Leadership Blind Spots That Could Be Costing You Trust and Talent with Matt Bertman

About This Episode 

In this episode of The Future of Work® Podcast, host Frank Cottle sits down with Matt Bertman, a seasoned HR executive and best-selling author of The Insightful Leader, to explore what leadership really looks like—through the eyes of employees. Drawing from over 25 years in leadership development across industries like tech, real estate, insurance, and automotive, Matt reveals the most common blind spots that leaders miss, why 60% of employees would fire their boss if given the chance, and how post-COVID hybrid work has changed the rules of engagement. Together, they discuss the shift from hierarchical command to trust-based communication, the role of emotional intelligence, and how leaders can better empower and understand their teams. This episode is a must-listen for any executive looking to transform their leadership style for the modern workplace. 

About Matt Bertman 

Matt Bertman is the Director of Leadership Development at Rentokil Terminix and the best-selling author of The Insightful Leader. With over 25 years of experience in human resources, talent management, and employee engagement, Matt has held leadership roles at Indeed, Gentherm, Amerisure Insurance, and Pulte Homes. He’s a recipient of the Chief Learning Officer magazine’s Leadership Award and holds a master’s degree in HR management from Michigan State University. 

What You’ll Learn 

• Why leadership blind spots are more dangerous than you think 
• What 60% of employees say they’d do if they could “fire their boss” 
• The role of emotional intelligence in leadership success 
• Why top performers struggle when promoted into management roles 
• How post-COVID hybrid work is reshaping employee expectations 
• Real strategies to build trust and communication across all levels 
• How to give specific, meaningful feedback that actually lands 
• The difference between telling and asking—and why it matters
  

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Transcript

Matt Bertman

[ 00:00:00,000 ]And we were fascinated by the findings that we had uncovered, where, when asking employees how they truly felt about the relationship that they had with their manager, we asked them a very direct question: ‘If given the opportunity to quote, unquote, kind of virtually sort of fire their boss, wave that magic wand,’— you know, up to about 60% responded that they would take the opportunity to do that.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:00:21,590 ] Matt, welcome to the Future of Work podcast. Gosh, we’re really excited to have you here today. What an amazing career you have. So many different companies, so many things driving thought leadership around.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:00:35,840 ] and employee relationships. What caused you to want to break out and write the leadership book that you have?

Matt Bertman

[ 00:00:44,580 ] You know, there’s a handful of reasons. Certainly throughout all my career in a wide variety of different industries, whether it be automotive or… home building, real estate, insurance, technology. One of the things that myself and my co-author, Dr. Keith Levick, had found is that really the challenges around leadership don’t discriminate against industries, regardless, or managers as a whole. It’s a constant challenge, to say the least.

Matt Bertman

[ 00:01:15,520 ] Yeah. I think we even definitively know what leadership is. Yes. No, that is, I mean, that is oftentimes the question that’s out there. And in fact, we did a search. You can find hundreds of thousands of books just under the search of the word ‘leadership’ on Amazon. To your point, everybody is kind of in search of their own definition and their own perspective. The truth is, so many books around leadership really were written by either leaders themselves, possibly sports figures, politicians, but rarely was anything from the lens of an employee.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:01:52,800 ] You know, it’s funny, I read one of those funny definitions years ago and I’ve always remembered it. It says, well, if you’re with a group of colleagues on a hike and you reach the top of a hill, you look over your shoulder and they’re still there.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:02:11,570 ] If they’re not there, you have problems. Yes.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:02:16,630 ] Pretty simple. Just look around and say, is everybody still following? If they are, I’m okay. If not, I have to go find out why.

Matt Bertman

[ 00:02:26,130 ] yeah yeah it’s simple but it always stuck with me and it’s true that is you know it’s a it’s a really good analogy in the mindset that oftentimes what leaders in my opinion can get trapped is thinking about just what lies ahead and being focused on their own next step forward, next step forward. And to your very point, fail to recognize the fact that, you know, others are dependent on their leadership. And so it’s important, like you said, to look back and see if others are still with you and along for that journey. And that even though you don’t see anybody necessarily in front of you, there’s a tremendous amount of responsibility behind you.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:03:01,640 ] Well, you know, in different companies and.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:03:06,300 ] military good example you have very hierarchical leadership and we’ve all seen the old movie where the captain of the ship says two degrees to port and then the house says they don’t who has the animals that do the greatest sport then the other guy Turns about to two degrees depart. The next guy down the engine room says, two degrees depart. That hierarchical structure in leadership, I think we talk a lot about individual leaders, but we don’t talk a lot about the hierarchical structure of leadership.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:03:39,540 ] What’s your thought on that? I know you’ve interviewed thousands and thousands of employees, sort of an upside down case. How do you deal, not how do you deal with, how do you define that hierarchical structure? Does leadership really come from understanding from the bottom up?

Frank Cottle

[ 00:03:59,340 ] Or does it come from the top down and it’s just following orders?

Matt Bertman

[ 00:04:02,840 ] Yeah, there is a great question. You know, it is a great question. There is another book out there that’s a fabulous read called It’s Your Ship. And, you know, it’s an interesting concept. What it talks about is, as a Navy captain who served on a nuclear submarine and basically had to deal with the hierarchy, as you know, throughout the military. It’s very hierarchical down. But to be able to break that mindset oftentimes can be extremely successful in any realm of leadership. So my philosophy on that really is that while you have to have a certain set of rules and hierarchy within an organization, what you lose out on is a tremendous amount of empowerment. By just kind of going through solely the chain of command, unless you are truly kind of steering a nuclear submarine. And in this case, the story that was shared was, you know, the captain said, you know what, he’s going to get more out of his crew. By empowering them and allowing them to be able to make key decisions.

Matt Bertman

[ 00:05:06,500 ] And what he said was the only decision he wouldn’t allow his crew ultimately to make is the final decision if they had to launch an actual nuclear weapon for that standpoint. And he said, as a leader, he wanted to be able to keep that in his responsibility. But outside of that, his mindset was, I need to really allow my crew to be empowered to be able to make more decisions.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:05:27,680 ] You know, I think that works well, but you have to have a framework. We’ll call it objectives.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:05:35,140 ] You have to start off with that crew meeting. So, you know, our objective is to go from Alaska to Hawaii.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:05:41,040 ] Using his analogy, in stealth. We’re going to be trying to map the ocean floor for some purpose, etc. That’s our objective.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:05:53,300 ] Even that is a lot of empowering people. So, well, I think we’ll take the northern route. Let’s take the southern route.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:06:02,260 ] And the empowerment, if you empower people with a hierarchical structure, you empower the second person down. Do they empower the third person? Or is it a committee empowerment? How do you play with that? Because it’s a very, you know, words are great, but action and the way it unfolds. It’s what you end up with.

SPEAKER_3

[ 00:06:25,400 ] Yes.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:06:25,980 ] It said, you know, we’re going to Hawaii by way of bomb.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:06:29,820 ] No, it is.

Matt Bertman

[ 00:06:33,660 ] It is an interesting point from a standpoint that so much of leadership comes down to communication. I agree with you that I think you have to have. A good leader sets clear direction. They have good, clear goals and objectives for their team from that element of things. And you have to have communication, not only between the manager and the employee, but across the board. Oftentimes I’ll do an exercise with organizations and leaders, and I’ll ask them the simple word ‘bear.’ And throughout a classroom, let’s say, of 40 or 50 people, I’ll ask each individual, ‘What is the first thing that comes to mind when they hear the word ‘bear?’ And we do that exercise, and it’s amazing because what I’ll see is that so many people will give, you know, they’ll say everything from, ‘Well, I’ll ask you, if you don’t mind me asking, we’ll do that exercise for a moment.’ When you hear the word ‘bear,’ what’s the first thing that comes to mind?

Frank Cottle

[ 00:07:26,910 ] I’m going to run faster than you.

Matt Bertman

[ 00:07:28,770 ] Okay. All right. Run faster than you. Exactly. And I’ll oftentimes hear Grizzly.

Matt Bertman

[ 00:07:34,410 ] We’ll hear Chicago.

Matt Bertman

[ 00:07:37,610 ] I’ve even heard things such as dating back generations, Bayer Aspirin from that aspect, all of these different things. And the rationale and the mindset around that is this. That just simply one word, Bayer, we draw the assumption that everybody may be thinking the exact same thing we are. But the truth is, with 30 people, you may have 30 different definitions and 30 different mindsets. So back again, Frank, to your point, if you tell people simply, we’re going to go out and we’re going to execute Bayer. In a corporate setting, that’s what we’re going to do. And you don’t provide any more context. You’re going to have 30 people going off in 30 different directions.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:08:10,840 ] I think, again, I’m going to come back to the layering issue and empowerment.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:08:16,260 ] I’ve seen great inspirational leaders motivate an organization to move forward. And I’ve seen good planners in the executive organize the necessary resources and things to achieve the ultimate objective.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:08:43,330 ] See managers that are empowered themselves choke the empowerment for their employees because they’re fearful that they will not look good if their employees, the people underneath them, don’t do well.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:09:02,290 ] When you say empowerment, again, I’m going to stick with that for a minute. When you say empowerment, empowering throughout an entire organization is sort of like when you were a kid playing that little game called telephone.

SPEAKER_3

[ 00:09:13,390 ] Yes.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:09:13,950 ] And using your term bear, I say bear, you say run, the next person says hide, the next person says. seek— pretty soon, bear doesn’t mean anything anymore. And so, how do you pass leadership down with empowerment through, let’s say, four layers of management to the line, and still sustain the motivation and inspiration that you hoped when you started?

Matt Bertman

[ 00:09:43,860 ] Yes, you brought up a key word there, which is motivation. And I think what oftentimes managers fail to do, just on the topic of motivation as well, is they think that the best way to motivate people is through money. And, and you know, and that mindset is that they can you know extrinsically motivate individuals by you know rewarding them through money and things of that nature. And I oftentimes say, you know, you can rent somebody’s back, but you can’t buy their heart from that standpoint. And, once again, an element of that also comes back to trust. And I think it’s a trust in the manager realizing that the employee can be able to execute on what is being asked for them to do. But my fallback goes back again to communication— that I think it’s a multi-pronged approach, especially in a hierarchical dynamic where I think you have the leader that is setting the tone with regard to communication, but they also have to have the expectations that they’re going to allow their managers to be able to, you know, communicate directly with their employees too.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:10:45,120 ] Trust it. I hate to fall back on a military analogy, but yeah, I think if we’re looking at a military analogy, they would say: ‘Trust comes from knowledge. Knowledge comes from training. If your people aren’t trained to the skill set that’s necessary, you can’t trust them until they are.’ So they would throw in training, training, training, training, training— very diligently. And if you’ve ever been in or around the military, then you would say, ‘Yup, that’s what they do.’ So that everybody has the same turn. Everybody knows exactly what ‘right’ is. How do you do that?

Matt Bertman

[ 00:11:28,933 ] From a corporate environment standpoint, you’re saying: ‘From how you create trust.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:11:35,893 ] So that when you say somebody do this, you know they have and the skill set to do it. Forget motivation and inspiration. You know they have the skill set to do it.’

Matt Bertman

[ 00:11:48,280 ] Yes, that’s, I mean, you know that they have the skill set, but the challenge a lot of new managers have from a trust standpoint is that they, throughout their career, before they have been promoted into management, is that they oftentimes have been rewarded for being a great doer, an individual contributor. And so that too is an interesting dynamic where we oftentimes see those first-time frontline managers really struggle with those very things of trusting. Their employees back to kind of delegating, empowering all of those dynamics, because throughout their career, they have been rewarded for the work that they’ve done, for being, for all intents and purposes, and that’s not a dirty word— a good doer. And now all of a sudden they have been promoted, not necessarily for their management capabilities, because they haven’t had a chance to demonstrate those, but they’ve been promoted for demonstrating the work that they do on a daily basis.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:12:43,800 ] Where you see that the most in companies, where you see it oftentimes, is in sales. The top salesperson becomes the sales manager. And I don’t say it rarely works. It doesn’t work as often as people hope.

Matt Bertman

[ 00:13:03,010 ] Yes. And for reasons, you know, Frank, I’d ask you that question for reasons that could be a couple. Is it because it is sort of that unconscious competence that they don’t necessarily know? What are the things that, you know, translated to their success and their ability then to share that with others? Or is it that good salespeople sometimes are just that good salespeople? It doesn’t mean they’re necessarily great managers or leaders.

Matt Bertman

[ 00:13:31,370 ] this transition join the club i’m right there with you oh no i’m a real but i’ve been this transition a number of times i’ve actually been in it myself and i think that one of the challenges convincing them on and they try to convince them to do things rather than help train and that they can’t help themselves um oh that it is that is just almost kind of ingrained in their almost ingrained in their DNA from yeah I think that’s right.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:14:14,230 ] Well, you’ve done something very interesting. I really enjoyed it.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:14:18,970 ] You interviewed from the bottom.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:14:25,720 ] Most leadership think, oh, we’re going to talk to these 20 CEOs and see how they do it. Yes. You really started down at the bottom of the organization and said, what are the things that work for you that you receive from your leaders or what don’t you receive, which is even more insightful. that help you to progress or that you think are important.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:14:50,140 ] I love your one single standout fact that 60% of employees fire their bosses.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:14:56,600 ] I’m sure I’m one of those. But that’s a different way and you interview thousands of people.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:15:04,950 ] Help us with the insights that you’ve gained from that.

Matt Bertman

[ 00:15:07,610 ] Yeah, and really to kind of phrase it a little bit more, Frank kind of setting that stage is you’re absolutely right. In the research that we did, in the interviews that we conducted, we recognized that rarely has there been leadership books that have taken the perspective from employees. As I mentioned a few minutes ago, oftentimes the books are written by leaders themselves or by politicians, famous sports athletes, things of that nature. We wanted to take it from the lens of employees. And we were fascinated, as you also said, by the findings that we had uncovered, where when asking employees how they truly felt with regard to the relationship that they had with their manager, we asked them a very flat-out question. If given the opportunity to, quote, unquote, kind of virtually sort of fire their boss, wave that magic wand.

Matt Bertman

[ 00:15:56,079 ] Well, first 44% responded that they would take the opportunity to do that. We then did a post-COVID survey. This was pre-COVID. We did a post-COVID survey, and we found, surprisingly, the number went up to about 60%.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:16:14,440 ] Do you think that post-COVID differential from 40 to 60% basically was because the bosses were not properly prepared to deal with a change of that magnitude and therefore their management was a little bit chaotic?

Matt Bertman

[ 00:16:32,730 ] Yeah, it is.

Matt Bertman

[ 00:16:34,730 ] That is the core. It is a core element. And, you know, there’s oftentimes few things that come of value when it may take so long to have written a book, meaning crossing over from pre-COVID. to post, but the research, it was a fascinating kind of inflection point to your, your very element. Our theory was actually going to be, it was going to go, it was actually going to reduce. And I’ll tell you why we thought initially thought, Oh, 44%. Post-COVID, maybe we’ve gotten to a kinder, gentler corporate, you know, corporate America and things of that nature. Yeah, back to those elements. And surprisingly, the data, like you said, proved itself to be worse. And, you know, we asked, you know, a few of those questions on why that may be. Some of those were exactly what you had. just shared from that element.

Matt Bertman

[ 00:17:23,900 ] The other thing though is, believe it or not, you think about the future of work, some of those dynamics with regard to a hybrid or remote workplace. employees themselves kind of welcomed those opportunities. And now what we’re seeing is a lot of retreat regarding, you know, we have kind of short-term memories. And so some of that— flexibility that was afforded to individuals during that time of, you know, the pandemic. You know has sort of casted its shadow and that has since gone away and people are asked to go back into the workplace now. One other component I’ll leave you with on that is that, and you may be going there in the same way. I think, from an employee lens, they like the flexibility from that element. In the same regard, what they miss is the the connection they have face to face with their employees as well. So it’s sort of a trade-off. By not being in the office, you’re almost kind of working against the dynamic of a good manager-employee relationship.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:18:21,193 ] Well, like all pendulums, it slings to the center. And I think in today’s work terms, the center is hybrid. 100% remote, only works remotely. 100% of the office is too restrictive for a variety of reasons. Yes.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:18:46,230 ] Two days a week specifically for team or management purposes and the rest of the time they are fully empowered to succeed or to produce on their own.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:19:07,000 ] ideas would be beating that drum so but i’m going to say the genie is out of the bottle you’re not going to put it back um i don’t care what company says we’re bringing everybody back to the office because you know a third of them are going to quit so figure that out the hybrid work or remote work really it’s always been a thing but it became a big thing in 2015-16-17 in the battle for talent particularly in the tech and media industries, you couldn’t hire a senior programmer and say, oh, by the way, you’re in Kentucky, you’ve got great, and you really want to come work for us. You have to move to Silicon Valley.

Matt Bertman

[ 00:19:49,830 ] Yeah.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:19:51,010 ] Ain’t going to do it. Literally, they would say ‘Yeah,’

Matt Bertman

[ 00:19:53,710 ] they’d say ‘Hey, thank you but no, thank you.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:19:55,830 ] Yeah, yeah, thank you, but no, thank you. Oh, we’ll give you more money, no, thank you. And so they couldn’t win the battle for talent. So everybody started doing their own variety of hybrid remote work. Well, I’ll tell you what: you come to the Silicon Valley once a month for three days, and they would form remote, full remote teams. Let’s get five people in Kentucky to work on this project, wherever these teams were built. And those teams, in my industry, gravitated towards co-working and business centers. And you saw a massive explosion of within the commercial office industry. Back when the iPhone and smartphones first came out, industry grew at a compound basis of 14% a year. Guess what?

SPEAKER_3

[ 00:20:45,400 ] Yeah.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:20:46,160 ] So is the flexible workspace industry. It’s grown at a compound rate the last 10 years of 12% to 14% a year, as fast as the adaptation of smartphones. Yes. It is now the largest growth tenet, if you will, in commercial real estate.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:21:07,820 ] You just, again, that genie is not going back to the bottom.

Matt Bertman

[ 00:21:11,180 ] Correct. And I agree with you wholeheartedly. And I think some of those dynamics of what creates that frustrating dynamic where employees would, if they will, wave that magic wand to fire the boss is. Sometimes you may find certain managers or companies trying to push that genie fully back in the bottle, and that can become a challenge of its own to a certain degree.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:21:33,300 ] What I like is a major financial institution led by a very well-known CEO, and he says, we’ve got to bring everybody back so we can preserve our corporate culture.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:21:43,910 ] You have a culture to begin with, you have to all sit in a circle. You know, we need to sit in a circle and sing Kumbaya. Come on. Yeah. It just doesn’t work.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:21:54,150 ] The culture of hierarchical management that we’re trying to preserve. More importantly, what we see is larger.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:22:06,350 ] that they no longer need. They’re trying to justify that to their board and their shareholders.

Matt Bertman

[ 00:22:11,390 ] No, you’re seeing that you’re absolutely right on that front, that there is an element of saying, like you said, ‘well, we want to be able to preserve corporate culture.’ But to your point, there’s a balance sheet dynamic where you know there’s a tremendous amount of real estate there have been you know investments among corporate offices across the land— that can’t go necessarily vacant and be able to ultimately justify it. You know, from that element, um… I think you oftentimes see that card being played with regard to AI and artificial intelligence as well. There’s been some recent articles, I’m sure you’re very aware of, where oftentimes now layoffs that are occurring are casted under the shadow of AI. And in some degrees, that may be valid and accurate. In the same regard, it may be a little bit of a head fake of trying to cut to the bottom line. I think it is.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:23:03,660 ] The real estate is a dynamic, real estate, commercial real estate in particular, is a very anachronistic structure. Think of land, lore. My goodness, I mean, what are we talking about? The medieval thief films, you know, that sort of thing. A lot of corporations literally built cathedrals.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:23:28,500 ] If you will. Have you ever been in an absolutely full cathedral?

Matt Bertman

[ 00:23:34,900 ] No, but I wouldn’t want to be one, especially maybe in the heart of the summer of maybe mid-July or August.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:23:41,340 ] There’s monuments that are on a utilization basis.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:23:47,730 ] Not a real good investment.

SPEAKER_3

[ 00:23:49,070 ] Yeah.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:23:49,890 ] Okay, on a utilization basis. They may have other utilization issues that we would say, yes, they are. But from an occupancy point of view, they’re not. That’s what business has to do.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:24:03,020 ] What surprised you most, aside from the employee? Yeah.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:24:09,120 ] I’ll throw a question on.

SPEAKER_3

[ 00:24:10,720 ] Yeah.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:24:11,540 ] Throw something in there.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:24:14,360 ] Do you think that the employee boss structure, I’m going to change my question a little bit. The employee boss structure.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:24:21,490 ] The result of our one-way management overall is evident. And let’s start with employee reviews.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:24:29,250 ] Every six months, or every month, or every quarter, or whatever, there’s a review process where the manager reviews, sits down with the employees. You’re doing good, Matt. You’re doing bad. Here’s where you can improve.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:24:42,440 ] I don’t see a lot of two-way in those things from an HR point of view.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:24:48,940 ] Do you think if there was a real structure around employee reviews where it was more of a two-way structure— that would have a big impact?

Matt Bertman

[ 00:25:01,040 ] Yeah, I think it absolutely would. I think you’re very much onto something and thinking about kind of that approach. It’s about taking things from a top-down element and back to what are the things— the insights that employees have been, you know, kicking and screaming to try to tell. You know, their managers is one communication, the ability to be able to listen and the ability to be able to provide two-way feedback from that element, not just feedback going in one direction. So when we start to look at, we’ll call it performance reviews. We’re seeing a few things that are occurring, hopefully, that are going to encourage sort of a trend in a little bit of that different direction. One of those is providing employees the opportunity to be able to provide their own self-evaluations.

Matt Bertman

[ 00:25:44,260 ] Not just that this is the sole evaluation, but it serves as the starting point in that process as an employee first does their own self-review. The second component that can be very valuable is incorporating peer feedback as well. So, as we know, sometimes—our managers only see perspectives from the lens in which they’re looking at things, and they don’t necessarily see it from the individuals in which the manager is also, or which the employee is engaging and partnering with— on a variety of different projects. So gaining different perspectives from other individuals within the organization, peer feedback is absolutely critical in that process too. And then, lastly, I would encourage that the reviews don’t just occur annually; they shouldn’t just be a one-time event. But those reviews don’t have to be formal— upping the game on communication and having quarterly conversations around how an employee is progressing. But feedback and, yeah, a two-way street is a big piece of that. Yeah, no, that’s critical.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:26:41,450 ] Again, some organizations.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:26:49,260 ] They do a post-mortem on projects, on a game, on an objective, etc., where the post-mortem or the review, if you will, is very project by project. What we did right, what we did wrong, what we could have done better.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:27:05,960 ] That’s a group.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:27:08,350 ] As opposed to one-on-ones. A one-on-one is only necessary or should be only necessary in sort of an extreme way because you never have a manager and an employee. You have a manager and a group of employees.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:27:26,130 ] Each of those employees may be doing better or worse for certain things, but you are working as a team. So you’re reviewing the team into being more valuable, at least in my view.

Matt Bertman

[ 00:27:38,880 ] No, absolutely. No, you’re absolutely right. And in the same regard also that the feedback has to be specific. And so what you said is the post-mortem. That’s another area that if you were going to ask me where managers struggle, it’s providing feedback, but very specific feedback. Even when we want to compliment somebody for achieving success on a project or work, oftentimes managers fall into the trap of what I call like a fast food drive-by of feedback, just as simply like, hey, you did a great job, tap on the shoulder, you know, and walking past somebody, you know, in their workstation. um but rarely then does the employee actually hear or understand what was it that they did that actually you know was valuable with regard to that work or that project as a whole same thing with regard to constructive feedback as well you know i just have this horrible image of did a real good job those fries were absolutely perfect just right amount of salt on them everybody loved them i just had this horrible drive

Frank Cottle

[ 00:28:34,360 ]-by image and i thought yeah Terrible, terrible thing to say. I apologize to the world.

SPEAKER_1

[ 00:28:40,470 ] No, but specific feedback can be, yeah, no, it can be a valuable piece. What surprised you most in your feedback that you got from people aside from the boss?

Matt Bertman

[ 00:28:52,940 ] Yeah, that COVID element was certainly one element that surprised us. The other piece was that, and this, you know, enters maybe into the realm of the warm and fuzzy, so bear with me. But what surprised me was that employees really were looking for authenticity from their managers and from their leaders. And what I mean by authenticity is the opportunity for managers and employees to build a relationship with them, you know, employee and manager. It doesn’t mean that you’re crossing personal lines or boundaries from that standpoint. But employees time and time again said, ‘My manager just doesn’t know anything about me. They don’t know who I am, the things that are going on within my life, what makes me tick, what motivates me, what drives me.’ They don’t know me and they haven’t taken the time to get to know me.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:29:44,650 ] A lot of times that’s a very, very high-level leadership issue.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:29:51,310 ] I’ll use our own company as an example. For 45 years, we’ve had two philosophies that guide the company. One says members first.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:30:04,850 ] its members first if it’s not good for the member should we really be doing it it has to be better for them than not better for them than us but it has to be unbalanced and always good for them yes and the other’s family first if somebody’s got a problem Everybody, it’s not the company has your back. No, everybody has to have their back. Their coworkers, their boss, the clients have to be understanding as well. Somebody has a problem, you have to deal with that. And having those two philosophies takes us to the third one. This is a common thing that relates to our customers and each other: you don’t know your customer well enough unless you know the name of their dog.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:30:53,180 ] And we say the same about each other and everything. So I know that the… Associate producer of this podcast, I know he’s got a great cat and that cat’s close with him—something amazing, but he, because he lives back and forth, is sort of remote. However, the cat travels with him, which is a big part of his life.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:31:17,380 ] If you don’t know those things about people, I don’t see how you can relate to them. Exactly.

Matt Bertman

[ 00:31:23,580 ] Now, and then to realize the challenges and things that they may be up against at any point in time, and oftentimes managers shy away from those things because, you know, the default mindset is, ‘Oh, gosh, if I start asking questions, they’re going to have me go down a path that I’m not skilled at or I’m not a psychologist or I’m not here to solve their personal problems. You know, that’s, once again, the dynamic of empathy doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re solving people’s problems.’ You’re just taking the opportunity to get to know them, understand what’s going on in their lives, and be able to support them the best way you possibly can.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:31:55,850 ] I think that is critical, especially when you go out and do it.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:32:00,530 ] circumstances like we went through with the pandemic, that you have to recognize that people are people and it has to be a people-first world.

Matt Bertman

[ 00:32:13,020 ] And we’re in these VUCA times, you know, I don’t know if that’s a military term or not, but we hear that VUCA, you know, this VUCA times V-U-C, you know, A, we’re thinking about that volatility and the uncertainty and the complexity and the ambiguity. And we are all living in these VUCA times. And once again… There have never not been one.

SPEAKER_1

[ 00:32:32,200 ] Yeah, yeah.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:32:33,560 ] There have never not been.

SPEAKER_1

[ 00:32:34,740 ] No, that’s true. Correct. We all like to think that the era of the time…

SPEAKER_1

[ 00:32:44,720 ] Yes, it was uphill both ways only during that period of time. This time is important.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:32:50,020 ] The reality is it’s always been that way. If you want to do an exercise in that regard, think of yourself, hey, I’m a time traveler. I can go live in any time I want.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:33:05,290 ] And I can live my life at any time period I want and then find a time period that’s different than today.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:33:13,810 ] And it’s almost impossible. Yeah.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:33:20,170 ] What do you think leadership blind spots are? What do you think the real blind spots that leaders suffer from that they just don’t see it coming?

Matt Bertman

[ 00:33:27,990 ] Yeah, once again, a lot of the things that we had talked about throughout the podcast here, I think some of those blind spots are the ability not, once again, not to be able to get the opportunity to get to know your employees from that standpoint. A big blind spot is not treating your employees like adults. Oftentimes, we treat our employees, if you will, like children to a certain degree. And like you said, we’re in tell mode from that aspect.

Matt Bertman

[ 00:33:55,740 ] The ability to inquire and to be able to listen and to be able to ask good questions is another blind spot that managers have. The mindset that often occurs in managers is to listen, we have to get to the next task, the next thing to do. And so I’m in ‘tell mode’ as opposed to active inquiry. Now we have to find that balance, right? That if there’s a fire on the plant floor, you don’t necessarily go to your employees and say, ‘Tell me about that fire.’ How’s it making you feel, right? There are times where you have to put things in action.

Matt Bertman

[ 00:34:27,690 ] But it’s amazing the things that we miss out on as managers and leaders when we are simply telling people to do things as opposed to asking them their thoughts, their opinions, and their approach and how they may go about it. And emotional intelligence. I can’t leave the podcast though quickly without nailing that one too. It’s emotional intelligence and the ability to really be aware of your own emotions and how that portrays itself on your employees is a potential blind spot in itself.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:34:54,560 ] I agree with that. I’m just trying to figure out if there’s an IQ test you could take for emotional intelligence or not. Um, I’m still looking for that test. Yeah, I’m gonna hit you with one last blind. You mentioned and and you said treating their employees like children. Okay, so I’m going to mention one thing. In our company, maybe in your company too, in most companies, today we have five generations of people working together. And they all are 76. We just hired an intern who’s 20.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:35:27,820 ] How is it possible?

Frank Cottle

[ 00:35:31,030 ] With 55, 60 years of experience for me, not to treat the 20-year-old as if they are mature or a child. My comparison, from an experience point of view, how do you pass down knowledge as a mature adult?

Frank Cottle

[ 00:35:50,910 ] To a generation that’s just entering the workplace, without treating them like the young people, inexperienced people.

Matt Bertman

[ 00:36:03,110 ] You know, another insightful question on your part. And to me, it comes down to oftentimes: It isn’t what the message is, but it’s how it is oftentimes communicated. And you’re correct that in cases where there’s knowledge that needs to be passed on, that isn’t necessarily a dynamic, like you said, where…

Matt Bertman

[ 00:36:23,180 ] you should recognize who is the carrier of that knowledge and that information. When I oftentimes will reference that leaders or managers are treating their employees like children, even if it’s a generational aspect, is how they’re having conversations with them. So it’s the conversation of somebody coming into a meeting and then… And all of a sudden, calling somebody out and saying, ‘You know… you know what time is it didn’t you know that our meeting was supposed to start at nine o’clock? Uh, why weren’t you know… you know, why were you here? Don’t let that happen again.

Matt Bertman

[ 00:36:55,160 ] Yeah, and what will happen is what’s interesting, but it’s the way in which we talk to individuals. If we’ve ever been almost spoken to as a child in this parental fashion, you know, it sort of feels this demeaning way. And then, what oftentimes will happen is just very quickly, again, Frank, think about it. You know, I had children, you know, three kids now are grown. But one thing that they would always oftentimes do when I would kind of treat them in a very childish fashion, and they always kind of then come back and try to almost in a childish fashion. hook me back into that type of dynamic, and so they would say, ‘Well, you know, I was late because you never told me what time to to be here. Then all of a sudden, I’m getting in the playground in the sandbox with them going back and forth. So what times oftentimes occur is that we treat people in a parental way. We treat or we’re talking to them as a parent, treating them as a child. That child then responds in a fashion almost as if in a childlike way. And before we know it, we’re not having adult to adult conversations, but we’re either having parent to child conversations or child to child dynamics.’

Matt Bertman

[ 00:38:00,460 ] And we’re in this bickering back and forth kind of mode. um you know well if you’re going to talk to me this way well then you know what i’m going to be punitive to you and it’s the equivalent of sending a child to the room or giving them a time out we can’t have that in the workplace we know that never worked from our own experience sitting in the uh so i think when you’re coming down to a lot of things around actions and guidance more than through a punitive structure. Yeah, you’re spot on, Frank. I want to make sure out of clarity that in no way am I alluding to that the keepers of the knowledge or those that have this level of expertise should let that go. They should, you know, they have, like you said. 30, 40 years of knowledge and experience that should be passed along. You just nailed it.

Matt Bertman

[ 00:39:00,820 ] It’s really the means and the ways in which you go about communicating and sharing that information and knowledge and creating truly an adult-to-adult environment is where you get the greatest amount of success.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:39:12,480 ] It’s scientifically, if you look at the studies, it says that our brains are all mature in our early 20s, yeah, smart in IQ wise, gray matter wise, etc. As we’re ever going to get at that point.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:39:30,520 ] So the only difference between a Gen Z entering the business world today and a senior executive that might be the chairman of a major company is experience. It’s not intellect.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:39:42,580 ] So if you treat people as your intellectual equals and only…

Frank Cottle

[ 00:39:52,100 ] through leadership.

SPEAKER_1

[ 00:39:54,180 ] I could not have phrased it better myself, my friend. I’ll write the next book. Fair enough, exactly.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:40:01,320 ] Thank you so much for being with us today. I’m really grateful to you. I loved your book, by the way. I really thought it was not only inspirational, but… very eye-opening from a different perspective from many things that I’ve read. So thank you for bringing that to all of us, honestly. And we’ll look forward to the next time we chat.

Matt Bertman

[ 00:40:21,360 ] No, thank you so much. I appreciate it, Frank. Thanks again.

Frank Cottle

[ 00:40:24,180 ] Take care.

Matt Bertman

[ 00:40:25,060 ] Bye