Simon T. Bailey interview - heart-centered intelligence
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Much has been said and written about what it means to be heart-led. Well, my guest today makes that tangible and actionable by teaching heart-centered intelligence. Simon T. Bailey has viral videos with nearly one hundred million views and courses that reach professionals worldwide, and he has a lot to say about the state of leadership in business today.
David Avrin: Thanks and welcome to the customer experience advantage Podcast. I, of course, am David Avrin, and often i'm really fortunate, because I get an interview who I want on this. And and there's some people who have been sort of impactful on my life and my career, and my and my perception of this craft, and my guest today. He I go back almost twenty years. We originally met in Singapore. We were at the first global Speaker Summit. I'm not sure exactly what they called it at the time. Maybe it was just that. Um, but I've been really fortunate over the years I've been speaking for probably close to twenty five years of watching a lot of different styles. And there was sort of the classic motivational speaker and the mountain climbers, and the people that overcame cancer, and they tell you you can overcome things as well. And then there's people who actually have
David Avrin: experience of business and take those lessons and apply them, espouse them, make them real and tangible, and Simon T. Bear, my guest today is one of those people for me. I watched early on just a great style in terms of of how to be captivating on stage. But it was the content it was the content and the messages, and the and the research and everything behind it that really makes him stick out above others as well. We'll say hello in a minute. Let me do a quick
biointroduction,
Simon T Bailey: Simon T. Bailey. His purpose is to spark listeners to lead countries and companies and communities differently. His framework is based on his thirty years of experience in the hospitality industry, including serving a sales director for the Disney Institute, based at Walt Disney World, in Orlando, Florida. He's a prolific author, a Hall of fame. Speaker. I was there on the day that he was inducted, and he's worked with big companies, salesforce, t Mobile, Stanford health care systems, General Mills, Hilton hotels and others
Simon T Bailey: to name a few um. An experience with Simon goes beyond feel good content. He delivers practical strategies, impacts real lives, and connects with any audience on many levels with a relevant message that resonates beyond the stage a powerful introduction written by Simon himself. So, of course, it has to be a pretty good, Simon.
Simon T Bailey: Welcome to the to the program today.
Oh, thank you, my Fred. Good to be with you.
David Avrin: It's great to see you. I mean It's one of the things that we're like the the bands that they all play on Friday nights at different clubs.
Simon T Bailey: Yeah. The only time we see each other is on planes, or for fortunate to be at the same event. But I remember twenty years ago, watching you espouse these lessons that you learned from Disney and others as well. Talk to us a bit about your career and talk to us about how your message has grown.
David Avrin: What sort of drove some of those changes.
Simon T Bailey: I had a great career at Disney, made the cardinal mistake, and said I wanted to be Ceo, and it appeared in an article, and my boss calls me in the office like what the heck were you thinking, saying? You want to become the number one guy at Disney? And I, said, Larry, I work with this company, whose motto is: If your part is in your dreams, don't request a to string, or when you wish to put a star makes no difference who you are funny today. Not funny,
Simon T Bailey: and if I recall correctly, they did have a Ceo at the time didn't they
Simon T Bailey: name was Michael is there. I've heard of him.
So so me let's say my ego was way beyond my skis. So
Simon T Bailey: in the last twenty years we've worked with a lot of companies, and I probably would say the three things that I have learned. Number One is that real leadership is inviting people on a journey to discover the leader within themselves while they're following you.
Simon T Bailey: So a leader can't take people to a place that they've not been themselves. Ah, number two Ah, leaders are really learning leaders. The moment you stop learning and evolving, you stop growing and you stop being relevant.
Simon T Bailey: And then, thirdly, when you understand how to really be a leader. You recognize Customers will become your unofficial marketing department when they know that they're working with a brand that leads with care. They care about humanity. They're just not trying to make a buck.
Simon T Bailey: All right. We're going to go back and unpack some of those, because that's the term that people use now is unpack The
Simon T Bailey: I'm very trendy and real with that,
David Avrin: as they say, people don't look for a solution unless they recognize the problem as you have worked with organizations for decades. Now, what are some of the common problems, mistakes, misplaced mindsets that you see again and again.
David Avrin: And how does that tend to
Simon T Bailey: manifest in in creating some of the problems they have.
Simon T Bailey: I think one of the problems that companies have is they hire people, and just because they have the right degrees or the right experience that magically they're just going to take care of customers. There's no real onboarding and creating that employee experience to get them to buy into. This is not just a job. This is an opportunity to make the brand come alive. Huge problem. I think the second thing is, they do. These employee surveys right, and they do them like, Okay, this is great, everybody
Simon T Bailey: beasts or chest, and then everything goes into a drawer somewhere, and nothing becomes institutionalized to change behaviors and habits. So I think that companies need to stop doing. Employees surveys once a year and shift to every ninety days reassess. How are people doing? Because the moment people stop feeling the love for the brand and the love for work, the customer is impacted because now the customer is receiving service, and an experience from
who's following it in, because the company didn't step back to invent the chip to make sure that people shift from working a job just overboard to really going to work to make a difference.
David Avrin: Here's the push back that I get a lot to is i'm talking to leaders as well, and we we spouse much of the same message, certainly from different perspectives, and they look at me and say, i'm up to my eyeballs in supply chain issues the great resignation, or as as Gary Vaynerchuk talks about
Simon T Bailey: the great never applied in the first place.
Simon T Bailey: But but they're they're so distracted by You know what cub you talk about the the whirlwind, or the tornado of today? Right? How do we get them to step back when they're so head down, immersed in slaying the daily dragons of running their business.
Simon T Bailey: I think they go back to day, one and and back to the basics. We only have a business because of people. And yes, we have products and services and things that we supply customers. But you gotta start with your people because your people that's that's where you're cutting edge is. So
Simon T Bailey: pull your head out of the sand and say, how do we create that experience for people? Because here's reality. And this is something you know very well. Leaders create their experience for a voice. Employees create the experience for customers. Customers drive rental reverse engineer. Revenue comes from customers who have been engaged by employees who works for an emotionally dialed in leader who sees individuals not just as human doings, but as human beings.
David Avrin: Okay, let's play Devil's advocate for a minute, because I know you encountered this all the time.
Simon T Bailey: People don't look for a solution unless they recognize the problem. What I find time and time again, and many of the people that I talk to as well is a lack of acknowledgment of the problem.
David Avrin: They they know how the problem manifest in terms of retention, issues and sales. But if you ask the average leader whether they effectively onboard their people, whether they are dialed in, whether they they're all going to say Yes,
David Avrin: because they think they're doing a good job. What are the blind spots? Because I've heard so many others talk about. You know they they don't care about their employees, and everybody cares everybody's trying. There's just things that they're missing
Simon T Bailey: right. So one of the challenges is working with organizations is you can talk about people with their head in the they don't think their head is in the sand.
Simon T Bailey: How do you help them recognize a problem? They didn't know they had, or at least a cause that they didn't know.
Simon T Bailey: So you go right to the numbers, because numbers speak right. So the research says that when you have a manager who is making, let's just say about sixty thousand dollars a year if that manager leaves the cost of turnover to replace them, which is anywhere from twenty to thirty thousand dollars. That's the first thing. The second thing. The other Research says it's going to take them a minimum of three years when they backfill that position to get the productivity out of that position.
Simon T Bailey: So in helping leaders really recognize the problem. Go to the numbers because the numbers don't lie.
David Avrin: We see um
David Avrin: organizations in very different places coming out of the pandemic.
Simon T Bailey: Some of them are happy to be back to where they were, and of course the pandemic hit different companies in different ways. For some it's still hitting them, and we try to make these podcasts as ever agreed as possible. But um! Others really recognize this new frontier, and others are just exhaling, saying, Thank God, things are back to normal.
David Avrin: How do you, as a as a messenger, as a sage, as a counselor, as a provocateur?
David Avrin: How do you wake them up
Simon T Bailey: um when they're happy to be back to working, generating revenue and recognize what's coming down the pike
Simon T Bailey: number one I tell him The world has changed because part-out and mental health issues are really real, and I just point him to the data. Ah, Gallup says roughly, seven out of ten people right now are stressed out, dealing with high anxiety and showing up, working remotely, maybe coming to the office one or two days a week. So as leaders, we've got to reconnect with people differently. Ah, funny! We're having this conversation. I was interviewing Simon Sittin
Simon T Bailey: client, and our interview was supposed to be just eight minutes. We went for thirty four minutes. We just went to Colorado, and I said to Simon Seneg, I said, what is it that leaders need to know right now? Today? He says they need to stop caring just about the numbers they need to care about the people
about the numbers, and when he said it, David, it was like a joy bomb went off in my head. I said, That's it. We gotta get back to caring
Simon T Bailey: once again from a self-identification perspective. I think a lot of people will, may question whether or not they're affected by this. But, ah! Part of what what I think people struggle with is the things that sound soft
Simon T Bailey: right. They sound like whether they're soft skills or a touchy-feely Um, you and I both know because we both speak for a living and consult that those who are younger in our profession love to take our time and tell us about their story right? And I did this. I survived cancer and and and and I don't mean to mock anything, but we call it ignorance on ignorance, on fire. Right there's so. So you so want to espouse their message, but they haven't connected it with what people are willing to pay for right when you are going to pay,
Simon T Bailey: or a speaker to have a cathartic experience and get up there and touch just one life. If I can make a difference to just one person i'm like, Do you make a difference to one person. You're really bad at this
David Avrin: really bad. You're supposed to hit a whole lot more than one person, And so from from that perspective, those
David Avrin: getting a big enough.
Simon T Bailey: Ah! Recognition! Oh, here i'm talking about the soft skills. So with somebody like Simon Seneg Love listening to him. A wonderful stage, a wonderful messenger. But for too many people who are who are tangible. We're trying to hit that mark who have those pressures. We'll see that, said What's easy for you to say it's easy that that's really soft. And yes, we need to care more. I got an earnings report. I got a file. Connect the two for us.
Simon T Bailey: Yeah. Yeah.
Simon T Bailey: So one of the things that Linkedin has done they have looked at seven hundred million people on their platform to identify the top five skills that's needed as we work towards the future. One of the skills is emotional intelligence and emotional intelligence is the ability to read the room. Read what's going on real time. So when you read the room and you take our profession, what I've realized, people don't hire me to give a speech. They can give a rip about a speech. That's the last thing they want to know. They don't know. Do you understand the pain
Simon T Bailey: in our organization? And can you build a bridge with practicality that everyone listening can implement immediately. So to connect the two dots together? I hear your problem. Here are some recommendations or solutions, real time that are tangible, that you can apply. So it's really understanding. How do I not? Just listen. But how do I dial in, and
you solutions that you opt in to decide that will work.
David Avrin: We're talking to the amazing Simon T. Bailey, a good friend, powerful communicator
Simon T Bailey: for us right now. I'm talking to a lot of people once again sort of post-pandemic. I don't like to use the c word so um post-pandemic about what audiences their audiences and by audiences, meaning organizations, employees, managers, ah, entrepreneurs, and others as well. What are they looking for? That's different than it was in two thousand and nineteen or before, and a lot of some basics of a business. And how do we compete? And how do we differentiate as always there? But there's two things that i'm hearing
Simon T Bailey: consistently, and I mean across a variety of industries what they're looking for as a takeaway from not only my presentation at a session, but the conference in general. People are meeting again. What do they want? And they said, here's what our people want to things, and I want your thoughts on this as well. So number one, We want clarity.
David Avrin: What does this mean? What is it going to look like moving forward? How did this affect us in our industry and our customers. And how do we so just like, give us some clarity? Because there's so much that's uncertain right now. And the second thing i'm hearing a lot is
Simon T Bailey: give us something to be optimistic about. There's been enough gloom and doom over the last couple of years, and i'm not talking about motivational speaking. They're saying,
David Avrin: Tell us what's going to happen, or at least clarify what's going on around us and give us an optimistic path that we can capitalize on the opportunities. So talk to us about those two things, but clarity and optimism, and how that influences your message for organizations Today
Simon T Bailey: we're hearing the same things on our end. When we talk about clarity. One of the things that organizations want to know is, how do we reintroduce our culture to a workforce who started in the pandemic, and they've never worked in an office building. So how do we give them clarity that if I'm, sitting behind a screen looking at a camera. How do I get infused with the culture to go above and beyond like? What does that mean? So now, when they come together. There's there's a double
on. How do we disseminate redisseminate our culture to people in a fresh way?
Simon T Bailey: Um! The other thing that you mentioned we're hearing the same thing on our end is, people want to find hope again, and and hope like some Lucy do see. But here's what I realized. Hope is a superpower. So Dr. Rick Snyder was a scholar at the University of Kansas. Thirty years of his research was around Hope. He discovered two things, David, he said Number One, There's willpower, and there's way power. And I think what organizations want. Individuals to do is discover where there's a will,
Simon T Bailey: There's a way, so the willpower to move forward with business despite the supply chain. But the way power is, how do I find the drive within myself
Simon T Bailey: that if I hear it. I own it that everybody inside the company owns that customer experience, and how I realize that it's up to me and my team to figure it out, You know, refle, point the phrase, figure out ability that another life we would call that finding your intermittent guy
David Avrin: talk to you about about culture in the age of of reduced proximity. You had mentioned before the idea of the
David Avrin: the mental health issues, and I've seen it firsthand. Um! You and I are both the same that we have kids who are no longer kids right in their twenty s making their way in the world. My my daughter, one of my daughters. Ah had graduated college, and of course, very social, and her sorority and everything else, even with with Covid and some of the challenges. But she got into a new job and everybody. Somebody had had got sick every week, so they were remote for about six months,
David Avrin: no mentoring,
Simon T Bailey: no office parties, no um camaraderie. No um knocking on somebody's stores, saying, Hey, hey, Jimmy, got a minute. Can I bend your ear? And the the loneliness and the isolation was staggering
David Avrin: I mean tears every night I mean just the the profound loneliness. And while so many others say, Oh, it's awesome. My cat misses me, and I don't have to. There's something profound that is lost in that kind of separation.
Simon T Bailey: So I think your point companies right now have to be intentional about creating the virtual culture, checking at birthdays, anniversaries, sending care packages to people's home handwritten notes. I'm a little old school to just connect them with a culture that they've never experienced before, because they've been sitting on zoom. And so that's number one, I think the second thing is, and this is a little bit old. But go back to once upon a time.
Simon T Bailey: Tell them the story of how the company started, and how they are part of something special, because, as you know. We've often heard facts tell with story cell. We've got to reconnect people with the story that Wait, wait, wait! This is not just a job.
Simon T Bailey: I'm a part of the story. And how do I continue to customer experience the customer's story by looking at how I show up to add value.
David Avrin: Yeah, I've seen it. I've seen such a challenge of organizations, and many of them. I'm not naive about the future in terms of
Simon T Bailey: hybrid or remote, but I've also talked to organizations who are saying, we've got to get back together. We've got to get in the same, even if it's just a third of the time I was working with an architectural firm out of Southern California, and they were literally like stopping certain processes and redesigning buildings because
Simon T Bailey: they didn't need as much space but for those organizations. This is my thought that to think that everything can be as effective remotely a certain task. But culture there has to be intentional ways of bringing people together because we're social creatures
Simon T Bailey: absolutely when people get together. That's where you spark innovative ideas and breakthroughs being in the listening room, you know, just talking about a problem and the meaning that the real meeting. It's not just in the ballroom where they're hearing. Here's what the company is doing here.
Simon T Bailey: It's in the hallways. It's at the receptions, and they're like, Wait a minute. What about have you thought about the
Simon T Bailey: could we consider? And it's in the serendipity that through ideas come for absolutely on the same page, right the unexpected. We all know that even a conference is where you and I are the the best ideas come. The serendipity of the unexpected conversation that happens in the hallways between the meetings is the same thing about work I was talking about that architectural firm. They said they were.
Simon T Bailey: Their traditional buildings had been sort of siloed, but engineering was in this area, but they were creating intentional bottlenecks where those people had to pass each other intentional bottlenecks. Everybody had to go through the center core, and that's where the break room was, and they said they had a client who wrote a twenty, five million dollars, Grant, just because two people would never have come in contact.
David Avrin: We're there together in a break room in that bottleneck. Um shifting gears for a second. One of the things that that, and reading your violence and the work that you do um talk to us about caring science, and what that means in terms of of preserving human dignity and all of that as well. But i'm curious about what that means in terms of your your own personal messaging, Percy.
Simon T Bailey: Yeah. So about a year ago I recognized I needed to elevate everything that I was teaching, and I did some work for Stanford health care, and one of the executives said, A lot of what you share is from caring science, and I was like What's Karen sign? Saying? They introduced me to Dr. Jean Watson, who, forty years for her research at the University of Colorado Boulder, has been around caring science here in science has been in the healthcare field. So when they talk about it in the healthcare field, it's about, How do they create a better patient experience
Simon T Bailey: where there's just not a human being in a room. But how do you care for them and see them through the human human lens of? They have a family, they may live, they may die. How do you care for them, no matter what that transition might be? So I started going through this cohort. And I said, Wait a minute.
Simon T Bailey: Everything in the healthcare field can be applied to business. So, for example, caring science teaches, How do you listen beyond words. It's not just the words go with other People's vows. How do you really dial in as they tell me more? How do you begin to understand. Compassion is not just something you do, but it's who you are. It's coming from a place of kindness, and seeing that person through a different lens. So now I have applied it to my work, and one of the things that we're going to
Simon T Bailey: be teaching very soon is the power of caring science through empathy, empathetic leadership. How do we understand empathetic leadership and care in a fresh way? But then tie it back to the bottom line to say, Here's how it impacts the company overall
David Avrin: fascinating, and and it it it. It applies to so many different things. But I think part of it. I think one of the things that you do very well is is when I talk about creating a a tangible connection. It's too easy, especially for the being counters within organizations, I say, with all affection,
look at the numbers, and Don't necessarily understand the mindset that drives the behavior that drives the reaction that drives the numbers,
Simon T Bailey: and it's not that they're naive. It's just they're not wired that way. Those ones are saying, if we just fire all of our checkout people at Walmart and replace them with self-check. Out we're going to save so much money, and at some point the law of diminishing return comes into play, and you piss off enough people because there isn't a real person to deal with
David Avrin: It's it's that balance which is real important. So I love that whole idea of the caring science, and and I look forward to continuing that conversation, learning more and myself. One last thing. Take out the crystal ball.
David Avrin: Look next five, ten years. Um. It's easy to sort of extrapolate based on current trends, and and how current markets are behaving and looking at that as a as a natural progression to where things are going to be, but we always know there's going to be some twists and turns, not necessarily just pandemics, but scientific discoveries and others as well. What is What is that caring leadership going to look like?
David Avrin: Five years and ten years, and and how much more will we recognize the importance of that,
Simon T Bailey: I think Number One employees will go and look at what is the survey or the rating of a company before they join it? Obviously they go to glass door, dot com. But imagine glass door on steroids where people have posted videos with stories about their experience about working with a leader. Right? That's I think that's where we're going real time right, and that person will do their due diligence. And say, if i'm going to give
Simon T Bailey: forty years of my life to a company. Does it make sense, or am I going to go? Do three to five, and then move on to the next day?
I think that's where we're going. I think the other interesting thing is that customers are going to begin to look at.
Simon T Bailey: How are the employees being treated by the company that i'm doing business with. Are they really caring about their employees, paying them well uh helping them mental health issues, helping them just with life and flexibility, and if not, customers, are going to say, you know, do I really need to do business with this brand? Are they just kind of marketing their way into my heart. But they're not living how to care for humanity Long term, I think I probably think the very thing that's interesting
Simon T Bailey: is there's going to be a deeper dive into leaders who may join organizations to really understand. Are you a really good human being? How are you holistically showing up in the world, not just the blockman tackling of hitting the numbers being productive. But who are you as a human being? How are you as a family person. How are you in your community? What's your bigger footprint that you're leaving in the world besides just having a title in a position,
David Avrin: and we have more resources to discover those things, and that do to do the research. We all look everybody up before we come on the phone or anything else. But but I agree. I think we're going to see more of that with organizations and individuals within organizations. Um, I give an example. I I had to referral from my doctor for for a doctor appointment to a different place. You know something I needed to be seen pretty fast, and I called him yesterday, and they said, here's the rigor rural You're going to have to go through and everything else, and we're four months out,
Simon T Bailey: and I found that Doctor True store yesterday on Linkedin, I sent her a private message that I was referred by whatever else I got in at eight o'clock this morning,
Simon T Bailey: because we can find everyone everywhere, and we will. We'll look them up.
Simon T Bailey: Listen. A fascinating conversation. Um, Simon T. Bailey, If people want to get in touch with you, learn about you how to hire you all of your writings as well. How do they find you, Simon T. Bailey Com.
Simon T Bailey: There you go. B. A, I l d Y. It'll be in the show notes as well for those of you. Watching the video version of this, you can see his smiling face. But look him up. Um, I I think you you have a unique Um! It's it's It's a combination of of both the the charisma and the content that make you really powerful and unique, and and honor to be your friend, my friend. Thank you, my friend. All right. Hang on the other end because you and I will talk when we're off here.
David Avrin: Um! Ah! Just remind everybody sorry as I as I pause, because I grab all this here, you can pick up a copy of my new book,
David Avrin: the Morning Huddle. Powerful customer experience conversations to wake you up and shake you up and win more business. A matter of fact, all of my business. My books that are strategically located here next to my head on the video version, are available on Amazon, Some of them in other language as well be sure to click
David Avrin: to to like this podcast subscribe. Leave your comments below It's important to read your comments. Click the little bell. Icon. You can receive notifications in new episodes, and you can learn more about my keynote speaking and my consulting on customer experience at David Apron dot com thanks for tuning in to the customer experience of vanished podcast. Remember, leave a comment big thanks to my guest, Simon T. Bailey.
David Avrin: I'm. David Avrin. Be good.