see it again.
[00:41:25] Nicole: Yep
[00:41:26] Irma Neal: And we, and I'm going to political here a little bit, but we see problems we thought we had solved a long time ago. They're coming back. Don't be surprised if you see them again. I mean, because your detractors never give up.
[00:41:44] Nicole: Right.
[00:41:45] Irma Neal: I mean, if it's something that they feel real, real strong about, a lot of times they'll just not give up. So you'll have to deal with it again.
[00:41:54] Nicole: Yeah.
[00:41:55] Irma Neal: But the difference is you're smarter. The second time you see it.
[00:41:59] Nicole: Oh yeah, you've been that path
[00:42:02] Irma Neal: You see it coming.
[00:42:03] Nicole: That's good stuff. All right. So Management Insight 15 is oh, and we did talk about this one, but let's just put it in here because it's number 15. "Cultivate a relationship with the gatekeepers, the secretaries, the admins. They know everything that's going on." So that's number 15. But let's go to 16. Management Insight 16. "When someone in authority asks you to keep a secret... Don't." Talk about that. Yeah.
[00:42:27] Irma Neal: That was probably the second time I was ready to go home because a It a,
[00:42:33] Nicole: Indianapolis, here I come.
[00:42:35] Irma Neal: Right, and at the time it was government patronage that got some of the jobs in the government. And this particular employee with a PhD thought that he was entitled to the job and that meant that he didn't have to work. So, I put him on a performance plan, and he ignored it. Instead of him doing what I requested, he ran to his political friend who was the head of the city council. He was the person, and I forget his title, but he was the head of the city council. And I got a call from the councilman, and I happened to have two people in my office at the time. And the first thing he says to me is, "Miss Neal, I've heard about you." And I'm going to have this discussion with you and I don't want you to tell anybody about this conversation.
[00:43:40] Nicole: Ruh-roh.
[00:43:42] Irma Neal: And so I said, I've just repeated what he said to the people in the office. They were getting ready to leave. I said, don't leave. So they stayed there. And I said, you don't want me to tell anybody? Why? And he said, well, this is just between me and you, but I want you to reinstate him. He did a lot of work for me. That job is his and I want you to reinstate him. And I said don't you even want to know what he did? I said, I'll send you the file. I'll send you what I'm doing. I
[00:44:13] Nicole: Right, my documentation. Yeah
[00:44:15] Irma Neal: I'll send it to you. Don't you want to know? He said, no. I want you to reinstate him. And I said, well, I can't do that. I said I couldn't live with myself if I did that. I can't do it. Then he got angry and started saying, do you know who I am? Do you know what I can do to you? Do you know the consequences of you saying no to me? And I just said, well, you know, I get all that, but I still got to live with myself.
[00:44:42] Nicole: That's right. It's character. It's integrity.
[00:44:46] Irma Neal: Yeah. So that was that. And because I didn't keep it secret, here come the allies again.
[00:44:54] Nicole: Yes.
[00:44:54] Irma Neal: When I told the conversation, they just surrounded me and protected me and took care just because I wasn't silent. I was scared.
[00:45:06] Nicole: Sure you were.
[00:45:07] Irma Neal: But I wasn't silent, so yeah.
[00:45:10] Nicole: Yeah
[00:45:10] Irma Neal: So, no, don't keep the secrets. Don't do
[00:45:14] Nicole: No, no, no. All right, we've got a couple more management insights left in just a couple minutes. So let me, let me read 17 and 18 for you. The management insight 17. "Don't ever think that your detractors will give up." And we did kind of talk about that. That problem will come back around because your detractors are going to never stop trying to get you. Management Insight 18: "Good documentation is worth more than character witnesses." And you know, I'm an old HR gal and I'll just say amen to that. Management Insight 19: "Accept that your chain of command might change. Have a contingency plan if it does." And 20: "Don't become too attached to your supervisors. You most likely will never know them well enough to attach your career to them." So those are some really great final nuggets right there. Take us home there, Irma, about, you know, be careful about how close you get and what you do with the people that lead you. Yeah, that's good.
[00:46:07] Irma Neal: Yeah, especially when you're a leader, you do need to keep some distance. You can still be professional, but you just don't know people well enough to attach your whole career to them. Build your own career. Follow your own vision. Use the people that come in, learn from them, but don't get so attached to them that they stop your growth. Don't buy wholeheartedly into somebody else's dream. Go after your dream. Go after your career.
[00:46:36] Nicole: Oh, I love that. I love that. All right, so we have had Irma J. Neal, author of _Leading in Chaos._ Here it is. This is the book. Insights to Lead Through the Storms. I think this little book is a gem with all these management insights and these stories. You know, I always say this, you can't make this stuff up. It's crazy.
[00:46:56] Irma Neal: It up, right? I kept it short on purpose because... you'll remember this Who Moved My Cheese? that book? Remember how much we got out of that one? I kept it short for that reason you know.
[00:47:08] Nicole: Right, you could sit down on Thursday evening, get this done in one sitting. Plus it's a page turner. I mean, like what else happened to this woman? I mean, it's, it's just great. You know?
[00:47:18] Irma Neal: Well thank you for that. Thank you for
[00:47:21] Nicole: So here's the thing, everybody, you can find Irma on the LinkedIn. She's on the LinkedIn. Just put her name in there. Irma Neal and then also her company Onyx. And then of course her book is available on the Amazon and you can go to LeadinginChaosinsights.com to find out more about the book as well.
[00:47:40] So Irma, people are like, wait, no, no. One more nugget. One more nugget from Irma. Don't let her go without one more little piece of advice. What would be kind of your last piece of advice that you would give all these leaders and HR folks out there listening to the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast?
[00:47:56] Irma Neal: I would just say stay focused and don't give up.
[00:48:00] Nicole: Yeah.
[00:48:00] Irma Neal: That's the thing, just to stick with it because consistency and resilience, that's really what's gonna make the day for you. Yeah. And you'll have a hard time some days, but don't give up. There's no such word as can't. You can do
[00:48:17] Nicole: That's right.
[00:48:17] Irma Neal: You can do it.
[00:48:17] Nicole: That was one of our first nuggets.
[00:48:19] Irma Neal: can it. Right, right, right.
[00:48:22] Nicole: All right, everybody That's been another amazing episode of the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast and I'm Nicole Greer. If you would do us a favor go right down below wherever you're listening to this podcast Give it a thumbs up and leave a little love note for Irma. I love listening to you let her know you bought her book. So leave us a message. We would sure appreciate it. And I'll see you next time. When we release another episode of the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast. Thanks so much for listening.
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