Strong Leaders Serve with Teri Schmidt

154. How to Disagree Respectfully Even During an Election Year with Justin Jones-Fosu

• Teri Schmidt

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In an election year, discussions can get heated. But how do we maintain respect?  In our new episode with Justin Jones-Fosu, explore strategies for engaging in difficult conversations without losing sight of humanity and respect. It's a timely listen for anyone looking to navigate challenging dialogues with grace.

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Hey, we're back. I'm so happy to be with you again, after navigating some personal life changes. Thank you for your patience. We're here today with an episode that you're not going to want to miss. Unless, of course you don't appreciate a high energy professional who motivates you and equips you to have the difficult conversations that you need to have in your workplace and in life. Someone who does it not through superficial, motivational, fluff. But instead with practical research based actions. If you don't like listening to people like that, then you might want to stop listening now. But for the rest of you. Especially those of you who are wondering how to work through tense situations in the workplace. Especially in this election year in the United States. I'm excited to introduce you to author and TEDx speaker. Justin Jones post zoo. Justin is a full-time daddy. Who also happens to be an international speaker, a social entrepreneur, a critically acclaimed author. And a mountain climber. In fact, he recently conquered one of the famed seven summits. His passion for elevation extends beyond tracking. It's mirrored in the work that he does as the CEO of work meaningful and in his writing. His latest book. I respectfully disagree. Which was released yesterday. Challenges the reader to focus on building bridges with people. Rather than barriers from them. It's definitely a book for our times. And I can't wait to share our conversation with you. So let's get to it. I'm Terry Schmidt. Founder and leadership coach at strong leader serve where we believe that leadership is courageously using your talents to make a way for others to courageously use theirs. And this. Is the strong leader serv podcast.

Teri:

Justin, welcome to Strong Leaders Serve. I am really, really looking forward to our conversation today.

Justin Jones-Fosu:

I'm so thankful to be on this and I'm, I'm trying to be strong. I worked out right before this so I can be a strong leader, so I'm really grateful,

Teri:

You got it. You got it. We ask all of our guests to do that, so I appreciate you following that guideline,

Justin Jones-Fosu:

Absolutely.

Teri:

Oh, well, you know, um, it is really an exciting time for you. Um, the, the day that this podcast episode goes live. You will have just released a book yesterday and then the day that we're recording you're getting married tomorrow So yes, well

Justin Jones-Fosu:

two days two days. You can't speed up the the wedding but two days Yes, we're married on sunday. So absolutely a lot of really

Teri:

cool things happening. Yeah, definitely definitely and you know In your bio, I was kind of struck by you describe yourself as a full time daddy who also happens to be an international speaker, a social entrepreneur, a critically acclaimed author, and a mountain climber. So there's, there's a lot to unpack there. We could probably just go, you know, the whole episode about your bio, but I would love to, you know, just touch on a little bit about your journey. And kind of the pivotal moments that have led you to be the leader that you are today.

Justin Jones-Fosu:

Yeah, I have to give it up. Like, I got it from my mama. Um, and my mom, she was a single mom, two rambunctious little boys. And the perseverance that my mom showed and displayed was so powerful. I mean, we had times of stints of being unhoused, initially we're on welfare. Uh, so my parents divorced at four, like, it's like my mom started all over. And so I just remember her resilience. I didn't know the terminology for that stuff then. Um, but I just would see her strength through all of this. And I remember there was all these, my mom would plant these seeds. So like, even when our lights got cut off, my mom was like, all right, where are the candles? Where are the flashlights? Because we still had to do our homework. So she was creating a space where there, you had to find the solution, right? You had to step up and, and later on in life, I interviewed my mom, I realized I hadn't really heard my parents story. And by the way, if any leader is listening and your parents are still alive and all those like ask to hear, I mean, for real, for real, not the stories they tell us occasionally, but I, on a long trip, I asked my mom's like, mom, I just want to hear your story. And so we started from the beginning and there was so much that I learned. And one of the things I learned is my mom was one of the first. Black female air traffic controllers in the air force. And she shared her journey with me, um, about why she trained my brother and I, the way she did. And it was because that there were some times where she'd be stationed in Japan for two years. And she was like, Justin, there was some soldiers who'd never left base in that same two year timeframe. And I just. As I started thinking through, like my mom would make us go to events that, uh, we didn't know a lot about, even those that we disagreed with. And I remember just sitting there like, why are we here? Like, we don't even, we don't even agree with this, but she was planting these seeds of humanity. And I, and I believe, I believe wholeheartedly to the essence of leadership is that the leadership is seeing humanity of people and asking the question, how can I give more to people than I take from people? And so my mom was. Those critical moments for me growing up and planting those seeds that helped me to become a leader that I am. Not to mention she made me read Seven Habits of Highly Effective People when I was like 11 years old, by the way. And so I was, had my Franklin planner going to school and all that stuff. So yeah, my mom, my mom was that pivotal moment. Oh,

Teri:

she sounds like an amazing woman. I thank you for sharing that about her. This book that's coming out titled I Respectfully Disagree, How to Have Difficult Conversations in a Divided World. It's not your first book, right?

Justin Jones-Fosu:

No, no. Uh, it feels like it, but, uh, it is my third book. Well, I have to be vulnerable leadership. We're vulnerable. That's

Teri:

right.

Justin Jones-Fosu:

Um, it's actually my fifth book. I just don't talk about the first two because those were like really self published, right? So those are out of print. We don't talk about those anymore. Like we don't talk about Bruno. We don't talk about the first two books, but the first one I talk about is. Your why matters now. Uh, I was studying purpose for a very long time and I still study purpose, which is transformed into meaningful work for me. Um, and so that was, how do you connect this, these aspects of purpose and passion, right? The, the why of what you do and the now, because. A lot of people, they knew their why and Simon Sinek had really made it popular. They weren't doing anything with it. And so I went on a mission to really help people to actualize their why, which is what we call the now. Um, then my second book was that I talk about is the inclusive mindset and it's because I've been doing kind of this diversity inclusion work for two decades. And I realized throughout that probably about 10 years in, I was doing it all wrong and that there wasn't an approach for, uh, I didn't see this approach being done well. And what I mean by that is a couple of things would happen. Like one, I noticed it would be done from a very shame based approach. So people, it was like, it's like, it's 2024 and you still struggle with this, Terry. I was like, Yeah, I do. And it was very demoralizing rather than it was more of a deficit. You're always asking what's missing rather than helping people to identify meeting them right where they are and then helping them to grow from there. And, and also just, and you see behind me, the tortoise, right? We have a big wooden tortoise in the frame and it's because we challenged myself and other people to apply the tortoise principle. Now I think we wrongly called the tortoise growing up slow.

Teri:

The

Justin Jones-Fosu:

tortoise wasn't slow. The tortoise was strategic, right? We only called the tortoise slow compared to the hair and we saw what happened with the hair and in our society, especially around that conversation, there's a lot of hairs and I was after helping professionals, leaders and organizations to apply the tortoise principle that built sustainable growth that was less about, um, what you should do and rather about what you can do less about something extra outside of you, but more something That is just becomes who you are, which is why we call it the inclusive mindset. It just becomes an extension of what you do.

Teri:

That's so interesting. You know, I, I think about those who, you know, we might think of as taking more of kind of the, a hair approach and, you know, because there are some situations that need, you know, What I would say immediate change, you know, and I wonder how do you, I guess, what kind of pushback do you get from people who may be more inclined to see a need or want to take more of a hair approach as opposed to a tortoise approach.

Justin Jones-Fosu:

Yeah, for me, the hair approach. So again, the tortoise isn't slow. The tortoise just makes sure they're strategically moving. Let me give you an example. When George Floyd happened, everybody changed their social media, created statements, all these kinds of things. And we're years past that now. And there's sustainable growth and development, right? And some of these things, there's actually been a big backlash to some of the work. And I understand why I was calling it out then I was like, Oh, In a few years, it's going to be a really, really big backlash because one, we started to see a lot of people flooding the area because they saw the dollars going there. And so they were doing a disservice to the conversation. But two, I really believe when you do the tortoise approach, there's a way that you communicate. So I'll give you a great example. So when some of our clients were reaching out to us and saying, Hey, Justin, we're, what, what should we do? We want to put out a statement. We want to, I said, no,

Teri:

no, no,

Justin Jones-Fosu:

no. Now it's not the time for a statement, right? If you put out anything, right, we're, we're going to communicate is We realize something major in our society has happened instead of formalizing a knee jerk reaction. What we really want to do is we want to take time to come back to think about this, to process what are our strategic actions? What our strategic actions are going to be and we will come back with how we are going to move forward within the next six months. That is from a leadership perspective. We're taking a place of strategy and what actions we're going to take rather than we stand with this person and we, we, and then we didn't see any long lasting, sustainable change and growth. So for me. It may look good initially, right? Mm-Hmm. It's, it's almost like that person you dated growing up, right? They, you, you know that person that you went out with them for those first couple of dates and you were like, oh man, this person's amazing. Like, wow. And then the more and more you went out with them, you were like, did they gimme all of their representative of the first two dates? Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. versus that person that might not have shown you those amazing flashes, but they were consistently steady and they developed and they had a growth mindset. That's what we're after. And so. More of what I ask our leaders and for organizations to think through is what is the end result

Teri:

that

Justin Jones-Fosu:

you seek and how can we strategically get there? We do the gap analysis, right? Where are we now? Where do you want to be? What are the barriers preventing you from getting there? And then how to remove the barriers? There's no change. So my MBA is leadership and change management. There is no change management model that happens like this, right?

Teri:

Right.

Justin Jones-Fosu:

But we're still figuring this thing out. And so that's the interesting thing as we approach this work.

Teri:

And, and I like that. I mean, I love that in terms of the tortoise isn't slow. It's strategic. And I even got caught into that just, you know, a few minutes ago when I asked the question, um, thinking about it as slow as opposed to strategic. And, you know, you're speaking my language in terms of gap analysis. Um, that's kind of what my background is. So thank you for giving me. That and challenging me on that and for the work that you do with organizations on that, you know, when you reached out to me, I was immediately struck by the title of your book in particular, because here in the United States, you know, we're in an election year. And what we're talking about, you know, not taking the exit on people and, you know, respectfully disagreeing. Yeah. I really wanted to dig into that a little bit more, um, about how as leaders, we. In this particular time, especially cannot take the exit on people and can help our teams to respectfully disagree with each other. But I thought we might start by laying the groundwork a little bit, because I had the opportunity to read your book and there's so many of course, there's so many nuggets in there, but I really hope that everyone goes out and gets it right away. Um, we won't be able to dig into all of them, but I thought we might start with the groundwork of, you know, what does it mean? To not take the exit on someone.

Justin Jones-Fosu:

Yeah, that's a great question. And for me, I'm analogy person. I wanted to, I wanted to dive in deeper. So I did further work in motivational theory in terms of grad school. And I was trying to really figure out what would motivate someone to engage and meaningful dialogue with people who are different to do these things. So it's not something they had to do, but it was something that was just built into the fabric of who they are. And I started to understand what our brains do, right? Because I was trying to figure out like what stops people when you start figuring out or what motivates you ask, well, what's, what's the motivators. And so some of the motivators, our brains, our brains are actually wired to, um, to, to do this, to conserve energy for things that thinks it doesn't know. And I like, I love giving the analogy. If you've ever been driving and like Monday through Friday, you've been driving and you, you take this exit every day, Monday through Friday, you take this exit and then Saturday, you're there too, for some strange reason, you take the exit. And then one day, Sunday, you're supposed to go straight. But what do you do?

Teri:

You take the

Justin Jones-Fosu:

exit, take the exit. Yeah. And we take the exit because our brains are conserving energy and it's on quote unquote autopilot. And what happens is that we get the second and third hand information, right. From media, from social media, from friends and other things, and our brains categorize it for future use. And so we don't even realize oftentimes we're pulling from, uh, What we've gotten second and third hand information just to be able to engage. And so we encounter this person and it's like our brains like, I remember that. And we take the exit. And so our call, our challenge, our encouragement is for people to engage in more intentionality. To drive forward towards some really amazing humans And one of the practical ways that we've seen that happen is, you know, i'm all about practicality I'm not about like always you would just not take the exit Is the thing we call the the circles of grace challenge now, uh initially was a six month challenge Um, because that's I just did it for myself Because I realized I wasn't living up to my mom's ideals. I was I wasn't Leaving my home base, right? I was, I was canceling people, disagreed with me, I was deleting them, taking them off all the LinkedIn, and I was like, that's not what my mom taught me. And so, I started doing a six month challenge that became Circles of Grace challenge and it simply was this, every six months I would go to events, experiences, or engage with people, either which I didn't know a lot about and or that I disagreed with. And I would go asking really two things. One, what did I learn about the event experiences and are these people and or two, what did I learn about myself as I experienced that?

Teri:

And

Justin Jones-Fosu:

as I began doing that, it started opening up this awesome portal of learning. Um, and, and I can't say like, you know, there's times I went through this circles of grace challenge and. I walked away like, yep, still fully disagree. And there's all the times where I was like, well, I didn't realize that that was nuanced. That was the gray, or I got that all wrong. But in those moments of learning created those moments where I was like, wow, like we can actually engage in humanity, which that's the statement came, came to fruition from that. We can vehemently disagree with someone's ideology. And yet passionately pursue their humanity. And that for me became the, the, the framework of this work. And I would say that in my presentations and guess what, Terry, people would come up and it was always like this audible, like, Oh, but then afterwards people would come up and like, Justin, I love that statement, but how do I do it? Or like, and they would give examples like, what about this thing? Right? Like, what if they come and say, and we'd work through that. So that's, that for me became the, the, the groundwork, the foundation of our research of how can we. Vietnamese disagree with someone's ideology and yet still passionately pursue their humanity.

Teri:

And I want to dig into that with a, with a specific example that will be relevant to leaders as well. And just a minute, because I, that is such a great statement and it is what we're all about as strong leaders serve as well about, you know, seeing people's humanity. And I think it is so much easy. Well, maybe it's not, I would say it is easier these days to not leave our base. Yeah, it is. You know, the great sort, I guess, you know, people. Starting to move to places where they know that they will agree with most of the people in the city that they're living in or on social media, for example, with the algorithms, um, it just is easier because our bases can be bigger

Justin Jones-Fosu:

and we're comforted. We're affirmed, you know, social isolation theory speaks to that, right? Where when we've isolated ourselves in the pandemic did a lot of that for us. At times, it's now we've this ecosystem of people that think like us, believe like us, operate like us because we're seeking some sense of affirmation, confirmation, um, because it justifies who I am. And that's why I love Carol Dweck's work. We were on the growth mindset and fixed mindset because, you know, her research just, it's phenomenal and our society conditions people to be fixed mindset people to, you know, Not want to be perceived as ignorant to be better than others. Right. I know all the acronyms and when we don't know something, we actually will lean out of it and, or we'll defend ourselves in it versus moving into this place of learning. And so our, our call for leaders is, and that's what I love. It's like. We've had, we've had teams that have taken a circle of grace challenge. We worked through this with the four family foundation and they literally as, as a whole foundation, they took the challenge and it was so powerful. Cause we followed up six months later and we did a whole session and they talked about like, Oh my gosh, like. There's so much that I learned about our constituents and the people that we serve in our foundation that I didn't know before, just because I chose to lean in. And so from a leadership perspective, like we first have to lead by example, and that's one of our first tips to model the behavior, but two, we can encourage our teams to operate in this place of learning. And I think the circles of grace challenge, whatever rhythm, three, six, 12 months you want to do can make sense of the leader.

Teri:

Yeah, definitely agree. You know, I think. In fact, the workplace might be one area where we aren't able to isolate ourselves or to stay on base as easily because. We don't choose everyone that we get to work with. We may not even choose everyone who's on our team because maybe we got promoted into an intact team or came into the organization. But before we dig into the specific example I have in mind, one more piece of groundwork, you mentioned naive realism. And I was struck by that. Can you tell us a little bit more about that and how that plays into it?

Justin Jones-Fosu:

So there's an interesting concept. Like, let me, let me first ask you a question about, um, yourself, right? Because I think this is helpful. What do you feel is true about you and the values that you hold?

Teri:

You know, I, I do feel that, you know, they're, they're true. They come from a plate, a good place, a well meaning place, um, and that's. They will do good in the world.

Justin Jones-Fosu:

Yeah. You know, we all like it. And this is a, no, my love doing this, you know, asking that question. And we get to this point because we all generally think like, I'm thinking good. I'm doing good. Right. You know, I, I mean, we've elevated to at least from a theoretical perspective, we can say, Oh, I have bias. But we sometimes don't operate like we do, right? And we're not open to that. We think that, you know, like the way we operate and the way we function is generally good. And so what we find in naive realism is really two things, is that we believe that we see the world objectively, without bias. That's one of the things, right? Um, and that's why I want to get into that because I think you have a specific example too. And we expect that others will come to the same conclusions that we do as long as they get the same information that we have. So oftentimes we find in these disagreements, we see people just trying to give the information because if they just know what I know. They don't believe what I believe, right? And it's so untrue, right? The research really debunks this whole concept of naive realism because we're all shaped by our experiences, our growing up algorithms, the things we have. I love, one of the books I really love, Oprah, I forgot the doctor's name, the book called, uh, What Happened to You? And they're changing the question from what's wrong with you to what happened to you, right? And they walk through the things in our lives that have shaped us. And there's none of us that have the same experiences, the same moments, the same learning. And that's why it's pivotal to be able to hear people's stories. To engage in people's stories. And that's why it's also important to be able to confront our own biases. And that's one of the things I went on a bias journey for myself. And there's probably still many more biases I don't know about, but I started digging into like, Justin, what are my own biases? Because I'm starting to think like, oh, of course I'm right. Yeah, I'm a researcher. I, I study stuff. I'm well educated, right? I've worked for fortune 500 companies and da da da. And I'm like, But I, I also have bias. I've been doing this work for 20 years, right? I speak on this stuff and I still have bias. I still make mistakes. And that's one of the first things I tell people when I go into these sessions, I'm like, Hey, 20 years in, and I still think wrong thoughts. I still have biases. I still, and this is, this is the issue. The issue that I have. Is that we've built this circle of shame based upon having the bias The issue is not having the bias the real issue Is when we do nothing once we know we have the bias That's the issue as many biases I still have that I challenge myself to go through psychological reframing and all these things But I still have it How I respond to it. That's the critical thing that we can do with leaders to be able to confront it. So when you are vulnerable and in these places and you're one on ones or in team meetings and you're able to share like, hey, I thought this and I'm working through it. This how this way it allows our team members, the people that we work with, it allows the people in our organization to one trust us more, but then also to to open up to their own biases because they're not pretending. And they're able to actually make real progress.

Teri:

I loved what the story you were telling in your TEDx talk as well, about the bias that you were struggling with and kind of the psychological reframing you were talking about that you did around that.

Justin Jones-Fosu:

It's still there.

Teri:

Yeah.

Justin Jones-Fosu:

We could go into it. I don't have shame about it. I, early on when I first started telling this story, I got really nervous because I was wondering what people judge me. Would people call me this or that? And, and I, I, I realized I had to practice what I taught about vulnerability. And it's hard to be vulnerable when you're in front of 20 people or 2000. But, um, the central story is I realized that one of my biases is I went on my bias journey was black women who are with white men and, uh, As I began to uncover that and unravel that, I was like, but Justin, I have many friends and, you know, like I went through the whole thing. Of course, I have friends that are black women who are with and, and I started wondering, like, how did that happen? Right? Where did I, where did I come from? Again? What happened to me? Right now? What's wrong with me? And I realized growing up and certain members of my family and certain members of my community that taught me that that was wrong. And so I had, I remember feeling that deep sense of shame, like, wow, people can love who they want to love and all these kind of things. Right? And then it clicked. It's like, yeah. Wait a minute. What can I do toward it? What can I do to shape this to reshape it? And so, you know, of course, I went through all my training and all the stuff I've learned and tried to do psychological reframing. So I created this fictitious story, you know, and I still do it to this day, um, where I create these unique stories when I see a black woman with the white man. And that conditioned response kicks in. Oh, there's not enough good brothers for you. And then I go into, and I create this more romance story, right. And where I could go deep into the romance story, but essentially I see fireworks flashing and rose petals falling and all these things happening. And I, I start chuckling to myself. So I'm, I'm trying to rewire what I'm experiencing, but what I realized it wasn't good enough just to. Create make believe fictitious stories that I needed to hear the real ones. And that began a journey to really start talking to and asking questions. And my business manager and director of operations Dari is a black woman who's married to Derek, a white male. And I realized, I had never even asked Dari how she and Derek met. That's part of my bias. Right? I'm normally always curious to know how people meet. Right? Oh, how did you all come together? I had never asked her how they met. And as I sat down, I was like, Dari, I realized I never asked you how Derek met. And she told me the story. They met in Foot Locker, I guess. All good things happen in Foot Locker. Of course. And I was just like, wow. It was a powerful story. I wish I could tell you I did that one conversation at one story and now the bias is gone. No, I still see it I still receive it the difference is Is how I respond to it has changed. And so as leaders, when we can be open and vulnerable with ourselves first and with our teams and helping them to walk through the journey, it actually allows people to be free to operate in that growth mindset where they're not trying to protect their perceived intelligence, where they see failure just as another data point to learn. And ignorance just means I just don't know something yet. Those are the things that are really principled in the work that we do. And so, yeah, we all have bias, but. Let's not just stop it. We all have bias. Let's actually dig into one of our biases and start being honest with people about that bias as we move to learn more about how we choose to respond to it.

Teri:

That's such a concrete example. And that's one of the things I loved about your book, just the practicality of it all. And I think it's a great time now to transition into that specific example. So let's Let's say I'm a leader and I have someone on my team again, given that we're in the middle of an election year in the U. S. Um, who maybe I like one side and not this person is very vocal all the time about the other side. You talk about five pillars in your book. About going through so that you can respectfully disagree and have these difficult conversations and not take the exit. I wonder if you might take that situation I just gave you and talk to us about what those five pillars might look like in that situation.

Justin Jones-Fosu:

Yes, you just made me so happy, Terry. Uh, so I love the situational analysis. So, what we realized in our five pillars, now, originally, we had four. And, um, as we dug deeper into the research, uh, the last pillar we came up with actually became the first pillar.

Teri:

Interesting.

Justin Jones-Fosu:

And, uh, it's very interesting, and it was challenged your perspective, because we realized respectful disagreement largely happened before the disagreement even happens. It's the position of our heart. It's how we engage. It's the proactive nature. And that's what we found as we dug into the books and a lot of the literature on this conflict resolutions that most of them addressed the actual conflict rather than dealing with the heart of the conflict before you even had it. And so challenging your perspective, it's simply, If you know, this is election year, um, it's engaging and hearing from others going on Ted X's or podcast and hearing from people who are educating, not, not the, not always the extreme voices, because those are the things that are often elevated in the media, but hearing people talk about the issues that are important to them on different sides, right? Because there's many different sides, independent, Republican, Democrat, all those stuff. And you just choosing to hear. Taking a six month challenge, if you're a Democrat and you take a six month challenge with the Republicans and ask some of your friends who are Republicans and talk and hear, just to hear, right, or if you're a Democrat, the other way, or the Independent, whatever that may be. So, challenging our perspective, when we put ourselves in positions of learning, it allows us to actually flow and have an after effect of that learning into those different conflicts that we may have. And I have to give this caveat. The word conflict for me is not bad. It's unhealthy conflict or disrespectful conflict. I think conflict actually makes us better. I tell my team all the time. Friction is better friction. It makes us better. I debunk what I'm saying. So the first is challenge your perspective. The second is be the student. So in that scenario. As you're engaging, this person, um, is, you know, always sharing their things. Instead of automatically going to, Oh, I'm gonna debunk that. Oh, that's wrong. Oh, that's wrong. Move into a place of, how can I be a learner rather than a lecturer? Most people go into these conflicts to trying to lecture people, to tell them what's wrong, why what they said is off, rather than saying, I'm gonna go in this with a position of learning.

Teri:

Mm hmm.

Justin Jones-Fosu:

And going to first, Ask to hear people's story, right? It gives a great example. So if you were engaging with this person and you went out to lunch, you chose to say, I'd love to go out to lunch with you, really just hear your story. And I'm like, yeah, I hear you talking a lot about this issue or this candidate. I just, I just love to hear your story about like how you got there. Like where did these views and values come from? Right. I just, I'm really curious and would love to learn. I would love to learn. You see what I'm saying? There's a difference between how did you get there? What's like, what versus like, I'd love to learn. And the number one thing that most people love talking about normally are themselves. And so it creates that space for you can truly be the student. Second pillar.

Teri:

Real quick. I was just thinking about that launch. And again, from your TEDx talk, the, uh, idea of double dutch communication came.

Justin Jones-Fosu:

Yes, which is I'm going to it, uh, pillar three, which is cultivate your curiosity, right?

Teri:

Yeah.

Justin Jones-Fosu:

And when we cultivate our curiosity, we fill in the gaps with curiosity, not conclusions. And that's listening deeply to others. We don't listen. All right. I, as a parent, let me raise my hand. I sometimes often don't listen to my kids because I think I know what's best. My experience has shaped and there are times where I'm right. But just doesn't mean I still can't listen. And so when we go in, we position ourselves as a learner to go and hear people's stories and we cultivate our curiosity. And so say, somebody says something instead of jumping in to debunk what they said, we've given people a tool we call the power of three. And with the power of three, it allows us to dive into the third level of the conversation. And what I mean by that, instead of them just saying, well, I think that, you know, all independents are horrible people instead of saying, how dare you say that, right. I've just stopped at level one. Level two will say, Oh, it's interesting. Tell me more about that. What led you to that conclusion? Right? That's level two, right? And then they may say, well, I did experience this, you know, I went to this rally and, and I saw all these independents, they were doing this. And I was like, wow, like, have you, have you seen that happen in other situations? Like I've just done level three. Um, I'm able to get into this place where I'm essentially able to share with them from a heart based process. Now, I'm not trying to use mind tricks, right? Cause that's, I've seen all those types of influence things, but from a true heart based when I'm a student, I'm now so curious that I really want to understand how the person got there so that I can comprehend and share back to them. I can see how you got there. All right. So that's pillar three. Pillar four is seek the gray and you and I both know this 50 shades of it. And so one of the interesting things as we think through gray is. You know, Gray, I, I loved, uh, this, this concept came from during my MBA. I had one of those really cool professors that was like the Dead Poets Society, like the Carpe Diem. We had to sit in the middle of the, the room and do nothing for 10 minutes and then we had to share, write a paper about it. I was like, why are we doing? Really? We really had to do that. But he had us read this one book, really powerful book, one of the best books I've ever read about diversity and inclusion that had nothing to do with diversity and inclusion. It was a book called Dialogue. The art of thinking together and in this book, he talked about these differences of a and b, and normally I come into a meeting and I'm trying to convince you of a, you're coming to me, you're trying to convince me of b, we even get allies, right? I'm like, all right, all right, Terry, Sam and Jessica, I need you, I need you to support when we go into this meeting, right? And so we're, we're treating it as war versus how can we create C together? So in seeking the gray, our challenge is, is identifying where are the, where's their commonality. I'm giving you a great example. So say there's, you know, somebody's talking about issue around gun rights or gun activism or all these kinds of things. And one place of gray is like, it appears like we both really care about our families and our family safety.

Teri:

That's a gray,

Justin Jones-Fosu:

right? You found the gray, right? Now it can be hard in some issues. Sometimes the gray is just that that person is a person. Right? Because there's nothing there. But oftentimes there are those moments of gray, but we're often not taught to seek the gray, right? And if you notice in my book, it's black and white. Most people don't see is a very thin line of gray separating the black and white. And it's very intentional because It's hard. It takes real intentionality to seek that gray of what is our commonality? Because if I can communicate our commonality, what the research shows is that people are more willing to have conversations with people because I'm connecting with you versus automatically disconnecting to you with our conversation.

Teri:

Right.

Justin Jones-Fosu:

And in the last pillar, pillar five is agreed to respect. Which is always our choice. So even if you have that conversation with that person, that's always sharing their views and you believe differently than them. One of the things that we talk about is fully acknowledging the person, leaving every disagreement with full acknowledgement. What I mean by that, whether they, you a hundred percent agree or disagree or partially agree is, wow, I've never heard that before. Thank you for sharing your perspective.

Teri:

That's

Justin Jones-Fosu:

full acknowledgement. That didn't say I agree with you. Right. And so those are the five pillars. And through that, let me give you this last one, because you have to come back to that, another vulnerability moment while I was writing, I respectfully disagree on my writing retreat. I think week, I disrespectfully disagreed with someone while writing the book. Right. But what was different this time is I, um, found myself operating that place of pride, that, uh, the superior self. And I came back and say, Hey, I want to apologize. Because I realized I didn't really even take time to hear your perspective. I just automatically went into conclusions and then I went back and started at pillar two and I became the student. So even if you've gone off the rails, because that happens sometimes we're, we're not perfect. We're going to make mistakes. I do it a lot. We can always come back to. Be the student and work through the different pillars. And I left it with, uh, agree to agree to respect. I still disagreed with him, but I left with knowing more about how he got there, being able to affirm him as a person, even if I didn't necessarily appreciate the ideology.

Teri:

Thank you for sharing that. I know, you know, so many people, and I think you mentioned it to talk about progress, not perfection, but we still aim for that perfection and read all the books so that we can do things perfectly. But acknowledging that, even if you don't get through all these 5 pillars. Perfectly. You can still cycle back and I've had conversations with other offer authors that, you know, I've said the same thing that you, you may have moments where even if you are the author of a book on, you know, disagreeing respectfully, not always do that. Um, so thank you for calling that out. I do want to ask one more question about the pillars and that is, Pillar five, you talk about agree to respect. How is that different than agreeing to disagree?

Justin Jones-Fosu:

I'm glad you asked that question. Um, cause that's normally when people hear the title of my book, they're like, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Agree to disagree. And I'm like, that's halfway there. Because what I realized in that statement, agree to disagree, is that a lot of people agree to, can agree to disagree.

Teri:

Disrespectfully,

Justin Jones-Fosu:

and that's the unique aspect when I agree to respect, it's a choice, right? Well, we, we break down in the book, we call it the 10 characteristics of golden respect. I'm not going to go through all 10, but I want to go through one because it's been one that I keep hearing over and over again is you must earn my respect. All right. And that's been a societal, uh, definition around respect. You have to earn it. And my, my retort back to that is why? Why did we, where did this come from where we have to earn someone's respect or that they have to earn our respect. Why can't we freely choose to give it to them? And we talk about respect as what we call the distant cousin of forgiveness because we finally got into that place with forgiveness where we finally realized forgiveness is not about the other person. It's about me.

Teri:

And

Justin Jones-Fosu:

that's the same thing with respect is it's my free choice to give respect even for people who disrespect me. The powerful story that really shapes me in this is one of my former colleagues. It was a former skinhead, very misogynistic, racist views, all these kind of things. And I was a student. I was like, wow, tell me, tell me your journey. How'd you get there? Like, what was that process? And then what were those catalyst moments that got you out of it?

Teri:

Um, uh huh.

Justin Jones-Fosu:

And he was like, Justin, I loved when people used to call me names. He used to call me misogynist and this and then big yet. And all he's like, that fueled me. He was like the catalyst and seeds for change were the very same people I disrespected and demeaned still chose to show me respect. He's like, they'll never know, but I couldn't, it was like, it did not compute because I was like, wait a minute, I'm disrespecting these people, but they're still, wait a minute. And he, And those were those, those seeds planted in him that were of change. We have the power to choose another really great book that that's been a part of just my mantra of living small book, man's search for meaning by Viktor Frankl. I love that book. Holocaust survivor who talks about still the power to find meaning in the most horrific of situations in the, the, that, that middle ground or that gap between stimulus and response that I have the power to be able to choose. So as leaders. We can choose to respect. And one last thing about this, because I missed something in talking about this. Our original research, we initially planned on just helping people to go from disrespectful disagreement to respectful disagreement. But in somebody disagreeing with my topic In our qualitative research what we found is there was a whole nother category terry called disrespectful agreement And disrespectful agreement we often see that in the workplace in two different ways One it's the people that are in the team meetings and are like, you know Like justin, I think that was a really good idea when they come to terry like terry I don't know what justin was thinking about that. That was a horrible idea Right, and so we're disrespecting the other person on the other side It's a person who is disrespecting themself because they haven't learned to utilize The beauty of their voice, they haven't learned to be able to speak up. And there's for myriad of different reasons. It could have been a child and gone through traumatic situations where a person was said as a child, you should be seen and not heard. Um, it could be an underrepresented groups that didn't feel like they had a voice. It can be power, differentials, all these different things. But what I've realized is that when those people are operating from that inferior self, that they often don't engage and share their actual disagreement. And so the disrespectful agreeing. But yet there's still contention in their heart. There's still, I think this could be done differently. And again, this is the right time and right place to do this. I'm not saying in every situation, you're like, I disagree with that. No, I'm not saying that, but those are the things that we wanted to equip leaders to help people to get to that place of respectful disagreement. Not just from the passionate, aggressive name calling, but also the passive ones where people actually had a difference of opinion, I think the project could go this way, but we don't cultivate that as leaders as often as we can. Yeah.

Teri:

Why is it important for leaders to cultivate that? Cause that, that sounds like a lot of work.

Justin Jones-Fosu:

It is. And you hit the head on the nail. This is not a quick fix book. This is not a, when you're in the moment, just use these five simple principles and you'll be good. This is, we're really after a heart based approach. That this is part of our lifelong journey. So I want to, I want to tell people like, there's some really good quick foot books is out there and that can help in those moments, but that's not our approach leaders, the desire for leaders to do this work is when your people feel one, that they can bring their full and best selves to work. And they're not walking on eggshells around their fellow team members. Um, it's been shown to increase innovation, creativity, collaboration, um, and overall, um, work together. Two, it spurs the best ideas, right? And I don't know if you ever remember, I felt like every conference or like team building, we always had to go through that, the wilderness thing where you had to figure out what you did on your own and then the air by then came together and you work together to figure out and you most always came together. Unless you had like that one person, I was like Eagle scout on my honor. I would do my bet. But we generally see when we're able to come together and create, see. Together to seek the gray, to create something new. It allows us to actually have something that's so powerful. And I want, I want to demonstrate this in the illustration. I've been to some performances of drummers and I love drummers, right? I, uh, there's a drum in my background. I do a whole presentation called work through different beats. I love drumming. There's a different feel and experience. I have when I'm a part of a drum circle when I'm a part of the drumming and we're creating a beat that could not come from just one of us. That's what leaders are where they are able to orchestrate that beat that we're creating a new rhythm of ideation, new rhythms of how do we solve the problems? How do we provide great customer service and service excellence? New rhythms of how do I Give more to my team than take from them. Those are the things that we unleash our members, our team, our employees to be able to do really powerful, significant things when they know that they're supported. With us, just simply keeping rhythm. That's the power of leadership.

Teri:

I love that. I have goosebumps right now. And really you just took the last question out of my mouth, because I was going to ask you what strong leaders serve means to you, given that it is the title of the podcast. And I think. And I'll allow you to add to it if you'd like, but I think what you just said is a perfect answer to that.

Justin Jones-Fosu:

Yeah, I, I respectfully agree.

Teri:

Oh, we're done then.

Justin Jones-Fosu:

Yeah, no, I am, I am so thankful for your brilliance, for your heart. Um, and I, and I love, it's not just about strong leadership and that's one of the things I really, I'm very proud Words are important to me strongly to serve, right? And that that's, um, and again, I'm not perfect in this, but I'm always asking for myself, how do I give more to my people than I take? That's what I'm always asking. What more value can I give to my clients that I'm asking for them in return? And so when we go into that process as leaders, I think it's really powerful. And I'll end with this study that I'm, I'm, I'm quite sure knowing your background, you're familiar with, I think it'd be helpful for us as leaders. Uh, it's a 1968 study by Rosenthal and Jacobson. And they were looking at a group of teachers, and in this group of teachers, they gave this group of teachers a list of the most gifted students in the classroom. And at the end of the year, as you could tell, the most gifted students did the best. Of course, there's a twist. The people that chose, uh, to give the list, chose the names of the students at random. They had no idea who was the most gifted. So what the teachers did when they received the list, and if this person was on the gifted list, if they weren't performing, they would first challenge themselves. They say as a leader, the teacher, what am I doing wrong? What, what do I need to do? How can I change? What can I do differently? Because this person's gifted. How do I get the most out of this person? What, what, what, how do I need to reshape myself in order to provide the best service for this student? And the other two things is when the student wasn't performing, they charged it to their effort when they were on the gifted list, they said, you're better than this, you can do this, Justin, right? You're, you're like, I know it. You're on the list. But unfortunately, subconsciously or consciously for those who are not on the gifted list, they charge it to their ability. So deeper away from me and from the strong leader serve is first about how you see your people. Will you choose to see your people and to go into the office or on teams or zoom or whatever you may go and say, I have the best team ever, this person wants to give their best and I'm going to serve them in a way to help them to do that. And when they're not performing, we're going to talk about effort. Not that they can't do it. That's how strong we deserve.

Teri:

Love it. And I love it. Particularly. I'll just share a personal story of mine. My mom was a elementary school teacher and. Our definition of leadership is courageously using your talents to make a way for others to courageously use theirs. And it comes from her.

Justin Jones-Fosu:

Wow. No, no, no, no. Say that again, please.

Teri:

You just sped through that.

Justin Jones-Fosu:

I want to absorb that. Say that one more time for me.

Teri:

It's courageously using your talents to make a way for others to courageously use theirs. Thank you. You know, it comes from my mom, and I've shared this on other podcasts, because she was that teacher who saw the humanity and the ability in every student. And, you know, as happens in elementary school, sometimes the grade level before you, teacher will give you some information about the students that are coming up. And if there was a student that, you know, that teacher said, he's going to be a problem, you know, watch out for him. That would be the student that my mom would. Befriend the first day of school. And by the end of the year, he was excelling. And so I saw that happen over and over again. And that's really where my foundational belief in humanity and the strengths within each individual came from. So I appreciate you sharing that study and because it brought that up for me as well.

Justin Jones-Fosu:

Can I ask, can I ask you another question? Obviously that was a great moment for you, but what was that catalyst moment that caused you to start this amazing podcast?

Teri:

Oh gosh, it was really more of a journey than a catalyst moment. Um, it, it just is through my experiences being a leader myself and seeing people who didn't believe that they could do what I thought they were capable of and then seeing that transformation when they realized for themselves That they could do way more than they thought they were capable of, um, and just seeing so many, so many leaders like yourself around me that were going at all the, from all different angles, but in the same spirit of helping people to be who they want to be. Be fully who they could be and doing it with some depth and not like we were talking about before we started recording, you know, in a superficial way, but more with some depth and research act ways. And, um, it just, I wanted to hear more from people like that and share more of the work that they were doing so that we could make our workplaces more compassionate and just.

Justin Jones-Fosu:

That is awesome. I, I absolutely love that. And you've done, um, Amazing with this podcast, what one of our big challenges to leaders is to do is to scrap what's called the open door policy, right? Where, you know, we're waiting to hear it's a passive approach. We're challenging leaders to move to an out the door policy where we go and seek out the stories and perspective of others. And so thank you for doing that with this podcast.

Teri:

Yeah, of course, of course. Well, thank you for being part of it today. And of course, we'll have all of your links in the show now, so people know where to get the book, know where to get your other books, and, and watch your TEDx talk. But I wanted to know, is there a specific place, if they want to get in touch with you, is there a specific way that you would suggest?

Justin Jones-Fosu:

Um, how to respectfully disagree. com, um, is the place that you find all the goodies, information, all the things about the book, the video, uh, we, we, we love, uh, it's a really fun, kind of a fun video and then our deep work around the macro work where we do around the intersection of meaningful work and inclusion. Um, is that work meaningful. com. So those are the places that connect with me on LinkedIn. Justin Jones, Fosu. I love connecting with people and having dialogue and creating these spaces. Yes. Cause you can also respectfully disagree online, which I talk about a little bit in the book, so.

Teri:

Maybe you'll have to come on and do another episode on that.

Justin Jones-Fosu:

Thank you so much, Terry.

Teri:

Thank you. And congratulations again on both your upcoming marriage in a couple of days, as well as the release of the book. I, I can't wait to see it impacts so many people.

Justin Jones-Fosu:

Thank you. And can I ask you one thing? How can I best support you?

Teri:

Yeah, just, uh, sharing more about the podcast. So more people can hear all the great leaders that we're bringing on. Awesome. I'll do that. All right. Thank you. Thank you so much.

I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. In two weeks, we'll dig into the role you have in conversations and in building connection in our workplace as a leader. Especially in our remote and hybrid workplaces. Until then. Lead with Justin's quote in mind. We can vehemently disagree with someone's ideology. And yet passionately pursue their humanity.