Marc Pitman and The Surprising Gift of Doubt

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The Surprising Gift of Doubt

Wed, 9/22 1:01PM • 59:20

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, leaders, enneagram, talking, goals, association, book, story, moving, hardwiring, helped, leadership, learn, person, work, hear, write, members, doubt, staff

SPEAKERS

Marc A. Pitman, KiKi L’Italien

KiKi L’Italien  00:06

Welcome to Association Chat, where we warm ourselves by the virtual fire with topics of the day, welcoming thought leaders and trailblazers alike to join up in this online home for the community. I’m the host of Association Chat, KiKi L’Italien. And before we get started, I just want to say thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you to the Patreon patrons, who support the show who support Association Chat. It is thanks to you that we are able to keep this going keep bringing on wonderful guests like the guests we have today. And to become a Patreon patron, just visit patreon.com forward slash Association chat.com. And now on to the show. So today we are looking at the role that doubt plays in our lives. It is such an interesting topic because as Association leaders, we often see that doubt is a weakness. Doubt is not something that a leader supposed to have. We’re supposed to avoid it. We’re supposed to avoid any sort of critical voice and just project positivity and leadership skills and all of these things that make us serve these stoic, resilient leaders. Right. But what if, what if? What if doubt were an invitation to greatness? Well, today we have with us mark a Pittman, he’s the author of the surprising gift of doubt. And I have to say, I am so excited mark to talk with you to find out how this might not be the odious, most horrible trait that we could ever have. Mark, thank you for being here.

Marc A. Pitman  01:51

I’m honored to be here. Odious is not a word that’s usually used in an introduction. So thank you. That’s like a good Scrabble word.

 

KiKi L’Italien  01:59

It wasn’t referring to you. [laughing]

 

Marc A. Pitman  02:01

I appreciate that. I do. Yeah. For the record, everyone. Yeah.

 

KiKi L’Italien  02:06

Yeah. So you know, let’s talk about it. So doubt, okay, um, leaders are supposed to be these these, you know, big, resilient, strong stalwarts, these bastions of strength? What’s the story? Why, like what I mean, it can doubt actually be something that we want?

 

Marc A. Pitman  02:28

Well, it’s, it’s, well, first of all, it’s something we all have. And that’s one thing that I think many people as we’re looking at leadership, we go into leadership, all we see is people’s mask, or their, their outward kind of projection, we don’t see the inner workings, often, those people tend to not get promoted into leadership, the ones that are just kind of hot messes, and they let everybody know, they’re a hot mess. And so we don’t really equate that we we see we see what we are lacking. And we don’t see that other leaders see that as well, with their own, they’re also lacking. So it’s amazing to be in a room of leaders and be able to share this kind of concept or new executive directors, and have them just kind of breathe a sigh of relief. I’m not the only one. Because leadership in general is isolating. The higher you move up in your leadership journey, the less supervision you tend to get. And the more risky it gets to, because I some volunteer board is expecting you to perform, or somebody is expected to perform. But there’s not a lot of guidance, because they’ve never done done. They’ve never run in association. They’re just the board. Not just diminutive. I don’t mean that. But they’re they’re good people. I’m on two Boards Association chapter. So it’s we don’t know how to do that part of it. But we’re where we want to help. And so as you move up in this, the the levels of things that you don’t know, become incredibly clear to you. And can be scary.

 

KiKi L’Italien  04:01

I mean, I think so, you know, because you you think you progress along your way. And you imagine that these people that you see above, you know, you’re reaching up those rungs of the ladder to achieve more and more. And you imagine that their answers there, you know, that that somehow, you know, where is where is that wizard in the you know, cave or something that’s going to come and where’s our Merlin? You know, and we’re waiting for that person to come with all the answers. And and a lot of times, I think we look around and we’re like, hey, wait, what am I doing now?

 

Marc A. Pitman  04:40

Well, and that’s part I part of it is I think the way we were raised, we have parents that teach tell us what to do often. We have teachers that have an assignment in our curriculum, and there’s there’s out so much external direction on what to do. It is really natural for us to look for that. But I think it’s really really disheartening. You continue on your journey. And you realize, I can’t remember it parenting is like this, you have three wonderful kids. And they’re, they’re wonderful anyway, but they are truly wonderful. But I remember calling my dad at one point and saying, you were just making this up as you went along. It just occurred to me, he had no more information than I had about parenting, I just thought he had it all figured out. I think our boss, our bosses, we think of that too, which can be really stressful when you’re in executive position, because, you know, you’re just making it up in, there is an aspect of making it up as you go along or fake it till you make it that I think is healthy. I think it’s moving beyond your comfort zone. It’s building your capacity. It’s sort of like interval training. It’s stressing the system and then kind of building your resiliency, then there’s a faking to your make it where it’s total inauthentic and creepy mind to people. And that is not, I would, I would submit that’s not healthy leadership. That’s toxic. Yeah. honesty and integrity are best. So it’s, it’s really, yeah, I think it’s honestly normal to look externally into things are going to be those answers somewhere. And really just guiding, you realize that nobody has the solution, or a pandemic hits. Yeah, and there’s no playbook for a pandemic, you know, there’s all and I think that one of the benefits, I know the association’s are going through a hard time. And that’s I totally understand that the benefits of a globally shared experience is that hopefully people have that touch point of what are the things we do know, we there’s a lot we don’t know, going forward. What we do know is our values, we’re going to take care of our members, we’re going to look after our staff, we’re going to do try to be cutting edge, or whatever it is, where’s the value we provide? And then how we do that we do not know. And we’re gonna figure that out as we go. And I think there’s a confidence in that, knowing what is staying the same or what is true. That is different than just saying, I don’t know what’s happening. Chicken Little?

 

KiKi L’Italien  07:06

Well, and I think I mean, so you know, I think that’s such a great point, because you’re really talking about knowing yourself, you’re talking about also trust, sort of trusting yourself to understand that you may not have all the answers, you may have doubt Hey, and that’s, by the way, okay? Like that’s, that’s actually a normal, normal response to something like Oh, say, you know, a health pandemic that impacts the entire world. Right. And

 

Marc A. Pitman  07:35

I think one of the reasons that Association Chat is so cool. And another Association, or groups like this, is that when you get around people that are in a similar role as you there is a freedom to ask questions, you have to learn, earn that trust or be or make sure it’s a safe space. But in your organization, it’s not always safe for your staff, it’s not safe for you to necessarily question everything, they need to know they’re going to have a job, at least or feel like feel some level of comfort, or they’re gunning for your position. So you need to there’s their need there are this is not necessarily a safe world. So it’s okay to have some armor upper be shrewd in what you share with different people. But to have places like this, where you can just say, Hey, don’t don’t get with this, or how are you guys dealing with this particular aspect of of life can help be comforting ways of showing, or just allowing yourself to have the questions that are natural to have that there’s no playbook for a lot of stuff we’re doing.

 

KiKi L’Italien  08:33

Well, you know, and I think that I think that part of the problem that I have witnessed, and I’ll say in my own life, I’ll say it’s, it’s part of it’s part of the fact that I am, I have this concept that I’ve created of who I’m supposed to be, and what other people think of me, now that I’ve asked other people just like I imagined that this is because it’s the story I’m telling myself. And so what role does that play in all of this? That

 

Marc A. Pitman  09:09

is huge. You just hit a really big point. I’ve been an executive coach leaders for the last 20 years. 18 and a half. So almost. But story is one of the most important things I think we neglect, and a lot of ways we neglect. But if you have a phone like mine’s an Android phone, yours may be iPhone, that’s the operating system of your phone for human beings, the studies, one of the exciting things about the time we live in, is that we have done a lot of studies and there’s a lot of research out there. And the studies on narrative form and story is clear that human beings operating system is story. So we are being guided by our stories, whether we know it or not. And so what you just shared was that you’ve been able to reflect enough to see this is what I think I’m supposed to exude and I have in my head. Life, I’ve only found those stories. Usually when I’ve tripped over whatever it was, I thought when I failed when I have not been that, and I realized, well, maybe that’s not necessarily Yeah. Fortunately, I’ve been married to my wife for 26 years. And so there’s a lot that she knows about me. And there’s still times where she’s like, Don’t you know that that doesn’t matter, like the stuff that I feel is really important. Like, well, I have to look this way, or I have to do these things. And I think with leadership, that’s one of the things that is the learning the stories that motivate us and in how we value life can be so key because not all of us are going to be the john wayne, stoic sort of solo cowboy with the six shooter leader, some of us are going to be really collaborative leaders, some of us are going to be closed the door and do a lot of research leaders. Some of us are going to be management by walking around leaders. We all it’s not that we get to 100% be who we are. Except exactly, we have to flex and grow. There are going to be times when introverts are going to have to pick up the phone and call members and just take check in I know one of the professional associations and part of their our entire staff did that for much of the pandemic. And it was a huge value add for members, because there’s a lot of things that they offered that we didn’t know, even though they’ve tried telling us and I’ll just submit, if you’re continually telling people something, and they’re not hearing it, it’s not their fault, you need to make sure you’re saying the study the messaging, why May I be the victim of dumb members that don’t get that you’re offering them, why not be a person who’s continuing to try to learn to speak the dialect to the people that you’re serving. That’s just a little freebie there. But but the stories are so important. And so so one of the stories one of the ways to do it is to just sharp here in Greenville has people record their self talk, just non judgmentally. What are the messages, you’re saying to yourself? Things like, when you’re an idiot, you screw that up again, or you did that again, or Hey, that was really good. Or I should reward myself with this food or beverage. Or it’s been a hard day or it’s been a good day, whatever. She said for 24 hours, or six or a week or seven days. Just write it down on a piece of paper. And then at the end of that time, yeah, no powerful. I don’t even know if I could do that.

 

KiKi L’Italien  12:17

Yeah, I don’t know, I’d fill up the paper so fast.

 

Marc A. Pitman  12:20

Can we just have a feed from my brain? But then she says look at it non to end and review the self talk. And then ask yourself this one question is this talk to a friend? Wow. And if it’s not, then her invitation is when Institute start treating yourself like a better friend. I think many of the stories we used to eat ourselves up with because we’re so used to looking at the lack, you got an 86 was the extra 14 points on the test. You did really perform really well in these areas in your job. But these are the areas you need to fix and shore up that we do not we disregard our strengths. And so as we start to learn to become ourselves better, we actually have more joy in it because we’re not fighting against ourselves, not sabotaging ourselves. Trying to Yeah, I use extrovert introvert because it’s easy to to, we’ve all experienced it but the extrovert leader is going to lead differently than an introvert. And the extrovert leader is going to have to also be aware that they tend to verbally process, but their staff hears all of that as directives of things to go because you have positional authority, that means the there’s different weight in your words. And so you have to create things like saying, I’m just verbally processing, here are some things I’m thinking, just labeling it so that you can adapt it so that you don’t go and spend a week trying to, you know, implement something that you’ve said that was just an idea that was crazy. Didn’t think would work.

 

KiKi L’Italien  13:43

Yeah. And you hear that you hear that frustration, in interpersonal relationships all the time, where there’s this miscommunication, because there are different communication styles are just totally different ways that people are working together. And so there’s the person who takes everything, literally and everything that’s coming out, they’re like, Oh, this is a priority. This is a price. You know, it’s coming from the boss’s mouth, I’m gonna I’m gonna have to do this now. And then there’s and then there’s somebody else who’s saying, No, I’m just talking out loud. You know, this is how this is how I process is I’m just, I’m just sharing this and you need to understand that not everything is something to act on. Very

 

Marc A. Pitman  14:25

part of it is also being teachable. So you can hear that because that was there are people that also say, Well, I heard you say that, but I’m not going to do it. I’m going to do it my way cuz I know better. And that can be problematic when I training teams, that the opportunity of taking this to teams and sharing with them the whole leaders journey and different aspects of what I call quadrant three leadership, which is where you’re going through the analysis process. And then at the end of it, saying, This is to help you better it’s to help you have grace with other people. But it doesn’t mean you get out of doing stuff you don’t like to do you get hired by the organization to do it. Job and you’ve made an agreement, that there are certain things in your job that you’ll do for a paycheck. And you need to honor that agreement. So just because you’re a certain way, or you don’t, you don’t like certain things doesn’t, you know, I’ll I pastored a church for four years as a full time volunteer pastor, because I had a job to pay for my pastoring habit. I started to clean the toilets. I didn’t like, I did not get into church church work, because I wanted to clean the toilets. But yeah, they needed to clear you have there are some times that they need to clear lessons in humility there. Right? Yeah, I tried to make your sermon illustrations. So we all so that’s part of it is like I love the helping people free themselves up to be their best selves. But I also temper it with the, we’re gonna have to do things that are our favorite things. And it could be that we’re finding that person that will be able to come in, and we can release it to because they love doing the details, or they love doing the vision. But it does become a little bit less draining. When we know what energizes us, and what, what drains us and where we are best suited or where we get joy?

 

KiKi L’Italien  16:04

Well, here’s, here’s a question for you. Because on that, I mean, there are times when I think with every job you’re going, I can’t even think of one job, even the best job ever, that you could have, where you’re not going to have to do some things that you’re not happy with that you don’t enjoy that that just aren’t, you know, your cup of tea for whatever reason. But how do you know when that’s just part of what you need to accept? And do? And how do you know, when it’s actually something that runs Catholic? I mean, this is my self doubt, right? It’s like, Am I am I? Is this one of those moments where I need to clean the toilets? Or is this one of those moments where it’s like, no, this is really a big indicator that I need to be somewhere else.

 

Marc A. Pitman  16:53

That is huge. So that is where I think doubt can be the gift to move into that kind of greatness that you talked about the were? Is it something I just need to learn to do better? Or is it if I think it’s practice, as you take action, and you keep seeing that this is still not something I like to do, then it becomes you get to analyze yourself and fear or just kind of take some moments and say, it’s consistently this thing. For some people, it’s sales. They just don’t like the sales process. And they don’t feel like they want to learn it. For other people. It’s, you know, the budgeting for a lot of solopreneurs or small associations. It’s the bookkeeping stuff that they can’t yet hire the bookkeeper, they have to do it themselves, but they keep putting it off. They want to do it. For a lot of people that’s writing thank you notes. I mean, it’s something as silly as that. Yeah, it’s a no, it’s, yeah, yeah, Call the members doing the most important thing that people could be doing is is interfacing with members. And that’s often the least thing that associations do. They want to clean up their website and announce that, hey, we got a new website. Most members don’t care. Sorry. This is sponsored by website redesign. So I so part of it is getting to know yourself really well. And there are a lot of tools in the book that I share, but how you can use to get to know yourself. And it gives you that kind of language to also have that conversation with a trusted friend, a colleague, a coach, that you’re able to say, I consistently run up against this. And so one of the things that one of the examples I would submit is a nonprofit fundraising the best fundraising is not educational, it is chatty. It is telling a story of one person that’s being that has a problem and inviting the donor to fix it not because there’s a power differential not because of your we have to be careful of that because it can be very easily become reinforcing systemic inequity, which is not the goal, but it’s just human beings help each other that’s something that we’re wired to do. And here’s a problem here’s the way you can fix it that membership letters to would be an often maybe membership letters a little different but fundraising it’s definitely telling the story. The research is solid on that nonprofits double and triple their money and their revenue when they communicate that way versus all the education the statistics and the kind of trying to blunt force trauma beat their factually beat people into submitting by giving a gift. So we don’t want to exclude all the external stuff there are stuff that there are things that are good to do that just don’t feel comfortable. And you’ll learn you can learn habits but then there are some things where I think for your question KiKi part of it is values are my crossing values is a process thing that I don’t like I prefer to use a different software I prefer to use a different streaming service whatever different computer system or is this crossing one of my red lines for integrity or for I was working with a firm one that I thought was dishonest. And I’d left there is a stretching in adapting that made sense to me. But then it seemed like it just kept crossing the line. And so I ended up moving on cutting ties and stretching

 

KiKi L’Italien  20:13

and when is it actually like, okay, like, it’s no longer we stretch to beyond what what I think is appropriate?

 

Marc A. Pitman  20:22

Yeah, exactly. And then then it’s also how do you know like, to make it a big deal? Do you go out in a foot and a flurry? Or do you just quietly recede? It’s just yeah, just into the background. So I think it’s a lot of a lot of reflective work. And I think a lot of it is the inner stuff that nobody else sees, they only see the fruit of. So if you get better at your time management, or you get better at your goal setting, people aren’t, you’re not going to like have a confetti and balloon drop, hey, I’ve got a new goal setting program, but people are gonna start noticing that they can trust you more, or when you give it when you say you can get something done, you’re giving time parameters that are actually realistic, even if it’s not what they want to hear. Those types of things help build your ability to influence more people.

 

KiKi L’Italien  21:07

Yeah. And I mean, I think that that’s all what we’re really we’re talking about doubt, because, you know, so many of us have it, and we think, Oh, I shouldn’t show that I shouldn’t share that. That’s, that’s shameful. That’s something that I should hide from other people for sure. But we’re also talking about this, this understanding of ourselves, and being able to, you know, accommodate for the fact that we are, we are human beings going through this human experience. And if we’re in any kind of leadership position, or if we are, if we are working within a team, and we have to relate with each other, we need to understand how we are what we can learn from that doubt. How we’re working together through those through those those doubts through those through the end the decision making that comes anyway, whether we have doubts or not. And so there’s so much to actually appreciate we you talk about hardwiring a lot, both, you know, and I know in your consulting practice in the book, can you talk to us a little bit about the three types of hardwiring?

 

Marc A. Pitman  22:23

Absolutely there, there are so many different ways into quadrant three. And one of the scary parts about putting into a book form was making it look linear. When it’s not, it’s organic, it’s flowing. One of the ways that a lot of people kind of get into this ability to have some sort of reflectiveness to keep learning to see that the world is different is through assessments and hardwiring. So what I’ve been surprised with since writing the book, is that I have seen it with leaders three different types of hardwiring, it’s like a stack, most of us know the behavioral hardwiring, which is like desk, are you fast center, fast paced, more reserved, task centered, people centered, really fun. Anybody that seen me speak knows that I sometimes I’ve gotten 700 people up in a ballroom for a keynote, and had them moving into the different quadrants. Very fun and the joy on everybody’s face. The only thing I’ve learned from that is when I have camera people, I should let them focus on the highs, the tech, the fast, right? well centered, instead of the high seas are more reserved, because the more reserved aren’t necessarily notifying their face yet, but they’re as passionately enjoying, they’ve told me later, but the high eyes are like having a blast. So I love that. And those are, those are helpful because it gives objective wording to teams. And it’s something you can notice, like if someone if you’re talking to someone who talks as fast as I do, you might need to pick up the speed a bit to honor their dialect. If you’re talking to someone who’s a little bit more reserved, you may need to slow down. So that’s that’s understandable as behavioral there. The other two bill patterns, though are that I that I use with my clients is what is the highlands ability battery, which is you do 19 meaningless tasks over a course of three hours under time pressure. And they’re not really meaningless, but they feel they feel ludicrous. If I had enough time, I could do a law. But what it’s showing you is what you do naturally without stress, what comes quickly to you. And in doing that you’re starting to suss out some of the the the underlying stressors that you don’t even know are there. There are five driving abilities that tests that. If you’re over, if you’re in a green zone with those and you’re not using them, they will create stress and you will start sabotaging some of the other work. Because you want to get these things expressed, if you’re learning and five of them are how you take in information. And what’s great about that is as most of your listeners probably have, have heard you can or known from taking assessments, you can kind of skew the questions, you kind of know where they’re going with some of the questions, time doing tasks under time pressure, you don’t know where it’s going. It’s just what comes to you. Yeah,

 

KiKi L’Italien  24:57

you’re hearing results. You’re like I just I don’t know how that relates. But I now know this about myself.

 

Marc A. Pitman  25:03

Well, in my mom it was helpful for her was when I was getting certified in this 15 years ago, one of the things that she saw was all five, there are five memory channels, five ways we take in information, we only use two in our culture, typically, listening and reading, those are usually the two. But there are five that they test, and she scored low on all of them. And low or high doesn’t matter. It’s not it depends on the game low and golf is good, high. And basketball is good. So it can be good for whatever. But she looked at it and she was low in all of them. And I was bracing myself to like, how is she going to receive it. And it was so peace giving to her because everything came quickly to my sister, myself and my dad, we just picked up information, no problem. But for her, she had to work at it, she had to be listening to the lecture while she was reading the notes and doodling in the margin, it turns out she was engaging three or four of the learning channels by doing that, and it was helping anchor in that information. So knowing these things can help you adapt and know. One of the things without the ability battery one was I paperwork, I have an objective showing that paperwork is not a strong suit for me, especially if I needed to be detailed. And it doesn’t mean I can’t do it. But when I was a foundation for hospital fundraising, fundraising, to head of a hospital fundraising Foundation, I had to do the board minutes, even though we had a secretary, I don’t know what his job was. It was just that was my job, currently, and the CFO said, that means you get to shape the narrative. So that’s good. But I knew I had to block three to four hours every every month after the board meeting so that it would get done because the start of most board meetings are approving last meetings minutes. And if I didn’t do on that day, there would be no minutes. For Right, right. So you start learning to shift that. So that’s the stuff that comes naturally to you that just is wired, you can learn skills to adapt around him, then you have the behavior. But just because you behave a certain way, you may be driven go getting Whoo, yeah, on fire, but you might not you’re motivated differently. So that’s where motivational hard writing is the third part of the stack, and from my side, I don’t know if you, you’re familiar with this, I love the inia Graham.

 

KiKi L’Italien  27:05

Oh, as I say, I love it. Yes, yeah,

 

Marc A. Pitman  27:08

this isn’t eat the chicken spit out the bone sort of thing. Some people don’t resonate with it. And that’s totally cool. You can be an incredibly successful leader without it. But I love it too. I found it in my teens. And it really helped me figure out some tendencies that I had, and some of the pitfalls that they may be. So there are certain like, as, for me, as a high seven, I have a tendency to always like new things. And so when something is just repeating, like I’ll create a system because it’s new, but actually executing the system. Oh, come on, this is boring. And as a seven that gets really scary when something becomes boring, it feels like we’re falling into this abyss, where we’ll never we’ll never come out of this dark, non happy experience. Again. It’s a little overblown, dramatic, very dramatic. But it also knows like I can tell because of the inia Graham, when I’m moving when I’m really being stressed I because I take on certain behaviors. And when I’m moving when I’m growing and adapting and it’s becoming more getting freed of my habitual patterns, I’m acting a certain way. And so there’s this wonderful diamond dynamism in the enneagram that I have found helpful. For those of you don’t know, it’s a nine, it’s a seems to be an ancient, their ancient roots, the the Odyssey, Homer goes home from the war in the same pattern as the nine types on the enneagram symbol. Dante’s Inferno has gbhs chestnut, is showing that Dante’s Inferno has all nine types in each of the sections of His Divine Comedy. But it’s really quite codified in the last 150 to 200 years in Eurasia and South America, which I think is cool. It’s not just the North American thing. And that’s where disk I use a disc provider that has 60 or 70 different countries, I like to have human being things that don’t necessarily have the same cultural biases, that something that would just be in one culture has already tried to anyway. But so the the whole idea of the enneagram is there are nine different stories that we operate out of, we start out life. And young at a very young age, realize this is not a safe place, I have to I have to behave a certain way to be successful or to protect myself. And so there are nine, basically nine stories according to the enneagram. And I love that because then you can start if you’re talking to someone that behaves a certain way, and they’re not getting the message. The enneagram gives you a way to try at least shifting your way you’re communicating to try to speak the dialect and give some clues. They value different things and you can have an idea of what they value as teams. It’s also helpful. We’re Oh, is there any if I keep going to model my TED talk? Well,

 

KiKi L’Italien  29:45

here’s the thing is that like I get drawn. So Association Chat, what I’ve discovered is Association Chat, the audience there. Everyone’s taking different types of tests. Many people are probably very aware of an experience. With the inia gram, and and it’s fascinating for me because I’m always wanting to learn more about how these things enter interact with each other, you know, and I love this concept of having a stack where you’re able for, you know, to put them into a place where you have a more holistic view of how you can apply this information about yourself. So yeah, so that’s the only reason I’m not jumping in and getting in your way is because I’m loving everything that you’re saying, well, I

 

Marc A. Pitman  30:31

write about this in the book, I worked with a team that had the that we was on the team two, we use desk because it helped us and it was a there’s this wonderful self discovery, and being able to share it with other people of Oh, that’s why you behave that way. And as long as I need to say this, as long as it doesn’t limit other people, if you’re not using it to hurt other people, or to hurt yourself, by constricting, I can’t do that, I can’t possibly do that, because I’m this low number, or this letter, right. Um, it’s not meant to do that. But it’s meant to help you have other words, all of these so on this team disk was really helpful. It helped us to situate how we did workflow. But we still have the same repeat problems as a team. We did high level work, but it was not fun. And there were seasons of total crisis. And with then, when we, when they asked me to introduce or, you know, teach the enneagram introduced him to the enneagram, we all thought we were that one number at 1.3 of us thought, we’re the same number. So that’s something to think about with with these assessments, too, especially the enneagram is, whatever assessment you take it only as a a, a guide, possibly, it’s not labeling you it’s it’s a lived experience. As we moved on with that language, and shittin, realizing how we were behaving and having a common vocabulary to have the other people shifted to other numbers. And we realized why we were so dysfunctional, because we were all trying to act the same way when we had different values. And one person wasn’t even planted in the right position. One person was in a position that was as, as the person in the book says, one, this person was a weed, when they were really, we knew they’re a beautiful flower. But we’re where they had been positioned on the team, they were just a weed, which is a flower where you don’t want it to be. Yeah, so when we get to rework the work, so all the same outcomes are happening, but the workflow was different. It was it’s been much more subsequent years, for sure. Warning signs to were like, Oh, that’s moving back to that behavior. So we know they’d be back angle shots up, okay, we’ll take over this stuff, we’ll do these things to protect that person. And, but it’s not codependent, it’s, it’s Yeah, it’s healthier.

 

KiKi L’Italien  32:40

I was talking to someone who good friend of actually, I’d say a good friend of mine. He’s a good friend of mine. But he’s also a colleague at Tecker International, and Glenn Tecker. talks about informed intuition. And when I think about Yeah, when I think about what we’re talking about here, you know, this investigation into understanding and we researching how we interact with our own behaviors, how we interact with the decisions that we make, how we make these decisions, how we interact with others, the behaviors, you know, the more we learn, the more informs us, and then it helps us to strengthen that gut response, that informed intuition so that we can trust ourselves more as we’re making these decisions and moving along. So, you know, do you find that? I mean,

 

Marc A. Pitman  33:37

yeah, I think that is the key. So as you’re, as you start out in leadership, you start out with at least, either your own internal confidence, or at least trusting somewhat the confidence of the people that put you in position over the project, or the team or the organization. But when you copy what other people do, and it doesn’t work for you, that kills your confidence. So you move into that doubt. And as it if you let it invite you into this, instead of asking, What if I’m, you know, why am I here? I’m probably the wrong person for this position, I probably shouldn’t be here. I’m probably irreparably broken. If you just took us pause and said, What if I’m exactly the leader that this organization needs? What if I’m are associated association is exactly the voice that needs to be heard in this sector right now. Then you start using those that you start figuring out what parts of us make that so you work through the Analyze, and as you start testing that out, either as an individual or as an organization or a team. You start building those confidences and you move back up in your confidence to cause a focus leader, not because it’s all Nirvana, we’ve already established that that’s not going to happen. We’re in this life anyway. We’re on a planet with a bunch of people like us that are quirky. So that’s not gonna happen, but but we know that there’s a whole map we know that there’s different quadrants to go to maybe we need to look to people to copy or we need to look for cricket. into how our tools are we need to do this internal exploration and work with our team of, you know, everybody else in the association world says to do this, that doesn’t seem to work for us. Why don’t we do this? It could be at one conference I worked with, we always would do conference reviews had to like the conference. And none of them really helped. Because it was like, all the room was too cold and the room was too hot. You know, the coffee, there wasn’t enough coffee, there’s, it was stuff out of our control. And the leader of the conference, then sent out another survey, what keeps you awake at night, boom, that made it so that we are actually serving the needs of people rather than kind of getting experts in mediocrity, which a lot of those assessments allow you, you know, they force you to micromanage mediocrity, as opposed to actually address the big issues.

 

KiKi L’Italien  35:47

Well, okay, so along those lines along, there’s like getting away from the mediocrity, you know, and identifying maybe a little bit more about, I’m going to zone in on the self, and then I’m going to go to something else. But um, you you say that our favorite books and our favorite movies can shed light on our own leadership style. So it may be if you’re like me, you’ve done the enneagram you know, your disc profile. I’m gonna throw in you don’t talk about Myers Briggs. I’m gonna throw in my like all of the different things right? Yeah, I

 

Marc A. Pitman  36:24

only don’t talk about that. Because there’s been a lot of bad press about it. And it’s Yeah, and I don’t talk about Clifton strengths finders only because I’m not certified in it, although I love it too. So yeah, there’s a lot. There’s a lot of good stuff out there.

 

KiKi L’Italien  36:36

But you know, it’s like, how can people maybe look at their books, their favorite books, or movies for tips and clues.

 

Marc A. Pitman  36:44

This is such a favorite when it hits usually the similar curve, I’ll share my story because this is how my clients have gone through the same thing when I’ve done it. There’s a guy named john Eldridge who wrote a book called epic that was talking about how human beings are guided by story. And one of the ways to help see yourself if you don’t have people around you that can help you see yourself, or even if you do, is to look at think about the books that you listen to read all the time, or the movies that you watch. And it’s I would submit to you it’s fiction. I’ve had some people work really well with nonfiction biography. So I’m not going to, I’m not going to make that a cardinal rule. But when I was doing this with a group, I realized I had to do it because I was leaving the group. So I just thought, I felt silly. It felt like this is foolish. How could there be anything? I don’t think I’ve read anything more than once I read 50 to 75 books a year. I pretty much I’m looking for new things. But then I thought, well, Lord of the Rings, that’s a movie series that I’ve watched a lot of books I like even better. Alright, so Lord of the Rings. I’ll go there. Who’s in it? Gandalf. But that’s so silly. That’s the next stages. Man. Everybody’s gonna have the same character I have. Well, I got into the group shared Gandalf and nobody else had that like I was feeling. So Dom like, Ah, this is so trite. This is so normal. And so that’s what forced me as john, I’ll just suggested, what, into wondering what about Gandalf. And the two things that I picked up on in the books. He’s a total nerd. He loves he saw, he studied for years to figure out what what was this ring thing. He went into the deep deep into the archives went into the libraries to really get just get all nerdy nerded out on finding the original sources and trying to figure out what this this ring was. And he’s a fierce warrior who can kick but he’s not willing to he’s not afraid to change the world. But he wants to do it for the right reason. And I realized, oh, every time I speak, I want to be grounded in I want to know the studies I want to know the sources that I’m speaking because people’s time is valuable. And I don’t want to ever inflict something on them. It’s going to do it do them harm because I was just talking off the top of my head. So and I’ve had one CEO of a nonprofit in Chicago area did this she went to the same setting, similar kind of disbelief cycle. But she said personally and Katniss Everdeen those are the two for me. And it was interesting, because I said Why? She said, Well, Princess Leia is royalty, but she can kick ass. Can I say that? Oh, yeah.

 

KiKi L’Italien  39:04

Okay.

 

Marc A. Pitman  39:06

Sorry. She’s, she’s royalty. And she. And it turns out this particular leader was in a situation where her incoming board chair in six months had said, I don’t know why this nonprofit exists. I think it’s a jobs program for the staff. Right, I don’t think they can be employed anywhere else. So we created this organization, and we’re not really making any impact at all. And that person was going to be the board chair. So she had to hold her head tall. Your as a as a woman in a misogynistic, somewhat misogynistic world. And also as a leader of a of an organization. She had to walk with that dignity and that royalty and that kind of poise. And she needed to fight because she was fighting for not only her staff, but for the all the kids that actually were impacted by the work. So we ended up setting a curriculum for the next I said what are the things you want him to know? And part of her fight plan was over the next six months, she had a list of things, different videos and different articles. But she didn’t give it to him. There was all honor. She planted on our calendar. So it seemed happenstance. And she’s able to say, hey, by the way, I just saw this video by Dan plot on the overhead myth. I thought it really impacted what we’re talking about here. And the need for SNAP would be interesting to have you, you know, look. So cool, because she took it the next level. She said, Mark, I don’t want to just do that with my board chair, what I do at my vice chair, and I want to do it also with the treasurer. So all three of us are having the same conversation. Yeah, so she just hand picked the things she wanted, Mart. Yeah, so that was all unlocked because Princess Leia and Katniss Everdeen. being strategic

 

KiKi L’Italien  40:43

is so brilliant. I mean, and she’s like, leading them along on this journey, feeding them the things it’s going to accomplish what she’s trying to

 

Marc A. Pitman  40:51

opening them up to sharing stuff that they’re learning, potentially.

 

KiKi L’Italien  40:54

Yes, you’re

 

Marc A. Pitman  40:55

just poem. Here’s the curriculum. Here’s what you have to go.

 

KiKi L’Italien  40:59

Take it. Yeah, no, that’s so smart. That’s so strategic. It’s really, really great. It

 

Marc A. Pitman  41:05

was it was strategic. Yeah. Strategic. spontaneity.

 

KiKi L’Italien  41:10

spontaneity. Oh, by the way, look at that, I think, check this out. Yeah, I just read this. I found this articles. so brilliant. Well, I do want to actually bring up the fact that we have as people are watching live in different channels. You know, Mike had said he loves the what keeps you up at night? Question both for members and staff members and staff, giving you a perspective on the challenges that people are facing. And then Willis Turner over on Facebook said, I also like to ask, what is the first thing that you think about when you wake up in the morning? Well, that is such a positive way to look. That’s good. Well, this is very cool, too. He’s he actually had he’s going to be on the show very soon. I can’t wait. I can’t wait. Wow, the

 

Marc A. Pitman  41:57

first thing I that’s an interesting question, because my for me, the first thing is usually habits like taking time for myself taking time for my health taking time for my breakfast, because I try to get up before my family so I don’t feel like I’m robbing them of my time. That’s interesting.

 

KiKi L’Italien  42:13

I think I think it’s I i I’m an early riser, too. And but not the same enneagram type apparently. So who knows. But I’m early riser to want to get up and try to get those things accomplished. But they think the the Gosh, I’m trying to think other than having those hat those habits and trying to instill starting the day off right. Like what it what is what’s the first thing I think about? I don’t know, God, that’s a good one. Willis, I’m going to be thing. Yeah. Thanks, Phyllis. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, okay. So you’ve, you’ve mentioned a couple of times about, we’ve talked about how we have, you know, our hardwiring has our we have our stack, you know, and we’re looking at the different ways that we can sort of get tips and clues about what type of leader we are and how we naturally are able to sort of interact with the world around us. What about goals, you know, Oh, yeah, yeah, I know that. Go ahead.

 

Marc A. Pitman  43:15

Well, no, no, because there’s so many books written on the goals. Yeah, there’s so many. So for me, I grew up I was raised in a weird family where we had schoolwork because I was a student. And we had Pitman family homework because I was a Pitman. So my mom was going through her bachelor’s and then her master’s, and then our post grad work. And so she was photocopying and stuff. She was doing it. I think it was, well, wisely. And then I put at Harvard, different things, Family Therapy things. So we’re learning transactional analysis stuff. We were reading Norman Vincent Peale. We were reading Florence littauer. And listening to Les Brown and Zig Ziglar. Love it. So goal setting is something I’ve had a lot of different things on. And I didn’t realize I was doing quadrant three work. 15 years ago, when I created this thing called magnet goals, where I took the bits that worked for me, what are the parts of the different goal setting systems that seemed to work for me and so I offer this in the book. And if you google magnet goals are going to Concord leadership group comm slash magnet goals, you can get a free pdf of it. But what I love about it is most of the time when we’re doing goals, we usually think in our sector, or like our kind of the physical space we’re in. If I’m in my office, what are my work goals? And then FM at home, what are my home goals? And we divide become divided? Because when we’re at work, we’re wondering, what about Am I doing all the stuff that I said I was going to do at home or personally. And when you’re at home or personally or with your friends or your community service organizations, you’re wondering, did I do everything I could have worked? So with what I tried to do, the first step is have people write 100 things that they wanted hopes, dreams, fantasies, and 100 is yes, that’s

 

KiKi L’Italien  44:58

100 100 Good things. Yeah, exactly

 

Marc A. Pitman  45:01

right. That’s crazy. You can’t focus on that. I know people get really upset with me about that. What I have found I used to pre pandemic I had people come in to do intensives with me here in Greenville, because most of us don’t give ourselves the time because it

 

KiKi L’Italien  45:14

takes a year to do.

 

Marc A. Pitman  45:16

Yeah, they only got 15 minutes to do that. Actually, it does take at least a week, usually, it’s the first 10 come to quickly the next 10, even for me, and I’ve been doing this for years, take a lot longer than that is the time, but I do give prompts along the way. What happens though, in the intensives, when people come together and do it is that they write them and there’s a little peer pressure. So they do tend to do more. And I’ve discovered two things from this one is people that don’t like setting goals at all. And there are a lot of leaders that don’t, because they feel morally obligated when something’s on paper. So they don’t want to write it down. They’d rather just let it rock it in their head, which is not serving anyone because nobody can read our minds. But so those people get to a point, whatever the breaking point is 20 3050, where they realize this is just foolish. And so they then fill out things with all sorts of stuff. And it frees them to actually get some creative thinking going. The other thing that happens really frequently is people will come over to the table and say, Hey, Mark, on my list, can I put I’ve always wanted to plant a garden, can I put that on my list? And I get this kind of grin and say, yeah, it’s your list.

 

KiKi L’Italien  46:24

Like they’re asking for permission

 

Marc A. Pitman  46:26

to be fully human. So what I love about goals that way is that it brings out some of the stuff that’s fully human. And it makes it so that when you’re at work, you can be working on the work stuff. And when you’re home, or whatever home is for who are the different types of homes that we have, or when we’re not at work, we can be fully present there. The other thing with goals that I think is really important for leadership for Association leaders emerging leaders, too, is that when your boss sets the goal for you and your boss set, the goal for your team, or the board sets the goal for you as the director, often we are so schooled and taking that as our personal to do list, that we then try to be servant leaders and turn to our staff and say, What do you need from us to do your job? Yeah, and that doesn’t. And so we were torn between what we know is on our report card, and what we we obligated ourselves to doing to help people. So what I there’s a thing called cascading goals that I write about too. And I learned it in northern New England, where you work with the staff and the board on based on your strategic plan, not just arbitrary whims up, raise membership retention by this percentage and raise fundraising by that percentage and whatever. But where’s, where are we going? And what do we kill? What can we do in the next 12 months. And then as the leader, you take it to your team and say, here are the organization’s goals, they’re not your personal goals. They’re the organization’s goals. What I love about that, KiKi is that I have invariably had the numbers person say, I could help with the revenue generation side, which are usually two different skill sets. Yeah, but it’s not in their job description. And so sometimes there are some people that will thank you, if we need, you will do that if it’s way outside of the job description. But having the numbers person, like having her at the conversation with an investor member, or donor can be incredibly helpful and powerful, because they speak the language that that donor may want. So you start seeing some interesting correlations. And then as as the leader, you can then work with your staff meetings and just have the same kind of structure for here are the things that you said you’re going to work on this year? How can I help you? And then you’re How can I help you is not betwixt in between. It’s not like you’re working on their stuff. And knowing that there’s to do this that you’re not doing it’s, there’s a more of it. Kind of symmetry going on between all your work.

 

KiKi L’Italien  48:45

All right, or more of it. So So now. Okay, so now I’m at the point where I’ve, I’ve gotten inspired, I feel like oh, there’s all these different ways that I can pull together. And then I’m thinking, Oh, my gosh, 100 goals, like, Oh, my gosh, and so, so take me too. I promise, I’m not gonna get hung up on that. That actually excites me because I like making lists. But I mean, 100 is a lot.

 

Marc A. Pitman  49:13

To total. I had one person that only got that I think he said he only got the five or so yeah, yeah, put it away and was frustrated with it. And a good friend of mine. Three years later, he pulled it out of his drawer. And three of the last ones were these pie in the sky, never gonna happen perfect world scenarios. And he, he did a video chat with me. He said, I can’t believe it, Mark. I’m living the three of those.

 

KiKi L’Italien  49:38

I 100% believe that’s true, because I’ve seen it happen. I’ve seen it happen with things that I’ve written, I’ve forgotten about and then I come back as there’s, there’s part of you. That is I and I do think that it helps to write them out. There’s part of you that’s working at that. That’s Just trying to solve that puzzle and getting closer and closer and so even, it’s like an alchemy of just writing it down and just, you know, being able to on some level consciously recognize it. Add some sort of magic powder to like, like, Well, I

 

Marc A. Pitman  50:16

think. I think it’s a psycho cybernetics says like, they’re a heat seeking missiles, human beings are goal seeking, right? If we write something down, we’re giving some part of our subconscious direction. And things do work that way. So one of the 100 that I’ve always put on there is be positively interviewed by Oprah because I figure one out very clear. Yeah, so that hasn’t happened yet. But, but they’re still you know, so some of the things you’re going to put on, there are going to be things that are totally aspirational. But um, you can sift through there and then find the three to five that you’re going to focus on. Well, anyway, so I

 

KiKi L’Italien  50:51

know it’s a pun is I just need to tell you, you’re getting closer because once upon a time, I said I wanted to be the Oprah of the association industry. So like, you’re just getting close. Yeah, your

 

Marc A. Pitman  51:01

show did call me. I did get a call. And I thought it was a prank because it was Oprah show, Robert Kiyosaki was they’re gonna do a show on Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And I had written him a letter, he had no CRM at that point. But he had a piece of paper for me saying, Thank you for helping me in my work. And so I was going to be one of the guests, but they ended up making it a different show. That was close, close, so close.

 

KiKi L’Italien  51:22

Yes. So nobody was gonna say is okay, so So take me to leader back at the desk. Okay, I’m coming in. And, you know, I’ve I’ve written my 100 goals. But I’m coming in and new day. All right, so how, how does a busy leader, somebody who’s trying to do their very best? How do they, you know, keep from getting overwhelmed. And they put themselves on a trajectory to, you know, keep focus, as they’re working at their desk every day,

 

Marc A. Pitman  52:02

just so if people are hung up on the 100, there’s two other steps with that. Just so you know, that was the first step of a process. One of the things that just, I just needed to say that

 

KiKi L’Italien  52:11

because I’m down everyone, no,

 

Marc A. Pitman  52:15

I don’t need the letters. I can get letters about other things. But yes. So one of the the, I think being an association executive is one of the hardest things in the world. I think you’re getting drawn and quartered everyday, because there’s people aboard telling you what to do, their members are telling you what to do. They’re sometimes investors and donors, you need to staff. And what I have found helpful is, with all the great tools we have out, there is a piece of paper on my desk, I look at my list, and I think I call it the focus daily planner or something, but I look on my list and look at my meetings for the day. And even if it’s just a few minutes before the day starts or a few minutes to beginning that, what is my intent for each meeting. And I just put up. And I don’t do this all the time, but especially when I need that kind of rudder in the day to kind of keep me from being blasted by everybody else’s priorities. So I have that. And then I’ll have the big projects that I want that I want to focus on. And just writing it down and having it there in front of me, helps me remember in the down moments in the few minutes between meetings or something, oh, I could send out that email to so and so. Or I could do this. So what’s the project maybe what’s next action item. And then at the bottom is just kind of a garbage barge of all the follow up stuff that’s off the top of your head. And it kind of it’s that kind of David Allen moment of getting stuff out of your brain and getting him on paper. So you can at least see it even if you’re pushing it day after day to the next list. But just a simple planner, like a simple page like that can be you don’t even need to print it out. It can be just in a moleskin journal or something that can be incredibly centering and more people have told me that that’s been so helpful for them and, and finding clarity in the storm of other people’s demands, because that’s what often gets.

 

KiKi L’Italien  53:56

I tell you, I could talk to you for so long. I you know, I I’ve really enjoyed our conversation. I think you are making me think of all kinds of different books and leaders and just ideas. I think it’s phenomenal that so much of your work is connected with story because I quote Joseph Campbell at the end of every single podcast. And you know, when you’re talking about the hero, leaders journey I talked about the hero’s journey. And so I think it’s it’s sort of fascinating that you’re here teaching us and talking to us about the way that we can address something like like doubt as leaders. There’s something that you say when you’re talking about putting all of this information together. And it’s it’s putting all of this, this working together is working in integrity. What does that mean that talk to me about? Yeah, yeah, to

 

Marc A. Pitman  54:59

me integrity. is a big word to me, when you have your hardwiring, and you know your story and you know kind of what stories you’re operating out of, and you have a sense of your goals and your values, your core values and your mission, kind of why you think you’re here on the planet, when you have those not all figured out, but you know, you’re working on those, and you’re working in alignment with those, they’re integrated. And, and when your organization is that way, too, there’s an integration, that that’s out of working out of integrity of being able to move forward. And as you said earlier, in our conversation, I think it was informed intuition, where you start beta testing things and realizing, oh, it does actually work. It’s you’re walking across the Indiana Jones Last Crusade kind of bridge where you’re rising, oh, there actually is a bridge there, it just looked like open air. And each step you take those a little bit more confidence, resilience to, I don’t know the way ahead, but I do know the steps that we tend to take, and they tend to help and tend to tend to work out the way we expect them to. But that working with integrity, because you’re integrated is something that no longer you split, or you’re of one mind, one, one accord and you’re able to are closer to one accord. And there’s a centeredness that comes from that, that becomes really endearing in and people want to be around that as a leader.

 

KiKi L’Italien  56:17

Well, I have to say, thank you so much for joining us today. I cannot believe we’re at the end of our discussion. I’m

 

Marc A. Pitman  56:25

flew Yeah, time flew. We

 

KiKi L’Italien  56:27

could just keep talking. There’s so many more questions. But um, but if people want to find out more, you’ve got this wonderful book that’s out, they need to go check it out. Where are some other places that they can find out more about you follow you connect with your writing, a couple

 

Marc A. Pitman  56:45

places Concord leadership, group calm for sure. That’s where I have a lot of my site and connections to other sites and all. YouTube I have if people are interested in speaking the dialect of the different inia grams, you could go to YouTube and youtube.com slash Mark Pittman, there’s something called increasing influence. And I use the enneagram to talk about how nonprofits can talk share different stories with different personality types. And then I’m on Twitter and LinkedIn all the time. Mark Pittman mark with a C Pitman with one T and both of those that looks like Mark Capitan. On Twitter, it’s not as mark a pin, but I pretty responsive on those platforms.

 

KiKi L’Italien  57:25

I will be seeing you over there. I am KiKi L’Italien. And I feel your pain as all I can say about this. But you know, I’ve learned so much. And I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you coming on, I hope that you will join us again, there’s obviously so many other topics that we can jump into dive deep on. So I’m going to go ahead and just put this out there.

 

Marc A. Pitman  57:53

Thank you, because I’m honored. Your members are helping people steward, like what we just talked about for that met, you’re doing as well as you’re doing for your members. I’ve been with subcontractors who didn’t know how they’re going to keep their businesses together. But the association helped give them those professional connections I’ve been with Boeing proprietors, and all so your work is so important and helping all the other things that are happening in our country’s flourish. So thank you for that. And I’d be glad to do whatever I can to support your members.

 

KiKi L’Italien  58:24

All right, thank you so much. And thanks to all of you, I hope you really got a lot of value out of today’s conversation I know that I did. I cannot believe all of these tie ends two story and really, you know, exploring the ways that we can learn more about ourselves so that we can interact and have more powerful relationships with each other and actually propel all of our organizations further into what they’re trying to achieve and what we’re all trying to achieve on this crazy thing called Earth. So with that, I’m going to tell you I hope you keep asking questions to learn every day. Because as Joseph Campbell once said, The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek. Have a great week, everyone

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