Meet Robert Grossman with Black Diamond Leadership

A natural born leader and, one might say, philosopher, Robert Grossman of Black Diamond Leadership takes us on a journey through his own life experiences to show us why emotional mastery and psychological safety is so important in the workplace.

From starting off his early career selling personal computers to launching his first company selling a proprietary presentation platform, Robert quickly learned the vital importance of quality leadership and empowering others. Inspired by his love for skiing and his 15 years spent as a ski patroller and hill captain, Robert’s lightbulb moment hit and Black Diamond Leadership was born. In this episode, Robert highlights the significance of mastering emotional intelligence, powerful communication, building trust, sharing responsibilities, and so much more. In or out of the workplace, he provides a new perspective that opens up a whole new world for listeners.

What was the lightbulb moment that transitioned him into leadership training? What is emotional mastery and psychological safety? What does he think are the biggest challenges in modern day leadership development?

CLICK HERE for more information about Robert Grossman.

CLICK HERE for more information about Black Diamond Leadership.

Transcript

Announcer: 0:01

From Los Angeles, this is the Echelon Radio Network.

Jerri Hemsworth: 0:10

Good morning. This is Jerri Hemsworth with the Echelon Radio Podcast. And this is a Friday morning listener, and I'm really thrilled because I have a guest in the studio I've known probably more than 15 years, and he's really, really always been such a wonderful person. I have Robert Grossman from Black Diamond Leadership, how you doing?

Robert Grossman: 0:34

I'm doing great, Jerri. And actually, I think it's been more like 20 years.

Jerri Hemsworth: 0:37

Oh don't say that.

Robert Grossman: 0:39

We were kids.

Jerri Hemsworth: 0:40

Yeah, we were we were little. I think we grew up together, didn't we?

Robert Grossman: 0:43

Exactly.

Jerri Hemsworth: 0:43

Okay, that's good. That makes me feel better. So tell me about Black Diamond Leadership, and what type of clients and who do you work with, and why it brings you joy.

Robert Grossman: 0:57

Thank you, Jerri. You know we don't work with a particular industry necessarily, but I do have a specific type of client that I really enjoy working with, and that's a client that very much value their people and they want to develop their people. And if a client is into developing their people and helping them grow and become better communicators and leaders and build better teams, then that's my target client, that type of person. I do a lot of work now with biotech and hospitals,

Jerri Hemsworth: 1:29

Okay.

Robert Grossman: 1:29

But that's not specifically an industry that I target.

Jerri Hemsworth: 1:32

So are you doing conflict resolution? Are you doing team building? All of the above?

Robert Grossman: 1:39

It's all the above. I use a model I call the leadership power quadrant, and it focuses on four core areas of development. Number one is emotional mastery, or emotional intelligence.

Jerri Hemsworth: 1:52

Nice.

Robert Grossman: 1:53

Without that, nothing else works. You have to start with that self awareness and develop this skill of managing their own reactions, or we like to say, respond to what I call key moments, triggering events.

Jerri Hemsworth: 2:10

Yes.

Robert Grossman: 2:10

When we work on that, then we can start focusing on really powerful communications, building trust and shared responsibilities. And our target is to move companies to a term that you might or might not be familiar with. It's a it's a big term. It's called psychological safety.

Jerri Hemsworth: 2:31

Yeah.

Robert Grossman: 2:32

And, and the, you know, the, it's the industry term, not my favorite term, but what we're really looking at doing is, is removing the fear of speaking up and participating in the process of running an organization and a team, and we found that we can remove that fear, remarkable things begin to happen.

Jerri Hemsworth: 2:55

Yes, yes. Do you get a sense of what the number one fear is, or is it just run the gamut?

Robert Grossman: 3:04

I think probably the number one fear is there people are afraid to speak up and share an idea or perhaps suggest something may not be structured properly, whatever it might be, that there's going to be some kind of retribution that they're going to look down upon. So in other organizations, there's a fear of pointing out safety hazards, for example, not not the obvious ones.

Jerri Hemsworth: 3:30

Right.

Robert Grossman: 3:30

Like, you know, wet floor.

Jerri Hemsworth: 3:31

Sure.

Robert Grossman: 3:32

But other state safety hazards, because they don't want to be put into that bucket. That's there's a fear of that they will, there'll be a negative consequence, when they're speaking up.

Jerri Hemsworth: 3:41

Right, right. I've known a couple of situations of what you're speaking when regarding employment issues, you know, being sort of the the person who calls out a bad or wrong practice, and and then, and I've, I've spoken with a few attorneys say, Yeah, you know, the the stigma or the label is a real thing. And when somebody leaves that organization once they've brought a flaw to the attention of the management, if they go to another organization and they've got a recommendation in somebody else's work. Oh, I know that person. You know, they cause trouble. They cause trouble for at the last company, and then they don't get hired.

Robert Grossman: 4:31

Right.

Jerri Hemsworth: 4:32

You know, very interesting stuff. I wonder, though, in your training, of these people who are afraid to speak up, not just about that, but anything put forward an idea. Does it take a long time to get them past that fear? Or is it relatively short? There's some, some techniques. What do you find?

Robert Grossman: 4:58

Well, in fact, I was just thinking about this the other day. What is a 1% improvement in anything really mean? And is 1% BIG or LITTLE?

Jerri Hemsworth: 5:08

Depends.

Robert Grossman: 5:09

Depends, right? I remember somebody had heard one time a metaphor. I think it's I always get a metaphors, analogies mixed up, but a metaphor, that if two planes take off from Los Angeles, headed towards Washington, DC, but one plane is one degree off by the time they get to their destination, the difference is huge.

Jerri Hemsworth: 5:27

Yes.

Robert Grossman: 5:28

So I don't go for radical change in companies, because that doesn't tend to stick. There's a high about it. It works for a while, and then it begins to break down.

Jerri Hemsworth: 5:40

Gotcha.

Robert Grossman: 5:40

So we can improve open communication, for example, just by a smaller margin, and begin to build that process of trust. See, we train people how to interact with us, right? So if I'm somebody who gets upset all the time, you're going to interact with me on like you're walking on thin ice,

Jerri Hemsworth: 5:59

Right.

Robert Grossman: 5:59

Right?

Jerri Hemsworth: 6:00

Right!

Robert Grossman: 6:00

And so that's the same process in teams. We have to begin to develop that team in such a way where people begin to take a little bit of risk. We don't,

Jerri Hemsworth: 6:09

Sure.

Robert Grossman: 6:09

not a huge risk, because,

Jerri Hemsworth: 6:10

Right!

Robert Grossman: 6:10

It may not work. So it is, it is. I do see the change happening over time. I focus first, though, on emotional mastery.

Jerri Hemsworth: 6:20

Yeah.

Robert Grossman: 6:20

And, and that's really in my opinion, that's the gold, and it's actually become my number one program is emotional mastery right now.

Jerri Hemsworth: 6:28

Nice. Well, I can imagine when the more stressed the world is, the more stressed the workplace becomes, that this would be a very good thing for you. I would imagine also you helping them in the workplace, would help them in the personal place. So I think that's fantastic. What, what led you to Black Diamond leadership? Where did you? Where did let's, let's back up even more. Where'd you grow up?

Robert Grossman: 6:57

I grew up in West Los Angeles.

Jerri Hemsworth: 6:59

Okay.

Robert Grossman: 6:59

In Brentwood. Went to Palisades High which has been in the news a lot recently. The fires.

Jerri Hemsworth: 7:04

Sure, sure.

Robert Grossman: 7:05

And, you know, I spent a had a wonderful childhood in the west side.

Jerri Hemsworth: 7:09

Yeah. And then where'd you go to School?

Robert Grossman: 7:11

School was a little bit tough for me. I tried a couple different things. I studied abroad my first year out of high school,

Jerri Hemsworth: 7:18

Nice.

Robert Grossman: 7:18

And then I came back and I really didn't know what I wanted to do. I was very I was very confused actually.

Jerri Hemsworth: 7:24

Gotcha.

Robert Grossman: 7:24

And and so I spent a couple of years working in education and and then got an opportunity to work for a computer company, a small computer company, to be their first salesperson, and they sold personal computers. We were like, the first people to sell personal computers.

Jerri Hemsworth: 7:42

Yes.

Robert Grossman: 7:42

And so that's that was my mid 20s at this point,

Jerri Hemsworth: 7:43

That's kind of cool!

Robert Grossman: 7:45

and that's why I went back to school again, to Antioch and graduated.

Jerri Hemsworth: 7:50

Sure, sure.

Robert Grossman: 7:51

My Bachelor's was in psychology and,

Jerri Hemsworth: 7:53

Well, go figure what you're doing now.

Robert Grossman: 7:55

Exactly.

Jerri Hemsworth: 7:55

Really?

Robert Grossman: 7:55

Exactly. So we sold, many sold the computers. Some people might know the company Kaufman and Road Home Builders.

Jerri Hemsworth: 8:02

Of course, of course.

Robert Grossman: 8:02

I sold them their first PC.

Jerri Hemsworth: 8:04

Oh, my Gosh!

Robert Grossman: 8:05

So that was way back when, right when we would make a lot of money off of that. And I loved it. I loved that whole industry. And I moved to I become an IBM Business Partner and and then, but my passion back then was photography. I loved photography and I loved doing slide presentations, and so I thought that that's what I wanted to get into. And it so happened, when I was at IBM, there was a multimedia lab downstairs where they're doing state of the art development stuff, and I became friends with them, and I would spend some time down there, but,

Jerri Hemsworth: 8:41

Larning and observing.

Robert Grossman: 8:42

Yeah. 1993 didn't know what I was doing, but I launched my first company, selling a presentation platform that was very proprietary. It was before, basically I was helping companies move from 35 millimeter slides to digital presentation.

Jerri Hemsworth: 9:02

Sure, sure. And back in the early 90s, that must have been huge.

Robert Grossman: 9:05

Oh, it was huge.

Jerri Hemsworth: 9:06

Yeah.

Robert Grossman: 9:06

It was huge.

Jerri Hemsworth: 9:07

Yes.

Robert Grossman: 9:07

And it just, it just started to evolve. One day a company bought these platforms from us, and they said, Hey, can you do our presentation? So we did their we did video recording of a whole video production, the whole nine yards. And it just began to grow and grow and grow and grow. And I started doing the entire events, like everything from staging, lighting, sound, all the technical and creative production.

Jerri Hemsworth: 9:29

Right, right.

Robert Grossman: 9:30

And, and I loved doing the leadership retreats.

Jerri Hemsworth: 9:34

Interesting.

Robert Grossman: 9:35

Like I wasn't the guy on stage.

Jerri Hemsworth: 9:36

Sure.

Robert Grossman: 9:36

I was behind the scenes.

Jerri Hemsworth: 9:37

Yeah.

Robert Grossman: 9:38

And it was probably around 2005 I was doing a big leadership retreat for Deloitte at the Bellagio Hotel, and I was walking around the back of the room, and remember, I my team was running everything.

Jerri Hemsworth: 9:50

Sure.

Robert Grossman: 9:51

And it was all of a sudden, like somebody hit me over the head, and it's like, oh, it's time for me to move from the back of the room to the front of the room.

Jerri Hemsworth: 10:00

Aha moment.

Robert Grossman: 10:02

That was it. And, and then I took the next steps to move into Black Diamond leadership, and it was a pretty long transition between the two.

Jerri Hemsworth: 10:11

Yeah, yeah.

Robert Grossman: 10:12

And the, you know, and some people always want to know, where does the name come from?

Jerri Hemsworth: 10:16

Yeah, yeah, well, I know,

Robert Grossman: 10:17

You know, I love skiing.

Jerri Hemsworth: 10:18

I think, yeah, yeah.

Robert Grossman: 10:19

And I spent 15 years on a ski patrol, and learned a lot about leadership on that ski patrol. And so I thought, Black Diamond. I love that name. Black Diamond. Well, Black Diamond is not available. Black Diamond, this isn't available. Oh, look. Blackdiamondleadership.com. That's how we came up with the name.

Jerri Hemsworth: 10:35

Well, Robert, I don't know when you first said out of school, when you were after you came back, you were, went into education, teaching type of scenario. And then, you know, watching the leadership and and psychology, you see where it set you up for what you're doing.

Robert Grossman: 11:03

Absolutely 100%.

Jerri Hemsworth: 11:04

Without, and I bet at the time you weren't even conscious of that was what was happening to you.

Robert Grossman: 11:08

No, no.

Jerri Hemsworth: 11:09

I was very similar in that way, is building blocks and you and suddenly you go, okay.

Robert Grossman: 11:17

Not in a million years where I've ever imagined, yeah, that I would be on stages around the world talking about how to be a highly effective leader or to build highly effective teams.

Jerri Hemsworth: 11:29

Wow, that's amazing. I love I love it when I hear situations like this, because it sneaks up on us and suddenly we know what we're meant to do.

Robert Grossman: 11:40

Absolutely.

Jerri Hemsworth: 11:41

Oh, my gosh. Now you brought it up, and I'm gonna talk to me about skiing and ski patrol. How did ski patrol teach you about leadership?

Robert Grossman: 11:55

Yeah, I joined the ski patrol, and immediately I was asked, within a year or two, I was asked to be a hill captain.

Jerri Hemsworth: 12:03

Oh.

Robert Grossman: 12:04

So, just to give a little context, what does that mean? The mountain that I patrolled at, and I did on the weekends it's all volunteer.

Jerri Hemsworth: 12:12

Sure.

Robert Grossman: 12:12

Had three peaks, and each peak had its own captain, and then the first day of room had a captain, and there was a team leader.

Jerri Hemsworth: 12:19

Okay?

Robert Grossman: 12:20

And so I was immediately put in charge of being a hill captain.

Jerri Hemsworth: 12:23

How old were you?

Robert Grossman: 12:26

22

Jerri Hemsworth: 12:27

Wow.

Robert Grossman: 12:28

21/22?

Jerri Hemsworth: 12:28

Wow.

Robert Grossman: 12:29

And so I had to learn how to lead a team of volunteers.

Jerri Hemsworth: 12:33

Oh boy.

Robert Grossman: 12:34

And people who love to ski and want to ski.

Jerri Hemsworth: 12:36

Sure.

Robert Grossman: 12:36

And yet, we had a very important role to play on the mountain. And a couple years after that, I was asked to be a team leader.

Jerri Hemsworth: 12:44

Oh, my.

Robert Grossman: 12:45

And that happened about the same time I started developing my content.

Jerri Hemsworth: 12:51

Sure.

Robert Grossman: 12:51

And the concept of a high performance leader, which really is about letting your team, empowering your team, in a nutshell.

Jerri Hemsworth: 12:59

Right.

Robert Grossman: 12:59

And, and I use those tools, and my team became the most successful team. And in fact, people wanted to work on my team because the culture was I had a culture.

Jerri Hemsworth: 13:14

Yes.

Robert Grossman: 13:14

My team had a certain culture.

Jerri Hemsworth: 13:15

Yes.

Robert Grossman: 13:15

And, and I remember another team leader telling asking me, "How can you let your Hill captains manage all the resources that should be your job." I said my job? They're the ones that have to use the resources.

Jerri Hemsworth: 13:28

Yes!

Robert Grossman: 13:28

They're the ones who know what's leaving and coming back up again.

Jerri Hemsworth: 13:31

Right, right.

Robert Grossman: 13:31

And they're the ones who know when their people are going to take a lunch break. They need to communicate with each other.

Jerri Hemsworth: 13:36

Yeah.

Robert Grossman: 13:36

I shouldn't be, I shouldn't be that person. I'm just going to get in the way.

Jerri Hemsworth: 13:39

Right, right.

Robert Grossman: 13:40

You know, I'm always available, and I'm listening to everything on the radios, but I empowered them to do it and and it was just a very successful way of doing it. And then I was took the next level of training development, which was called a senior on our patrol, which is a national certification, which develops you to handle mass casualty situations, search and rescue and other, you know, terrible situations. And so that just took me to the, you know, the next level. But it was really being able to apply,

Jerri Hemsworth: 14:12

Yes.

Robert Grossman: 14:13

Of what I was learning on ski patrol and also in my production company as well.

Jerri Hemsworth: 14:18

Isn't it interesting? You touched on something that I found myself yesterday saying in my head, when you, when you give your team the go ahead to do their job, and you empower them, and you give them trust, and you, you know it's a learning experience for them. We're giving them the confidence to move forward and to know that they're growing. I just seriously yesterday, I was saying to myself, we got to let this person go with it and they might fail and they might succeed, but it's going to be a learning experience, and it's going to be good for them, because it's going to instill confidence as they succeed.

Robert Grossman: 15:09

Absolutely. And I think that you know, what leaders don't understand is that if you don't empower your people now, there's a way to do it.

Jerri Hemsworth: 15:17

Right.

Robert Grossman: 15:17

Right? You don't just give them the keys of the kingdom.

Jerri Hemsworth: 15:20

Right.

Robert Grossman: 15:20

There's a way to do it.

Jerri Hemsworth: 15:21

Right.

Robert Grossman: 15:21

But if you don't do that, your job as a leader is going to be 100 times more difficult.

Jerri Hemsworth: 15:25

Yes, because then you got to, you feel like you got to control everything.

Robert Grossman: 15:29

Yeah.

Jerri Hemsworth: 15:29

And that leads to misery.

Robert Grossman: 15:31

Yep, absolutely, and exhaustion and burnout and everything.

Jerri Hemsworth: 15:33

Exactly. I'm encountering that at a at a client right now, and I see where the burnout and the flaws are happening, because if somebody doesn't do something right, they say, just give it to me.

Robert Grossman: 15:47

Right.

Jerri Hemsworth: 15:48

And I think that is the biggest mistake. And full admission, I used to do that a lot.

Robert Grossman: 15:53

I did too.

Jerri Hemsworth: 15:54

A lot.

Robert Grossman: 15:55

It's easy, quote, unquote easier.

Jerri Hemsworth: 15:57

Yes.

Robert Grossman: 15:58

In the short run.

Jerri Hemsworth: 15:59

Yes.

Robert Grossman: 15:59

But you failed to develop people.

Jerri Hemsworth: 16:01

Exactly.

Robert Grossman: 16:02

I had a wonderful production manager and and she was very green when she started with me, but I just liked who she was, and she was smart, and we were doing a big project in Florida, on Millie Island, the Ritz Carlton. It was a big, big meeting, and this is just as the internet was starting to come about. And so I said, you know, I want you to go and pull a list of every major AV supply company within 10 miles of where we're going to be, just in case we need some resources. We'll have a list. Two days later, she came back in and said, Well, I'm trying to find Yellow Pages. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I said, Well, did you? Did you try the internet? Oh, I didn't think of that, right? And I said, Well, come sit down. Let me show you how you should do this.

Jerri Hemsworth: 16:47

Sure.

Robert Grossman: 16:48

That was the last time I had to show her.

Jerri Hemsworth: 16:50

And she was off to the races.

Robert Grossman: 16:50

Right? And now it was just, it was just part of our process at that point, and so she would always do that. Now, if I had just taken it back from her, I would have failed as a leader.

Jerri Hemsworth: 17:00

Exactly. We're not giving them the chance.

Robert Grossman: 17:02

And when I gave her that chance, the pride that she had in herself,

Jerri Hemsworth: 17:06

Yes.

Robert Grossman: 17:06

She felt more valuable. She felt a bigger part of the team.

Jerri Hemsworth: 17:10

Right.

Robert Grossman: 17:10

That she can contribute to our client in ways that she couldn't before.

Jerri Hemsworth: 17:14

Right.

Robert Grossman: 17:14

So that just to more learning, Right?

Jerri Hemsworth: 17:16

Exactly, and and I think when, if anybody that I'm working with, on my team, fails. I never see it as a failure.

Robert Grossman: 17:26

Right.

Jerri Hemsworth: 17:27

I always say, okay, what can we learn from this? And it's interesting that I just that, I just had these thoughts yesterday about this team member, and I thought she's got to fly and I got to see what she can do, and then I can help her, but in order to empower her and give her confidence, because, like your person, she's quite young, quite green, I got to let her, I got to see what she can do and give her that. That's the probably one of the best gifts I could give her as a

Robert Grossman: 17:58

100%. Yesterday, I was coaching a

Jerri Hemsworth: 17:59

How can I help? leader. young sales manager, and I was asking them, "What is this

Robert Grossman: 18:01

"How do you think you can go about this, process when people aren't performing where they need to right?"And he was like, "Well, oh, my God, you mean I can do be, need to be?" And he said,"Well, I bring them in and I'll look at their numbers and I'll tell them what they need to do." that?" And of course you can. And by doing that, what are you I said, "You know, that's great. However, how about instead of telling them what to do, ask them first, what can you do to improve this?" creating?

Jerri Hemsworth: 18:34

Right.

Robert Grossman: 18:34

And he said,"Well, I'm teaching them how to think critically."

Jerri Hemsworth: 18:36

Yes.

Robert Grossman: 18:37

I said,"Perfect. That's what you want, right? You don't want them running to your office every single time they need help."

Jerri Hemsworth: 18:42

Right.

Robert Grossman: 18:42

Now, they know you're there for them, right? But, you know, ask those questions. It takes more time at first. I tell people, you know, there's a learn, there's a, you know, the process like a curve, right? It starts off slow, and then as the momentum builds, you'll find that they're growing faster and faster and faster. And by the way, you'll more likely than not keep people engaged longer.

Jerri Hemsworth: 19:04

Exactly.

Robert Grossman: 19:04

We get the golden thing called discretionary effort.

Jerri Hemsworth: 19:08

Yes.

Robert Grossman: 19:08

People go beyond and above to their responsibilities.

Jerri Hemsworth: 19:11

Exactly. You know, we used to always say we need somebody who can be a self starter. You know, that self starter and, and when I hear that, I always think, well, who are you teaching people to be self starters? Are you teaching people the skills and and most of the time, they're not. I'm curious what you see in companies, people getting advanced to management positions with zero training. It's only because it's the next step on the on the pay ladder.

Robert Grossman: 19:47

I see it as you can imagine, all the time.

Jerri Hemsworth: 19:52

And then they wonder why, upper management, wonders why they're failing.

Robert Grossman: 19:55

Yeah.

Jerri Hemsworth: 19:56

Or why there is a lawsuit because they weren't trained in proper HR techniques with their,

Robert Grossman: 20:01

Exactly.

Jerri Hemsworth: 20:01

People they're managing.

Robert Grossman: 20:02

You know, you asked me what my my niche is, and I didn't realize that I was kind of focused on this niche, but I actually am, and that is, you know, managers and senior managers, there's a lot of supervisory training for people like that.

Jerri Hemsworth: 20:16

Yes.

Robert Grossman: 20:16

When you move into executive level, there's the big, you know, we'll send you to Wharton for a five day conference that kind of training?

Jerri Hemsworth: 20:22

Yeah.

Robert Grossman: 20:23

Not a lot in the middle management space.

Jerri Hemsworth: 20:25

No, no.

Robert Grossman: 20:26

And, and they and when, especially when they're moving from, let's say, a senior manager to a director, Senior Manager, they're managing others as a director. You're

Jerri Hemsworth: 20:41

Right.

Robert Grossman: 20:42

At that level, and they don't know how to do managing other managers, other people, who lead other people. it. I mean, very talented, smart people.

Jerri Hemsworth: 20:46

Yes.

Robert Grossman: 20:46

But they don't know how to do it. And that's really the area that I thrive

Jerri Hemsworth: 20:47

Yes. It's a whole different skill set. in, with my with my clients. Right. Who tends to call you in and bring you in? Is it through HR? Is it through ownership, leadership? Is it all of the above?

Robert Grossman: 21:01

Surprisingly, it's hardly ever HR.

Jerri Hemsworth: 21:03

Really?

Robert Grossman: 21:03

Yeah, hardly ever.

Jerri Hemsworth: 21:04

Wow.

Robert Grossman: 21:05

I'm not sure why yet. I don't really understand. I never figured it out. Any HR people out there let me know.

Jerri Hemsworth: 21:10

Yeah, yeah.

Robert Grossman: 21:11

Because it just it made sense to me that HR would be the ones bringing in.

Jerri Hemsworth: 21:15

Right, sure.

Robert Grossman: 21:15

I think that what's happened over the years is that HR has gotten so focused on compliance that they're not really focused on, probably why a lot of people went to HR in the first place. That is for the people.

Jerri Hemsworth: 21:26

Gotcha.

Robert Grossman: 21:27

That might be the reason. I'm not 100% sure.

Jerri Hemsworth: 21:29

You may be on to something, because thinking about it, that makes sense.

Robert Grossman: 21:32

Yeah. So it's typically a VP in a larger company. It would be a VP. It could be an executive director who has four or five, six directors under them at a hospital. It's usually because they're smaller hospitals. Usually the CEO of the hospital brings me in.

Jerri Hemsworth: 21:50

Gotcha, gotcha. And you travel all over the States, all over the world? Where are you going these days?

Robert Grossman: 21:56

I travel a lot in the States. I've done some shows or shows, sorry, some projects overseas. A couple years ago, I was in Poland, Krakow, Poland, and that was fascinating, because I was working with Eastern European engineers, emotional intelligence.

Jerri Hemsworth: 22:13

Whoa, how did that go?

Robert Grossman: 22:15

It went well.

Jerri Hemsworth: 22:15

Yeah? It must have been interesting.

Robert Grossman: 22:17

It was very interesting, because they just saw the world so differently than the way we do. And in fact, the reason why they hired me because their clients were project managers at large, US based companies, and they didn't understand why the project managers at US based companies were under so much stress all the time. And they're taking things very personally, also with the language,

Jerri Hemsworth: 22:37

Sure!

Robert Grossman: 22:37

translation, so once I help them understand their world empathy, right? Huge part of Ei is empathy,

Jerri Hemsworth: 22:44

Okay.

Robert Grossman: 22:45

understand their world, then we can start working with them and how to manage when their client was upset,

Jerri Hemsworth: 22:52

Got it.

Robert Grossman: 22:52

and not take it personally, get triggered by it.

Jerri Hemsworth: 22:54

Yeah.

Robert Grossman: 22:54

So it was fascinating. It was a fascinating project.

Jerri Hemsworth: 22:57

I love, I love what you're doing. Seek to understand.

Robert Grossman: 23:00

Totally.

Jerri Hemsworth: 23:00

The question is, help me understand why this is happening and and sort of being a little bit of a detective, and your your background in psychology has got to be huge in helping you with that.

Robert Grossman: 23:12

It does help. We've developed a model that I use, and none of we have time, I can just share the highlight for this model, because it's very powerful, so we look at when something happens, we call it a key moment, a triggering event, something that causes our emotions to get triggered. And when that happens, we look at the we experience it through, or we make sense of it by our paradigms, by how we see the world, right? So, you know, I was told I was found in the trash can growing up.

Jerri Hemsworth: 23:43

Right.

Robert Grossman: 23:44

So I had a paradigm that nobody wanted me, right?

Jerri Hemsworth: 23:46

Right.

Robert Grossman: 23:46

And the way that would manifest, I started noticing this is, if I called you three times, Jerri, and you didn't return my phone call. Jerri doesn't want me.

Jerri Hemsworth: 23:53

Right.

Robert Grossman: 23:54

Right? And then when you did call me, I'd be kind of standoffish.

Jerri Hemsworth: 23:56

Sure.

Robert Grossman: 23:57

Right? So, but I didn't realize I was doing that. So that's, that's the paradigm, how we see the world. We experience it, and then we have then we try to give it meaning. We try to make sense of it, thoughts about it. Oftentimes, our thoughts are not necessarily accurate or logical, and they're usually negative.

Jerri Hemsworth: 24:15

Old messaging.

Robert Grossman: 24:16

Old messaging. And then our thoughts inform our feelings, both internal in our minds, and then our feelings really cause our behavior, how we respond or what we do, depending on that, we either go down what I call the pathway of survival, which is, we're disowning responsibility, we're blaming other people. Basically, we're victims.

Jerri Hemsworth: 24:33

Other poeple. Right.

Robert Grossman: 24:35

Or up the pathway of self mastery, when we seek to learn about our experiences by our key moments.

Jerri Hemsworth: 24:42

Interesting.

Robert Grossman: 24:42

And then we we teach other aspects of it. So one aspect is called the distortions in our reasoning, right? So, and it's when we one of the distortions is mind reading, for example, or catastrophizing what's going on. So I was hired by, by avery successful woman who who felt that she was being overlooked for a promotion, and we started working on on her and teaching her emotional intelligence. And I said, "Okay, so who do you need to talk to? And so why did you talk to this person?" I said, "Okay, so by when are you going to reach out to that person?" "Oh, I'm not going to do that."

Jerri Hemsworth: 25:20

I can't do that.

Robert Grossman: 25:21

Why not? Well, he's an SVP, senior, senior, senior vice president.

Jerri Hemsworth: 25:23

So?

Robert Grossman: 25:24

I said, "Okay, well, why not?" "Well he doesn't want to talk to me." I said,"Oh, really?"

Jerri Hemsworth: 25:29

Interesting.

Robert Grossman: 25:30

So which distortion are you using right now? Said, "Oh, man, I'm mind reading." Said, "Exactly, how do you know? What's the worst thing that could happen? Right? Worst, best, common, right?" She says,"No."

Jerri Hemsworth: 25:42

Yeah.

Robert Grossman: 25:42

What's the best thing, I get my promotion. Okay, so are you willing to make that reach out? She said,"Absolutely." Three months later, she got her promotion.

Jerri Hemsworth: 25:52

Nice.

Robert Grossman: 25:52

You know and she smiled at me because she said I was totally caught up in my head, and that that is, that's a component of emotional intelligence. So you can see how this would manifest into a leader working with a team or team members. You know, in a in a conflict, you asked me if I did conflict resolution.

Jerri Hemsworth: 26:10

Yeah!

Robert Grossman: 26:10

Yes, we do.

Jerri Hemsworth: 26:11

Exactly. It all plays into the whole, whole shebang. I mean, that's, oh wow.

Robert Grossman: 26:17

It's been a journey for me. I mean, my, I it's been a huge journey,

Jerri Hemsworth: 26:21

Has it?

Robert Grossman: 26:21

for me, and there are times when I recognize a quick experience. I was doing a keynote on psychological safety.

Jerri Hemsworth: 26:29

Yes.

Robert Grossman: 26:29

and I was on stage, and I can only see the first couple of rows right? It's all blacked out back there, and I look down and I see a woman on her cell phone and and it's hard to articulate the experience, but I looked at it, and I kept on going. And afterwards, I was thinking about, why did I what was important to me about that? I said, "Gosh, in the past, I would have seen somebody on their phone, and I would have made up a whole story about how boring I am"

Jerri Hemsworth: 27:00

Yes!

Robert Grossman: 27:01

This, that blah, blah, blah, blah, and so I will be knocked off my A game.

Jerri Hemsworth: 27:05

Yes.

Robert Grossman: 27:05

Right?

Jerri Hemsworth: 27:06

Yes.

Robert Grossman: 27:06

For a period of time.

Jerri Hemsworth: 27:08

Yeah.

Robert Grossman: 27:08

And that's another way we promote this work. As we say, you know, we get knocked off our A-game all the time. The game is, how quickly can we get back on our A-game again and be effective?

Jerri Hemsworth: 27:20

Yeah.

Robert Grossman: 27:20

And that's what I knew, that I have fully embraced what I teach.

Jerri Hemsworth: 27:25

Yeah, your journey has moved you personally. That's fantastic. Robert, thank you so much for sitting with me today.

Robert Grossman: 27:34

Oh this was wonderful.

Jerri Hemsworth: 27:34

This has been such a great conversation. I love learning more about you, and even though we've known each other for many years, we continue to learn, you know. And I just want to thank you for being here today.

Robert Grossman: 27:47

Well, I'm thrilled to be here and I'm thrilled to to participate. Thank you.

Jerri Hemsworth: 27:53

You got it. Take care.

Robert Grossman: 27:54

You too. Thank you.

Announcer: 28:01

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