The Art of Leadership: Empathy, Communication, and Culture with Scott Monty

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This is lead with culture. I'm Kate Volman. And on this episode, we are talking all about communications and how to be a more effective communicator. And there is no one better to have this conversation with than Scott Monty. He is a strategic communications and leadership coach and advisor who helps the C suite embrace better communication with timeless and timely advice.

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Scott spent six years as an executive at. Ford, where he helped turn the company around with the ability to merge technology with humanity. He's also worked with brands like Walmart, IBM, Coca Cola, Google, and McDonald's.

We talked about communication. We talked a little bit about A. I. And how leaders are using that technology to help become better communicators. We definitely dug into how to have uncomfortable and difficult conversations with those that are on our team.

And I also asked Scott to share one action step that leaders can take to become a more effective communicator and leader. So I hope you enjoyed this episode. Scott, thank you so much for joining us today. I'm so happy to have you.

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Kate.

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Scott, tell us how, I mean, obviously you have a very interesting background.

You've done a lot of. Really cool things in your career. But when someone asks, Hey Scott, do you do? How do you answer that?

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that's life, we don't have all the answers. It's a journey, and I'm here to help people as they're exploring their leadership journey and their journey. they can become better versions of

themselves.

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relationships.

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are there any constants that you're seeing among teams right now that are trying to handle so much change all at once?

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What's the right balance? What should I do? I see bifurcation where there's this draconian, yeah, we need to return to the way it was before the pandemic and everyone needs to come back to the office. You know, all the way over on one side, and then over on the other side, you've got people that are like, free for all, let's let everybody do whatever they want. And I think the challenge is that a one size fits all and a no size fits anyone don't work. You need to have some sort of medium there where you're, developing your team in a deliberate and conscious way. So if you say, look, I think it's important. That we all spend time together occasionally. And that is if your team is co-located in the same geographic area and I'd like everybody in the office on Tuesdays and Thursdays, or, , whatever schedule you come up with. What you've done in that case is you've, laid out expectations, you've shown people what's important to you, and more importantly, you've given them a structured environment that they can then plan around. Because that I think is one of the biggest things that we've realized during the pandemic is people have lives and it's not just about dedication to the office. It's really about giving people the ability. To live their best lives, whether they're at work or whether they're at home and that they have responsibilities at home, just as well as they have responsibilities at the office. And when you give people flexibility, when you give them boundaries and combine the two, then you're able to set more of a deliberate culture that is going to then inspire more loyalty to

you.

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We should just be off and doing travel and, experiencing the world and all this different ways. So it almost feels as though we are demonizing work. work is bad and doing whatever we want is great. And where's that middle ground of. work is good. Work helps us grow.

We develop new skills there is a lot of value in work. And so it's interesting how there's just these polar opposites, people talking about this whole idea of work what we should be doing. love you share that it is this spectrum,

And I love that leadership. Has the ability to recognize and realize that, Hey, people have their own lives and the flexibility in that, but also the expectations. what are the expectations of the work that you're responsible for that you have to get done?

I feel like that is so key when we can communicate the expectations and then know, hey, this is what needs to get done. And it's less about how it's gets done and more about, is it being done?

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He's the guy who implemented the eight hour day and a 40 hour work week. And in this day and age, that doesn't necessarily make sense. I mean, it makes sense in terms of that's when people congregate. Around the workspaces or their, computers or whatnot. But if somebody gets their job done in 35 hours and does it while running errands and taking care of other responsibilities, does it really matter that they haven't worked 40 hours in that week?

judge them based on the work they get done, not on when they're actually in their chair. And I think that exposes another, toxic area of leadership, which is the lack of trust that a lot of leaders have in their employees. I've always questioned that when leaders, , wonder what employees are up to, and are they actually doing the work they're supposed to be doing? Look, as long as it's getting done, what does it matter to you? And quite frankly, if you don't trust them, why did you hire them in the first place? it's really a two way street. I had an experience earlier this year where I was helping CEO of a long time company rewrite a speech where he was recognizing employees for decades of service. Employees that had been with the company for 15, 25, even 40 years in some cases, and what he had written was pretty bland. And I just, wanted to add some emotion to it because it's not every day that you come across employees that are this dedicated to a company That's been able to retain employees for that long.

So there's something special going on. So I, rewrote it for him and I referenced how, you in this day and age, when we see so many employees jumping from job to job or company to company every two or three years, which isn't that uncommon. Isn't it amazing that we have employees that have been here, many employees that have been here for decades. And gave him the copy of the speech and he called me into his office and he goes why did your reference of people leaving their jobs every two to three years? And I said, well, I, want to draw the distinction between this company and the rest of the world, how it's really special. And I swear to God, he goes yeah, but I don't want to put any ideas in their head. Okay.

like they wouldn't know anyway, but then he's so insecure and yet he's got these employees who are so dedicated to him. there's such a mismatch there

in that

case.

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And I'm like, Okay, then great. that's a beautiful dream. not everyone is meant to be at your organization for 20 years, this is a good thing. it's good when we are, able to have somebody that comes and has this really incredible experience. And while they're there, they're doing their best work and they're engaged and they're, contributing to the organization and then they get to go off.

But when they're leaving, they're leaving. Thank you. In a good, positive way and in a way in which you're able to figure out, okay, what are we going to do before this person goes what a better transition for that person. So that reminds me of that. It's like, why would you put this in someone's head that there are other opportunities or there are other dreams out there that you're able to fulfill?

So what a different shift mindset. Do you feel likeolder leaders versus millennials or gen Z. What are you seeing as far as the different age groups of people that are working?

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you can be self aware at any age, and in being self aware, I think that automatically helps you become more empathetic, more aware of what other people are going through. And, as you said, a leader's job is to not quash people's dreams. It's really to help bring them out. you think about Jack Welch in his time at General Electric and look, Jack Welch at the time. In the 80s and 90s was considered a remarkable CEO. We look back on his methods now and, it kind of cringe a bit, but the reality is that in GE, it was a hierarchy and there were only so many steps up the ladder and places that you could fill and not everybody was going to get there. , it's built like a classic pyramid or a hierarchical organization. So the reality is you're developing people along the way to become better leaders, to become better versions of themselves. And ultimately part of GE's success. Was measured by the executive positions that leaders took when they left GE and went to other organizations that GE ended up becoming a CEO factory for a lot of different industries, even though they didn't stay at GE.

And what they did is they took that culture, they took those lessons that they learned, and they then instilled them in other organizations.

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And this was early on in my career, and I started becoming a very avid reader, , I found Think and Grow Rich, and Zig Ziglar, and Jim Rohn, and all the personal development stuff, and I didn't know it was this whole world of, these incredible authors , and he was like, no, I don't read books, and I'm like, oh, okay, interesting

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I don't care if you listen to audio books versus actually sit down and read a book, or if you just read long form articles on the web, or you subscribe to a lot of newsletters.

us, whether it's a world from: 1000

then that's all that matters. And I think we need to encourage more of that, and this is, part of the problem. We don't have a lot of time for reflection. We don't have a lot of downtime. We're constantly being moved and pushed and distracted, and we need time to reflect on these things. And to me, when you sit down with a book or of reading material you have, and you take the time to reflect on what you've just read. That's what really

matters.

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, that matters too, right? It's not just about this constant need of consumption. You mentioned Seth Godin. That's another thing I find interesting. I mentioned Seth Godin to people all the time. Most people have never heard of him. You and I. In the marketing communication world, he is like big time.

How have you not heard of him? So it's a good point to think about in your industry. What does that look like? Who are the people in your industry that you really admire that are doing incredible things and finding those resources that you really like. And today it's. It's easier than ever with books and podcasts.

I mean, oh my gosh, the amount of podcasts that are out there on every single specific niche topic you could think about. a podcast.

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that matters.

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In fact, I'm reading a book now by Jonah Berger. I don't know if you're familiar with his books, but it's called magic words and it is so fascinating. Just the idea of Changing small little words here and there to improve your communication. So, you help so many people with communication and leadership, obviously, is such a big part of that, we have to take an idea and lead people towards it, and persuade them to get on board with the message that we want to share and the direction that we're going and the mission that we're on. So, what do you feel like are some of the mistakes that leaders are making today when it comes to communication?

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Because we're listening, And your ear has a different focus than your eye. When you're scanning a sentence, you can see eventually where it's going to end. When you're listening, you don't know. So keeping people's attention in short phrases. And in short sentences makes a heck of a lot more sense when you're writing for the ear. just be careful of the medium and make sure that you are tailoring your message to every audience and every medium

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especially for leaders leading a big team, if they do put out, The newsletter or an email and then it's also the video or a podcast. I know that some companies, they have an internal podcast that people can listen to.

So, it feels like obviously it does take a lot of time and attention to craft and put together. So when putting together whatever piece of content, whether written Audio or visual. I'm curious, are you using or do you recommend that leaders start using AI to help them craft more powerful messages to their teams?

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you can use AI to help you generate ideas, to help you come up with outlines, maybe even to craft a few sentences. But once AI has given you that output, it's still incumbent upon you to go and make it your own, and make it sing like you would normally talk or write to people. So I think it's, a wonderful tool that we've got now and people should use it and experiment with it and see how it works for them. But don't rely on it solely. It's, kind of like getting into a Tesla getting in the backseat and letting the car drive. Well, it's not quite ready for prime time yet, even though some Elon bros will tell you it is.

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Some whether it's like a subject line or maybe to take a certain paragraph and switch it up a little bit. but it is really interesting how some people are, using it to draft better emails or memos or whatever it is, or videos and creating video scripts. But you can tell when somebody uses AI versus if it's.

More them, if it's 90 percent them and 10 percent AI or like 10 percent them and 90 percent AI, you can tell.

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So you got to be careful.

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Or just people in the organization that they're working together and there's a lot of conflict. And then the leader is like, well, I don't know how to handle these two people and the conflict they're in. So those two scenarios show up a lot. I'm sure you see that in the work that you do as well.

So I'm curious how you help leaders work through those situations,

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And that's essentially what you need to think about your teams as. And don't like referring to companies and teams as family because it's not the same as family. and God, we know how families can

bicker too, right? But the reality is, it's about having relationships with people. this is what I've been saying throughout the episode here.

Having a healthy relationship with someone means being able to express all kinds of feelings. I deal with this with my kids too, you know, your kid gets upset and they start crying and a lot of parents, their first instinct is to say, oh, don't cry, but why not? if they were laughing, would you tell them not to laugh? Well, in an inappropriate situation, you might, right? We, instinctively do not tamp down on positive feelings. Why should we tamp down on so called negative feelings? Feelings are just feelings. And if you're having some difficulty with the people in your organization, then the best thing to do is just let people know that you're struggling.

It doesn't necessarily mean you need to go and confront them and tell them what they're doing wrong, but what you can say is how it's affecting you. How it's affecting you as a manager, how it's affecting you as an individual contributor, and maybe what you'd like to see improve out of the situation, and then allow the other person to respond and see where they take it now, if they are in full blame mode, and that's, where it's easy to get to when one person starts a conversation by Blaming the other person for a conflict or telling them what they're doing wrong. Then the other person's natural instinct is to freeze up. And to counter with, well, no, I'm not doing it wrong. You're doing it wrong. And the conflict just continues versus if I came to you and I said, Kate, I'm, struggling right now. I'm having a really difficult time because I'm not able to get my assignment done when I don't have the necessary information from you.

Is there any way you could help me out here? You see, that sets up a very different kind of engagement, a very different kind of conversation. Then Kate, when you don't send me my emails it screws up the whole project, right? So it's, just the tone we take and the empathy we show and the focus on how it's affecting you versus what the other person is

doing.

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It should be easy but not comfortable, it's never comfortable to have an uncomfortable conversation with someone But if you have that open communication with them continuously And you're treating them like people then that conversation looks a heck of a lot differently if someone's coming into your office already feeling like My boss hates me and you're already dealing with a struggle right from the start.

And so it happens way before you have that difficult conversation.

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To me, one on ones aren't about status updates. status updates, project updates. Those are appropriate when you're dealing with a particular project. The one on one is just that. It's one on one time. It's, how are things going in your world? What are you struggling with? have you seen lately? What'd you do this weekend? I mean all kinds of things like that, however you want to structure it, so that, you do get to a conversation where somebody's having a difficult time. Another way of addressing it, if you've got this rapport already in place with them, thanks to the one on ones, would be to say, Kate is everything okay? Or Kate, I notice your work quality has been slipping lately. Is there something that's bothering you? Or is there something you'd like to talk about? and giving them agency, giving them the dignity to respond with what might be on their mind, rather than having to be back on their heels and be defensive.

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What would be a good. activity, 10 minutes or less, that a leader can do to improve their leadership and communication.

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walking for people who, you are perhaps cooped up at home, , working from home getting out of your apartment, getting out of your house, go and take a walk. Go down to the corner bodega, go stroll around the park, take your pet out for a walk, whatever it is. And don't look at your phone while you're doing that. Use it as time to clear your head. And to just observe the world around you because I think too often we're heads down, focused on our phone, trying to get to our next appointment.

What's the next update or who just texted me? Clear your mind from that. Less dot com and more

dot calm. is what I say.

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would never expect.

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and figuratively,

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To know what kind of culture they have in that organization for this

woman to care that deeply about Obviously she cares about her work because of that phone call she was so sweet.

And then she said, call me any time.

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But just the secret shoppers, you know,

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exactly.

You never know.

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Oh my gosh. Well, Scott, this has been so wonderful. I am so appreciative and grateful have you on. You shared some really Great tips. I always like to make sure that people are leaving with some type of action step, something that they can do to really help in their leadership journey, which goes back to the point of we can listen and learn and read all the things, but if we don't practice and apply, then what's the point.

So, I hope that people took something from today's session. So. Thank you so much for taking the time, Scott. I appreciate it.

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show.

I

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We can always learn something from the people that we meet or the content that we consume. And so I hope that there was something in this episode that inspired you to become a more effective communicator and leader for your team.

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So their organizations can become the best version of themselves. So thank you for your support. Thank you for listening and until next time lead with culture.