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)
S6: E1 From Dog Bite To Leadership Insight
Join us, Greg and Mark, as we turn a literal dog bite into a clear roadmap for rebuilding trust, from personal pain to leadership practice. We compare trust mindsets, test a five-step repair plan, and draw clean lines between apology theater and real accountability.
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Here we go.
SPEAKER_02:Hey there, Mark Mattman. It's amazing. You like it? Yeah, it's nice to be back. Yeah. Yeah, keep it going. And listen, you're a bass player. So good. One, two, three, go.
SPEAKER_03:Don't miss your chance. It's funky. I like it. Funky town. What's your prediction on what the feedback will be? I mean, we are identified by that intro and everything.
SPEAKER_02:I think there's gonna be might be some car accidents out there because they're gonna be jamming to this funky beat.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's uh it's different. It is different.
SPEAKER_02:It's new, it's hip.
SPEAKER_03:It's AI generated. AI generated. Not obvious at all.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so uh my uh brother Stevie got me hooked on it's Suno. Oh, love Stevie, love Suno. This is not a Suno commercial, but I'll tell you, it's it was so easy to do.
SPEAKER_03:It works.
SPEAKER_02:It works.
SPEAKER_03:It's it's you had a couple options to pick from.
SPEAKER_02:I did.
SPEAKER_03:We sort of like the the funk soul brother, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Like it was good. Yeah, well done. Shows the funky side. Shows the funky side. So, hey, I gotta tell you what happened to me. So I went over to a friend's house, it was about a month or so back, and he's in the backyard on his computer doing work from there, and I go to pet his dog. How about I put my hand out to pet the dog? Bit me.
SPEAKER_03:No, it didn't.
SPEAKER_02:And as it bit me, yeah, I pulled my hand back and it bit. Yeah, the tooth got caught? Big big gash here, yeah. Tooth got caught, and I pulled back, and then um, yeah, then I had to uh had it wrapped for a while and stuff. It was uncomfortable for both of us.
SPEAKER_03:You know what this proves? What does this prove? Animals have great intuition, yeah. Right. What did did you did you approach the dog in an aggressive way?
SPEAKER_02:No, very, very nicely. You know I move quickly, but I in this case You're like a cat. I'm like a cat. You're agile. Yeah, I am. I always land on my feet too.
SPEAKER_03:So wait a second. So you go to this guy and say, has this dog ever met you before?
SPEAKER_02:Uh no. So you're a stranger? I'm a stranger, and he's in the backyard, and because he was preoccupied on you know on his phone or on his uh computer and in a meeting, he he didn't intervene. So what did you reach down to pet the dog?
SPEAKER_03:Yes. The dog had never sniffed you before, met you before?
SPEAKER_02:No. No.
SPEAKER_03:And this thing just jumped.
SPEAKER_02:It just chomped at me.
SPEAKER_03:All right, so let's talk about this. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. First of all, are you okay?
SPEAKER_02:I'm okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. It hurt. Because that's a meaty part of your air. There's tendons there, there's muscle.
SPEAKER_02:It wasn't a finger or something. Yeah, it was right there. Or like you, yeah, a nerve.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so question number one. Yeah. Now that I know you're okay. Yeah. Question number two, I guess it is. Yeah. Um, did you need to get like rabies shots or anything?
SPEAKER_02:So I when I went to the urgent care, right? They they said uh if you you need to find out with your friend uh when the last time they had a rabies shot. And luckily it was like June of last year. Uh-huh. So it has to be within three years. So you're you're clear there. So I'm clear, but then they had to put the dog on like uh it was like 10 days that they'd be in isolation. Well, just to make sure it didn't have rabies? Yes. Yeah. They still had to do that as uh animal control.
SPEAKER_03:Really? Yeah. So you reported it, obviously. Or did when you went to the hospital, did they report it?
SPEAKER_02:They were obligated. So urgent care, Geisinger, they were obligated to do it. Aaron Powell Interesting.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, so you're okay. The dog doesn't have rabies. Mm-hmm. Um but has very sharp teeth. That's did the dog have any comments on your level of deliciousness?
SPEAKER_02:I mean, uh it's it's just kind of went back in its corner and sat down. I don't know.
SPEAKER_03:I figured I was probably so what does this do to your relationship with your friend?
SPEAKER_02:So it was uncomfortable at first, but he he was funny because his reaction, I'm not gonna say it was nameless. Of course. But he looked at me and he goes, Greg, you shouldn't have put your hand out. And I said, Well, I have trust. I have trust that, you know, I can pet a dog, and you know, I I always I I've never been afraid of dogs. And I still I'm a dog owner, and I I have dogs that are quirky, but I still have that, you know, I have that initial trust.
SPEAKER_03:I'm the same way.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I believe I mean, I don't know. I mean, different people might think different things, but if I were to analyze myself, I would say that I'm similar to you, that I assume trust until it's broken. I give it until it's lost.
SPEAKER_02:That's it.
SPEAKER_03:And there are an equal number of people, I'm sure, that are the opposite. They withhold trust until it's earned. I would absolutely agree.
SPEAKER_02:And it's it totally made me think of this topic for today. Yeah. So it's because we always talk about how do you how does someone when someone breaks trust, we don't talk about how do you repair it. Repairing broken trust? How do you repair the broken trust? Because honestly, it's it takes time. I I just know that right off the bat, without even looking at any articles or anything, it's gonna take time to rebuild, right? And in my case, with my hand, took time to heal.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Same thing with this. You need that time to heal and and rebuild, and and I'm sure there's a lot of communication involved.
SPEAKER_03:Did it bother you that you're injured and the first instinct of your friend was to blame you for putting your hand out?
SPEAKER_02:Uh a little bit, a little bit, but at the same time, he didn't, it was uncomfortable for him.
SPEAKER_03:Well, he's probably trying to figure out what happened. Yeah, he was. And he was and of course he's protecting his dog. I mean, I don't think him asking you that question was meant to offend you.
SPEAKER_02:It wasn't. It wasn't.
SPEAKER_03:It was probably just an automatic response to a terrible situation.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, right. Right, exactly.
SPEAKER_03:So the dog um does the dog have a history of biting, I wonder.
SPEAKER_02:I I he told me it happened once before. So it wasn't like a main it was like a maintenance person that they didn't know.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's like some I don't know if it's a law or a rule or whatever, but like there's only a certain number of bites that a dog gets. Yeah. Yeah. Uh reported bites. Anyway, so um you went into this interaction with a dog, being comfortable with dogs, naturally trusting dogs. Sure. And something went sideways. The dog was probably trying to protect its owner.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. Right? And they were outside, which is a different thing.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. You know. So the dog obviously didn't know you and clearly didn't intuitively trust you. And so it instinctually, I'm sure, snapped, right? That's it.
SPEAKER_02:Um that's a protection thing.
SPEAKER_03:Fight or flight, and it yeah, and you know, obviously, some dogs are just wired differently. That's it. So you got you got thinking about trust. And so the trust is broken. So, all right, so let's dig a little deeper then. How did you start to rebuild trust with your friend? It's interesting. I'm asking you that question because you're the one that was injured. I would be interested to hear what your friend did to rebuild trust with you. Yes. But what what did what did you do, or what was the result of the the bite? Because it it looks healed.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, it's it's much it's much better.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, obviously there's a scar. I don't mean to imply that it's like perfect, but it's not like and I have that's one of many scars that I have. When was it well, yeah, we it's like the Snickers bar. Snickers bar. What is the what was this? When when?
SPEAKER_02:It was about two months ago.
SPEAKER_03:All right. So your hand looks pretty good for two months. Yeah, it was uh September. You can definitely tell. That's a noticeable gash, dude.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So uh what what does the relationship look like immediately after it happens, knowing that you're still friends? Like how did you navigate that?
SPEAKER_02:So uh it it started with the fact that I I was there for that it was uh it was kind of like one of those weekends where I was there for two days. So what was good is I was staying at his house. We had time. Yeah, and that's kind that's kind of why I was looking at this with leadership too. You need time.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And with this, it you know, I obviously the way I am, I'm like, it's cool. You know, I'm I'm you know, my fingers are all still intact.
SPEAKER_03:It's just the flesh wound.
SPEAKER_02:It's just my it's a mine, a flesh wound. Uh so so anyway, we had time to go through it. He he there's only so many times he could say, I'm sorry. That's you gotta get you gotta move beyond that. So we moved beyond that. And it was just a matter of me just going to get to seek seek some help.
SPEAKER_03:So what did you do with the dog? Like if you're staying at this dude's house for another two days.
SPEAKER_02:Here's the thing. We just stayed at uh it was his parents' house then. Yeah, so we were okay.
SPEAKER_03:Was that the plan the whole time?
SPEAKER_02:That was the whole plan the whole time. I just was picking him up at his house.
SPEAKER_03:So so then so what is the so you have time, you have two days. Yep. Yep. So what's the leadership lesson? I would say don't put your hand in random dog's mouths.
SPEAKER_02:I would I would say that I mean, I I'm not changing as far as the trust. Yeah. Like my I always put that trust out there until it's broken, right? And I think a lot of us do.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that's me.
SPEAKER_02:Uh my thing would be just to know your surroundings. Like uh obviously I was a little naive going into this, just I'm petting a random dog. Yeah. Figuring that it, you know, it's my friend's dog, it should be fine. I think just knowing your surroundings first, what what's the context? Right?
SPEAKER_03:Well, you're sure you were comfortable. It's your friend's house. So you assume that your friend's house would have a friendly dog, like psychologically. That's it. Yep. There's no there's no reason why you that your friend's dog couldn't bite, right? But why would you think it would? It's not some random dog on the street. That's it. And you're not aggressing the dog, at least you don't believe you are. So what's an analogy here for the workplace? Um, someone gets injured emotionally, right? Or professionally or reputationally, uh intentionally or not. This dog didn't mean to bite you, right? It's probably more reactive. Uh a good analogy for things just happening, right? Um, you know, in in in the flash of an eye or in in you know, the gnash of a tooth, right, you you get bitten, and the in in any particular moment one person could reputationally harm or um lie to, mislead, uh do something that damages a trust, an otherwise trusting relationship.
SPEAKER_02:Most definitely.
SPEAKER_03:And the I mean it happens all the time, right? I think the disconnect is also when one person's operating from one mindset of the, let's say, like you and I, we presume trust and we give it. Yes. And we until it's broken. Until it's broken, and then you rebuild it, of course. Uh it's dangerous for us to assume, and I know I fall into this trap, that everybody operates that way. Uh I sometimes struggle conceptually when someone I work with or someone that I know doesn't reciprocate that trust back to me or assume the same level of trust with me that I assume with them. And I have the cognitive under ability to know that that's not reasonable to think that everybody would be that way. Right. I totally get intellectually that there are people who withhold trust until it's earned, but it's not my MO, and so I just assume that everybody's that way. And I have to remind myself, hey Mark, don't take it personally. Don't take it personally, Mark. They just might not offer trust immediately or inherently.
SPEAKER_02:It's such a good point, Mark, because a lot of people are on guard and you don't realize it's just part of their personality. Yeah, or it's their prior experiences, right?
SPEAKER_03:They've been burned before. Maybe you maybe I burned them before, right? Like, I mean, like who knows, right?
SPEAKER_02:So I think part of that is the culture you set up within your leadership team, within your organization.
SPEAKER_03:But even if it's the best culture, there will still be people who navigate in your culture who approach trust differently than you. There's a lot of books. If you go into and into a bookstore, you go online onto an online bookshop and you look up like business self-help leadership type books, management books. Right. There's no shortage of books that have the word trust in them. Because this is obviously a topic. Trust is obviously something that resonates with professionals, uh, particularly people looking to reestablish trust or to figure out uh how to earn it. And and so I the fact that trust is such a common topic in that area tells me that like we're onto something here, right? That agreed. The idea of me reading a book about trust is like foreign to me because I trust people. And so, but yet there's millions of people reading books about trust because their trust has been broken, or just by design of their personality, they don't trust from the start. And so, how do you commute? Here's a question for you. Right. In your culture, you have a healthy culture, but not everybody is trusting, right? Regardless of the culture. Correct. And that's not a flaw of the person or the culture, it's just a fact. What can a leader do to build trust with someone on their team who isn't like us, who doesn't just give trust, who needs trust to be earned?
SPEAKER_02:I I it needs to be modeled, first of all. I mean you say you practice what you preach, kind of a thing.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:It all starts with us. Because people are all we we always talked about this. People are always watching.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:You know, they're always watching, they're seeing what you're doing. So I think just modeling it, number one.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, well, I think giving trust is one. Is that what you're saying?
SPEAKER_02:Yes, yeah, exactly. Give them trust. Give them trust, yeah. Be intentional about it. And so they can say, well, if that's the situational piece, like, look, here, I'm I'm putting this out to you. This is very um very specific information, you know.
SPEAKER_03:So you're saying to them, I trust you enough to do this, X, Y, and Z, you're thinking that signals to them that they can trust you then.
SPEAKER_02:That's it.
SPEAKER_03:That's it. I think it's also following through, right? Isn't there something about trust that's rooted in follow through and accountability?
SPEAKER_02:There sure is. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Authenticity, these words, like so follow through. Like if you say you're going to do something and then you don't do it, and I'm like myself and I inherently trust you, you're eroding away your trust. If I don't trust you and you don't follow through, then you're not building trust. If I don't trust you and you do follow through, then you're putting trust in the bucket. You're you know. Right. Um same thing with accountability. Like if if if I screw up and I come to you and I own it, and you trust me, I maintain my trust or I don't lose as much. If I if you don't trust me and I own it, I'm getting a little bit of trust in my bucket with you. Right. And if you don't trust me and I don't own it, well then I'm not uh we're we're staying divided. Yeah, we're at odds. But I mean there's like we're at odds. Any number of analogies where I think those variables change, right? Like, does the trust stay where it is? Does it get depleted or does it get added to? And regardless of whether you're a trusting person from the beginning or whether you're someone who needs it to be earned, those mathematical calculations are happening all day long in every single relationship.
SPEAKER_02:And what's interesting about this, so that's you said about like with the buckets, and you're just building up this trust, building up this trust. It could be lost in a second.
SPEAKER_03:Well, yeah, right. What's the uh the the the there's a cliche, a leadership cliche. Trust is earned in drops and lost in buckets. There you go.
SPEAKER_02:That I mean the wise man, it comes like these things. Yeah, I don't know where you store these.
SPEAKER_03:It's uh the steel Eric Rosendale says, My brain is a steel trap of useless information. Well, there you go. Thank you.
SPEAKER_02:We're putting it to use. Thanks, Eric.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so but that's true, though. I think that's what you're saying, right? Yeah, it is. I call it social capital, I call it poker chips. Like you and I were trading poker chips right now. Yeah, right? You're you know, there's a kitty in the middle. Where who's getting the trust? Hopefully, we're both you know winning. But you know, that's the thing. Like, how much can you erode a relationship over time before the trust is gone?
SPEAKER_02:That's right.
SPEAKER_03:And and what can you do to signal it to get it back?
SPEAKER_02:And you'll be surprised by this, but I actually found a little article, and it's only five things.
SPEAKER_03:All right, well, let's uh let's let's speed through them.
SPEAKER_02:All right. So it's this is how to build and repair leadership trust in the workplace by Lida Citrone. And uh there's key steps. The first one is diagnose the breakdown.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:So only So what triggered the trust loss?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I'm doing a little deep dive.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, yeah, I'm just saying, being you know, saying what it was.
SPEAKER_03:You have to be honest with yourself though, right? Like another I think if the trust is broken, it it might be natural for the person to put the microscope on the other person. Yeah, right. One of my favorite questions to ask people and myself is you know, what part of the situation do you own? Like how did you contribute to the situation?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I love that you said that because the second one is own it fully.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, there goes that uh accountability.
SPEAKER_02:Yep. Yep, that's it. And then the third is create a repair plan and act visibly. So how are we gonna repair this?
SPEAKER_03:And then make sure the uh the person knows you're doing it.
SPEAKER_02:That's it.
SPEAKER_03:As long as it's probably not in an ostentatious way, like an authentic way.
SPEAKER_02:That's it. And then the next is maintain consistency and transparency.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And then the final one is keep checking and adjusting.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I like that.
SPEAKER_02:That I I think it's a dance, right? I think it is a dance. And it's what it's uh what I see about all this is very intentional. We talk about intentionality. Going through this, these steps is you know, you own it, you're working through it, you know, how did this happen? You own it, you make a plan, you know, then you have consistency going through it, and then you check on it.
SPEAKER_03:You know, the interesting thing that's lost here is that you and I are operating from a lens that everyone values and um everyone values trust and wants to be trusted. There are sociopaths and others out there who couldn't care less if they're trustworthy or perceived as trustworthy by their colleagues or their peers. So, how do you set the tone then for your for your leadership team? You you you get them out of your system. If you have someone, I think, in your system who doesn't see trust as a currency that's worth pursuing, then they've got to go. Right? It's it's and I'm not talking about the person who um withholds trust until it's earned or the person that gives trust until it's lost. That's not what I mean at all. I'm talking about the person who doesn't care about whether they're trusted. I really like that.
SPEAKER_02:I like that you said that, Mark, because we don't talk about that too much.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, there are people out there like that. They couldn't care less. Yeah. They could offend you every day of the week and be told you've just offended Greg every day of this week, and they would say, so what? I don't care. Or it would be a vapid, empty apology.
SPEAKER_02:Right. So what you're saying is the person needs to be uh accepting of this and understand what trust is and respect trust.
SPEAKER_03:I think in this analogy, we're assuming that both parties want the trust to be restored or earned. That's correct. Earned or restored, not lost. Yes. And I'm just saying, you know, this is great when both parties value trust and want it to be the end result, a trusting relationship. We shouldn't be so naive to think that everybody cares about trust. There are definitely people out there that will manipulate a trusting relationship for their own benefit. And I'm sure we've both been in situations like that.
SPEAKER_02:We sure have. We sure have. And uh the one of the uh closing thoughts they had here is make trust health a recurring conversation, not just a one-time fix.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I love that. The fact that we're even talking about it, I don't I don't often think about trust for the reasons that I mentioned. I just give it to people, and then when I get burned, I go, Oh my gosh, I was too trusting, too naive. Right. I didn't expect my hand to get bitten, right? In your analogy.
SPEAKER_02:That's it. And it takes some time to repair.
SPEAKER_03:It definitely takes time to repair, but I love the intentionality. Um, so thanks for sharing that story. I'm glad your hand's doing well.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you. Appreciate that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So uh oh, by the way, we skipped right over this. What did we skip over? Episode one of season six. Can you believe it? No. It started as like some random. How many people asked you?
SPEAKER_02:Uh I had about uh ten. I had about ten. Now, I'll be honest, uh two or three were family members. Oh, I see. So but at least seven others, which is good. I'll take that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, we've had a lot of people reaching out.
SPEAKER_02:So thank you to our listeners. We appreciate that. Yeah. I'm happy to be back.
SPEAKER_03:It's interesting. The people are downloading the old episodes like crazy still.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and we see them coming through. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And a lot of questions. And he's being a little sarcastic, but a lot of questions. When are you coming back? When are you coming back? The timing had to be right.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Darren said it last week. He goes, I have to file a complaint. I'm like, what?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. You need to start the podcast up again. I'm getting more episodes.
SPEAKER_03:I was getting heat here as well. Yeah. Well, we're back, baby. That's good. We're back.
SPEAKER_02:We're back.
SPEAKER_03:All right. Uh, what do you say we wrap this up? Let's wrap this up with this wonderful theme song. All right, brother. I'll see you soon.
unknown:Here we go.
SPEAKER_01:But Greg and Mark. They hit the mock. Mark's got the knowledge. So sharp, so tight. Greg's got the antics, it keeps the feeling. When is the groove so clean?
