Al McBride 0:02
Al, welcome to the dealing with Goliath podcast. The mission of dealing with Goliath is to sharpen the psychological edge in negotiation, ethical influencing and high impact conversations for business leaders who want to be more effective under pressure, uncover hidden value and build greater connection and business relationships, all while increasing profitability. This is the short form espresso shot of insight podcast interview to boost business performance using our five questions in around about 15 to 20 minutes format. My guest today is Dr J Rodriguez. Dr J helps people communicate better, clearly, authentically and inclusively. Messaging is tricky, figuring out what to say, how to say it, and how to truly connect, whether with your team, clients or a broader audience, can feel overwhelming, and that’s where Dr J comes in. With the mind of a scientist, the heart of a coach and the strategy of a seasoned communicator. He transforms messaging from a challenge into an opportunity. Through workshops, presentations and consulting, he helps organizations and individuals craft powerful, ethical and effective communications. A master educator with over 20 years of experience, Dr J has worked at corporations, universities and even survivors of abuse, one of his greatest honors, his expertise lies in message development, leadership, presence and audience engagement that truly resonates. Dr, J, welcome to the show. Thank

Dr J Rodriguez 1:33
you. I really appreciate it. Wonderful introduction, and it’s always a pleasure to be here.

Al McBride 1:39
Well, thank you so much for coming along. So I’m eager to get into it, because we were talking before we hit record there, I was like, Oh, we’re missing some good stuff here. So tell us just to, just to start off, give people a little bit of context. Who’s your ideal client and what sort of challenges do they tend to face, absolutely

Dr J Rodriguez 1:55
so my ideal client are business professionals, sometimes executives, sometimes HR leaders, and at times, even supervisors or managers that are looking to structure communications in ways that work for the greater good and that takes on a variety of forms. Sometimes people in an organization are not communicating effective. Literally, they’re not communicating. They’re not sharing information, they’re not being transparent. Or people are engaging in a lot of conflict. For whatever reason, they’re not understanding each other, they’re not building rapport, they’re messaging over each other. Or there are other similar challenges of that nature. So when there are those challenges in place, I come in and usually try to have a conversation with stakeholders and see what are the challenges, what are they looking at? And then through those processes of basic conversations and gathering information. I then structure interventions that could be one on one training, it could be workshops, it could be extended consultation sections or sessions where people come together, collaborate and start to communicate in ways that work for the greater good.

Al McBride 3:17
That’s an interesting phrase, because I was going to pick up on the greater good there. Dr, j, because you said it at the start, and then very interesting at the end. So how to put this? I take it by that that an awful lot of organizations, the individuals, are not acting in the greater good. Can you just expand on what that might look like for a moment?

Dr J Rodriguez 3:39
Absolutely. Yeah, so this that I’m about to say is fairly obvious in modern times. We’ve become very self centered as a world and as individual cultures, right? We’ve become very narcissistic. There’s no other way to describe it. Therefore, when people are very self centered and very much in survival mode, which in many ways is understandable, there is a lack of concern for the greater good. And so people become focused excessively on what it is that they need to do for their own self centered gain. As soon as that starts to happen throughout an organization, we stop focusing on the larger good or the greater mission, and we start to cultivate more individual interests that then starts to pull us apart. As long as we’re staying on mission, we tend to work better. This is also very much a part of I don’t know if you’re familiar with the work of Dr Ian McGilchrist. Excuse me, and he talks about the different hemispheres of the. Brain having different focuses or different modes of attention. So our left brain tends to be very focused on minute, logical, minimal steps, and our right hemisphere tends to be much more global, holistic and empathic. And when we work at our best, what we’re doing is we’re going back and forth in our hemispheric functioning. We look at the broader picture using a more right brain orientation, a bigger picture, an empathic picture of the greater or larger mission for us or the university or sorry, or the organization, right? And then we focus on very specific steps for articulating or driving that mission, and that is a much more left hemispheric function. And notice I’m not talking about superiority or inferiority of any mode I’m talking about working together collaboratively in an interplay that allows us to look at the greater good and then bring it into focus through specific action.

Al McBride 6:11
All right, very interesting. I mean, because it does, as you said, when it makes sense, if you don’t trust other people to also act in the greater good, then it makes sense for you to just take care of you and that, then you have all these, as you said, individuals walking around to just to go again, just to double down on that. I take it as a very good business case for this that you know, you can’t have a high performing team, which is just full of individuals thinking about themselves, right? So you know, this has been proven by everyone from Google to every other massive Corporation, that people have to actually have a collective vision that is in alignment with their own right. So as you said, it’s not just about giving up for the group. It’s about aligning with the group, right, with the others,

Dr J Rodriguez 7:00
exactly. And I think you you make a very, you know, valid point that at this point in our history is self evident, correct? And we’re just stating the obvious. I think, you know, a while back, you know, years ago, when, when the United States went to the Olympics and they had all these NBA superstars on the team. They thought, oh my gosh, this is a dream team. And blah, blah, blah. But at first, all of these individual, all these, all these individuals were acting as self interested persons, right? They weren’t really working as a team, and understandably so, because they all just kind of came in at the last minute, didn’t have any team chemistry, didn’t have like, a team mission, and they lost. It was, quote, unquote embarrassing. I just thought it was funny. But you know, then they had to come back and redo that whole process by creating a sense of mission, creating a sense of solidarity, creating a sense of how to work together and understand how the game works at the Olympics, which is different than the way the game works in The NBA. And all that created a much more successful team experience, because people were not coming in as a bunch of great superstars who were individually very good, but instead, now we have a team of cohesive people who are good but are great, because they come together for a larger mission, which is, you know, win the Olympic Games, or represent your country, or some larger ideal that then really helps us align, as you said, That’s A great word, align our own individual efforts with the larger team, the larger mission or the larger goal,

Al McBride 9:05
outstanding. It’s great example, exactly, but it was that lovely point that people just presumed there was this Oh, but of course, they’re all such awesome players. They’re going to be great together. Just throw them in a room and they’ll be fine. It doesn’t work like that, and that’s often the case that a well drilled team of lesser skilled athletes will often beat, you know, superstars who aren’t actually cohesive together. But to move on to the next question, so what are some of the common mistakes people make when they’re trying to solve the problems that you’re talking about? So someone in an organization, as you said, they’re they’re seeing some of these symptoms. You know that people are very for themselves, and they’re not gelling. They’re not they’re usually doing the job description or for their own, for their own more more self regard, self centered goals. What can they do about that? What are some of the mistakes? Mistakes that they usually make trying to solve that.

Dr J Rodriguez 10:05
Well, again, the mistake is exactly the I don’t know, the symptom or the ongoing dilemma that we’re seeing right? So organizations will then continue the problem by focusing on the individual, so they will have a conversation with the person. They will intervene with the person, and the manager will talk to the person, and then notice how we’re focusing on the individual who is engaging in bad behavior. And don’t get me wrong, there is definitely value in that. Sure we need to talk to somebody, sure we need to have a conversation. Sure it is helpful to let someone know when they’re engaging in behavior that’s not productive. There’s no question that that’s helpful. But what’s also equally helpful is to address the larger issue, which is what I call, or we often call, the elephant in the room, what nobody’s talking about, and that is that our team culture is bad because we don’t have a unifying mission, or because everybody’s running around doing their own thing, or because we’re being rewarded for our individual effort, not really For our collective efforts, or because our organization is inherently narcissistic and competitive, and then therefore we’re seeing the results of that narcissistic competitiveness that is driving us apart. And so I think some organizations have a perpetual blind spot with regard to their their own larger culture, or their specific team cultures, and it’s very difficult for them to remedy that cultural blind spot because they don’t see it, they don’t want to see it, or they really are committed to just moving forward the way that it is, because there’s no changing it. Sometimes they’re just stuck. They’re just stuck. And many wise organizations, or smaller organizations that are a little bit more agile will actually take the time to pause, stop, look at what’s going on and then start to change behaviors by beginning honest conversations about, hey, let’s let’s have a conversation about our mission. Let’s get on the same page. Let’s work together. Let’s build a sense of solidarity, so that way we are much more aligned as people and less self absorbed.

Al McBride 12:36
It reminded me there of a thing I saw on Microsoft when I was at one of its lowest market caps, and it was, it was going in a nose dive before a new CEO came in and take up, took over and changed the culture. And it was exactly that they were incentivizing individualism, yeah, to the point where, you know, they would give massive bonuses to the top 10% very much the Jack Welch style in the 80s, it incentivized the top people and the last people either get moved or fired. And, I mean, you can almost feel the survival instincts, how even sometimes people would be scuppering each other’s work. So it was, it was a very thin read of a gain for Microsoft and the new CEO came in, changed everything around and said, No, we’re aligning team all this sort of idea. Yeah,

Dr J Rodriguez 13:28
exactly, exactly the way incentives are distributed is a great example, right? If, if a team is rewarded, right, for their efforts. Okay, our team achieved x y result, and we all get rewarded for that result. Then there is an incentive for working together, but if my manager is the only person that gets rewarded, or the director is the only person that gets rewarded for our collective efforts, then all of a sudden, people don’t feel like they’re working for the greater good, or the greater good is being recognized in very tangible ways, so that that just makes total sense. Yeah,

Al McBride 14:19
absolutely. So what is one valuable free action that the audience could implement that will help with this issue? So it might not solve it, but at least start moving people on the right trajectory.

Dr J Rodriguez 14:33
I think that something free and not so easy to do is just to have a conversation with people. I mean, you know what is going on, what’s happening, and open the floor for conversation honestly about what’s happening, and then after that conversation to find out what’s happening and what the issue is and what people are experiencing, then really create a plan for. For making some changes, and you just gave the example of Microsoft as a great example, right? These ideas are not revolutionary. They’re pretty straightforward. You find out what the problem is through conversation, and then you have a sense of, maybe, I don’t know, brainstorming possible solutions. What are the top three solutions that might work for the team, ask people of these three solutions, which ones do you think might be most applicable? Or maybe all three? Great. Let’s go with that one, and then we attempt slowly to implement those changes in ways that are collaborative, in ways that that help people, in ways that work, because we’ve collaborated with others. We’ve had the conversation right? We’ve brainstormed possible solutions. We’ve picked maybe three, and then encouraged our team to self select which one of those strategies would work best for them.

Al McBride 15:55
There’s something they pick up on, yeah, the agency. You’re not You’re not telling them again, it’s not the telling, it’s the collaborative. You’re living the collaboration, not just talking about it. Yeah,

Dr J Rodriguez 16:07
exactly, exactly when people feel that they’re part of the collaboration, they’re much more likely to be invested in the process, even though it might be challenging, even though it might be a little bit, you know, weird, or there might be a learning curve of six to eight weeks, or whatever it is, there is buy in to that particular plan of action, and therefore it’s much more likely to succeed

Al McBride 16:34
Outstanding, outstanding. And what might be one valuable free resource that you could direct people to that would help with that,

Dr J Rodriguez 16:43
I think, give me a call, right? A free 30 minute consultation. That’s totally free. And obviously these things that we’re talking about are not revolutionary, right? We’ve heard of these processes before. The idea is that we don’t follow best practices. We know what they are, right? Talk to people, gather information, brainstorm a little bit about what might be a viable solution, pick one or two that is in alignment with the team, and then go and implement that. This is not rocket science, right? This and this is free, this is available. This is business management, 101 consulting, 101 marketing, 101 business, 101 whatever you want to call it. Psychology, 101 intervention, 101 we know these things, but we don’t implement them because we’re too busy, because it’s hard to change, because it’s awkward to have the conversation. So these are all very free, very user friendly choices that people can make, as

Al McBride 17:46
you say, it is a great start, but I have to respectfully push back at you on that one. They are somewhat obvious. I completely concur with that. But the amount of businesses, sometimes medium sized business, sometimes with large multinationals I’ve gone into, where from the instruction on above to do a certain training with people. Because I remember one group they were, they were encouraged to push back more against other groups, stakeholders within the company, right? And they were like, it became this thing where it was like, Hold on. Okay, you’re you’re hearing it, you get it, but, and then one of them finally, honestly said, says, I don’t believe them, right? They would, they, that’s what they say. But if we do this, there will be repercussions, and then that’ll be back on us all the worse.

Speaker 1 18:34
Yeah, exactly, and I agree with you. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. No, no,

Al McBride 18:38
that’s it. I mean, that was the point, just to throw that, roll that back at you, and because that’s, that’s the reality of an awful lot those problems that, oh yeah, we’ll have conversation, and you’re dead, right? That is the star. But when there’s that lack of trust because it hasn’t been earned yet, or it’s been burnt through, when there’s those sort of marketing speak, you know, to get people in the door to the job, and then the reality is distinctly different, because that’s often the way it is. The culture doesn’t match what was sort of sold to them in the interview or whatever. What are your thoughts? Then, how do you approach starting to build that trust again?

Dr J Rodriguez 19:15
All right, so in my experience, there’s only three ways to do it, and that’s it. One is to start the conversation, or have a conversation with the person, and we’ve talked about how that works. Two is to change the situation, or change the dynamic of the team or the organization, and we’ve talked in general, about how that works, or that, how that could work. And the last one, which is, I think the one that we’re getting to, which is pretty obvious as well, is to leave, to check out, to go to another organization or go to another team. So I’ve discovered that those. Those are the only ways. One conversation, right? We start a conversation, a dialog. Two, we try to change the situation by changing the culture, changing the dynamic, changing the way that we do things on a team. That’s changing context. But sometimes those things are just not possible. So then we have to exit the scene. We need to leave, let’s say that team or that region. So it doesn’t necessarily mean that you leave the organization, but maybe that particular team or that particular unit or that segment of the market is just not a good fit for you, or it’s a toxic environment. And then you go to a different segment or a different unit in the organization, or you just leave the organization altogether, because that organization, for whatever reason, is not aligned with your values. And I think that when we approach it from that perspective, hey, I’m going to have a conversation with the person and see how it goes. We’re going to try to change the situation and and do the best we can. But when that doesn’t work, listen, we have the option to leave and to pivot and to change. And I think that everybody can respect that, right? And some of us might say, well, I need to stay because I need the job, and I can’t help it, and I can’t I’m the breadwinner for my family. I understand and I get it. And some of us are kind of stuck in those kinds of situations, just realize that, you know, that’s the reality, and the organization may not change. I’ve seen that happen very, very often,

Al McBride 21:37
absolutely, absolutely. Some great advice there. As you said, for some people, it’s, it’s nearly the golden handcuffs, where I have one particular client who’s grossly overpaid compared to other jobs he could get and but it’s a highly toxic environment. But you know that that’s the atmosphere that that that is there, and it pays a lot of bills, so it’s hard to drop that. Yeah, it’s very difficult. So what would be, sorry you’re about to say, yeah, exactly. I

Dr J Rodriguez 22:08
mean, right? That’s a great that’s a great example. That’s a great example. It’s just a reality, right? I’m that’s why I gave that as a general example, and then you gave me a very specific example of someone who is earning a lot of money, but they’re in a toxic environment. But you know, the money, the compensation is, how shall I say, paying a lot of bills. You know, that was, that was your words, which is great. So you decide to stay cool, we get it. We get it. But sometimes that’s the price of admission, right? You live or work in a very high paced environment that is very toxic or very high pressure, but it pays a lot of money, and you like the lifestyle that that allows you to have. So you’re making a choice, and that is completely understandable and completely valid, even though at times, or many times, you might be miserable, but you want the money. There it is, right? Yeah, boom,

Al McBride 23:05
absolutely. So what would be your number one insight or principle on how to negotiate or build rapport and connection with clients? What would be your advice in there?

Dr J Rodriguez 23:19
Perfect, yeah, so, and we’ve been talking about it, so I’m going to talk about the three central themes, right, kind of summarizing a bit of what we’ve been saying, connect, relate, belong, I think about as those three key features that we’ve been talking about explicitly and collectively here, to connect is to have a moment of impact with another person, and that could be done non verbally, through eye contact. To relate is to have a moment of exchange, a very simple verbal conversation. And the last piece is belonging, where we really acknowledge the humanity of another person. So when we connect with someone authentically through eye contact, for example, and then we follow up through a simple verbal exchange or a conversation, we have an exchange that’s meaningful, and then we recognize that person for their essential humanity. We don’t objectify them. We don’t treat them as an object. When we do those three things, we are much more likely to establish a sense of rapport, establish a sense of connection, establish a sense of solidarity, that then we can use to build on whatever we’re doing for the greater good. But if I don’t connect with the other person, and I don’t really have a moment of exchange, and I don’t help them feel a sense of belonging, because I’m not seeing them as a person, I’m denying their essential humanity, it’s going to be very difficult to create any kind of rapport, any kind of connection, any. Kind of solidarity, and again, we could live on in misery because we’re making a lot of money and we need to pay the bills, but it’s not going to be the kind of atmosphere or environment or culture where we’re going to be happy in the long term. And that’s really a shame.

Al McBride 25:16
Absolutely beautifully put there. And I love that we had been talking about this before we hit record, which was, you know, I think it was the shop Narayan idea that, you know, treating someone as a means to themselves rather than a means to an end, right? It’s that idea. And as you said, These things are nearly cliche. But how often do people fall into that trap? How often do they forget to actually take a moment and engage on a human level, rather than just talking to someone as part of a task I need to complete.

Dr J Rodriguez 25:49
Yeah, treating people as a means to an end is a great example, right? Treating people as objects, treating people as just like a number, and that is very dehumanizing. I mean, we talk about it as objectification. There’s a word for that, and it feels very dehumanizing. And I mentioned that, and I talk about that, and I emphasize that, because we see that happening in our society, in our world more and more so, when people feel unhappy, when people feel depressed, when people feel a sense of loneliness. It’s because of this larger sense that’s occurring, or this larger behavior that we’re seeing in the world, of people being very self absorbed, people being on automatic pilot, people not really going back and forth in their hemispheric interplay, right from the larger picture to the smaller picture to empathy to to pursuing a particular objective, which are all part of the holistic way we operate as human beings. And the more we narrow in one particular area by getting excessively focused, the more we lose our humanity, we lose our connection to other people, and then there are negative effects of that that we’ve seen, not only in our own lives, but in the larger life of the planet.

Al McBride 27:10
Absolutely, absolutely. Thank you so much for that. Dr, j, so you’re welcome. Tell us. Where can people get in get in touch with you and learn more about you.

Dr J Rodriguez 27:19
Well, I’m on social media mostly on LinkedIn, just because that’s where I tend to get most engagement. So you can find me on LinkedIn, dr, J Rodriguez, PhD, very easy to find there on LinkedIn. I’m also available through my website at WWW dot Jose Rodriguez, dot solutions. Why? Because.com was taken, and.org was taken, and all the other dot whatever were taken, and solution was the only one that was available. So it sounds funny or weird, that’s just the one that they gave me, and that’s the way to reach me. I’d love to connect with anyone who’s very interested in this topic. Reach out and let’s have a conversation. Thank you for asking outstanding

Al McBride 28:05
stuff. Thank you so much.

Dr J Rodriguez 28:09
Cheers, dr, chafe, thank you. Thank you very much. It’s a pleasure to connect with you and a wonderful dialog as always. Cheers, you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai