E116: Brandon Raines Dive Deep Into Partner to Learn More

Kayana Singing  00:07

We all have something to share.  KnolShare with Dr. Dave

 

Dr. Dave  00:14

If you've been listening for a while welcome back to another episode of knowledge share with Dr. Dave, if you're new, welcome to the nostril Dr. Day podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Dave Cornelius. In this episode, we're going to talk about generative leaders and how they partner and have conversation to learn more. So we're going to delve into a topic at the heart of generative leadership, partnering and going deep, and just to have insightful conversations to promote learning and growth. So let's jump right in and embark in this journey. With you know, Brandon Raines. You know, this guy is just amazing, in my opinion, anyway. And so maybe he'll like, give us a quick like an elevator pitch about who Brandon Raines is.

 

Brandon  01:02

Wow. So thank you. I really get called Amazing. So I'm completely blushing right now. Thank you. Let's see who am I? Right now I find myself I get an A, I guess in a broader sense, as a dad and a husband, human on the planet, trying to find and make a good dent in the world. And spend a lot of time doing leadership coaching, doing organizational design, with, you know, at least when I get excited is when organizations want to do something different. They want to do something better. And I get even more excited when those organizations are trying to do something positive in the world. At least from my perspective. Yeah, yeah, I guess that's who I am.

 

Dr. Dave  02:02

Hey, that's good. That's all goodness, my brother. So let me ask you, what does generatively leadership means to you? And how does it differ from, you know, a lot of the other traditional leadership models that exist out there?

 

Brandon  02:17

And I think what struck me most is because I love being schooled about it, because most often, you've introduced it. So thank you for that. But I think the things that struck me about it was, I think two words. One is partnership and growth. And so yeah, those are the things that I love is this concept of growing and growing, too. I spend a lot of time and when when I started thinking about this, I'm like, oh, yeah, I guess we do spend a lot of time and helping, helping to helping people figure out how can they grow, to be a better person, ostensibly to help the world be a better place. And they're little bits of little parts of the world that they they find themselves in. And so I think, as I go about my work, it is I always say that this is a partnership with us. And so I love this idea of how do people partner with others and build relationships? And not just for themselves as individuals to grow? But also how do they grow their relationships. And so I think so much of how we interact is at the heart of it, relationships and connecting with other people within that as another person or a group of people or a team, or an organization or a culture. It's how do we connect and then grow to be better?

 

Dr. Dave  03:44

You know, that's a great context. So let's look at your experience in forming genuine partnership, that impact organizational success, especially, you know, we're navigating these complex challenges in our in our business space in our personal life and community. So how does forming those general partnership really impact? You know, organizational success?

 

Brandon  04:13

I'm sure I'm not the first person that said it. I'm positive about this. But I think at the heart of these things really aren't relationships. And so and how we react interact with each other none. And in the Agile world, one of the first lines in the manifesto is individuals and interactions. And so, and that's over processes and tools. And so for me, that's always struck me as Okay, well, let's figure out how individuals interact with each other in a safe and healthy in a healthy way. And so I find myself spending a lot of time there. And I believe, you know, if people can have good healthy relationships, no matter what the context, no matter what the domain, no matter what the Work is when that best personal or professional, I think good things can happen. And so figuring out what that looks like for that particular system or relationship or partnership, or you know, whatever that connection is, I think is the is the work to start with, continue going through checking in with each other, along with, or right alongside the work that that's happening.

 

Dr. Dave  05:30

You know, yeah, I mean, walking in that partnership. And now relationship, it's such an important thing. You know, as coaches, we talk about the dads were in those relationships, so. But we also also listened to the importance of active listening and leadership, share a personal story, or instance, where active listening significantly impacted an outcome or relationship for you.

 

Brandon  06:02

Oh, gosh, I can probably pull one from personal life and professional and it'll probably look very similar or sound similar. But I'll pull one from my personal life with my my teenage daughter. And it's funny, as much as I'm trained in this stuff, and practicing and this stuff, when I sometimes when I get into my personal life, and it happens in my professional life, too, I gotta have to be reminded every now and then. And you know, she's having a conversation with me. And kind of laying out some some issues that she's having some problems that she's that she's faced with. And I'm like, going in and trying to thaw doing that old school dad thing. And at some point, she reminded me of Hay Day, I remember when you said to me, that it's okay, sometimes for me to just listen. And that saw, while I'm reminding you of that right now. So take a step back and just hear me out. And give me some of those active listening techniques that you taught me about. And maybe you can ask some questions for me if you need some clarification. I don't need you to solve this for me right now. And I was like, wow, the kids, right? Let me start with that.

 

Dr. Dave  07:29

And it was kind of became the teacher

 

Brandon  07:30

right through that became the team. I think my reaction to her was, and we're big Star Wars fans. She's like, Yeah, she made a very similar statement. She's like, Yeah, but the pattern one becomes the master. Like, go for you. Okay, that's,

 

Dr. Dave  07:48

that's so good. That's so good. You know, I could hear the connection that you have with your daughter, as you began to speak to her, I hear a little bit more emotions coming into the conversation, which is a beautiful thing dude. It's just really beautiful to see that and hear that. So let's talk about cultivating a sense of curiosity in your conversation. How does that impact the depth and direction of some of those discussions?

 

Brandon  08:23

You know, for me, I think that's one of those superpowers is to have curiosity, because I think it opens up so many doors. And I try heavily to lean on those things. And so I think where it comes in concretely for me is, wow, what are the things that I like to learn more about this person who I'm sitting in front of are people that I'm sitting in front of? And so the, you know, the questions come kind of flooding in, and this like, oh, my gosh, this is really interesting. This is fascinating to me. And so I think that, you know, being able to lean into that and thinking, what can I learn? And what, what I inevitably see is, when I tend to lean into that the person that I'm sitting across from, they tend to be infected with that too. And they go like, Oh my gosh, that's something I never thought about, even about myself or this particular situation. Let me sit and think about that are the questions and sometimes questions? Come for them. Wow. Those are some things that I'm a little bit more curious about myself. And you can see just the lights kind of flashing in a positive way. And there's just this wonderful amount of discovery and joy that kind of washes over everyone. And that feels that tends to feel a whole lot better than the judgment that can kind of creep in.

 

Dr. Dave  09:55

No, that that's so true. And that just walks us into, you know, for being Curious about empathy and empathy is a core aspect of general generative leadership. So, you know, as a dad or coach or husband, you know, a friend, you know, how do you approach conversations with empathy, especially in conflict, or disagreement?

 

Brandon  10:21

Practice, practice, practice. But I do think you're right, right, that's a great bridge between FinTech, that concept of curiosity and empathy. And I think some of it for me, I tend to lean on in my head is, Wow, I wonder what that person is going through in this particular situation? And would they be willing to share a little bit. And so it allows me to get out of my head. And, you know, a little bit of sharing can go on, where maybe I can learn a little bit more about what what's going on for that person on what's going on for me, and maybe there's something there's something to dance with, they are in the middle. Because I think I hear this going on, people plan this, you know, you never know what people are going through. And so and that, that can happen for us, too, you know, like, you know, turn that mirror back on yourself, people don't know what you're going through, and being able to show up every single day, and maybe even say, Hey, this is another day for me, hey, here's what's going on. You know, the car broke down today, or my kid was having a really hard time, you know, getting dressed today. And that turned into a big thing. And I haven't gone down yet for that. But here I am, I showed up at this particular meeting, I'm doing my best. But just know, I may not always all all be there at that moment in time. And I've constantly been heartened and surprised and how empathetic people can be when a little bit of that sharing can go Come come into the space. And others go, Yeah, I had a rough time this morning, too. So maybe let's take a minute or two, to kind of take a deep breath before we dive in that whatever the this content that we have. And usually that that situation turns, turns into something really positive. And we've made this wonderful human connection.

 

Dr. Dave  12:24

You know, it's so interesting, as you're saying about the human connection, I was thinking about, you know, the Padawan becoming back and being the master. So like a generative leaders, you know, one of the things is like we're known for, for openness for feedback. So how do you encourage a culture where team members feel comfortable sharing honest feedback? And how do you personally handle and implement? You know, this feedback? Space? Yeah, in your world?

 

Brandon  12:58

Yeah, that's a great question. It's funny, I was having a conversation about this very recently, I was taking in a new, a new client. And we had exactly this conversation. And one of the questions that I asked is, well, how do you take feedback? How do you even view feedback? How does feedback sit with you? How does it lead a little bit into how to how does criticism show up for you, you delivering it and are receiving it? And it was just those set of questions that just allowed us to kind of explore and discover, you know, how, how we both sit with feedback? And then how what's what's the best way to deliver it to you? And so just being kind of really explicit with in that conversation, it helps because now I know when I need to deliver some feedback, what's the best way for this person to receive this? Because who cares if you can deliver it if the if it's not received? Well? Yeah, who cares? So that became that being that became a great way for us to design together. So now I know how to give this guy a feedback. And by the way, I open the space up to say, Hey, I'm not perfect. I'm just as flawed as anyone else. I'd like to hear it too. And this is the best way for me to receive it.

 

Dr. Dave  14:17

Huh, yeah, no, that's so good. Right? You know, the fact that you're co designing that relationship and those conversation as you're getting into a coaching session. But you know, the concept of partner and have conversation to learn more really implies a dedication to continuous learning. And how do you ensure you're always learning from your conversations? And how do you inspire others in your organization to kind of adopt a similar mindset?

 

Brandon  14:52

So a couple of things, maybe at a macro and then on a micro level at a macro level, a lot of the teams that I work with one of the things one of the first thing that we talk about is just that concept of continuous learning, and different ways of doing it and continuously improving. And so injecting different events where we explicitly say, hey, let's take some time out a retrospective, if you will, and be able to say, what what can we learn? What do we need to learn? What's something new that we need to learn? In order for us to get better? Is something to do I personally take moments out throughout the year, either or sometimes I call them walkabouts. So I can discover for myself, what do I need to learn and what's kind of like a gap there, what's kind of piquing my interest, but also, you know, with each other in organizations, but also just at a micro level, if I'm having a conversation, from time to time, I'll just say, what do I need to learn? You know, either sometimes that will happen close to the end of the conversation, sometimes it'll happen as a result of, you know, I'll notice some interaction going on, and it becomes just kind of clear to me, sometimes I'll just say it out of the blue, like, what do I need to learn. And it might be something about the relationship, it might be something I need to learn for myself as an individual, it might be something to learn about that that other person, but just just being intentional about, alright, I know, I need to learn something. And just putting it out there, and saying, and just asking him.

 

Dr. Dave  16:33

You know, it's when you said walk about, you know, what popped into my mind was like, is he walking it, we'll do it a walk about to set up a Barbie, because I know, from just having conversations with you, you know, one of the things that you've been playing around with is, you know, barbecuing and roasting and that kind of stuff. So sorry, that just popped into my mind based on what I know about you.

 

Brandon  17:00

Trust me, Dr. Dave. Yeah, there's a whole lot of walking about when I'm, you know, turned into a 12 hour cook for a brisket. So, yeah. Oh, a lot of time, they are thinking about what should I learn? So, ya

 

Dr. Dave  17:16

know, but it was interesting to also just to, you know, because of the interests is like, partner and to learn more, and, you know, what more would you want to say about that concept? If bringing it close to some of the things that you enjoy doing, you know, partnering to learn more with the wife partners to learn more what, you know, the butcher who's giving you the brisket? Yeah, this curious.

 

Brandon  17:43

Yeah, we can do a whole podcast, the stuff that I want to learn have learned around just the world of culinary arts. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, I'm for it. is interesting, like, I was actually just having this conversation with them. But one of trying to figure out, like, being reminded of life's kind of life as a journey. And it comes in these spurts at times, and how it's actually really important for me, for me to figure out well, what's the thing that really lights me up, that when I'm having some dark moments, that reminds Well, this is really important, and this might be a better thing to lean on, rather than eating a gallon of Breyers ice cream, despite the fact that it was really, really good ice cream. But, you know, one might be a more healthy choice for me, then the other? And what's that thing was kind of like something that I can grab on to. And and what I realize too, is I get excited about the journey, I get excited about the challenge, just the discovery of what is the thing that lights me up, and and also being able to experiment that it might not be one thing. It might be several things or that you know, me even going through a cycle of trying 1234 or five things is kind of interesting, because it's yet yeah, one more thing that I've tried and either discover, it didn't completely light me up, but wow, did I learn something about about this particular thing? It used to be triathlons. Triathlon was a big thing. Four or five years ago for me. But Shaq said, you know 4820 anymore, bro. So I've had to learn that hard lesson. Yeah, so a 48 year old Brandon isn't that 30 Even 38 year old Brandon and trying to run a triathlon anymore.

 

Dr. Dave  19:45

Hmm. Well, rather thank you so much for your time and energy you bring to you in our conversations each time. And you know, I just learned so much more every time we have these dialogues. So you No, as we wrap up, remember that every conversation is an opportunity to learn, grow and collaborate. And as generative leaders, you know, let's make each dialogue count, you know, trying to foster a culture of continuous learning. And I would just like to say thank you for joining us today. Stay curious, stay connected, and let's keep the conversation going. And so Brandon, I'm going to, you know, you're going to leave us with something that people are going to be inspired. So I'm gonna give you the final word has that. Wow,

 

Brandon  20:31

how can I top your final word? I guess I just want to amplify that. Be curious. I'll steal something from Ted Lassa be curious, not judgmental, and sort of figure out what curiosity means for you and dig into it.

 

Dr. Dave  20:49

Hmm, okay, that's the word. I'm gonna stop recording now.

 

Kayana Singing  21:01

We all have something to share. KnolShare with Dr. Dave