Lead On with Greg & Mark (LOwGaM)
We invite you to join us as we talk about the world of leadership during times of complexity.
Lead On with Greg & Mark (LOwGaM)
S3: E7 Nostalgic Tunes and Resilient Moves: A Duel of Theme Songs and the Wisdom of Bouncing Back
As leaders we all get knocked down. What happens next? Do you get back up and charge back in? Do you stay down and give up? Do you regroup and try again? In this episode, we dissect a quote attributed to Muhammed Ali about what leaders do when they are knocked down. Join us for a conversation about overcoming obstacles as a leader through the lens of both resiliency and strategy.
But first, we start with a challenge! Listen along for a chance to go head-to-head with Greg as Mark quizzes him on lyrics from famous TV shows from the 80’s and 90’s. Will you recognize the TV show just from the lyrics being read? Easier said than done - But a lot of fun and a definite trip down memory lane!
Tune in for a mix of laughter, lessons, and a dash of inspiration to carry you through the year.
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You're listening to Lead On with Greg and Mark, brought to you by the Pennsylvania Association of Intermediate Units. Join us this season as we engage in conversations on leading on through times of complexity. Now for your hosts, Greg and Mark.
Speaker 2:Well, hello there, dr Mark Hoffman, dr Coons, happy new year. Happy new year Happy 2024.
Speaker 3:2024. It is a beautiful day here in Lehigh County, pennsylvania. Thank you for your hospitality, sir. You are very welcome. It's great to have you here. It's nice to see your digs, and I haven't been in this building since I worked for the Intermediate Unit. That's right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, interestingly I was never actually in this building. We worked in a different building. So from first time in this quote, new location, and to call it new is kind of funny because it's been around for a while. Yeah, it's great to have you back. I'm excited to be here, see some familiar faces and to spend some time with you.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, hey. So a couple of episodes ago we were talking about TV theme songs from the 80s. Yes, and then I think we did a little rendition of Mr Belvedere. We sure did, yeah, so made the good life yet. So over the next couple of episodes, I have a challenge for you. Okay, are you ready? Yeah, I'm ready, all right. So we're going to use some lyrics from TV theme songs from the 80s and 90s. Okay, and we'll see if you can get it just from the lyrics, okay.
Speaker 1:Are you ready for?
Speaker 3:this challenge.
Speaker 2:I'm ready for this one Now.
Speaker 3:Do you want me to start at the beginning of the song or just pick a random verse? Random verse, random verse. I'm up for the challenge. All right, ready Yep. When days go by, there's room for you, room for me, for gentle hearts and opportunity. I have no idea. As days go by, it's bigger than love of the family.
Speaker 3:How about if I started off ready for the listeners? You got this one right. Here's the beginning. It's a rare condition this day and age to read any good news on the newspaper page. And love and tradition of the grand design. Some people say it's even harder to find.
Speaker 2:I still don't know. You don't know that one. It's tough when it's just out of context like that. We don't have the. Yeah, I'll give you a hint.
Speaker 3:Did I do that?
Speaker 2:Oh Urkel.
Speaker 3:That's Urkel. What's the TV show?
Speaker 1:What was?
Speaker 2:that TV show Family.
Speaker 3:Matters, family Matters. All right, that's Family Matter.
Speaker 3:We're going to do like three, four. I like any odds. This one's tough. This is a little bit more obscure. Okay, this is a spin off, but it was its own show. Of course, life is a race and I know I can win it because I'm learning the rules of the game. If I can stay on the ball, take it minute by minute, I just might make the hall of fame. What can I say? I'm doing it the best I can, learning on nobody but me. Oh, seeing it from where I stand, nothing comes easy. Nothing comes easy. And then doing it the best I can is like the course it's not Laverne and Shirley.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, no, cause that was.
Speaker 3:No, this is a spin off of growing paint, of growing paint. I think someone's going to fact check me on that one. I'll give you a hint. Thanks, lubbeck.
Speaker 2:Oh coach.
Speaker 3:No, no, that was, I think, kaden. This is just the 10 of us, just the 10 of us, I wouldn't have gotten your offer to buddy.
Speaker 2:All right, here we go. Great, well, that's a great. Oh, we're going on a third one. Okay, we're going to do four. I better not be over four.
Speaker 3:You're going to be, I might be. I think we're going to just wrap the episode up Okay, thank you for being a friend. Travel down the road and back again. Your heart is true. You're a pal and a confidant.
Speaker 2:And if I threw a party inviting everyone new. You know this.
Speaker 3:I would see you would say golden girls, there we go. Well done You're one for three.
Speaker 2:One for three, all right.
Speaker 3:Last one for this episode. Yeah, I'll give you a hint. The answer to the question is in the lyrics. Okay, she's a small wonder, lovely and bright, with soft curls. She's a small wonder, a child unlike other girls. She's a miracle and I grant you she'll enchant you at first sight. She's a small wonder and she'll make your heart, take flight.
Speaker 2:It's not punky Brewster, is it? Listen to me?
Speaker 3:The show is in the lyrics I just read you Come on.
Speaker 2:Vicky. Small wonder, just a small wonder.
Speaker 3:Really, did you watch TV in the 80s?
Speaker 2:and 90s, not the bad shows. These are all fundamental to my childhood.
Speaker 3:I mean, it got golden girls. You got golden girls and show about old women Nice, though I just saw on Facebook that like they're in their fifties when that show took place we have a line that they were like 80 years old.
Speaker 2:Would you know that the youngest one was the one who was the grandmother or the mother? Yeah, she was the youngest, I think, of all of them. Yeah, they put makeup on.
Speaker 3:It was a style Getty made me Right.
Speaker 2:Is that your name? I think you're right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but even the ones that, like you know, blanche and Dorothy and Rose they're in their fifties when that show starts. Wow, right, unbelievable Right. And yet we think of them as, like you know, older retirees. Yeah, in my mind they're 70 in that show. No, they're like RH. Yeah, in that show Just a little bit older yeah.
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 3:Well, that was an epic failure, I have to say it was.
Speaker 2:Not you.
Speaker 3:You were not an epic failure, the whole concept.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did very badly, All right. Well, I'm going to. We're going to try again next episode.
Speaker 3:We'll see if I can find some more mainstream songs.
Speaker 2:All right, just something a little bit more. I mean Small Wonder. Come on, mark.
Speaker 3:Small Wonder, you don't remember? She was a robot right and in the back they would open up the control panel. No, I don't remember that. Oh my God, if you remember this.
Speaker 3:I want you to comment on one of our LinkedIn or Facebook posts, let us know. Or on Substack, let us know, of those four shows, which was your favorite? Okay, all right, just the 10 of us in Small Wonder. Pretty obscure, probably, right they are, I would agree. All right, and as obvious as it is to me. I'm reading to you. I know the answers because I did the work, putting myself in your shoes. What I'd be able to recall them? I'm not sure.
Speaker 2:All right, I'm going to. I'll put the challenge to you in one of the future episodes. All right, all right.
Speaker 3:But pick a different genre though, because I'm gonna continue to challenge you on TV shows, because I've already done the research. Okay.
Speaker 2:All right, you got it. You pick a different thing to challenge me on, I will. Oh okay, you got it All right.
Speaker 3:Challenge accepted. Challenge accepted You're like staring at me, like with these cold you're like how dare you?
Speaker 2:I got a 25% on that.
Speaker 3:That's all right. You're still a winner to me. Oh, thank you. So how do you feel that you've been knocked down?
Speaker 2:Oh, how about that? I love the segue, mark. I love the segue, so Mark has challenged me. Yes, as our listeners know, I like to post on LinkedIn.
Speaker 3:You do Good stuff yeah.
Speaker 2:You know motivational things, but most recently Mark is challenging me on at some Muhammad Ali quote. And just to give you a little background on Muhammad Ali, I used to work in Skokal County and the training camp was actually located there right around the Skokal Haven area and what was really cool about it is all the original ring where he practiced was there. I took my leadership team at the time we were doing a book study on Dale Carnegie, brought them in to the camp and there was just like a feeling there.
Speaker 1:You know this is in Skokal County, Skokal Haven.
Speaker 3:Pennsylvania, skokal County.
Speaker 2:It's still there In Pennsylvania, Skokal Haven, Yep, and it is still there and it's open for you know, for visitors and you know leadership groups to come in.
Speaker 3:I didn't know that. I had no idea that he had any connection to Pennsylvania. He did.
Speaker 2:I don't really know much about him, yeah, and he would do this run down and around there's a lake down there he would do this classic training, this whole routine that he had of going down. So it was pretty cool.
Speaker 3:So on LinkedIn you posted something and my pushback wasn't related to Muhammad Ali. It was a pushback to the quote itself. Whether he actually said it or not, it's attributed to him. You want to tell people the?
Speaker 2:quote is yeah. The quote is you don't lose if you get knocked down. You lose if you stay down.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and my pushback to you was that sounds great, but is that toxic positivity, right? Like, aren't there lots of cliches about battles and wars? Right, lose the battle but win the war.
Speaker 1:And then I even mentioned.
Speaker 3:You know the gambler right, you got to know when to fold them.
Speaker 2:You got to know when to fold them.
Speaker 3:You got to know when to walk away and know when to run. Is it true leadership to get up and get knocked down again, or to get up and to continue to fight, if the winning strategy is actually to stay down and to come?
Speaker 2:back to fight another day. I think you make a great point there. You know, when I saw this, though, I had a different take on it, which is you need to get back up. You know, we have times in our leadership careers where we get knocked down, whether it be, you know, it could be a relationship kind of a thing, it could be a failed project. We get knocked down and you need to get back up to keep going, and I think that's where character enters the equation, right, yeah?
Speaker 3:Oh, I don't disagree with you, right? I mean, I was just messing with you for a little bit. I say I like it, I like the pushback.
Speaker 3:No, and I agree with you, and I don't know that they're mutually exclusive. Right, so like? In other words, if you fail it at a project or if a project failed, let's not make it about a person. Right, A project fails or someone is terminated or whatever, right, Getting back up and doing the same thing over again might not be the right strategy. Right, so like, if we equate this to the boxing analogy, getting back up and fighting that opponent in the same method probably not the smartest idea.
Speaker 3:Right, you got to go to your corner man and like in the Rocky movies, right yeah, he always struggles in the first few rounds. He can't figure out what his opponent's weaknesses are. His strategy is not working. And Mick or his coaches? Towards the end, he's a Mick. I see three of them right, which is hit the one in the middle. Right, that's right. But I guess the point is getting back up and doing the same thing over again, maybe not the best strategy.
Speaker 1:And you can't get all that in a quote. Of course, you can't get all that in a quote. This is about resiliency.
Speaker 3:this quote I love that.
Speaker 2:This is about resiliency and, like I said, what the character is just getting back up. Now it's gonna be a different strategy. You get knocked down. It's one of those things. You don't want to make the same mistake twice yeah.
Speaker 3:But also isn't there, and I'm just pushing back to push back, but isn't there something to be said? To live to see another day, yes, you know, yeah, when I saw that, I was thinking of some experience I have in martial arts, I didn't know.
Speaker 2:You had experience in martial arts.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's been a while, but I have a blue belt in Jiu Jitsu, which was really hard to get. Actually, to get a blue belt in Jiu Jitsu took years and hundreds and hundreds of hours on the mat and I have. I have a. What do I have a red belt in in campo. But it's been a while. I'm really proud of the blue belt in Jiu Jitsu and I'm actually thinking about going back. I got injured and I just sort of fell off that train.
Speaker 2:I think you should.
Speaker 3:I really enjoyed it, but one of the things that I learned in Jiu Jitsu. One it's really hard and it's humbling, right, but two one of the first things that you're taught as a student. There's two things that I recall being taught right away that resonate with the story. The first one is how to fall.
Speaker 1:Does that make sense?
Speaker 3:Yeah, how to fall. So, like, literally like you are getting tossed around in Judo and in mixed martial arts.
Speaker 2:And you're a nimble. You're a very nimble guy. I'm six, six right. I weigh a lot.
Speaker 3:But gravity wise, buddy, you got and so when I hit the ground, there's a lot of force hitting the ground. I'm a big guy, and so they actually teach everybody how to fall, so that when you're falling on your back you slap the mat, or so you're not hitting your elbows or Right, so that you're not getting hurt right. And the reason why they teach you how to fall is because, inevitably, when you're fighting, you're going to fall right. Falling isn't necessarily a failure, it's to be expected, right.
Speaker 2:It's part of the sport.
Speaker 3:I like that. I like that in the sport they're teaching you from the beginning to account for the fact that you're going to get flipped over or that you're going to fall.
Speaker 2:I like that as opposed to this. The best offense is a great defense, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it combats this idea that I'm untouchable. Right, I mean part of the idea of people that learned Jujitsu is that, god forbid, you're ever in a physical altercation, chances are it's going to go to the ground, right? Very few fights are people just standing there punching each other right.
Speaker 3:All right. So one of the first things is falling. Number two right, it's tapping. Do you know what I mean when I say tapping? No, all right. So if you're involved in a fight in mixed martial arts I think UFC where there's a ground game and there's Jujitsu and they're trying to submit each other, yes and or you're rolling in Jujitsu, that one of the first things they teach you right, falling. And then two, tapping, tapping.
Speaker 3:So tapping is a sign to your opponent. Literally, let's say you have me in a choke, yeah, I literally hit you twice, right. And or I yell a verbal tap If I can't move my arm. Tap, it's a sign to the opponent that the match is over and I've submitted myself to you so that I don't get choked out and go to sleep. Or if you have my arm in a compromising position and my joints going to go and snap, I got it. I yell, tap, before it gets to that point so that I live to fight another day I can roll again, right, there's no shame, in other words, in Jujitsu, in tapping or in falling.
Speaker 3:Now the idea is to not do either. Of course, it's to do the others to your opponent, but I love that it's baked in this idea that you should tap out.
Speaker 1:Right, this idea of getting that, that it's okay, that it's okay.
Speaker 3:That's a lot different than boxing, where you get knocked down, you're supposed to get back up and your brains get scrambled Right. In the UFC and mixed martial arts, when you tap, it's over, right? Or the referee says no, you've been, it's done. We're not going to put you up in a corner and give you some smelling salts, right, right, so anyway. That's just sort of what resonated with me this idea of living to see another day and not being afraid to say that round didn't go so well. I'm going to stay down, yeah. But then I like your idea of the cerizonian, so I'm going to get back up. That's it. And what am I going to do to change my strategy? So, like in Jujitsu, if you keep tapping me out right With an arm bar or a choke, I know the next time we're going to I'm going to have to defend against that, that's right, I need a better strategy to your point, of course, of course.
Speaker 2:So I was thinking about all this and I knew you're going to be challenging me on this. So I found an article from the Harvard Business Review and it's called firing back how great leaders rebound after career disasters, and this was written by a gentleman named Jeffrey Sonnenfeld. I'm sorry, two gentlemen, jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Andrew Ward. So again, firing back how great leaders rebound after career disasters and going through this. You know what I was curious about and what they highlight is the amount of people who actually do come back into those leadership positions. And it said in their research 35% of the ousted CEOs return to an active executive role within two years of departure, but 43% effectively ended their careers. Yeah, now I'm curious, like by ended their careers with that, matt.
Speaker 3:Well, they talk about in the article like they go into different industries where they retire. Right or yeah, they retire or some of these folks are so wealthy in this article that they don't need to work again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because these are like this.
Speaker 3:You're talking about CEOs like you know, major fortune 50 companies. Definitely, they're getting paid 30 million dollars to walk away. It's, yeah. That's a lot different, though, than getting knocked down in a boxing match. It is right, it is, yeah, yeah, what. What resonated with you in terms of of the article specific to the folks that decided to get back up would jump down at you.
Speaker 2:Well they they talk about here that real leaders don't cave in. It's here on. The second says defeat energizes them. It energizes them. Defeat Energizes them to rejoin the fray with greater determination and vigor. Yeah, I like that. So instead of knocking them down, deflating them, it's actually energizing them to do better.
Speaker 3:Right. But it back to my earlier point. If they're just getting up and running back into the same right hook, yeah, what's the point? Right, right, hopefully it energize them to go back and regroup and train to live to see another fight, yeah and they have a better strategy, right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, the authors. I think they have four key components here. They say for a start, you know when a leader is Facing a catastrophic failure in this case, the analogy or the lens that they're using is terminations of CEOs. So, for example, when a CEO is terminated, they must, carefully one, decide how to fight back if they are going to fight back. So do you walk away or do you fight?
Speaker 3:And this is interesting recently with the AI, you know, open AI, chat, gpt, sam, all we gets to pose yes, and to some degree, you know he's offered another job with his number one over at Microsoft and all of a sudden, the board to chat open AI. You know they change their strategy and they bring them both back. So, you know, are they gonna fight back? Are they gonna walk away? Yeah, he was gonna go to Microsoft, right, and I'm sure some things happen behind the scenes that ultimately resulted in coming back and you could Google that to read all about that. There's definitely other folks that know more about the the ins and outs of that nuance, but I just thought of that like recent example of a CEO being great example great example.
Speaker 3:And then it says, after they've decided that they're gonna fight back, how are they gonna do it? And then will they recruit others into the battle. And so, of course, in this open AI you know they recruited members of. I think there was gonna be a mass exodus of talent from from open AI.
Speaker 3:At least that's what the article had the shift gears and the boards, that we're gonna lose everybody. We're literally gonna be, there's gonna be nothing left. Then they must take steps to recover their heroic status in the process of proving themselves and others that they have the metal METT le.
Speaker 3:You know the guts the guts in test and afforded to necessary to rediscover their heroic mission. There's a lot of analogies here of Steve Jobs being deposed from Apple and then being brought back to lead it to greatness. I Think the I coca had similar experiences, if I don't, if I, if I recall correctly in the car business, lots of folks that were sort of shown the door and then Showing the door again to come back in and do great things. There's an example here also of a guy that left a company to lead home depot and just crushed the car. He crushed his old, his, his old employer.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm, I'm looking at that last point that recover your heroic status. Mm-hmm you know that that takes a lot as a leader. You know cause the. You know there's some egos as part of these. In these positions, it's a must, it's a must have. And when you get knocked down like this, you know recovering, you know being the bigger person. Recovering from that can be a lot. So recovering your heroic status.
Speaker 3:Yeah and again yeah. I think it sounds a little self-serving, you know, maniacal for the organizations that we're leading to think of ourselves as heroes, and they're using the term hero here and like the Joseph Campbell you man of a thousand faces like this idea that you know you've got a leader. Who? What does the leader need Greg to be a leader.
Speaker 3:Followers oh, you need followers and it does say no, but you're not a leader If you don't have the first person, or a lot of you say, it's not the leader, it's the first follower. Yeah, right, right.
Speaker 3:And there's a great YouTube video of a guy that's dancing, and he's dancing by himself on a hilltop at a festival, probably in like the early 2000s, and everybody says and then one by one people start coming over and dancing with him and by the end of the song there's like 300 people dancing on a hillside. And it all started with this one guy going crazy. He just didn't care. I love that video. A lot of people say that that guy was the leader, right, Look, he's just going for it. In the comments there are people who say it's not him who's the leader. It's the first person that decided to join him.
Speaker 2:There you go, the first person that's the leader Yep First person that said it's okay to do this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and so right that guy might be the hero, but it's the leader that allowed him to be the hero, right Hero in quotes Yep, and I like that, nate, they do talk about it here.
Speaker 2:They said to launch your comeback, you must actually do things to win back the support of a wider audience.
Speaker 3:All right. So that's us just debating a little bit about the quote. I think we're. I don't think we're really actually debate. I think we're both saying the same thing and you can't capture all of the nuance that we're talking about in a single quote. I just worry about toxic positivity taking over social media.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean my toxic positivity. Yes, I do Like this idea.
Speaker 3:This, like this forced optimism right, Sometimes a realistic approach is actually the best approach. I'd rather have a realistic doctor than an optimistic doctor. I'd rather have a realistic boss than an optimistic boss. If I had to pick.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would agree, I would agree. You do. You need to embrace that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, all right, okay. How we doing, we're doing, great we're. I think it's about time to wrap it up.
Speaker 3:We say we wrap it up, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So some great takeaways from this. I like the challenge there from from Dr Hoffman.
Speaker 3:I'm you know you didn't respond to me on LinkedIn. I challenged you, but you didn't write back.
Speaker 2:Did you challenge me on there?
Speaker 3:Yes, you got to set your settings up so that when, when I respond to you and I troll you on LinkedIn no, it wasn't a troll, it was me just saying hey, I want to challenge you on this, on the podcast.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I got that. I got that part. I just didn't respond to the on there. I'll do that after this, after we record it. Okay, all right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you could actually you could put a link to the podcast when this gets launched. All right, so next episode. I'm going to ask you for more.
Speaker 2:TV shows, or more TV shows. Okay, then I'll have some. I'll have a challenge for you.
Speaker 3:We'll see if you get back up. Okay, all right.
Speaker 2:Well, all right, we love all of our listeners out. There We've been we. We do encourage your feedback. In the meantime, let's make it a great day and innovate the USA. Bye, everybody, bye.
