Curiosity Wins: Michelle Dauphinais on Asking Better Questions and Making Better Decisions

In this episode of Activating Greatness, host Alec McChesney sits down with Michelle Dauphinais, Vice President and Head of Distribution at John Hancock, to explore how curiosity and a deep understanding of human behavior shape effective leadership. Michelle shares how asking better questions, challenging assumptions, and meeting people where they are allows leaders to build trust, improve decision quality, and empower teams across sales, analytics, and operations. Drawing from more than three decades at John Hancock, she explains why curiosity is a leadership discipline, how healthy tension improves outcomes, and why great leaders focus on solving problems rather than controlling people. This conversation offers practical insights on building culture, strengthening accountability, and leading complex teams in high-performance organizations.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of Activating Greatness, the show where we dig into what it really takes to lead with purpose, inspire performance, and create lasting impact. As always, I'm your host, Alec McChesney. And every episode, we sit down with leaders, thinkers, change makers who are unlocking potential in themselves, their teams, and their organizations. Here we talk about the real stuff, leadership that drives a lot of strategy that creates momentum and the mindset that turns good intentions into game-changing results. Because greatness, it isn't a title, it's a part of it. It's something you activate every single day. So thank you for listening, for showing up, and for being part of a community of leaders who refuse to settle for good enough. Now, let's dive right to meet today's incredible guest. And today's, I am so excited about this conversation because we're going to talk a little bit about sales. We're going to talk about distribution. And Michelle, this is some this is an episode that the Velocity team has been really excited about for the last couple of weeks. And really from the beginning of the Activating Greatness Show, Dave Feckman, our CEO, and others at the team said, We've got to get Michelle on the podcast. We've got to get Michelle on the podcast. Obviously, your role uh as vice president, head of distribution at John Hancock. You're leading sales, analytics, and operational execution. Michelle's leadership has been shaped by a deep curiosity about people and human behavior. As a kid, she was reading poetry, collecting biographies, and fascinated by investigative work. And even at one point, inspiring to work for the FBI, which I'm excited to dive into a little bit more and how that led her to the role that she is in today. That curiosity never left her. In fact, it evolved into a leadership style grounded in asking hard questions, challenging assumptions, and meeting people where they are. And today we're going to talk about curiosity and a passion for understanding human behavior, how that shapes leadership, and why adaptability, challenge, and coaching are critical to leading complex teams successfully. So, Michelle, um, I'm already off and running. You started this off by saying you're on your way to fantastic. I'm now feeling even better just two minutes into this episode. But before I start throwing questions at you, uh, would love to have you introduce yourself a little bit further to those who maybe aren't familiar with you and certainly maybe not with John Hancock as well.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Yeah, absolutely. And um good afternoon or good morning, wherever you may be, and happy to be with Velocity today uh for this conversation. I'm Michelle Dauphin. I'm VP Head of Distribution at uh John Hancock, and I've um been with the company for over uh 30 years. Um, and for those of you uh familiar or unfamiliar with John Hancock, why I stay uh goes to what Alex said earlier, is um purely for the fact of curiosity. And the company, even though it's a 160-year plus entity, is very curious by nature and always innovating around life insurance, which um plays well with the type of leadership and curiosity and passion uh that match my personal aspirations. So looking forward to the conversation. And again, thanks for having me, Alec.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's a it's a great segue. I want to jump right into this concept of curiosity. And I was so excited in our prep call when you went straight to this as a form and foundation for leadership. But I talk all the time. One of the first jobs that I left after leaving journalism, I asked my my then mentor and hiring manager, you know, how do I fail in this position? I'm trying to leave journalism, I'm trying to do something new. And the answer was really simple. If you lose curiosity, you won't be successful. And fast forward a decade later, it's still at the forefront. And now Velocity, Dave Beckman, our CEO, is pushing hey, let's all be more curious. Let's really implement this into our day-to-day lives. And your leadership style traces back to a lifelong curiosity about people. And we talked about poetry and biographies and the FBI. How does curiosity shape the leader that you are? How does that actually show up? It's a great buzzword, it's a great thing to say, but how does that actually show up as the leader that you are today?

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Yeah, it's such a great question. Um, when I think about leadership, it's never really been about titles or hierarchy, it's always been about people, how they think, how they behave, um, and especially in sales, how and why they make decisions to do what they do. So that can include either your team members, your leadership team, or your external clients. Um, and I sit in uh what I consider an uncommon intersection. Um, I have a team that has really high intellectual rigor uh in sales, low ego. That's when you laugh. Yeah, yeah, I'm there. A team that really has to have clear decision rights. Um, yeah, but it all centers around this really strong respect for human behavior and curiosity around that. And when you kind of combine that, it allows you to think about really overseeing complex teams without over controlling those teams. It helps you improve decision quality without slowing momentum, and it's kind of that same theory tough on the problem. So bring a lot of curiosity to the problem, but really light on the people solving the problem. But you mentioned my curiosity, and that started very early on. I was, as you noted, was drawn to things like poetry and biographies, and it wasn't for the art or the history as much as it was what it revealed about the people that were either the authors of it, writing it, or how they behaved in certain situations in their certain domain. And I've always been fascinated by that human behavior, what motivates people, how do they make decisions, um, what work do they do to make decisions? And for a while I actually thought about, as you noted, working for the FBI. And that started really early when I was an individual contributor in sales, because I realized pretty quickly to uh influence somebody, you had to understand what they were saying when they weren't actually saying it. So um I coined it like I would almost create a dossier on my clients. And at the time, we didn't have AI or uh even Google. So you were doing a lot of things that you were researching their websites, putting together uh decision making, how did they think about certain things? And then that curiosity ultimately shaped how I lead today. I ask a lot of questions, I challenge a lot of assumptions, and I try to get underneath the problem to surface a really good conversation so that we can collaborate on an outcome and solution together.

SPEAKER_01 7:23

I I appreciate you taking us through your background into the day-to-day because I do think this concept and it's not just curiosity, but a lot of leadership mantras and concepts are great at the high level. But then when you actually talk about it in the day-to-day process, how does curiosity show up for Michelle? And asking questions, challenging assumptions are great examples. I think I might have mentioned this in our prep call, but I mention it every episode that I'm allowed to ask a couple of bad podcast questions because I make the rules for the show. And I want, I want to bring one out right now, right out of the gate after that first answer, because it's something that comes up a lot on this show and in conversations at velocity. Do you, Michelle, in your opinion, do you believe that curiosity is something that can be trained? Do you believe it is something that can be improved upon as a lifelong learner, as somebody who wants to take that next step? Or is this just something you're born with or you're not born with? And if you do believe it can be trained, how do we how do we do that as leaders? How do we instill and spark that curiosity for individuals to become more curious and use it in their day-to-day lives?

SPEAKER_00 8:43

You know, um I've my dad was military and he always said if you weren't listening and asking questions, then you were never going to come up with the right solution. So um, to answer your question more directly, can it be trained? I think so. Um, it requires the leader to really practice listening and asking questions and then also helping team members understand what's expected to them. I think my team, um, if you look at velocity and the the birds, I'm definitely an owl, 100%. Um, my team would joke that I didn't need to take the uh exam to tell me that was my outcome because they know if you are going to bring um a challenge or a problem to the table, you need to come with your data in pathways for solution. And I think if you start that alone, it makes your own team become curious about things. So versus um just coming forward with a problem, they bring forward uh research, analysis, and then are starting to even think about the solutions that do that. And I've learned that leaders who stay curious become better listeners. Um, because they're better listeners, you get better decisions. And the moment that you stop being curious and listening, you are starting to manage symptoms instead of solving problems. So, yes, it can be learned, but it also takes leadership practice as well.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

I take it back. That wasn't a bad podcast question because it was a fantastic podcast answer. And especially the latter half of that, talking about if you stop asking questions and you lose that curiosity, now you're focused on symptoms and not the real problems at play. And I've also heard curiosity uh described as just a really nice form of empathy, right? Caring. If you care about the individual, if you care about the work that you do, you're naturally going to be more curious. And a lot of the guests on the podcast talk about the best way to be a leader is to show care first and care directly and then challenge second. And it brings me to uh a follow-up question on that challenging assumptions and creating that tension when someone wants to bring a problem to the table or bring a challenge. One of the things that you said in our prep call is that you kind of raise your hand when you meet someone new or if there's a committee that's being put together and you say, Hey, I'm gonna be the one that challenges everything here. I'm gonna ask all of the questions and it's not personal, but this is who I am, and I want you to know that so we can work on an even playing field. Why is that so important to you? And how do you is that something that you've learned to do to create that trusting environment of tension without it feeling personal, without it feeling like you're attacking uh their idea, their question, their solution? Kind of walk us through why you've you've led with that and how powerful it's become for you as a leader as well.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

You know, you said it best. I think just by simply stating and letting someone understand that I'm going to be upfront, I'm going to challenge the way of thinking, not with the intent to be difficult because better thinking leads to better outcomes. I actually believe by even stating that you're creating healthy attention. And then the team knows what to expect, or your new client knows what to expect that they now know for framing that the questions are not because the you don't have a potential solution, they're more to explore the problem deeply enough to offer a thoughtful solution to that. The key, though, is how to create that tension and then not be coined as the difficult person. And I think that takes a little bit of time and practice. And uh you have to be authentic, right? You have to really lean in um with your questions and give the group or person time to explore the answer. Uh, people need to know the challenge is about the idea, not about them. So tough on the problem, light on the people. And I'm also very, very clear that I'm not trying to win an argument, I'm trying to improve the quality of decision so that the team understands. And when they do understand that, something shifts. So they stop defending their position and they start engaging in the problem and solution and discussion. I could give you a quick example if it's how please, please. Yeah, a few weeks ago, and this is probably more common than not, um, we had a cross-functional team that we all watch kind of email blowing up, your team's chat is going off, it's across sales, operations, analytics. And we were frustrated about a slow start to the year. Um, and as the teams were communicating with each other, they were pointing out potential uh process constraints, even some data that was dropped in analytics, and everybody was interpreting a little bit differently. The initial emails were like very positional. Everyone was right, everyone else was the problem. And instead of jumping in with an answer, I kind of replied on teams with three specific questions. What decisions are we actually trying to make? What data do we trust? What data don't we have? And what's the risk if we're wrong based off the assumptions that I saw coming across in the email? That shifted the conversation immediately. People stopped defending their lanes, started aligning on a decision, and we landed on a different path than originally proposed, but everyone owned it. And sometimes that's leadership's job isn't to resolve um the tension, it's to slow the room just enough so that they start asking the right questions and better thinking uh shows up as a result.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

A beautiful example, and I put in in all caps on my notes here the what decision are we trying to make from this is such a simple question. But when we're going back and forth and it's someone throwing this over the fence and someone throwing this over the fence, a lot of times that question is not in reference, right? We're not thinking about it in that way. What are we trying to solve? What decisions are we trying to make? Simplifies all of these problems down to, oh, I actually don't know. I don't know what trying what decision we're trying to make. And that creates the the foundation to have a real conversation. And I think a little bit to your point goes back to the symptoms, not the actual problem, right? When we're throwing things over email and teams, it's a lot of times symptom, symptom, symptom. And you want to hit that panic button, and then a question like that brings us out of that discussion. One other thing that you said there, Michelle, going back to the birds and the owl, I think that self-awareness of ourselves as a leader, self-awareness of ourselves on a team, and then the understanding of who all of these different individuals are is one of the biggest strengths that you can have and being able to own it and actually be authentic and admit it. And I had another CEO on from Citizens Inc., John Stenberg, a couple of weeks back, and episode airs here uh next week, and he talked about raising your hand and admitting your flaws and owning who you are in this process and say, Hey, I'm gonna be this way. I just like you have known since I was born what my bird style is, and everybody who meets me knows that I am a parrot. Uh, it is very aggressive. There's a about 93% parrot, maybe 7% eagle. I have zero owl in me in every way, shape, and form. And so I used to look at that as a weakness. Sometimes I still do, but I also used to shy away from it and try to, oh, I could, I could flex and I could do this. And now, as I've worked through that over the last couple of years, I'm able to raise my hand and say, guys, this is an area, this is a blind spot for me. I need support in here. I can do the things up here, but when it comes to this, I need us to work together and I need, I need help in that bucket. And it's made every team that I've worked on more successful because we know what to expect from each other. And it feels like that's kind of where you're going with some of this work is here's what I expect. Here's what I expect from you, and here's what you can expect from me. And so maybe there's not surprises at the end of the quarter, at the beginning of the quarter, or in a performance review. Is that one of the outcomes, that lack of surprise and more of that understanding of how we work together? Is that one of the positive outcomes that you see from this approach and mindset that you've taken, Michelle?

SPEAKER_00 17:36

You you um outlined a couple of really key points there um that I'm super passionate about. And one is meeting everybody where they are. Uh in leadership, we cannot um become hierarchical in the fact that we want our entire team to meet us in our communication style. Um, I've tried that in the past and learned that even with my critical owl um analytics mindset, if I have a non-OWL on my team that really struggles with the critical piece, and I over-exert um that analysis first lean in and meet them. Maybe they're more of a parrot like yourself, and they the narrative is really important to them. If I don't create the space to meet them where they are and allow them to have the narrative first, and then pair them with another leader who is uh a critical thinker, um, and really use both their subject matter expertise and their natural styles to complement each other. I never take the position that my team has to communicate with me the way I prefer, rather meet them where they are, and it helps optimize the team and as I said, augment each other's skills with um critical dependencies that we may not have. I feel like that helps build ownership and then it helps the team. Um, it's in sales, really. Honestly, if you were an external salesperson, you may have a rainmaker who's really good at the relationship part, you may have a solutioner who's highly technical and can bring a solution together, or you may have a closer person that is uh really good at being able to do the final ask. Not one individual is a unicorn and can be great at all those things. So leveraging the team, meeting them where they are, uh, and not imposing my own leadership communication style on my team are ones that I take pride in and believe that it helps uh from a standpoint that informs decision making. And then the team isn't reacting to you and how you need to communicate rather than rather they're really focused on the solutioning and trying to solve the problem together using their unique skills.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

See, I hear that, and I think dang, that's beautiful. That's the job, that's the job of a leader, Michelle. That is a that is the job of having the responsibility and the role. Now I'm gonna play devil's advocate for a second, and somebody's listening to this, and they're thinking, I've got 28 direct reports, sales, analytics, ops. We go into solution and product, and then I have to work with the marketing team, and I have back to back to backs from eight o'clock until six o'clock, and then I've got a team in another continent and a different time zone that's sending me emails, and I have 17 minutes per day to hear from the team and give me those updates. They need to be the ones communicating to my style. This is a bad podcast question. I want you to tell, I want you to tell that person who's sitting in the in that shoe in that position, saying, I don't have time to do this. Can you paint the picture of why it's worth that investment? Can you paint the picture of why, in your mind, and what I'm hearing is this is a non-negotiable for you, Michelle? It sounds like this is how you built teams, it's how you've operated at John Hancock for however long you have. Why is this such such a priority and so important to you? And how would you explain this to somebody who maybe is a little hesitant on making that level of investment and change inside their organization?

SPEAKER_00 21:20

That it's an interesting question. And if you're asking um like a head of distribution, I'm usually going to tell you any decision has to have like a 10x ROI on it. So to the listeners, I would say uh if you're looking for a 10x ROI, you may not get a day one, but with constant practice, you will get it back both in trust standards by adapting your leadership style. Um, if you look at another uh example that is very different, um, again, over email, because that's our tends to be our communication, especially late at night. I had an experienced team member send me a late night email. Flagging a potential escalation with a partner. And as you would expect, the team member already laid out the risks, the implications, they already put a few data points in there. So to meet me where I am in the owl thinking. And they had given two possible paths forwards. And I think if if it was me, even, you know, five or go back 10 years ago as a leader, I probably would have looked at that assessment and rewritten it and responded with a ton of edits and things that that individual could have done differently. And instead, now I replied with one sentence. I agree with the two options, proceed with the second option and keep me posted if anything changes. And that was it. No edits, no follow-ups. In the situation resolved itself pretty cleanly, the relationship stayed intact and the team moved faster because they didn't wait for permission or over-engineer how to communicate with me. It's the same standard, like pushing accountability down. Um, it's just different leadership posture. And that means situational leadership is really knowing when your involvement adds value or when it actually slows down your team. And I think if you practice it in theory for a while, you'll see that your value can be added in different places. And one of them is just meeting your team communication style where they are. And over time you'll see that returns trust standards and high ROI.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

Uh, it's it's so good. And I want to talk about that example here in a second. But one of the one of the quotes that I heard recently, it's actually on the episode that came out today with Jose Sequet at Pan American Life. So if you're listening to this, that episode is already out. But he talked about some of these things, you you're not gonna have an ROI, right? Like if you build the right conversation network, you have a foundation of culture, the ROI isn't gonna just be blatantly obvious at the three-month mark or at the six-month mark. But when the team works the way that you just walked through, when there's retention of top employees, there's growth because they feel like they're in a trusted environment. And so they make bigger decisions, they make figure calls, they step out on a limb a little bit more often. That's where that ROI comes in, and you're able to build this really successful foundation. And there's two parts to that story that I love. The first is 10 years ago, if you responded that way, it might have had a little bit of that erosion of trust for that individual. And now you're giving them the accountability, you're giving them the trust and the belief, and you can hold them accountable because you've worked through that process. And the second is because you've taken the time to show them who you are, and you've taken the time to understand them, they're willing to meet you where you are when it's a 9:30 email and they want a decision to be made. They went at it in the method that you were looking for, the data, the explanation, the two options, and hey, this is what we need to do going forward. And so it kind of rebuttal to that question of, well, I don't think it's worth it, or I need them to communicate to me the way that I want to be communicated. Well, the only way to do that is to meet them where they are sometimes as well. And so I think that was a perfect example of of that scenario playing out in in real time. So I appreciate it. Any other thoughts on that? I know I kind of rambled there, but I got excited, Michelle. That was a fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

Yeah. Um, you know what? It I would add that um I was the last of six and have 14 nieces and nephew, and I think now six great nieces and nephews. So big family in a in a big team, and you have to pick your battles. Um, in each battle um has a critical mass to it, right? And if you can uh take your what I would consider C battles, not ones that don't have to be perfect, and you can deposit to the bank for your team decision making and autonomy, yeah, it will continue to make deposits that pay you for it as well. Um, so that's how I look at each interaction in what my value is to the team. In each one of those deposits, the team has a little bit more autonomy. They lean a little lean in a little bit further, they come with more uh thought-out solutions. And if you're not constantly editing or recommending back the solutions, they gain the confidence and trust to keep moving things forward.

SPEAKER_01 26:29

Oh, gosh. Okay. Um, I could take us down like a 75-minute tangent in that direction, and and I'm not going to because I do want to I want to double-click on something that you referenced within situational leadership. And, you know, we got Ken Blanchard's model of situational leadership. You have velocity, all the different programs that we put in talk about the importance of coaching versus micromanaging. And how do we actually go through coaching opportunities internally? And of course, within situational leadership, hey, we're going to discuss it, but you're going to make the decision. You're going to go forward, and I'm going to hold you accountable to the decision that you made. I'm going to hold you capable to the decision that you made. How do you approach times of conflict internally? And how do you use that as a coaching opportunity? And why does that mindset lead to these better outcomes over the course of six months, a year, 18 months, even a decade, as we talk about some of these long-standing team members, where you've taken something that maybe had some friction and tension, and instead of looking at it as a negative or brushing past it, hey, let's pull it back out. Let's be curious together. Let's look at this as an opportunity for improvement. I'm just curious, how do you approach that? And how is that received internally when you try to angle it in that perspective?

SPEAKER_00 27:55

Um, you know, it's interesting. Conflict as a coaching opportunity. If you asked a younger version of myself, um it was learning through experience, honestly. Um, some of the most meaningful leadership moments happen during disagreement, um, generative disagreement. And believe me when I say on a sales organization, we have a lot of disagreement. There's a lot of uh voices around that. And I think the important part is kind of the team operating model. It, you know, agree to disagree in certain forums, but when we make a group decision together, how do you continue to move forward with consensus? And that is easy and cliche to say. It's much harder to actually operate a team uh in that and not hold anyone accountable or have those moments where you say, I told you so. So some of the big moments in leadership really happen during that disagreement because conflict is usually where assumptions get exposed. And I can be somebody with a lot of assumptions. So I can be exposed in those moments. Um, and when someone disagrees with me, my instinct isn't to shut down, or at least the younger version of myself instinct was to shut down. Now I go back to that curiosity, and I really want to understand why they're seeing what I might be missing or what another team member is missing. So I try to approach those moments instead of leading with authority, but leading with influence. Um is their thinking complete? Is it incomplete as we work through it together? Again, I'm actively listening, asking a lot of questions. And it's okay if their thinking is stronger than mine. And so there is a little bit of humble hustle that happens in that room to approve the outcome. But either way, the goal is better if the decision is made in consensus and when the team knows disagreement is safe, as long as they're respectful and that's what is expected from them in leadership, uh, and when it becomes truly collaborative.

SPEAKER_01 30:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:08

And I would I guess I would add when I know someone isn't um engaging in the moment, like their physical um cues are they're leaning out, they're crossing their arms, they're they're going off camera, or they're in the room and they're very quiet when they're normally very voiceless. I may pause us and just be really authentic and say there's something that seems that they're not sharing. And I welcome them to kind of bring it to the table at the moment so that we can have a have a healthy discussion about it. Very simple tactics. Um, but you've got to be present and you've got to kind of pull out those moments so that the team knows it's safe to disagree.

SPEAKER_01 30:50

The very simple, but it has to be intentional, right? You have to you have to look for those opportunities. And I think what you just said there is you have to have an environment that it's safe to disagree. Hey, disagreeing on this call is not going to end up with a team's message later on that, hey, why did you disagree in front of the rest of the team? And I think a lot of what we talk about within culture at velocity, it's not buzzwords on a wall, it's not values, it's the conversations and decisions that we make on a day-to-day basis. And the best cultures have the ability to have those tough conversations on a day-to-day basis without it getting personal, without it feeling like somebody is, you know, uh laying an attack on one department or another, especially as you talk about those cross-function meetings and conversations. It's really easy to protect ours and point fingers. And that's you know, talk about a culture that can erode really fast, is the moment that we feel the need to protect ourselves or to point fingers. So uh again, another another fantastic example that you walked us through there, Michelle. And I appreciate you taking us down that that journey because again, a lot of this feels like we overcomplicate it, right? Like it is simple. A lot of it comes back to that curiosity and empathy, but even some of the stuff that you walk through is just, hey, I noticed you haven't been as active today. It you got a lot going on. What's going on in your mind, right? Like it might be that something else is happening. They're getting texts from the daycare provider on the side, or there's other stuff going on, or it's hey, yeah, actually, I'm feeling really uncomfortable with where we're at with this project right now. And I just didn't know how to voice it. And if they don't feel like they have that opportunity, or there's not a leader in the room who wants to give them that opportunity and actually hear from everybody, that that that that you know might not ever be voiced in those conversations either.

SPEAKER_00 32:50

Yeah, another great um way to follow up with that is, and this just happened um this morning. After having a a discussion about um a situation as a leadership team, someone texted on Teams afterwards. Like, and it may have just been it took a little while for them to catch up on the conversation. And I could have taken that feedback and moved forward with it. Instead, I paused for a moment and said, it's unfortunate that we couldn't share it in the group discussion, but we'll be together next Monday. And I think it's important that you start there. So I'll give you five minutes to re-circle back on that particular topic so that you can bring the uh rest of the team along with your way of thinking. And sometimes we don't do that because we're moving fast. Like I've uh sometimes a leader will take that feedback, they'll play it out maybe four meetings later, and then you start to get that kind of cultural divide amongst team members that they some might even call it back channeling, but it may have just been that person had a lot on their mind during that meeting, the thought resonated afterwards, and instead of sourcing it to the entire team, they surfaced it to one leader. But if you constantly kind of close that loop back as a leadership team and just guide traffic almost like GPS, you can create that culture that continuously has the conversation while at the table, which is the most productive way to keep things rolling forward.

SPEAKER_01 34:18

Well, and and that example is perfect from an empowerment standpoint and holding them accountable. Hey, listen, I would have loved for this to have come up in the meeting. That lets them know next time I would like the expectation to be that that's voiced here, but I'm gonna carve out five minutes for you. That's some empowerment on that process for them to own their feedback and idea, and also holding them accountable. Hey, I need you to, if you if you believe in it enough to send me that direct message, we're gonna talk about it in front of the rest of the room. And I want you to be the owner of this feedback as well, versus you taking it and running with it and saying, Hey, someone brought to my attention or I had this idea or I thought about this. It really showcases what the expectation is going forward. Michelle, I just looked at the clock and somehow, somehow, 35 minutes have flown by, and this was exactly what I wanted it to be. It's exactly what I think our audience needed to hear on this topic. I need to get you four rapid fire questions, though, before I let you out of here. Uh, and then we'll wrap up. So I'm gonna jump into the rapid fire section. You get about 30 seconds per answer, and I'll be very honest that only one person ever has uh done this in less than 30 seconds each time. Uh, that's Terry Fleener over at WCG. Everybody else always spends way too much time on these, but it's great. So, however, you want to answer these is up to you. Question number one What is one leadership habit that you rely on every day, no matter what?

SPEAKER_00 35:51

I don't know where Terry is, but I'm gonna I'm up for the challenge to see if we can do this rapid fire. So, leadership habit I rely on every day is asking questions before offering answers. Curiosity um literally prevents certainty from showing up too early in conversations.

SPEAKER_01 36:09

Oh I that is a that I'm gonna I'm gonna put that in the book. Uh with the I that is an absolutely fantastic answer and explanation of curiosity. Okay, question number two, Michelle. What is the most underrated skill that a leader needs in order to be successful today?

SPEAKER_00 36:28

Listening, not waiting to speak, over speaking, giving the solution. Listening is the most underrated leadership skill, actually listening.

SPEAKER_01 36:41

Listening, listening to understand. You can't quite teach that. Uh, I love that. Uh, question number three. On the opposite side of the spectrum, what is one thing that great leaders should stop doing?

SPEAKER_00 36:55

Trying to have all the answers. The best leaders build environments where the best ideas win in group collaboration and in dialogue is very strong.

SPEAKER_01 37:06

I love it. All right, to round it out, to finish under 30 seconds for each answer. What's the best leadership advice that you've ever received?

SPEAKER_00 37:16

You know, a mentor a long time ago told me the focus on the problem, not the personality. And that mindset makes hard conversation survivable. And it's something that I've leaned into and crafted and continue to build that muscle over and over again. Focus on the problem, tough on the problem, light on the people.

unknown 37:39

Whew.

SPEAKER_01 37:40

You said that a couple of times, but the focus on the problem, not the personality phrasing, is really good. Well, we're now 25-something episodes in, and we have two people who can officially say that they have done their rapid fire questions in 30 seconds each. Michelle, the last question that I have for you: who is a leader that we should interview next? Somebody that is doing meaningful work that the Activating Greatness podcast uh listeners could listen, could learn and really value from hearing?

SPEAKER_00 38:12

Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I think Velocity is at the LAMP conference coming up soon. And that um conference is packed full of leadership and action, not just people talking about it, but literally leading the future in the room. So I'm sure you'll find someone there who understands the intersections of leadership and human behavior, someone who spent time thinking deeply about how people make decisions, how culture forms, and how teams perform under pressure, because the one thing we know that is constant nowadays in our environment, whether sales or whatever your vertical or domain is, is that pressure is building everywhere across organizations. So you want to find those leaders that are thinking about the human behavior and how to create cultures that we talked about here today. So I think you'll have a lot of leaders uh on on deck after your experience at the Lamps conference.

SPEAKER_01 39:09

Yeah, absolutely. And we are actually, if you are listening to this on Monday, March 23rd, the Velocity team is in Nashville for Lamps. So uh I will certainly be bugging and bragging about this episode on the show floor. We actually uh we're we're we're presenting uh at 7:30 in the morning on Monday, March 23rd. So we you probably not listening to this before then, but just know uh that our presence will be there in Nashville. So if you are there and listening to this episode, make sure you reach out. As always, I am still trying to prove that the podcast works to my team here at Velocity. So when you're listening to this and you just learned so much from Michelle, which I know you did, make sure you leave a five-star review, leave your comments. You need to sign up and follow on Spotify, on Apple, wherever you get your podcast. You can find us on YouTube, on the Velocity Advisory Group website. Certainly, you can find us on LinkedIn, but your support is what drives this podcast. The early reactions from the first 15 episodes have been so delightful that we're moving to two a week. So now every Monday and every Thursday, we are uh publishing new episodes, and that's not possible without fantastic guests like you, Michelle, and like the audience that we have that has been so supportive. So, Michelle, one last time, any final thoughts on our conversation before I get you out of here that you want to wrap up with?

SPEAKER_00 40:36

Yeah, I'd say um in theme of our conversation today, for me, leadership isn't about strategy decks or org chart, it's about the people and leaders who truly understand that tend to see what others amiss. So hopefully um I made a few deposits to that leadership bank today. And I thank you and Velocity for having me and um wish you well on the rest of the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 41:00

I love it. That's uh that's a that's a LinkedIn snippet right there to promote this podcast, Michelle. So thank you for that. Uh, as always, to those listening, thank you so much for being a part of a community of leaders who refuse to settle for good enough. Until next time, we will see you on the next episode. Have a great day.