Teamwork - A Better Way

Christian Napier
00:13 - 00:25
Well, a belated Happy New Year, everyone, and welcome to another episode of teamwork a better way. I'm Christian Napier and I am joined by my fantastic fantastic co-host Spencer Horne. Spencer how you doing?

Spencer Horn
00:25 - 00:38
I am fantastic so glad to be with you. Happy New Year to you Christian. Man I'm getting Ring of Fire vibes again. I just love that.

Christian Napier
00:38 - 00:39
Why is that?

Spencer Horn
00:39 - 00:48
Well, you know, you just remind me of, you know, 1 of my favorite singers. So, just going down to that man in black. You just look so...

Christian Napier
00:48 - 01:28
I am the man in black today. That's true. I am wearing a... So stylish. And unfortunately, I don't have the vocal range to be most pop performers, but Johnny Cash, you know, he's got that silky bass. So it's flattering to be compared to him although there is no comparison at all. Spencer we are starting a new year can you believe it we started this in 2020 near the beginning of the year and here we are 2025 and we're still going strong and what a better way to start. Can there be a better way to start this year than with the guests that we have with us today?

Spencer Horn
01:28 - 02:03
You are so right. It is what an incredible privilege and really a surprise. We wanted to have her earlier last year and she's in such high demand that Dr. Mary Kelly couldn't make it because she was pulled away with all her fans from around the world. But I am so excited. I'm gonna I want to put her face on the screen. So when we talk about her you all can see Who this lovely person is just an incredible individual and and I'm gonna read a little bit about her bio Because I want you to know how amazing she is Commander, dr.

Spencer Horn
02:03 - 02:50
Mary Kelly US Navy retired has spent 25 years in active duty service for the Navy and she was a military professor at the Naval Academy and a civilian professor at the Air Force Academy just down the road from you, isn't that right, Mary? Yeah. She learned lessons in leadership in the first and second Gulf Wars and during 9-11. She used real world military and industry examples that resonate with her audiences and her clients that she works with regularly. And from her days as a naval intelligence officer to her role as 1 of the most influential economists that we have today, Really listed as a top economist worldwide Commander, dr.

Spencer Horn
02:50 - 03:03
Mary Kelly has carved out an unforgettable career in leadership Former chief of police professor realtor HR director. So you've gotten experience from so many different quarters. Mary, that's great.

Mary Kelly
03:03 - 03:05
I'm gonna show retention span.

Spencer Horn
03:07 - 03:52
You and me both. 25 years teaching and training, get this Christian, training more than 40, 000 military and civilian personnel. And she's now on a mission to spread her message of success with audiences worldwide, sharing with them the secrets of being a true leader in today's workplace. She is high energy and she's focused on using research, laughter. Listen, I first saw Mary in Denver, I don't know if it was 5 years ago not this recent conference for those of you who know there's a there's a National Speakers Association conference called called influence and they have this program for what we call certified speaking professionals.

Spencer Horn
03:52 - 04:11
So Mary is not only a certified speaking professional, she is a Hall of Fame speaking professional, what's called a CPAE, And she was teaching all these people who are wanting to be certified speaking professional about ethics. What I want to know, Christian, have you ever been in an ethics class that you enjoyed?

Christian Napier
04:14 - 04:28
Well, typically, they're just part of a compliance initiative, right? It's like, oh, I have to take this ethics course. And so nobody's particularly excited to be there, but I can imagine that people would be lining up to see what- It

Spencer Horn
04:28 - 05:05
was awesome. It was so fun. And she made ethics enjoyable. You know, good to look at but also wonderful to listen to. She's such a great speaker. She's relatable. She's no nonsense. Let me tell you something. You do not want to talk nonsense with her because she'll just slap it right out of you. It's awesome. She's the author of 15 books. I've got them. I mean, I've got a 1 sheet here if you can see. This is just a few of the books that she's written. She's going to share some. She's helped me in writing of my book and helping me with some of my projects.

Spencer Horn
05:05 - 05:14
She is so competent in so many different areas. She's worked with hundreds of organizations and companies across the globe. Welcome, Mary. We're so glad to have you on the show.

Mary Kelly
05:15 - 05:19
Wow. After that introduction, I feel like I should be turning water into wine over here.

Spencer Horn
05:20 - 05:57
No doubt that you could. So I just want to, you know, I've known you for a little bit and you are so approachable and so personable and in this industry, so real And what I mean by the speaking industry and such a high level performer. And I am so grateful that you're here to share with our audience, really that the focus of today is how you can unlock productivity and transforming teams into powerhouses. You have so much experience with that, but before we get to that, this has been a big year, 2024, for you, yes?

Mary Kelly
05:58 - 06:00
Big year, big year, Yes.

Spencer Horn
06:00 - 06:20
I mean, you've had so many successes professionally, but also in your personal life. I just want to again congratulate you for your marriage and just that's such a great story like a long lost sweetheart. You reconnected and got married and I'm just, you seem so happy.

Mary Kelly
06:21 - 07:01
I'm, you know, I'm so lucky, and thanks for raising that, because sometimes we forget that behind the scenes, there is a personal life. We actually have personal lives. And sometimes they're good and sometimes they're challenging. And you know, I've sort of been widowed twice. Cancer hit twice, 2 different kinds of cancer. And so for those folks who are going through that, you know, 1 in every 3 Americans will be diagnosed with cancer and most people survive it, but then there's some who don't. And for some of you who are going through this, I understand, I get it, I have been there and I know what it looks like from both sides.

Mary Kelly
07:01 - 07:37
So I feel very fortunate that as a woman today, I had 2 great men, and then God blessed me with this third. And this third 1 was the man I dated and fell in love with when I was 19. And thanks to a conference, I was in his neck of the woods. And we had, I sent him a Facebook note and I said, hey, I'm gonna be in your area. Any chance you can meet up for coffee or drink for, I didn't know if he was single or married or whatever. I had just made the commitment from, again, 1 of our other friends was teaching me how to be a better friend.

Mary Kelly
07:37 - 08:15
And I thought, I really need to be a better friend and reach out more. And he showed up and after about an hour of conversation, we both looked at each other and realized we were both single for the first time in 40 years. So that was that. And we weren't starting from 0. We were kind of starting from where things ended 40 years ago. We were both in the Navy. And back then, for people listening, you got to remember there were no cell phones or text messages or email. It hadn't been invented yet. And so staying together and staying connected was much tougher then.

Mary Kelly
08:16 - 08:39
And then I was very, very blessed. And we said, well, do we get married? Do we get married? And then we thought, no, we don't need to get married. And then we just looked at each other and decided we wanted to be married to each other. So yeah, so 2024 was a big year for me. A little bit of some movement back and forth across the country. He lives in Tennessee. My house is in Colorado. So that's why this is gonna work.

Spencer Horn
08:42 - 08:55
I'm so happy. And, but The fact that you have somebody also that can relate to just your life experience, both of you, that I think is so, so important. It's hard to find that, that relatability.

Mary Kelly
08:55 - 09:13
It's really hard to find that. And I think it's hard to find people with your similar values and your similar interests. I mean, interests can be developed, but your values are tough. And you know, when we talk about teamwork, it's the same thing. The values drive everything.

Spencer Horn
09:14 - 09:31
That's so great. Well, let's get into that right now. As you left the Navy, just give us that origin story. How did you transition into this world of leadership development? You were doing it for the military, but how did you transition to where you are today?

Mary Kelly
09:32 - 10:13
When I left the Navy, I wasn't sure, I had just been recently widowed, and so I wasn't sure what I was gonna do because the plan I had before then was to take the job back where my husband was, to go back to that house, all of that, And then when he passed away, my world got upended and I had to reevaluate everything. And again, you can choose to wallow in self-pity and crawl under the desk, or you can decide to view it completely differently and say, all right, now that I have total freedom, because I have no family, no anything putting me in any given location, no commitments, what are you gonna do next?

Mary Kelly
10:13 - 10:41
And then faced with that challenge, you do, You look at your values and you try to figure out what you're going to do. So I was very fortunate. I'd done a lot of training, teaching programs for the Navy. I'd written a couple books on leadership for the Navy. I had been 1 of the people, the Navy, you call up the Navy and you say, hey, can somebody give me an update on what's going on with the military? I was 1 of those people who would show up and do that talk. And I have to share with you, I didn't think too hard about it back then.

Mary Kelly
10:41 - 11:12
I would just show up and talk. Now I kind of cringe when I think about that I didn't think more of it, that I didn't plan it out better now that I know how to be a real professional speaker. And I'm still learning every single day. I mean, we're all still learning every single day. Some of those early events, you know, they're a little cringe worthy when I didn't structure it the way a normal professional would structure it nowadays, but I got to do a lot of it. So I had just thousands of speeches under my belt.

Mary Kelly
11:12 - 11:44
And then when I retired out of the Navy officially, I hopped in the car, drove across the country, explored the United States as an adult. I'd never really been a grown-up in the United States. My Navy career was in Asia. And then settled in Colorado and Texas and then figured things out from there. Started the business because I didn't know it was supposed to be hard. And this is a great lesson I think that I learned along the way was if you don't know it's supposed to be hard, you just start the doing and then you figure it out along the way.

Mary Kelly
11:44 - 11:48
And what's important for that is, oh I know there's gonna be music.

Spencer Horn
11:48 - 11:51
No no no music, no no music, keep going.

Mary Kelly
11:51 - 12:20
Not yet, okay. When you don't know it's supposed to be hard, you're kind of unstoppable because you nothing, you don't see the obstacles as Mount Everest, You see the obstacles as the speed bumps they are. And this is where I think a lot of people get hung up is they'll come up to an obstacle and they see it as Mount Everest, not as this little speed bump. Oh, we'll just get around that. Oh, you don't have financing? Okay. All right. How are you going to get around that? You don't have any knowledge of how this is going to work?

Mary Kelly
12:20 - 12:22
That's okay. How are you going to get around that? You don't have any clients? Okay.

Christian Napier
12:22 - 12:22
How are you going to get around that?

Speaker 4
12:22 - 12:23
You don't have any knowledge of how this is going to work? That's okay. How are you going to get around that? You don't

Mary Kelly
12:23 - 12:29
have any clients? Okay, how are you going to get around that? So again, I think if you don't know it's supposed to be hard, that ignorance is bliss.

Spencer Horn
12:30 - 12:42
But it also is a mindset that actually helps you. And that's really interesting. And I remember you talking about the fact that when you were in the Navy, those books you wrote, those are no longer your IP, right? The Navy owns them.

Mary Kelly
12:42 - 12:59
Oh, no. Oh, no. I was on active duty when I wrote those books. So the Navy owns them as they should. You know, when you are a public servant, our work belongs to the public. And yeah, so I love that a thousand midshipmen a year are being told to buy a book that they will probably never read.

Spencer Horn
13:00 - 13:12
But you were being paid for those speeches as more of your just overall salary. And now it's different and you're like, I can actually get paid for my IP and speaking.

Mary Kelly
13:14 - 13:43
Well speaking for the Navy was never a job for me. It was just this thing where they call up and go, hey, it's Friday night, can you go do a talk for this group of people? I had a normal Navy job. The speaking was just something I liked to do and I was willing to do it. And because a lot of people, they don't want to spend their Friday night at somebody else's event when they're not being paid for it. Or they don't want to craft a speech that somebody's gonna hear once. Or a lot of people, I know, crazy Spencer, they don't like speaking in front of people.

Spencer Horn
13:45 - 13:54
Now our friend Christian, I know you've got questions, but I dragged him into the speaking world in NSA a couple of years ago.

Mary Kelly
13:54 - 13:55
I love it.

Christian Napier
13:56 - 14:38
I've got a few questions. Of course I have questions because Mary, you're fascinating. I'm curious, coming out of the military and having all of this experience, and based on your bio, a very broad base experience, how did you find your focus, you know, when you come into the private sector? Because you could talk about many different things, but how did you end up settling on this idea of, I don't know how it aligns with what we're talking about today, but these powerhouse teams, powerhouse productivity, How did you end up kind of finding your place? Because you could go many different directions.

Mary Kelly
14:39 - 15:19
I was so fortunate, Christian, to have led multicultural teams in 9 different countries. So the team aspect of that was near and dear to my heart, but it was also my experience. And when you look at the broad umbrella that is leadership, first, very few people's jobs actually say, I'm the chief leadership officer. That's not how this works. It's just expected. And the problem with that is we don't teach it. We don't teach people how to be successful necessarily in leadership roles. Harvard says less than 50% of managers have ever gotten any managerial or leadership training, And yet we expect people to be successful.

Mary Kelly
15:20 - 15:55
And when people say, well, it should be obvious. Well, hang on, you wouldn't just hire an accountant who didn't have any accounting experience or education. And yet you'd expect them to be a good accountant, it just doesn't make any sense. But people just think leadership is like breathing, you're just supposed to pick it up naturally. When in fact, when you study it, there's a science, there are tactics, there's strategies behind it. And what makes good leaders is ever changing, ever evolving, and we as leaders have to be constantly changing and evolving with it. And this is why leadership is hard.

Mary Kelly
15:55 - 16:46
There's a lot of reasons why leadership is hard. But the first is we don't teach it. We don't help people be successful necessarily as leaders. And I figured that out in the military because we were so fortunate to get great leadership teaching and mentorship and leadership that you'd watch good leaders, you'd watch bad leaders, and you learn from both. Sometimes you learn more from the bad leaders than the good leaders, but you learn. And then when I realized in speaking to civilian organizations that they weren't teaching it so much, it wasn't a priority, and then it was costing them billions of dollars every year where their teams were not getting good communication, so they would go down a path, waste a lot of resources, and it would cost money.

Mary Kelly
16:46 - 17:30
Or there would be reworks in a factory and it would be costing hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Or there would be mistakes and people had to go back and start a year before where they were because mistakes were made along the way. And a lot of it wasn't due to technical issues, it was due to leadership issues. So I take the number side of an organization, the profits, the losses, all the econ forces, and I blend that together with the leadership. And all of a sudden this gave me this big umbrella and the spokes of the umbrella are leadership development, it's economic development, it's succession planning, it's strategic planning, it's teamwork, it's productivity.

Mary Kelly
17:30 - 17:37
It's all those spokes that go into what a great leader needs to be thinking about every day.

Spencer Horn
17:49 - 18:30
We've got lots of people that are weighing in. I just want to throw a few of these up here. Kevin Martin says, be the 1 who finds the summit while others find the path. Exhibit resilience and encourage others. That was to your earlier story that absolutely, Kevin, thank you for weighing in. And also, we have Brian Rogers. I don't, you know, great insight, just do and push through. So we love it when you sound off. So there's a lot of areas that you talked about that you help organizations. And the focus of this podcast is teamwork, which is 1 of the areas that you are absolutely expert in.

Spencer Horn
18:31 - 19:14
Mary, in my experience, so few teams are high performing. The data I have, and this is Harvard Business Review, actually last year in January released it said 8-9%. My data shows around 10% of teams worldwide are high performing. So in the civilian sector, you're exactly right. They are not investing, but some of them are, I mean, some organizations are, and they don't always do it very well. But if you think about all the stress and, and challenges that everybody's under, you talked about it even in your life story, everybody's got those challenges and it affects how people show up every day and a lot of people don't know how to deal with the stress and challenges that they have.

Spencer Horn
19:14 - 19:28
So we have these organizations where teamwork is really struggling. How do you really unlock that productivity? What are the barriers to team performance that you've seen and how do you address it?

Mary Kelly
19:29 - 20:14
I start with the top 4 and everybody has a list and I'll just share with you what my list is. My top 4 first is the purpose of the team. What is our purpose as a team? What is the purpose of the organization? And what is the purpose in our heart? What are we driven by intrinsically, extrinsically? So what is our purpose? So the team needs their own purpose. This is what we're going to do as part of this overall thing. That purpose drives what we're going to approach every single day. And then from that purpose, we're going to articulate very clear goals, things that we all understand we want to achieve, we're committed to achieving, and we're going to hold each other accountable for achieving.

Mary Kelly
20:15 - 20:57
Those 3 elements are critical when it comes time to goals. And with that, when we hold each other accountable, this strengthens number 3, which is the high degree of trust in and around a team. So I'm gonna jump off the train for just a second and let you know that my older brother, his wife, me, my husband, my sister, her husband, my younger brother, everybody's military in our family. What that means is, first off, we can all be perceived sometimes as being a little bit bossy, but even with each other, we will get together, talk in short, choppy sentences, tell each other what to do, direct each other, go get this, go get this done, can you do this, I want you to get this done.

Mary Kelly
20:58 - 21:36
The 4 of us together, my siblings and I, communicate very clearly, but also very directly. 2 things on that. Sometimes we don't say the nice words. We don't necessarily say please and thank you. I would encourage people to say please and thank you. But we're also very clear with each other because we know we don't have to worry about anybody's hurt feelings. Nobody is gonna get offended. It's us. There is such a high degree of trust and understanding with the 4 of us that we don't have to worry about things other teams have to worry about.

Mary Kelly
21:36 - 22:13
But you can only get to that high degree of trust if you have been together and completely understand each other and you know you're all working toward the same thing. So I use my siblings as an example of a super high degree of trust. When you don't have that high degree of trust or when you're building to get to a high degree of trust, you have to say more words. You need the please and the thank you and the will you help me and this is happening because and all those extra words. So high degrees of trust, this is something teams have to have.

Mary Kelly
22:13 - 22:22
It's sorely lacking in so many areas and it's something that everybody has to be really mindful of. And then,

Spencer Horn
22:22 - 22:56
yeah. It makes having disagreement, which is bound to happen, very, very difficult because Most teams struggle with conflict. Conflict can be very productive, very helpful, and if it's done the right way, and I'm using the word conflict on purpose. Really, that's just disagreements in how we do things. And differing ideas can raise those, you talk to me in a, without that trust, those conflicts explode and become a huge anchor and time waster, don't you think?

Mary Kelly
22:57 - 23:34
I do, and partly because When you don't know the other person well, you don't know if they've got your best interests in mind. You don't know if they believe in the purpose the way you do. You just don't know. When you have a high degree of trust, it's assumed. It's beyond assumed. So when my siblings and I talk to each other, you know, I travel like you do, and let's say I'm arriving in your city of Salt Lake City, I don't send the text back that says, hey, everybody got to Salt Lake City, gonna see my friend Spencer Horn, it's gonna be so great, So excited to see the beautiful mountains out here.

Mary Kelly
23:34 - 24:08
They're just the best mountains in the world. Excited about the program tomorrow. Love you. No, that is not what I text to my siblings. They get 6 letters. They get SOD. SOD in the Navy is when a plane lands on a carrier deck, it's called SOD, safe on deck. When a helicopter lands, safe on deck. The deck is the carrier deck. So SOD means I'm here, everything's good. It's, cause if you're texting, that's implied. And then the airport code, SLT, Salt Lake City. Or it could be ATL, Atlanta, DFW, Dallas, BNA, Nashville. They get 6 letters.

Mary Kelly
24:08 - 24:46
And that to us is perfect communication. When you have clear communication that works for the team, you're not going to have the misunderstandings on the stupid stuff. And see, a lot of people misunderstand things based on stupid stuff. Oh, I didn't like the way Spencer, you know, signed off his last email. He didn't put, have a good day. He just put Spencer, so he must be mad at me. Hang on, what? Stop getting offended by things that don't need to take offense. No, stop it. Be clear with your communication, have a high degree of trust, and a lot of those dumb misunderstandings simply go away.

Mary Kelly
24:47 - 25:26
I love it sometimes when I can get leaders of an organization together and I ask the question, I say, can we just all agree that we're not going to get upset over stupid things? And they're all like, oh, that would be a good rule. I get to do some strategic board work as you know, and sometimes I do strategic board work for cities, so they've just come off a campaign where they've said terrible things about each other and now they're going to work together as a team. This is a challenge. And 1 of the things I say is, we are going to forget, conveniently, everything we've all said negative about anybody in the past, and we're gonna move forward.

Mary Kelly
25:26 - 26:06
And we will agree now that we are not going to get offended by a misunderstanding. We agree to not be offended by stupid things, and in fact, we are going to default to the good. If there's 2 ways to interpret something, we are going to choose to interpret it in a supportive, kind, productive way. Now think about if you're in a relationship with somebody and you say, baby if there's 2 ways to interpret anything I've said can you just please do me a favor and interpret it in a kind, supportive, and productive way instead of another way, that would solve a lot of problems.

Christian Napier
26:11 - 26:13
Oh, Spencer, you're muted.

Mary Kelly
26:14 - 26:22
And By the way, I have worked with some of the ABCs in Texas and Michigan and the National. So hello, ABC Utah.

Spencer Horn
26:22 - 26:27
I was just throwing it up there because I thought she could see that and be excited because they are sounding.

Mary Kelly
26:27 - 26:28
Yeah, I am. It's the Association of Elders

Spencer Horn
26:28 - 26:38
and Competencies. They are sounding. Hey, Teresa, thanks for chiming in. I'm so glad that you're listening. Go ahead. Keep going, Mary. I know you got to number 4 yet.

Mary Kelly
26:39 - 27:16
Yeah, yeah. And number 4 is that communication. Let's make sure we're communicating first in a way that works for other people. Let me give you an example. My sister-in-law, the non-military 1, was a school teacher. And I will tell you that I went to school with her 1 day to see her classroom and see her kids, and they're so cute. And we walk in and there's all these little people and first off, the noise level is deafening. And they make, little children make this shrieking sound. It's crazy. And then they're running all around and I'm thinking, this is chaos that's, you know, makes warfare look orderly.

Mary Kelly
27:16 - 27:58
And she smiles and she claps her hands and they all line up. I'm like, how did you do it? That's magic. And she looked at me and she says, oh, I just have to communicate the way they learn. Wouldn't it be great if we all communicated in a way that other people understood instead of what we normally do, which is communicate in a way that is going on in our own head? I don't know about you, but sometimes I will use the SARS Fiverr or Upwork, And when you have to really explain things well to somebody else, because they're probably using a language translation app or something else, you have to say more words.

Mary Kelly
27:59 - 28:31
And I don't know about you, but around the people you're comfortable with, sometimes there's a tendency to not say all the words, to not communicate in a way that works for them. You're communicating in the shorthand that is going on in your brain. And unfortunately, sometimes the more comfortable we are with certain people at work, the more shorthand our communication becomes. And this is something to guard against. Even with my own siblings, I'm like, hang on, I think I understood this, but let me just make sure you've got this and I've got this. Is that right?

Mary Kelly
28:31 - 28:45
And they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm like, okay, just making sure. Sometimes we just have to double check ourselves, which means checking ourselves, and we have to communicate in a way that works for other people, not in a way that works for us.

Christian Napier
28:49 - 28:52
Okay, I don't know if Spencer's going to be playing Sounders or what he's getting.

Spencer Horn
28:52 - 28:57
No, it totally messed up on me. And look at this, we've got this.

Christian Napier
28:57 - 28:59
We've got Spencer's doppelganger here.

Mary Kelly
29:00 - 29:04
I love it. More Spencer, more time, more cowbell.

Spencer Horn
29:05 - 29:12
Somehow it messed up. I went to do the sounder and you know how I have to download it all the time, Krishna, go ahead and ask your question while I try to

Christian Napier
29:12 - 29:57
fix that. Okay, so it's kind of a comment slash question, right? And it goes back to the communication thing. So I work in IT and I work in AI for the state of Utah. And there's been a lot of emphasis on generative AI and this term prompt engineering, right? Prompt engineering is, okay I've got to figure out how I tell the AI to do things so I get what I want because sometimes the AI is is like a little kid doesn't really understand what you want, right? So there's a lot of training that's going into prompt engineering and how you communicate with an AI and how you're going to state things and so on and so forth.

Christian Napier
29:58 - 30:38
My view is, I actually think that's a really helpful exercise for actual human beings. What if we approach the way we communicate with human beings the way that we are looking at trying to communicate with AI? It's like, oh, be clear and concise to your point. Have a clear objective. Understand their persona, et cetera. Provide context. Give examples. These are all kind of tenets of prompt engineering. And I just found it a little interesting as I've been going through this with AI. You know what? I think these are great ideas. Why don't we do this with real people?

Christian Napier
30:39 - 31:00
You know? To your point, like, oh, we just have a lot of assumptions in our brain and so much goes unsaid. And then when we ask them to do something, they come back 2 weeks later with work that doesn't, it doesn't match any of our expectations. We wonder why that is and it's because we're just not communicating clearly. I'm just curious your thoughts on that.

Mary Kelly
31:01 - 31:38
First I love AI. I've been using forms of AI for a long, long time. I was excited when things became free. I still use paid versions of AI. I think it's a great tool, but like any great tool, it's only as good as the person operating the tool. And many people are worried that their jobs are gonna be taken by AI, and some jobs can be streamlined, and that's good. But mostly, AI is making people more efficient and effective, it doesn't mean it's perfect, especially, I'm just gonna say, anything financial or any statistics, you need to double check that a few times, I'm just saying.

Mary Kelly
31:38 - 32:24
But it can be very, very helpful. AI is not the magic bean for all workplace issues. It's great, it's a great tool, but again it's in the user. So when the best advice I got for using my AI was to treat it like a new intern. And it's things like, okay now on to a new project, are you ready? And it comes back and says I'm ready Mary, I'm here for you. I'm like, okay, here we go. It makes me say more of the words, and it helps me articulate the problem. Then sometimes I'll tell the AI, I'm not exactly sure what I need to do in this situation, do you have any ideas?

Mary Kelly
32:24 - 32:54
And it will come up with some ideas. Well, hang on, a lot of times as leaders, we don't do that with our teams. We don't say, hey, I'm not exactly sure the best way forward, do you have any ideas. And wouldn't it be great if we took some of those again, those prompts from what we're using with AI and turned it back on our teams and said, hey team, I need to not talk so much today. I really need to listen to your ideas a little bit better. And can we go around and talk to me about what you think we should do about this issue?

Mary Kelly
32:54 - 33:29
Or how can we best solve this problem? Or what are we going to agree on today? What are we going to get done today? The other thing I like about conversing with my AI systems is if I don't keep paying attention to it, it just stops. It just stops. It just sits there and looks at you. And then there's a little button that says, please continue. Oh, it wants to make sure I'm giving it attention. Kind of like a house plant or my dog. It needs attention. And sometimes leaders don't give their team members the attention they need to keep them going.

Mary Kelly
33:30 - 33:31
And that's a good lesson for us too.

Spencer Horn
33:41 - 33:58
Mary do you ever see with those leaders when they come into the room that a lot of times it actually shuts down the communication. When you're talking about they need to pull it out from the team because they want to defer to the leader. And that can be problematic for getting those ideas.

Mary Kelly
34:00 - 34:40
So Simon Sinek's the 1 who made this famous, you know, leaders eat last. The Marine Corps and the military has been doing that for forever. Leaders talk last. That's critical in a meeting. The leader needs to introduce the issue, turn it over, ideally turn it over to somebody else who's the expert and then be quiet. Because if you're always the 1 saying, okay, I think what we need to do is, people will expect that and they stop thinking. Or worse, they think nobody's gonna listen to me anyway, so I just won't say anything. I had jobs in the military and somebody said, what's your job like?

Mary Kelly
34:40 - 35:13
And I would say things like, my ideas are shot down like a clay pigeon, or I've been told to take my crayons and go color, which basically means we don't want you to think too hard, just go do something. And I felt like nobody cared that I was thinking, Nobody cared that I had a better idea. I walked into 1 boss and I said, I think I can save like a million dollars on the budget. And he looked at me and he goes, but I don't care about saving money in the budget. And I'm like, I view every 1 of these dollars as my tax dollars.

Mary Kelly
35:13 - 35:42
I said, if you don't care about this budget, I go, I'm just gonna take over the budget and save tax dollars. He goes, all right, if you want to do that, that's fine. And I was like, OK, like, like, like, I mean, there's moments like that. There were, you know, these I mean, obviously there's a bad examples, but then there are others where my boss would come in and go, yeah, we just got handed this new thing. I don't even have time to think about it. Here, it's yours. And all of a sudden, it's your ball.

Mary Kelly
35:42 - 36:05
That quarterback just threw you that ball. You got to start running and you got to pick a direction and figure out where to go. And I will share with you, sometimes you are zigging and sometimes you're zagging and sometimes you just get tackled. But once you get that thing, you go with it. And that's where I think a lot of leaders either don't understand that sometimes their job is decide, delegate, and disappear. But sometimes... Give it

Spencer Horn
36:05 - 36:06
all away. Give it away.

Mary Kelly
36:07 - 36:37
Give it away. And sometimes my leaders say, well, but you know, I'm such a control person. What if they don't do it the way I want? And I always say, what if it's better? What if their ideas are better than yours? You and I both know, Spencer, that I'm fond of saying I'm not the smartest person in the barn even if I'm alone with the horses. Because as soon as you start thinking you have all the answers as a leader, you have set yourself up for failure.

Spencer Horn
36:38 - 37:17
I, so that's why I have Christian on the show. I want people on the show smarter than me and it just elevates everything. I know it's hard on him, but for me, it's wonderful. So I got many comment, there are many comments that I want to share. Let me just highlight a couple. Here is Jeff. Jeff is a great, great man, wonderful individual. High degrees of trust is a factor in clear communication for high-performing teams. Great discussion. Thanks for sounding off. Here's some kudos for you, Mary, again from Brian. I have 1 question about number 2, clear goals.

Spencer Horn
37:18 - 37:36
You talked about the importance of holding each other accountable, which also, by the way, takes trust, because I wanna hear from your perspective how you do that. What is your, what's the Mary Kelly way of holding each other accountable? Because I think sometimes that can be messed up.

Mary Kelly
37:37 - 38:13
Oh, certainly. I will tell you and I will share cheerfully with all your listeners. And I know we've got a call for this at the end, but I use a 12 month planner. I designed it because there were not enough sheets in my day planner and day runner packages and they were costing me a small fortune. So I created the 12 month business success and accountability planner. I shared this with the Mountain West chapter when I was there, and I use it every single month, every single day. What it does is it takes, it's 2 pages that map out your month, and the first thing is, what are your top 5 goals for the month?

Mary Kelly
38:13 - 38:43
Not for the year, the month. So let's say you're going to accomplish something in February, that goes in February's goals. If it's something you want to get done in March, that gets pushed into March. Because many of my busy people, and let's face it, we're all busy. We are walking around with to-do lists that are 17 pages long. That does not help us be more productive. So my system is my 12-month planner. Everybody here will get a copy of this today, totally free. And it asks you to write down your top 5 goals for the month.

Mary Kelly
38:43 - 39:11
And then most importantly, it asks you to share them with your team members. Share them with your boss. It's a great exercise. You walk into your boss's office and say, hey, boss, it's January. Here's my top 5 goals for the month. Do these align with your goals for the month? And then your boss is frantically thinking, do I have goals for the month? What are my goals for the month? I should have goals. And all of a sudden they say, hang on, let me get back to you tomorrow on that, but let me look at your goals.

Mary Kelly
39:11 - 39:49
And then they can say, your number 2 is my top priority. Your number 3 is my top priority, I don't care about number 4, 5 and 1 are nice to dos. All of a sudden you have clear communication and better guidance from your boss and then you refine those goals and then you work on those goals. It would have been fantastic for me to find out if my behaviors, my actions, my thoughts were aligning with my boss's goals. Wouldn't that be lovely? And if you're the boss, wouldn't it be great if your people's actions and thoughts and behaviors aligned with what you want to accomplish that month, that would be amazing.

Mary Kelly
39:49 - 40:24
So let's say you want to increase your sales close rate by 5% this month. That goes on your top 5 goals. And then you go to your team and say, you know, our close rate has been a little slow lately. How can we achieve a 5% close rate higher than last month? And then listen to when they strategize and how they're going to strategize and then say, okay, so I'd like you to make this 1 of your top 5 goals for the month too. Now they have guidance and direction. It's magical stuff. Also in this 12-month planner it asks you what you want to do more of this month.

Mary Kelly
40:25 - 41:03
Now I have a planner for my personal side as well as my professional side but some people just use the same planner for both. That's perfectly fine And maybe you want to do more one-on-one conversations with your team members. Maybe you want more phone calls with clients. Maybe you want more social media, but you don't want to have to do it. That goes on that list. What do you want to do less of? What can you delegate? Now, quickly on the delegation, many of my leaders say, hey, I don't have anybody I can delegate this to, or I'm responsible for a lot of people, but it's not like I have my own personal assistant.

Mary Kelly
41:04 - 41:35
For those people, Spencer and Christian, I tell them you need a virtual assistant or a virtual assistant service. Someone who can support you with things that need to get done, but maybe you don't have anybody to delegate it to, but they need to get done. These virtual assistant services are magical. You send off, you say, hey, please take these 25 contacts, put them in an Excel spreadsheet. They send it back to you in a couple hours. Left to your own devices, you are never going to put those names in a spreadsheet, and then that means you're not going to call them.

Mary Kelly
41:35 - 42:11
That means they're not getting the follow-up. They're not getting from you what they need. So that's a disservice because maybe you don't like putting names in a spreadsheet. So think about the things that you don't want to do, and then find somebody else to do them. And then my sane leaders will say, but the company is not going to pay for that. No, it's your job. Get it done. And if you can pay a virtual assistant service or someone else $20 an hour to get these things done that you know that you're bad at doing and you procrastinate on and you kind of don't want to do anyway you should pay that and it's a bargain.

Mary Kelly
42:11 - 42:46
So get the things done and then the same 12-month planner I ask you to do things like, what are you going to streamline this month? What do you need to resolve this month? There's always something to resolve. And then what 3 people are you going to contact for advice? And this is great because when you start contacting your co-workers, your colleagues for advice, hey, you know, Christian, can I just get 5 minutes advice on this? First off, Christian feels needed, wanted, and appreciated by me. Doesn't take a lot of time and it strengthens our relationship.

Mary Kelly
42:47 - 43:16
And then when you do the same thing with your clients, not because you're trying to sell them something, but just to check in, hey, how did that meeting go this week? I was just thinking about you and wanted to check in. Now you are cultivating a relationship instead of just being a vendor and selling a product. So those are 2 blocks on the 12 month planner for the month as well. And again, you're gonna do this every month. And then you're gonna grade the month. How was this month at the end of the month? And most people say, it was okay.

Mary Kelly
43:16 - 43:48
Hang on. Well, what could have made it better? We ask the question. And then people say, well, hang on. I got to be on this great podcast in the middle of the month and that just made my whole month. That was fantastic. You're right. This was a great month. And then what did you learn this month? When you start tracking these things, and I use, I'm old school, I print it out, I use a pen, I take my 12-month planner, I print it out, I coil bind it, and I carry it around with me. It goes in my travel bag, it goes everywhere with me so that I stay on track.

Mary Kelly
43:48 - 44:10
And because I have told people what my goals are for the month, I expect them at the end of the month and beginning of the next month when we set our goals for the next month, I expect them to say, okay, how did we do in January with those goals? What happened? And I expect to be held accountable, but also I can look at their goals and hold them accountable too. And now we're working together,

Christian Napier
44:14 - 44:52
and that's good teamwork. I love this. I don't know if Spencer's trying to play music, but music's not coming. So I Want to follow up on the goal thing. I think this 12-month planner is great and I appreciate this offer And there's Spencer and his twin again But I want to ask you a question about the goals. I love this approach. It's really, really insightful. What do you do when there are conflicts in the goals? You know, so you've got your goals, or my team members have their goals, but I've got goals or my bosses have their goals.

Christian Napier
44:53 - 45:01
How do you go about the process of negotiating and settling and agreeing on goals if you're coming from different places?

Mary Kelly
45:02 - 45:36
Right. It's the same as deciding where to go to lunch. I like Thai food. I want Mexican food. I want Italian food. I want a sandwich. Everybody has different wants and needs depending upon the moment and what's going on in their life and what's going on in their job. That's good. The differences are the magic that is the glue that brings us together. So we say, great. So what we're coming together as a team, we're going to work on this. What do We all agree on is a goal. It may not be your highest priority, but what do we agree on as a goal?

Mary Kelly
45:36 - 46:07
Okay, so we've got some agreement, and then we need to ask the question to each other. What's most important to you right now, and then how can I best support you? See, this is where a lot of people stop. They go, oh, okay, well, Christian's working on that. That's nice. They don't ask the question, Christian, how can I help you? How can I help you support, be supportive of you with your goals? And then Christian has to think and say, hang on, maybe Mary could talk me through something. Maybe I could brainstorm with Mary. Maybe she could be helpful.

Mary Kelly
46:08 - 46:52
And all of a sudden you're problem solving with each other. We understand that there's gonna be differences. There's gonna be different opinions. There's gonna be, you know, exchanges. And sometimes that leads to a little bit of conflict. But when we take a step back and we keep our ego in check and say, how can I support you with your goals? Because I want, as a good team member, that's part of my job is helping you too, then we've got some mutual understanding and stronger relationships. But at the same time, you say, hang on, my goal, I've got this really important deadline on Thursday so where I'm gonna ask your help is please don't expect me to be working on that other thing before Friday morning.

Mary Kelly
46:52 - 47:32
People will understand that. What they won't understand is if you go, I just don't like it, so I'm just not going to do it. Yeah, That's a non-starter. And if you do have somebody on the team who operates that way, because let's face it, all teams have somebody who doesn't always want to play well with others, and that's perfectly fine. You say, look, I understand this is not your top priority, but we need you. And we need your expertise, so this is what we're going to ask you to do and then they go oh okay so you have to just say we understand it may not be your top priority it may not be your favorite thing to do we understand that but we still need you that's why you're on the team and this is our deadline.

Mary Kelly
47:32 - 48:17
Ooh, that's magic right there. Deadlines. A lot of times what happens in meetings is there are no deadlines, there's no assigned follow-up, there's no action items. So you know what happens after the meeting? Absolutely nothing. And then people perceive that the meetings are valueless because nothing good happened afterwards, nothing at all happened afterwards. And then they're not excited about showing up at the next meeting. When meetings are productive, When people walk away understanding what they have to do before the next meeting, when they understand very clearly that they're contributing to a higher purpose, when they understand very clearly that them achieving these goals also helps them achieve their own goals.

Mary Kelly
48:17 - 48:34
All of a sudden, meetings become something of not just an accountability tool to say, oh, you didn't get your stuff done, that was bad, but it's something to be proud of. Hey, I got these things done. And then you get to share accomplishments rather than getting scolded like a school child.

Spencer Horn
48:39 - 49:19
You know, Mary, I see managers and leaders that are delegating tasks and just say, I need you to do this, this and this, and there's no agreement gotten. So even in a meeting when an assignment is made, I believe there needs to be an agreement about what that deadline is, not just this is the deadline. It's when can you do it? And they'll say, well, I can do it in 2 weeks. Well, if you really pushed yourself, how quickly could you get it done? Well, I could get it done in this week. Okay, now they own that deadline rather than you dropping that on them.

Spencer Horn
49:19 - 49:48
We are so running out of time, Christian, and I have so much that I want to ask Mary. Mary, a couple of things. I want to bring in your expertise, your economic expertise, and also your focus on resilience. And I think those things are related because there's so much uncertainty going on right now. How do teams from your experience develop the characteristics of resilience that they need to deal with so much the uncertainty that's going on right now?

Mary Kelly
49:50 - 50:30
Resiliency to me is something that is developed over time. I don't remember who gave the example. I'm not the 1 who thought of it. But if you take, remember those red rubber balls, we played dodge ball as a kid and we would wing them at the kid we didn't like in school. And you get hit in the head a few times and, well, they hurt, they actually hurt. But those red rubber balls, when you throw them really hard on the ground, they bounce up higher. And I think people are actually like that. When people, when you exert a force on people, they tend to bounce back stronger, better, more productive, more insightful, if they've learned resilience.

Mary Kelly
50:30 - 51:04
Other people, if you take a glass ball and you just drop it, you don't even have to throw it, you just drop it, it shatters in a million pieces. That's a lack of resiliency. We are not helping our children or our young workers by coddling them or guarding them from all the dangers of the workplace. They have to develop some resilience on their own, which means they need challenges. They might need some help overcoming those challenges, but once you do it, it builds confidence. And then once you know you can do it, it's no longer something to be scared of.

Mary Kelly
51:05 - 51:50
I'll just give you an example in the Navy. When we graduated from the Academy, you had to jump off a 10-meter tower. Now, if you're a swimmer or a diver, a 10-meter tower is nothing to you. But for the rest of us who'd never even climbed up a 10 meter tower before, you're looking down 10 meters and then you're seeing the other 30 feet of water that's clear in the bottom of the pool. So you see that that extra 30 feet and it looks really really high. And you look down and you don't see the surface of the water you see the bottom of the pool it's scary but jumping off that tower was 1 of the requirements before you could graduate and frankly a lot of people every year didn't do it but once And once you think about doing it, you're like, well, how scary, it's over in a couple of seconds, how bad can it be?

Mary Kelly
51:50 - 52:19
So that's 1 approach for getting over it. But I'll tell you my approach for getting over it, which I'm not terribly proud of. I go out, I climb the thing, I get to the top of the tower and they sent us to jump in twos. And I look over at the person who's jumping on the other side of the platform, and sure enough, it was a guy I knew out of Dallas, Texas. I knew his parents, and all I could think of was, if I don't jump, he's gonna tell his parents that I chickened out.

Mary Kelly
52:19 - 52:45
So I crossed my arms, took the step, jumped off the tower, because I didn't want the embarrassment of his telling his mama that I didn't jump off the tower. And then you get in the water, I know it's like the stupidest thing ever, And then I get in the water and then you go, oh, I did it. And all of a sudden you realize you can do it and then you're not scared to do it again. I'm not gonna say, I was like, woo-hoo, let's go do it again, that was really fun. No, that wasn't me, but I knew I could do it.

Mary Kelly
52:45 - 52:56
And then I wasn't scared of it. And then, so years later, we're at like our 20th or 30th year reunion. And I said, Jason, and you know, he still lives in- Got the

Spencer Horn
52:56 - 52:57
guy on the other tower?

Mary Kelly
52:58 - 53:26
Yeah, Jason Cronin, the guy on the other side. And he still lives in Annapolis. Jason, if you're listening, hey, Jason. And I said, I said, Jason, I need to tell you, you're the reason I jumped off that tower because if it had been, you know, any 1 of our other 900 classmates, I wouldn't have worried about them telling their mama that I chickened out. He goes, Mary, he goes, the only reason I jumped cause I didn't want you telling your mom that I chicken So, you know sometimes resiliency comes Resiliency comes from the doing it comes

Spencer Horn
53:26 - 53:29
from stretches. I'm it's just a little bit beyond what you're comfortable

Mary Kelly
53:30 - 54:11
Yep, just just being pushed against the floor so that ball bounces. And this is where I think COVID taught us a lot of people were failing resiliency because we're trying so hard to make things easy for people that we forgot that they're tougher than we think. A friend of mine just had a baby. I know I'm at that age where I don't go to a lot of baby showers because most of my friends already did all that, got the t-shirt, checked the block. But babies are tough. You know, they're so scared. I mean, but you look at this little 789 pound baby and they're remarkably resilient little creatures and you're thinking that baby is tough that baby's just gone through a process you know they're tough people are tougher than they then we give them credit for

Spencer Horn
54:11 - 54:18
that's why they grow so quickly yeah They're not afraid to deal with all the falling down.

Mary Kelly
54:20 - 54:33
Yup, and I tell parents this, I say, you know what, I know you wanna protect your baby, you know, when they start learning how to walk from the table edges and the falls and all that other stuff. But if you carry them every day of their life, that's not going to be pretty at prom.

Spencer Horn
54:36 - 54:39
Christian. Well,

Christian Napier
54:41 - 54:47
we've gone almost an hour and I feel like I've got at least 25 more questions I want to ask. I do too.

Spencer Horn
54:47 - 54:47
I do

Christian Napier
54:47 - 55:18
too. I wish we had more time, but Mary, this has been a fascinating conversation and I am so grateful for you being so generous with your time and also with the planner. And so we'll make sure that we provide all the relevant links. But if people want to learn more about how you might be able to help them, either individually or in their organization's team, to become the leaders that they were meant to become, What's the best way for them to reach out and connect with you?

Mary Kelly
55:19 - 56:04
My website is ProductiveLeaders.com and for resources I have ProductiveLeaders.com forward slash podcast. Just for your podcast listeners, the 12 month planner's there. So ProductiveLeaders.com forward slash podcast or forward slash free. There's a bunch of free resources for leaders on that site. If you want to send me a note, it's Mary at ProductiveLeaders.com. On LinkedIn, it's Dr. Dr. Mary Kelly. And I would love to connect with you any way possible. If you've just got a question on anything or you're like, hey, I've got a challenge, I have about 80 of these five-minute solutions. They're 1 page and they tackle individual problems people are having on a day-to-day basis.

Mary Kelly
56:05 - 56:18
So it could be productivity, resiliency, focus, meetings, conflict, employee engagement. I've got about 80 of these forms because again, lots of people are struggling with the same things and it just gives them solutions. So if there's anything

Spencer Horn
56:18 - 56:36
that- I recommend follow Mary on LinkedIn because she's always releasing great articles and great short form content for problems. It's fantastic. So Listen, Christian, I don't need to share any of my content. I'd rather give a minute to Mary to talk about the dolphin.

Mary Kelly
56:37 - 57:08
Okay, so the dolphin story real fast. I love animals, as you know, and back in the day, my husband came home and said, do you want to go swim with the dolphins, the military training dolphins? He was doing a little work with them. And I said, oh, that'd be great. So we are going to go into Pearl Harbor and we're going to simulate like we're the bad guys in Pearl Harbor and the dolphins are going to find us. Now the dolphins think this is the best game ever. So there's this thing that we're swimming with, and there's this thing that they're on our chest.

Mary Kelly
57:08 - 57:36
And what happens is the dolphins have this thing on their nose. And this is a big game for the dolphins. And when they find you, the swimmer, they're supposed to tag you on the chest and it releases dye, you know that like the flare kind of dye, so that we can see that there's a bad guy in the water and then the dolphins get a treat and they get all excited. They like make all the noises afterwards like, okay, so I was thinking this is gonna be like this fun game, the dolphins gonna come up and I'm gonna play with the dolphin and it's gonna be like like SeaWorld.

Mary Kelly
57:37 - 58:12
No. So we're in the water. I should mention it is dark. It is cold. The water is dirty. It is stinky. And so you're swimming around and you're pretending to be a bad guy, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, something comes up and goes, bam, right in my chest. Knocks the wind out of me, pushes me back, salt water goes in my mouth, and the dolphin's going, hee, hee, hee, hee, The flares go up. Yeah, swimming with a dolphin was getting smacked in the chest really hard by this big buoy. So yeah, that was my experience swimming with the dolphins.

Spencer Horn
58:13 - 58:16
That's my time, Christian. You go ahead and close us out.

Christian Napier
58:17 - 58:47
Well, that's a great story about managing expectations. I love that story. We will wrap it up here. Folks follow Spencer on LinkedIn as well. Just go look up Spencer Horn on LinkedIn. Spencer's amazing. And please continue to join us. Like and subscribe to our podcast. Follow Mary. We'll have all the relevant links. And we will catch you again soon. Thank

Mary Kelly
59:00 - 59:01
you