Lancefield on the Line

Liz Kislik: Doing real work

• David Lancefield

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How does business really work?

We need to cut through the myths and misconceptions to get to the true nature of it. To make people shine we need to understand how to navigate how work gets done, how people think and behave, and how decisions are made.

In this episode I am joined by Liz Kislik, a management consultant and coach, who brings refreshing clarity to the subject. She cautions that the work is hard, but we can use the power of language to express what we really want. She establishes the importance of stopping to think, to breathe, to get in control of our bodies, especially in difficult situations.

She also shares why conflict is a natural part of the workplace and how we should look for self -determination and empowerment, not only of ourselves, but the teams we lead. 

“Conflict is a feature of humans” – Liz Kislik

You'll hear about:

·      How important is conflict at work?
·      Being on the right side of conflict
·      Showing respect takes real skill
·      Outside influences on the professional self
·      Calling out character types
·      How do you develop self-awareness?
·      How do you make politics work for you?
·      The learnings Liz has had
·      The impact Liz wants to have on the world
·      What does Liz's best day look like? 

About Liz Kislik:

Liz Kislik is a management consultant and executive coach, and a frequent contributor to Harvard Business Review and Forbes. Her TEDx “Why There’s So Much Conflict at Work and What You Can Do to Fix It” has received more than half-a-million views. She specializes in developing high performing leaders and workforces, and for 30 years has helped family-run businesses, national nonprofits, and Fortune 500 companies like American Express, Girl Scouts, Staples, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, and Highlights for Children solve their thorniest problems.

Resources:

• Profile: https://lizkislik.com/about/

• Better at work with Liz Lislik animation: https://betteratworkwithliz.com/

• Articles: https://lizkislik.com/articles/


My resources:

Take my new Becoming a Strategic Leader course (https://bit.ly/3KJYDTj)

Sign up to my Every Day is a Strategy Day newsletter (http://bit.ly/36WRpri) for modern mindsets and practices to help you get ahead.

Subscribe to my YouTube channel (http://bit.ly/3cFGk1k) where you can watch the conversation.

For more details about me:

 
●      Services (https://rb.gy/ahlcuy) to CEOs, entrepreneurs and professionals.

●      About me (https://rb.gy/dvmg9n) - my background, experience and philosophy.

●      Examples of my writing https://rb.gy/jlbdds)

●      Follow me and engage with me on LinkedIn (https://bit.ly/2Z2PexP)

●      Follow me and engage with me on Twitter (https://bit.ly/36XavNI)

Unknown:

I don't know about you. But I wish people would get real about how business really works. Or sometimes read an article, or listen to a talk about leadership or workplace culture and think, really, gosh, that's such a simplistic description, or it's just wrong. Or sometimes it's an idealistic way to think of the world. And it's not because I'm feeling negative or wanting to come across as arrogant, or indeed, I have the answer myself. It's just that I want people at all levels of experience to shine, thrive, and reach their potential. And in order to do that, they need to understand how to navigate how work gets done, how people think and behave and how decisions are made. That means that they're more likely to be able to work out how to contribute their Best more often, and earlier. So my guest in this episode, Liz Kislik, cuts through these myths and misconceptions with refreshing clarity, candor, and eloquence. With her experience as a management consultant, and coach, she talks about the power of language in helping us express what we really want, also about the importance of stopping to think, to breathe, getting control of our bodies, especially in situations that are difficult. She also talks about how we should look for self determination and empowerment, not only of ourselves, but the teams we lead. She also cautions that this takes hard work. This is not some overnight fix. The episode walks through workplace scenarios or situations that will be familiar to you calling out what people often do wrongly, and offering new ways to think and act. I bet you're thinking it's immediately useful. And it's packed full of wisdom. And I do hope you enjoy this conversation. Well, it's wonderful to be here with you today, Liz, of course, you're an eminent management consultant coach, somebody with lots and lots of admirers, including, especially myself, you publish in all, all the best places, Harvard Business Review, Forbes and others, you have a great TEDx talk, and you have better at work with Liz, this new brilliantly creative animation series that will no doubt touch upon, which I heartily recommend the URL is of the same name. And today, we're going to talk about what really happens at work in business. going underneath the covers, we're going to talk about conflict, high performance, politics, and frankly, anything we want to, but really trying to get to a real a sort of what really happens beyond what you might read in blogs and other places. And I'm just delighted to be here with you today, Liz, I'm so happy to be with you, David, I can't wait to hear what we're gonna do. Indeed, it will be a journey and it will be organic. Fantastic. So let's let's talk about, you know, conflict, not because I want I like conflict, but it's a feature of of organizations, right, sometimes very overt, sometimes hidden, I guess. And my experience over a few years now is organizations vary in how conflict is treated, encouraged or talked about? I guess the first simple question is, how important is conflict at work for to do good work? You You've already raised so many issues I'm going to pick around in there. Sometimes people think of this as semantics. But conflict is only what we name it. We call it conflict when we don't like it, or we think it involves anger or fighting. There are loads of times that we have different opinions and it doesn't matter that much. Yes, it's that we call it a conflict and we don't call it a conflict until it starts to feel uncomfortable. And then we think what is this okie thing? Oh, it's a conflict. But, you know, we argue with ourselves all the time. I assume you do that. I certainly do that. Absolutely. Yes. We say we are have multiple minds. Or we say a part of me wants this and a part of me wants that. We're completely familiar with the need to reconcile different viewpoints constantly. And if it goes okay, we sort of don't pay attention. We don't count it. It's only when we feel ourselves. Good. Intense or frustrated, or so often, you know, it's a conflict based on how your body's responding. I'm fascinated by that, I guess I, you know, that sort of stopped breathing as well, you feel tend to go back to go red in the face, depending on your demeanor, and so forth. And obviously, a lot of the conflict starts in the head and then manifests into an argument of so forth. But if you're, if you're a person who wants I guess a conflict of perspective, or ideas as opposed to a conflict of it's quite a strong word, isn't it? When you say conflict is quite quite aggressive, isn't it? If you're if you're somebody who wants debate and discourse, to to see the best ideas, but doesn't want it to tip over into more emotive aspects? What are the sorts of things that you you've seen that can really help people be on the right side of it? Again, the language is important. It's, it's great to say we're going to have a conversation about our diverse views. Just Just the fact that you are acknowledging, we have diverse views, and you are treating it as a valuable proposition. It's why I've invited you all here today. Or it's why we do focus groups with our customers, or it's whatever the specifics of the dialogue or the fact that we have convened specifically to have ideas together. Well, that changes the tenor right away, doesn't it? Yes, yes. As opposed to we show up to a meeting, knowing we're going to have a fight. Because you had sales and marketing, and I had operations, and we have a fight every Tuesday. Right? So the context is just so important. And it was so interesting to me that you started off by saying that it's a feature of work life, because it's, it's sort of a feature of human. Yes, it's much deeper than that. Yes. I'm curious than I, if you're, if you're in that conversation, it's been framed in the elegant way that you've described. And yet, there are still moments where it tips over into people, making it feel very personal, perhaps aggressive behavior? How if you're the chair of that discussion, how do you, if you like, not completely shut it down? But also, if you'd like, I guess, protect the meeting and the values that you hold, dear, what interventions could you make? So it doesn't happen that quickly if people aren't primed for it? If you are the facilitator or the chair, you hear when people start getting a little tense? And why would that happen? If you really zoom out? Why would that happen? It only happens if people are attached to the idea or the theory or the argument that they're presenting, they have a stake in it, it is no longer just the realm of the mind, there are expectations that real things will happen and some of them will not be good for me. So I have something to protect, or defend. And that may be a feature of organization. Because if I'm a department head, a decision that gets made in this meeting may affect the lives of the people I feel responsible for and I care about deeply. And you can see exactly how that becomes sort of, you know, red, red cloth in front of the bowl. Yes. So, as the chair, the first thing is to know your people, if you can, if you're a professional facilitator, it's different. But if you are the executive responsible for these groups, these people and these ideas, there are all kinds of things and they all depend on what the specifics are. So this is like no medication is the same for any person depends on everything from the size of the body, and therefore how it will absorb to what other medications are being taken. So none of this should be taken on its face as a thing you should run and do. You have to incorporate it into what already exists. That being said, Respect for all parties. And for the fact that their concerns have value and therefore are important to all of us is one of the most important ground rules you can sell. Right? And that goes back not just to the ground rules for this meeting, but the culture of the organization we're in. Do we believe that? So that when we remind ourselves in this specific meeting, we're reminding ourselves Yes, this is how we are every day, as opposed to oh, we're gonna be special here in this meeting? Yes, yes. That can actually make it worse, can't it, where you actually have a really great meeting, and then the creates a massive gap to your lived reality, the rest of the time, anything? What's going on here. But your point about respect, I completely agree. It's easy to say and often hard to practice, because it means that people you know, people have different styles, backgrounds, ways of expressing themselves, you have to, in a way, give more space, where I guess I've been in discussions and probably been guilty of that myself. I believe that, but then I've gone to a sort of mono way of doing things, which is just expedient. You know, we're on the clock. Let's get stuff done. I respect everyone. But let's be clear, let's whoever's the quickest, shout loudest, fast, let's get a decision made. So there's something around respecting somebody and then actually showing the respects, the showing is, it takes real skill, right? Part of the challenge is, it is completely ineffective to demand it. And, you know, in any of those conversations, where someone says, Well, you have to respect me, right away, you know, there's a problem. Yes, it is something that is a phase zero, before we got into the room, that had to be established, and it can be built on all kinds of different things, from people's knowledge and experience, to how many times we've seen the mess up, and how they handle that, you know, there are all kinds of things, these are very complex concepts. But in the same way, you know, the, the current science on brainstorming, is not to have everybody spew out their ideas, because the loudest, fastest person will appear to have the most ideas. And so the current approach is, we're going to brainstorm but first we're doing it ourselves. Everybody write down 10 ideas? Yes, yes. And then sometimes having other people share your ideas so that you are not the representative. Neutralizing, in a way, the way we already think about each other, and treating the ideas as ideas. So all of this says, we are actually not well prepared for disagreement. We think disagreement generally, is a zero sum game. And that comes from having one spin children, when in many cases, it is the big adult who wins. No matter how strongly you might feel about your position as a five year old. And even if you're right. And so we learn from that experience, and then from the school experience, louder, faster. The physical, yes, more favored, is another way to win, you know, there are all these ways to win and the other person loses. And so what we really need is an environment in which we consider things together on their merits. And we have a practice of doing so. So well put frightening now. Yes. Yes, I work. Yeah, this I mean, it's proper work. One of the things I really like about what you said is that you and I and others can give stimuli on how to think about these things, but you have to make your own mind up because it's so specific to the or the context, you're in the this specific interaction the people involved. And so it takes you sort of have to make your own mind up as opposed to saying there is one way of doing it. So for example, I'm brainstorming I've seen and use, you know, that approach of everyone writing it down either beforehand or during it you in virtual environments, for example, but also I've seen research and use this myself actually too late in life a little bit where the group exercises is framing is the framing the questions? Yes. And actually, you encourage people to go away in their own time because some people think better when they're on their own, and then come back afterwards. The point is, there's lots of different ways you don't have to try it. Try one way, in particular, I want to just continue the theme of, I guess, the journey of a conversation and discussion. That's what we're on at the moment. You talked about people coming prepped for expecting some form of fight or conflict. What about in an environment where some of the people have stuff going on outside work, whether that's direct conflict, or other things? And whatever is being discussed, they're bringing or potentially are bringing other aspects of their life into a conversation? If, if you're the leader of that discussion in that group, and you have an inkling of what's going on? How do you handle the situation? Because at one level, you want people to bring their whole self. That's one of the buzzwords, but actually, you also want them to do their job, right, professionally? How do you get the right balance between whole self and then a professional self when there's other things influencing their mind from outside work? This is such a thoughtful question, David, and you have exposed really the challenge of anything that becomes a popular framing of how things should be. I don't want to bring my whole self. My whole self make on any given day, consists of things I don't want in that conference room or video conference with me, they will distract me from my purpose here today. Yes. And I think, as a grown mature person, I'm entitled to compartmentalize, which is different from requiring people to compartmentalize, yes, does not work to do the thing that was said 30 years ago, you leave your personal baggage at the door, once you're in here, you are functioning as the director of thus and so and not as the person you are. So, you know, we contain multitudes, we're complex. Some of it we like some of it, even ourselves, we don't like I've always had a practice of, if I was in a grim and grumpy mood, I would announce it at the beginning. Not in the kind of watch out, framing, yes. But it's really useful. And we certainly learn this during lock downs in COVID. So useful, just to spend a couple of moments. So people can say how they are today. Because somebody might be bright and bushy tailed, and another person might be grim and grumpy, and acknowledging that lets you be a little more tender where that tenderness is needed. Be mindful that we are in different conditions and therefore not flare right away when something feels a little off or uncomfortable. But, and now I'm going to give you sort of several practices all at once much too compressed. Please do. Notice what's arising in our bodies? Oh, I'm feeling tense about that. Was it because of something someone else just said? Or maybe my compartment started to break through a little and I'm thinking about whatever problem I've got at home. I'm a little tense. can I relax first before anything else happens? And if I can, then can I look at the big picture of what's happening? What just got said, What triggered me? Oh, I see. Now I can manage. It only takes a few seconds to do that once you're used to doing it. Instead of just assuming that the person across the table is a son of a gun. And you're going for him hammer and tongs in some ways, it's like getting control of yourself. And then I guess making some conscious choices. And then I Love that question, you know, how are we? Or how are we showing up today and the powerful thing about that is you're giving information for others to, to be aware of interviews. What it's not, necessarily is an invitation to have a big therapy session with some people. But it's but it's information and insight. I mean, you and I will have worked with advice coached a whole range of different executives and professionals. And they all come with their different traits and characters and floors. What are the ones that if you think about other people trying to work in perhaps challenging, not always difficult, but you know, stimulating environments? What were the some of the traits that you would call out where you think, god that's particularly tricky or difficult, or they say, for example, I'll give an example or one of mine, I found it quite hard to deal with really overly confident people. Not because I found in some ways, energizing because they came with a lot of energy. Oh, we can do this calmly. That's fantastic. But their willingness to listen to any challenge dissent pragmatism, just because I found that just became very frustrating. There's like, we all like the optimism. When overconfidence then isn't tempered with serious thought, I found that quite frustrating. So there's, there's, if you like one example from me, now friends and ex colleagues will be thinking, is that me is that I'm not going to name names? That'd be much more exciting, but not. I don't I don't lawyers on my back. What type of character types would you call out? From your own experience? As particularly difficult in this difficult or stimulating world? Let's be positive, perhaps as well, we thought, Oh, good. Thank you. Okay. So on the difficult side, I would say there are lacks, that I particularly do not enjoy lack of curiosity, I do not enjoy. Because someone who isn't interested in questioning, even their own constructs, is very hard to persuade, even when the case is good. Yes. So lack of curiosity is one for me. lack of candor is another. So really anything that goes in the direction of I know the way it's got to be, and it's going to be that way, when we leave here? Go ahead, you try something. Someone who's presenting in that mode. I don't choose to work with them, actually, what a polite way of putting it. On the on the flip side, what is wonderful, exciting fun. And so I keep going back and going back, people who are self reflective. People who want to know if there is a better way. People who are self aware. Really, it's all the things that go into emotional intelligence, yes. Because to be self aware, to be self regulating. And then to be open to whatever is presented. You can get somewhere with those people. And there's one other thing that there's a plus minus, because any of these taken too far is no good. And that's when a senior executive is fearful. For some reason. People who are afraid of making decisions afraid of taking action, even if they are otherwise curious, interesting, etc. They can stall a lot of progress. And so building them up and helping them see where they are not at risk, for example, or how they could move forward. Those are worthy areas of development, but someone who is known to be fearful and for whatever reason, is not open to change at the time you need them. That's another one that I don't prefer. That can be a big break on the organization's Yes. Momentum. Yes. You talked there about a lot of self thinks self awareness, self regulation, self reflection, taught by regulation early in terms of in the moment. How do you how do you do it? How do you what practices can you use especially in environments where the days along? There's intensity is competing demands? I speak to a know a lot of people who want to do it. But you might say don't have the discipline perhaps to do it. They are unbusy. I've got lots of things on. So how do you in an environment where it's sort of an always on environment? Either it's one you're in or you've created? How do you practice and develop more self awareness and self? I guess self reflection. So this is so simple minded as to seem almost juvenile. The difficulty is in the application, the nuance is in the application. The first step is, let's take a pause, stop action, a break. And you can say this to yourself, you can say it to a group, let's take a pause, let's stop. And then questioning what's actually going on here? What are the themes that are upsetting? What do we need to do to bring ourselves back into a calmer relationship, I'm not saying a harmonious relationship, you're saying a calmer relationship. Usually, it is some combination of physical. And then cognitive, emotional. And there are all kinds of exercises. From breathing, we all know there are a gazillion breathing techniques to actually using the body in a variety of ways. Sometimes it's getting energy out. And you can combine that with visualization. You can I mean, they're, the techniques are not the issue. There's a score to choose from, they all work none of them work for everybody. So you kind of need a bunch in your toolbox. But just stop it sometimes the safest thing you can do, essentially on that list. I said to one person recently I was working with I said, done. And it was a leading question consciously I put my hand around, I said, What's stopping you take shaving off 10 minutes at the end of your meetings to reflect think reenergize. And I wasn't quite sure how that person would react. Because that's quite countercultural for them. I said nothing, right. And they literally started taking their diary out, and just scoring, scoring through things. So it's giving yourself permission. I'm curious about dynamics, we've been referring to dynamics of teams and organizations. And again, I want to put a positive, not spin but more angle on an aspect that people often talk ill in a bad way, which is politics. Every organization has politics, even the small ones, even the startups scaleups not just the big incumbents. And people tend to say, oh, it's the politics that stopped me do X, Y and Zed or, and so forth. How do you in a nutshell, how do you? How do you make politics work for you, in a good way, whilst keeping your own sense of integrity? I think a lot of this is a language thing again. If someone said your political, you might feel insulted. But if someone said to you, oh, that's so sophisticated and savvy, you might feel complimented. Yes, yes. So be nice. Being aware of the underlying themes and currents, being aware of how your fellow humans respond to things. I think that the difference comes in where someone's commitment and intentions lie. If your commitment is to the good of the organization, to the good of your fellow executives, founders, whatever, to the good of the purpose we have for serving our customers. If that is truly your intention, and it's everybody's intention, and everybody understands it, then the maneuvering that happens to get things done is in service to that good and we can self interrogate about it. We can check and make sure that our values are aligned. And then we can even say, Well, I felt a little pushed when you were doing that. You know next time please come To me beforehand and just asked me those kinds of things, we can do it in the open, you know, when my mother taught me how to play chords, we played open hand. And that's how I taught my kids, you can see what the other person is doing. And you can even say, Oh, is that the thing you want to do? Here are the results that may accrue. It's when it is hidden. And we believe the only good way is to keep it hidden. And we know we're doing things in spite of what someone else might want. And in particular, when we are serving ourselves, that's when it becomes the negative kind of political. Nothing, you should never serve yourself. I mean, if you haven't had a raise in three years, you should please figure out how to get one. It's such an A clear articulation. It's often politics is used as a, I think, often a lazy turn by some people, because they haven't done the work to understand what's really going on. And it's a lazy use of language where you talked about maneuvering to a goal to an end goal. And being open about it is very powerful. I mean, again, if you talked about organizational dynamics, or flows, and ebbs, and so on, people go Yeah, okay, I need to understand that in order to work out where I can position myself, If, however, you shortly use the shorthand of this politics around here is really hard to fathom, it's okay, what do you actually mean? Again, decompressing it, and so forth. Now, what to link on to, this is a beautiful segue onto your own recent project, which I'm sure there was no bad politics associated with at all this better at work with Liz animation series, which I'm going to keep plugging, because I think it's not only brilliantly executed, it's it clearly describes a series of work scenarios, challenging work scenarios with you as the star, both behind the camera, and obviously in the animation, as the as the guest will tell me. So it's better work with liz.com. That's what people should learn. There are three episodes now at the time of this recording. What are the what are the biggest learnings you've had about developing such an innovative creative product? From the lens we've just been talking about, which is the dynamics between people, what have you learned about the team about yourself? I'm curious. The lessons about myself are the clearest. I do like coming up with my own way of expressing things, it would have been normal and typical to write a book. And I just didn't have one. So this seemed to be a good way. For me. It meant that I did have to work with a significant team of people. Yes. One of the reasons. Thank you, David, you've said such lovely things, both here and other places about the animation. And I really feel that part of why it's so good, is because it was a significant team with people who had expertise I do not have and never hope to have, frankly. And I had to learn a tremendous amount, just to be able to talk about what we needed to do. Because of course, I had all kinds of opinions, but they were uneducated. They're more educated now. And so coming back to our other themes. One of the things that was so important was even when I was unhappy about something, or there may have been hurt feelings, as we discussed, what I liked, what I didn't like, what I was going to tolerate or not, is the idea that we are a team with a purpose. And I often restated the goals of the project, to remind people that this was not just about being clever, which you know, we can try and do. It was not just about picking the thing that would make people laugh the most, because it wasn't entertainment, even though there is an entertaining aspect. And in the same way, having to stop myself from going for what might have felt more perfect to me, but wasn't necessary. So, being conscious of those things, and also recognizing the animators were not business people, the director wasn't a business person. So they would sometimes start to go in directions, that were not realistic for the content. And then that was my job to bring that back. But knowing that we were a team, and really working on caring about each other, which doesn't always come naturally, the fact that you you spent time understanding, I guess, the art of the possible, understanding what other people contribute in learning to, I guess, tame some perfectionist tendencies and, and in a way, care for people. I mean, these are such important characteristics practices. And, and in addition, the thing I particularly admire is the fact that, given your success, given what you've done, in some ways, you didn't need to do this. But you know, the people would have gone for something safer. However, this is my view. And I'm walking to yours. But the fact that you go for something that's creative, disruptive, different, true to you, hard, and other adjectives, it says a lot about I think, your own mindset, and your own practice keeping it fresh, trying something new, which if you're working with you, if I was one of your clients, I think, yeah, gosh, he's pushing the boundaries, pushing the frontiers. So, you know, that's, that's something I would just say I admire in terms of the, the, the innovative, self disruptive element of this. Thank you. I really appreciate that. Partially, because it was exhausting. You know, I mean, it really was hard and stretching, not always in a comfortable way. But I like to stay interested. You know. And I guess I don't think of it so much as pushing. But more of seeing what else could be there. And on a really purely selfish, pragmatic note, besides all the creative expression, desire and all of that, how good if I have something in the can, that won't age? Because my hope is that the lessons are pretty timeless. This is meant to be evergreen? Yes, I write. Yes. Because there are quite a lot of books, as some, this is two of us who haven't read a book. But we've done live, right. We'll take that chip off our shoulder, or at least my shoulder. But there's quite a lot of books that the two years later you think, wow, my might have been good at the time, but not relevant now. So that's definitely the truth. You were talking about the here and now but this is we're talking about impact legacy. So I am curious, I ask all my guests this question around which is more philosophical, which is, as you look at your own impact, what impact you're looking to have on the world around you as you do your work. When you ask that my mind went back, I don't know, it's got to be 25 years, to a young woman who was supervising a work team, and was struggling. And the thing I needed to teach her was actually math. So that she could measure the work that her team was doing, and then make better decisions. I would be so happy if people learned how to navigate the world better, how to think more. Because with those tools, who knows what they can go on and do. So yes, you know, the the animation shows, in a way, ways that I would wish to be thought of there's humor in there. There's a lot of clarity. And, you know, there are some pretty direct challenges. What's going on here? How can we make it better, but the idea that people can become more self sufficient and therefore lead others in a better way? That for me, that is great. Because I just believe in workplace as a place of development for people, and a place of experimentation and growth. And so anything that contributes to that I'm very proud of. Oh, gosh, that's so inspiring. So uplifting. Really is coming back to the practical then, when you're having your best day. Hopefully today is one of them. What helps you have your best day in terms of anything and everything you want? What what what if you looked at the ingredients that help you have that great day? What would it What would you pick out? Fabulous conversation? For sure. For sure. And learning something, either in the conversation, reading something, those two things are like rest? In a weird way. Yes, yes. They don't they they energize you, they they replenish you? Yeah. Well, from my perspective, and I say this without looking for a response. This has been fabulous. Your you are fabulous. I love the way you express yourself. So clearly, and succinctly, you choose your words very carefully. And you're you're encouraging us to, to think more to be more intentional to, I guess there's an empowerment theme here and to be transparent as we do so in terms of how we want to be and how we want to get, you know, come across and an ambition in terms of this develop, let's do some good things. Let's grow. Let's lead others in great ways. I take my hat off to you. It's been a fantastic conversation. Thank you, David, I want to give you one caution. If I may, though, because that sounds the way you just said it sounds so inspiring and exciting. But it is also hard. Because it takes time. And that is what most of us feel we don't have. And so to carve out the time to do that the upfront cost is clear. The benefits less so. So giving ourselves room. Sometimes when we don't feel we have it. That's hard. But it's wonderful. And I think it's worth it. No, I think that's I think that has gained so wise, I think we are in an environment where there's either an urge or a sense of competition that we have with either ourselves or others that leads us to have a producer, performer mindset. I've got to do this, that and the other. And actually, the time to think reflects talk that may not directly immediately lead to anything can be compressed. And so there is something around you know, you have to put the hard work in you have to learn teaching, sometimes it takes longer. It's not just the immediate one hour immediately, something comes out somebody gives you a pat on the back. And I think that's about discipline as well. But it's important. But I'm still think you're brilliant and you're fabulous. And even with the hard work and it hasn't felt like hard work this afternoon. This thank you for the conversation. It's been a pleasure for me. Thank you. And that was another edition of Lance we were on the line. I do hope you enjoyed this episode. As much as I did check out the podcast, the YouTube channel, give us a nice rating. And of course, look at better at work with Liz and all of her other resources. Thank you so much again this