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Lead The People is your guide to unlocking your true potential as an authentic leader. Hosted by Dr. Matt Poepsel—The Godfather of Talent Optimization—this podcast dives deep into the art and science of what it takes to lead at the next level. With insightful conversations and practical strategies, each episode equips executives, strategic HR pros, and aspiring leaders with the tools it takes to boost performance, inspire teams, and drive meaningful impact. Whether exploring the latest workplace trends or tackling real-world leadership challenges, Lead The People offers an enlightened approach to leadership. Embark on a rewarding journey to become the leader your people deserve—the leader you were meant to be.
Meridith Elliott Powell (00:00):
If you own a business right now, you're so stressed out you can't handle it because, oh my gosh, is the Iran war ever going to be over? Is the strait going to open? What are they going to do with interest rates? And I say to leaders, if you learn to lead through the power of the question, here's the crazy thing. You do not need to solve these problems. All you need to know are what are the most important problems for my team to solve? And then if you pose those to the team, they will get on board and they will help you do it.
Matt Poepsel (00:35):
Hey there, leader listeners. Just wrapped my conversation with Meridith. I think you're really going to enjoy what she's got for us today. She talks specifically about how uncertainty doesn't feel great when we're in it, but there is a way that we can get through it. It's something that not only we have to pay attention to for ourselves, but also how we help our teams through it as well so we can navigate our businesses and help them reach the other side as well. This isn't a new phenomenon. She's gone and done research that stretches way back, including more than 250 years worth of company performance and navigation. So you're really going to enjoy her tips on that. She's studied it very intensely, but also I like that she coaches us on how to develop the proper mindset, but also the very specific concrete actions we can take when we're trying to help others come along with us on this journey of navigating uncertainty.
(01:22):
So with that, I'll leave you to it.
(01:29):
What if the uncertainty rattling your industry right now is actually the best opportunity you'll get all year? Today we're talking about a program built to prove exactly that, how to turn disruption into a plan instead of a scramble. We're joined by Meridith Elliot Powell, CEO of MotionFirst, who delivers her keynote Thrive, turn uncertainty to your competitive advantage to audiences across the globe. She's a Hall of Fame speaker with the National Speakers Association, and the ideas behind her program come from a benchmark study she performed on more than 800 CEOs, plus stories from nine companies that have survived for over 250 years. Meridith, welcome to the show.
Meridith Elliott Powell (02:02):
Thank you. I am looking forward to this conversation.
Matt Poepsel (02:05):
You're data-driven, you're electric on stage. I've had the pleasure to see you a couple times, and I just had to have you on the show and I'm so glad we're finally having the talk. It's a topic that's just everywhere right now, obviously with so much uncertainty. I don't imagine it's going to stop. So when you think about this, you caught my attention when you said that uncertainty always has an upside. It doesn't always feel that way, Meridith, as you know. So a lot of people are in mid-crisis. What is it that is the upside that you see oftentimes when it comes to uncertainty?
Meridith Elliott Powell (02:34):
Such a great question. When I started studying the topic of uncertainty, I started studying it because every client that I was working with and talking with, it was way back in 2016, was saying, "Oh my gosh, we're having our best year on record," but oh, this uncertainty. Everybody was waiting for the shoe to drop. And I thought, doesn't the shoe drop in our world about every 50 years? Doesn't the marketplace blow up or something happens sometimes even shorter than that? And don't good things come from that? And so let me say that uncertainty has an upside. It always has an upside if you choose to embrace it rather than resist it. And so if you embrace uncertainty, you will find the opportunity in the middle of your darkest hour. You think about like it was from a world war that we got penicillin. Think of the amount of things that have come from some of our darkest hours.
(03:27):
Look at all the beautiful things that happened in the middle of COVID, but you have to embrace the uncertainty, not resist it.
Matt Poepsel (03:33):
It's almost like it's not a natural human instinct. We feel the uncertainty and we're just wired for control, it seems. Some people more than others perhaps, but it seems almost like an unnatural act. Do you find that is the case? You take people on a journey. Should we feel bad if we're kind of like, "I don't really love uncertainty."
Meridith Elliott Powell (03:50):
It is. In fact, I think if you're wired differently, if you're wired to run into the sound of the gunfire, you're more unusual than people. We're wired to protect ourselves. I mean, you think about, you go back to the beginning of when human beings came into existence, the whole idea was to protect yourself. So naturally when uncertainty shows up, fear starts to become present. It is the natural way to be. We are not wired like that.
Matt Poepsel (04:16):
A lot of leaders I think have, I don't want to call it a false bravado, but maybe they think they're just not supposed to show that fear. And it almost is a disservice to people who are going through and saying, "They seem so confident even though they have no information to think better or different than mine." Is that something that's as concerning as maybe I'm making it out?
Meridith Elliott Powell (04:33):
No, I think that it's this funny double-edged sword you've got to have. You have to be really confident that you're going to be successful. I mean, you have to believe in that, but you have to admit you have really no idea how that's going to happen. And I think leaders who have a false bravado tend to take on uncertainty by themselves. And the worst thing you can do is not understand that uncertainty is a team sport. It is not a challenge that you go it alone. It is not a time for command and control. It is a time to engage people. It is a time to listen to the market. It is a time to be agile and flexible and to be open and to learn and to be curious. And so when you have that false bravado, like I want to say to my team, "We're going to be okay.
(05:18):
I know it, but I'm going to need your help to get there." Ironically, when you ask people for help, you give them a sense of control. The antidote to anxiety is action. People need something to do, and as a leader, you want to give them something to do.
Matt Poepsel (05:32):
Oh, that's such a good point. So for listeners out there, if you're leading a team, you're leading a function, a whole company, you're really talking about how do you let people play a part in this? Because they need to be busy feeling like they're contributing towards something. You got to be a little selective about it. You can't let them in on all the information perhaps, but put them to work because that's going to help the team move forward. I love that.
Meridith Elliott Powell (05:53):
I deal with it a lot. And what you have to realize is that the reason that people hate change is because they feel like it is something that is done to them, not something they are a part of. And if you don't take anything else from this podcast, if you can be the leader that makes people feel a part of it, maybe, like you said, you don't have to do all of it. Maybe you just got a mandate that you have to drive sales by 25% by year end, almost an impossible goal. Well, you can't change that. But what you can say to people is, what are your thoughts and ideas? How could we work together to make that happen? And it gives them a little piece of control. Yeah. And
Matt Poepsel (06:29):
When you're like, oh, I've got this. I'm going to go figure this out by myself at the closed door, you're like, well, wait a second. Now I feel doubly bad. I've got this weird thing and I don't even get to participate. It works against us for sure.
Meridith Elliott Powell (06:39):
Yes. Well, one of the things I love is that you're so data driven. You conducted this benchmark study. I mentioned 800 CEOs. I wonder, Meridith, you've had the data for a while. What is it that still surprises you? Maybe you do a double take, you're like, "Gosh, I'm still shocked by this."
Meridith Elliott Powell (06:52):
Yeah. I tell you, I've been doing this study for a long time, and the biggest thing that shocks me is how we continue to not prepare the next generation to lead in an uncertain marketplace. I have no research to back this up, but I'm going to tell you I'm 100% right. I think that we have been in a leadership command and control style since 2008. I think that a lot of boomers were going to step out in 2008. The crash of 2008 hit, and they came back in and hung on as hard as they could. People coming up through the ranks were just trying to keep their head down and not get fired. We were just starting to come out of that around 17, 18, and then COVID hit in 2020 and we went right back into it. And so every year the study comes out, the group that is the most afraid of uncertainty and feels the most unprepared for it is the group who's about to step into the executive level positions.
Matt Poepsel (07:51):
Wow. It's unbelievable. I remember watching that and seeing people who you would think in the traditional sense would've entered retirement. And I don't call them boomers, I call them boomerangs because you're right, they came right back into the workplace. And now at times too, people are living longer. They have more vitality. They're like, well, who wants to retire necessarily? And they're staying and they're creating this log jam. So then all of a sudden people who would want to come up are finding not only are there no place to go sometimes, but also you're exactly right, the outdated ways that those people and myself, I'm an older person, 55 now, same thing. It's like, this is what we knew. This is what we aspired to become the top of this format. We don't change the format. And then people are like, wait a second, everything has changed.
(08:30):
How come leadership hasn't?
Meridith Elliott Powell (08:31):
I read a statistic the other day that said 82% of mid-level to senior level managers have gotten no training to be in their position. And when you think about that, I mean, one of the reasons boomers have been good at leading companies is they've ridden the wave. They remember the crashes. They remember things like that. They have the confidence to get through it. But we seem to be a generation of leaders not willing, even if we stay in the workforce, not getting out of the way and allowing people to earn that same level of confidence so that they can lead the organization going forward. Yeah. And
Matt Poepsel (09:06):
I think you want to talk about uncertainty. Imagine, let's say you're 30 years into your career. Do you think you have any idea what's going to happen for a Gen Z person their next 30 years? Oh my gosh, you couldn't even begin to predict. So how do you help them to enter a period of even greater uncertainty than certainly we experienced? That's stewardship. That's kind of our job as leaders.
Meridith Elliott Powell (09:25):
Very much so. I was working with a group yesterday and I'd worked with the executive team and they asked me to come in and work with the mid-level managers. And I said, "You need to realize that you got your job. You became a leader because you're really good at what you do. That is no longer your job. Your job now is to produce four or five people better than you at doing that job because that's how a company grows." And ironically, it was a sports team. It was the Charlotte Hornets. And what I was saying is, do you notice a talented player gets transferred because they're talented? A coach either is revered or they get fired. There's no in between. And a really good coach is the most valuable player on the team because he or she can produce really good players. That's your job as a leader.
Matt Poepsel (10:14):
It so rarely gets framed that way. And like you said, not only is that mandate not framed, then they're not getting the training to actually develop other people. It's no wonder we find ourselves in the predicament sometimes. That's why I love my listeners to the show. They're investing in themselves by listening to expert like you. But I think we've been talking a little bit about longevity and I wanted to touch on this. You had nine companies that were 50 years or more. What is it that you learn from those longstanding companies that they get right that some of the average businesses don't?
Meridith Elliott Powell (10:40):
When uncertainty hits, big uncertainty, like a COVID, like a world war, like a depression, most companies either barely scrape through or they completely disappear. And I wanted to find those companies that had not only come through it, but actually grown through it. And I would say number one is they had a leader with a really strong, well communicated vision. They had somebody in that company who was very clear on what they were trying to accomplish, and he or she communicated it all the time. They walked through the doors of the organization talking about it constantly so that everybody in the company could repeat that vision and was clear that success would happen. And then another one of my favorite things, just because we've been talking about AI so much, is that all the leaders in all the organizations that I studied, they're very people focused.
(11:37):
100% committed to the fact that their success is about having the best people around them. 100% committed to the fact that they don't use research and development really to develop their growth plans. They listen to customers. They listen for the trends and the shifts in the marketplace. And they're incredibly well networked and incredibly well-connected. So when a challenge hits, they can pick up the phone and make a phone call. And I'll give you a quick example. One of the companies I studied was Crane Stationery. If you've ever written a thank you note, you've probably written it on Crane or gotten a wedding invitation. It was probably on Crane. They survived the Civil War. Nobody was sending thank you notes or invitations to parties during the Civil War, but they got the US government, they got the contract to print our money on Crane paper. And that only happened because one of the Crane family members was well connected into somebody in the US government, picked up the phone, made a phone call because the US government was looking for someplace cheap to print the paper.
(12:41):
He happened to get the law passed that US currency could only be printed on a company within the US, but none of that ever would've happened without the network and the relationship.
Matt Poepsel (12:52):
I think people are always surprised that the top performers in heavy industry, highly mechanized work, even highly technical work, they're still people businesses at the end of the day. They get the people part right. Yes. And I think it's counterintuitive perhaps on the outside, but when you're on the inside, you're like, no, this makes total sense.
Meridith Elliott Powell (13:07):
Yeah, just complete sense. The last thing I'll say that I felt like they really had in common is they were very, very clear on their values, what they wanted to promise and deliver as a business, but they were open to what the product or service was. So in that 250 years, they had definitely evolved and definitely changed maybe the core service offerings, but the values of the company remained the same.
Matt Poepsel (13:30):
I think it really holds people in place. So I almost think about values and culture as almost like a magnet. And you can imagine that when you're going through tough times, there's uncertainty, there's this tendency to pull away and drift and feel like, oh no. But then the strength of the relationship with your manager, the strength of the values of the company you identify with, it gives you a certain amount of confidence and keeps you in seat. And I think that's really important.
Meridith Elliott Powell (13:51):
I think it is such a simple idea, and I think it is so incredibly hard to do. Because if I have this set of values and then I watch my competitors doing things to make money and they're against my values, but oh my gosh, we're in the middle of an economic downturn or something. It takes everything in you to stay true to your values. But I'm telling you, it was so powerful in those research. The companies that use their values like a litmus test, they didn't do business with a customer. They didn't hire an employee. They didn't offer a product. If it didn't align with their values, they did not do it. Those companies are still around.
Matt Poepsel (14:33):
It has a tremendous amount of discipline and integrity, but it pays off. It pays off. And it's so easy to just drop our strategy, drop our values, as you said, and feel like, well, everything's new. We have to reinvent everything. You're like, well, not everything. Our values can carry us through anything even though 250 years later, sure, lots different, but not that.
Meridith Elliott Powell (14:52):
Not that. Not that.
Matt Poepsel (14:54):
Well, I know you had a personal experience with this too, in the sense that you tell a story about your husband's dental office, North Carolina, and there was a flood and the office got flooded. I believe it was Hurricane Ivan. And then a week later, flooded again. I can't imagine you're a keynote speaker. You're having this personal experience. What did that experience teach you really that the data couldn't, that some of these other things couldn't?
Meridith Elliott Powell (15:15):
Yeah. What I love about this, Matt, is I've actually had three experiences with this now.
Matt Poepsel:
Wow.
Meridith Elliott Powell:
And here's what I love about it. I think as a keynote speaker and as an author and as a researcher, a trainer or whatever, and even as a leader, those listening to this podcast,
(15:31):
It's so easy to tell other people what to do, but you don't necessarily follow your own rules. You don't always drink your own Kool-Aid or whatever it is. And I live in the mountains of Western North Carolina. I mean, if you're seeing this on video, you're looking at my log cabin in Asheville. And in 2004, my husband's dental practice got completely flooded out. Not anything you would ever expect in the mountains of Western North Carolina. And it is, how do you make it through uncertainty? We knew when we made the decision to build the dental practice back, because that was something we weren't even sure of, the moment we made that decision and we committed, we were so clear that we were going to bring it back and we were going to be successful. We had no idea how we were going to do that.
(16:18):
And I think that's probably one of the most difficult things that I try to help people with is uncertainty is that I don't know how you're going to be successful, but I promise you, if you can get clarity in your mind and train your mind to focus on that, your mind will find a way to get there. So I went through that whole experience and it carried us through. And then COVID hit. And you and I do this for a living, and when COVID hit, we not only lost all of our income, but we lost our way of making income. We couldn't get on planes, we couldn't travel around the world. You weren't allowed within five feet of a person. And with nowhere left to turn, I followed my own methodology. I went back to my strategies and my steps and just put the faith in it.
(17:02):
And I had, to that point, it was my best year on record. It was the best year I'd ever had. And then two years ago this September, again, I live in the mountains of Western North Carolina, not any place you expect a hurricane to happen. Hurricane Helene hit the mountains of Western North Carolina and for 53 days we had no water, no power, no internet, no cell, no anything. And once again, I had to go back to that. But I've got a client right now who's going through a class action lawsuit. They're trying to sell the business. They got hit with a class action lawsuit. It is a nightmare, but we're using the formula and they're making it through. And I'm telling you, they're going to come out on top. It's so incredibly powerful.
Matt Poepsel (17:42):
It's so reassuring to know that there are frameworks, there are techniques, there are things we can do as leaders to help ourselves and to help those around us through it and navigate our businesses when we have those senior positions. And it doesn't feel good. It's not going to feel good, but it can be done. And you're talking about mindset. Mindset is the one thing that we can never take for granted.
Meridith Elliott Powell (18:02):
Mindset and values were probably two of the biggest shocks that I had from doing the research that how incredibly important that is. And in the book, I talk about this story and I tell it from the stage too about going whitewater rafting. And if anybody's ever gone whitewater rafting, you understand the power of mindset because if you have a really good guide, that guide will tell you to focus on the calm water as you hit a class five rapid. And if you do it, if you focus on that calm water, you will have no idea how you made it through that rapid. If somebody asked you to say, did you put your ore in the water? Did you paddle forward back? You would have no way to tell them. But somehow you wind up in the calm water. If you focus on the rock, you hit the rock.
(18:45):
And we've all had that experience on the same river. You didn't believe the guide at first and you were like, oh my God, oh my God. Oh my God, I'm going to hit the rock. And you hit the rock. And then you go, okay, I'm just going to take a leap of faith and you focus on the calm water. Uncertainty works exactly the same way. Clarity of vision is so incredibly important.
Matt Poepsel (19:03):
It's almost like an out-of-body experience. You're like, I don't know how that happened. And the same is true. Crisis is that way. You mentioned, I can't imagine the first time you get the notice that, oh, we just got hit with a class action suit. Got to scramble and create the war room. Here we go. Let's talk about it. And people are like, drop everything. And you got to have that out of body experience. We can't focus on the rock. We have to focus on things we can control.
Meridith Elliott Powell (19:24):
And here's the thing, my client was right in the middle of a sale and they were getting 18 times multiple. Well, the bottom fell out of all of that. And so it isn't fair. It isn't right. All those things. But we can't stay there and focus on those things because it doesn't get us anywhere. That's the thing about business is we got to pick ourselves up. We got to brush ourselves off and come out stronger on the other side. And you do find your way through.
Matt Poepsel (19:48):
And earlier, you mentioned this briefly, but I want to come back to it, which is this balanced notion about being flexible so we can pivot, but also being focused so we can feel like we've got some control or we can make some progress. How do you maintain that balance and how do you know which one your team needs more of from you in a given moment?
Meridith Elliott Powell (20:06):
Yeah, what a great question. And I love the fact that this is a podcast for leaders because there's fundamentals in the strategy and then there's things that are new that are for today's marketplace. And this is one of those. So how do you strike that balance? You have to do the oxymoron of being incredibly focused as a leader, yet ready to turn the team on a dime. Doesn't sound like that is possible. Well, we said number one, I want you to level set that team with the vision. If I worked for you, I expect three times a day to hear that vision out of your mouth. I expect if you and I have a phone call, you end it with, remember, we're going to be number one in our market. I expect every time you get on a call or a Zoom, I'm hearing it out of you all the time.
(20:52):
I pass you in the stairwell. I'm hearing that vision out of you. But your job as a leader is to get me in shape for change, is to get me building my change muscle. So I use a couple of tools for that. Number one is I tell my clients every single quarter out of your team meetings, we're going to take 20 minutes and we're going to run through two exercises. No more than 20 minutes. The first one is called a skeptic. We're going to get your team to get their head out of their day-to-day business and they're going to look outside. And we're going to talk about how is society changing, competition changing, economics, politics, technology, industry, customers. It's called a skeptic tool. And all you're trying to do as a leader is get me to tell you how are customers changing? How's technology changing?
(21:43):
And then you're just going to ask the question at the end, what, if any, of those changes do we as a business need to be paying attention to now? See, just that gets me in the mindset that, wow, we probably do need to be doing things differently. And I'm not waiting for you to tell me to change. I'm telling you we need to change. This is something we need to be paying attention to. The other tool works in reverse. That one looked forward. This one looks backwards. Because if you're going to be focused and agile, you have to be productive, not busy. And this is called a seeds, a weeds and a needs. And I ask my clients every quarter to have your team run through a simple exercise and ask themselves, what did we do in the last quarter that moved the needle? What did we do that worked?
(22:27):
And what do we need to do more of? Weeds are, what did we do that wasted time or isn't effective anymore? What do we need to quit doing? And what do we need to be doing that we're not doing that could really take this business to another level? And both of those get your team in a constant state of expecting that they're going to be doing things differently so that when you show up with a new change, they're already in shape for it.
Matt Poepsel (22:52):
It's amazing because I've had the pleasure to see you speak a couple times. You're electric, but also this practical thing. I feel like if I was early career person, mid-career person, and I'm in a session where I get to actually participate in the exercises you just shared, and all of a sudden I feel a sense of agency, my fear is going down, I feel like I'm contributing. Somebody highlighted and voted on some sticky I put up. Oh my gosh. All of a sudden you're like, "Hey, you know what?" All of a sudden confidence is building, certainty's building at a time when we really need those things. So it's bringing home for me the fact that you said this is kind of a team sport. We do this collectively. It's not up to the leader to drag us to the top of the mountain. But at the same time, people need to feel something.
(23:33):
Yeah.
Meridith Elliott Powell (23:33):
I think about the number of leaders out there who are burning out. If you own a business right now, you're so stressed out you can't handle it because, oh my gosh, I mean, is the Iran War ever going to be over? Is the strait going to open? What are they going to do with interest rates? I mean, I heard four different things on the news today with what they're going to do with interest rates. Is the housing market ever going to come back? And I say to leaders, if you learn to lead through the power of the question, here's the crazy thing. You do not need to solve these problems. All you need to know are what are the most important problems for my team to solve? And then if you pose those to the team, they will get on board and they will help you do it.
(24:10):
So your stress level comes way down and their engagement level goes way up.
Matt Poepsel (24:16):
I also think that you may have certainty, but that doesn't mean your team does. So we got to be mindful of that. Also, they're reading the same news. They're on LinkedIn. They're seeing thousands of people laid off because of AI and stuff. And if you're like, "We're not going to do that," you're like, "Well, they don't know that." I think that's just where we have to recognize that it's a closed system in the sense that everything leaks into their minds and they bring that to work with them. So checking in with your people. I love what you said earlier too about just reinstalling that vision every week, every day. How are we making sure people are focused on the end game, so to speak, or the next summit or however you want to call it? That's a huge thing to keep people focused, but keep them flexible.
(24:50):
It's incredible.
Meridith Elliott Powell (24:51):
Yeah, absolutely.
Matt Poepsel (24:53):
I'll tell you something that's a lot less incredible. It's this trivia game I like to play, Meridith. So we're going to have some fun here. I saw it in one of the interviews that you had done that you were passionate about, the outdoors, community and connection. I though we would get a trivia question about the great outdoors. Why not? So here it is. It's multiple choice. What's the name of the famous Geyser in Yellowstone National Park that erupts on a highly predictable schedule? Is it the Great Spout, Old Faithful, or Mount Vesuvius?
Meridith Elliott Powell (25:16):
Old Faithful. It's got to be Old Faithful.
Matt Poepsel (25:17):
Audience if you're playing along at home. The famous Yellowstone Geyser, is it the Great Spout? Old Faithful or Mount Vesuvius? That is correct, of course. Light clockwork. Black clockwork. It's just how it is. It says it earned its name back in 1870 because it's so predictable. 180 feet high into the air every 60 to 110 minutes.
Meridith Elliott Powell (25:38):
Wow. Amazing.
Matt Poepsel (25:39):
I've never seen it. I've been to Yellowstone, but I haven't seen it. You like to go to national parks?
Meridith Elliott Powell (25:43):
Oh my gosh. Yeah, I'm on the board for the Great Smoky Mountains National Parks. I'm a big national park girl. I've seen Old Faithful, but gosh, it's been years.
Matt Poepsel (25:51):
Wow, that's pretty high. I'm going to steal a clue. I'm going to let you have that one because I'm not. Well, we dominated that trivia question, but here's something else I want to dominate, which is where can my listeners go to learn more about you and connect with you?
Meridith Elliott Powell (26:01):
Well, first of all, I would love it. I'm a big believer, build your network. It will change your life. If you connect with me, I will connect with you. And they can find me at my website, which is valuespeaker.com, just the words valuespeaker.com. I tend to live more on LinkedIn than any other social media channel, but you can find me on any social media channel.
Matt Poepsel (26:19):
That sounds good. Listeners, I'm going to have those links for you in the show notes. You're only one click away from getting connected with Meridith and really picking up on her great programming. It's such a timely topic, uncertainty. Thank you, Meridith, for giving us your expertise, your advice. A glimpse into how we can navigate that uncertainty.
Meridith Elliott Powell (26:34):
Thank you. It's been a great show.