Mastering Leadership Credibility with Steve Farber

Danyel McLellan [00:00:01]:

Welcome to the Agency Management Institute community, where you’ll learn how to grow and scale your business, attract and retain the best talent, make more money, and keep more of the money you make. The Build a Better Agency podcast presented by White Label IQ is packed with insights on how small to midsize agencies are getting things done. Bringing his 25 years of experience as both an agency owner and agency consultant, please welcome your host, Drew McLellan.

Drew McLellan [00:00:31]:

Hey everybody, Drew McLellan here with another episode of Build a Better Agency. I’ve been looking forward to this conversation for a long time. Today’s guest is literally the author of my favorite business book of all time, uh, which I’ll talk about in a second. So, uh, he’s got a brand new book out. It’s fantastic. I knew it would be. But I’m super excited to talk about it with him and to share it with you. So before I do that, just a reminder that we’ve got lots of great workshops coming up this fall. We are experimenting with some virtual workshops as well. So we’ve got a virtual workshop, a 1-day virtual workshop in September, October, November, and December to see if some of you like the virtual versions better than the coming to Denver for a couple days learning environment. So check those out at agencymanagementinstitute.com. Go to the How We Help tab, scroll down and you’ll see workshops and you’ll see all of them listed there. They’re focused on growing your existing clients, building a leadership team, getting your agency ready to sell, and building a sales machine. So those are the 4 topics for those 4 one-day virtual workshops. Hopefully they will be of value to many of you, uh, if you can do it in a day and not have to get on a plane. So that’s, that’s our experiment for this fall. All right, so my favorite business book of all time, without a doubt, uh, is a book called Radical Leap by Steve Farber. I’ve probably given it to thousands of people. I think it’s brilliant. I believe in it to my core. At AMI, um, our leading core belief is we lead with love, which comes directly out of the inspiration of that book and sort of how I feel about business, uh, and how we can show up for each other. even in a business setting. And so I was super excited when Steve reached out and let me know that he had written a new book called The Radical Promise. Steve’s books are business parables and written in a way that is unlike any other business parable. He really, it’s a very different experience to read a Steve Farber book. And so I believe this book, and we’ll talk about it more, uh, when we bring him on the show, but I believe this book is— super critical to this moment in time that we’re in. And we’re going to talk about why I think that’s so when we get with Steve. So without further ado, let’s welcome him to the show. Steve, welcome back to the podcast. It’s been a while.

Steve Farber [00:03:02]:

Drew, so great to be with you again, man. You’re right. It has been a while.

Drew McLellan [00:03:06]:

So what— since you’ve been with us, you’ve been kind of busy. Tell everybody what you’ve been doing.

Steve Farber [00:03:11]:

Yeah, it’s my main focus for the last several years, in addition to the, you know, the ongoing coaching and consulting and speaking that I do has been finishing this new book, The Radical Promise. And it’s been, it’s been a very cool thing to co-write a book with my, literally my most significant mentors without whom I would not have a career. So it’s been, it’s, it’s been quite a journey.

Drew McLellan [00:03:41]:

Yeah. So tell everybody who you co-wrote the book with. And then I want to jump right in because I have a ton of questions.

Steve Farber [00:03:49]:

Sure. So the book is called The Radical Promise: Mastering the Art of Doing What You Say You Will Do. If that doesn’t push your buttons, I don’t know what will. That’s right.

Danyel McLellan [00:03:58]:

Yeah.

Steve Farber [00:03:59]:

So my co-authors, Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner, are—

Drew McLellan [00:04:01]:

Legends.

Steve Farber [00:04:02]:

They’re legends. They’re legends in the leadership world.

Drew McLellan [00:04:08]:

Yes. Yeah.

Steve Farber [00:04:08]:

So, and as far as the world knows, these guys have been conducting the most significant body of research on leadership on the planet for 40 years now.

Drew McLellan [00:04:18]:

Yeah.

Steve Farber [00:04:18]:

Their flagship book, The Leadership Challenge, comes out in its 8th edition next year.

Drew McLellan [00:04:24]:

That’s crazy.

Steve Farber [00:04:25]:

And millions, they’ve sold millions of copies of that. And so that’s how the world knows them. And also through their assessment, the Leadership Practices Inventory or LPI, which has been taken by millions of people around the world, et cetera, et cetera. They’re significant to me, not just for those reasons, but because, well, Jim Kouzes, in particular was the guy who hired me at the Tom Peters Company in 1994.

Drew McLellan [00:04:51]:

Yeah.

Steve Farber [00:04:52]:

So he was the president of the Tom Peters Company back then, and he was the one who ultimately promoted me up to vice president of the company and has been just a great supporter, cheerleader, and everything else for me for such a long time. So to come full circle and write this book with them was really, really was that it was a full circle moment. And in a lot of ways it was, you know, my, my opportunity to pay tribute to them in a very up close and personal sort of way.

Drew McLellan [00:05:23]:

Well, what I love, you know, listeners of the podcast know that anytime anyone ever asks me my favorite, you know, business book, as you know, it’s The Radical Leap. It’s the, it’s, it’s your first, the way I got introduced to you many years ago. And this book just sort of follows the pattern of the business parable and the lessons. But, you know, as I was reading it, I was thinking, there, there is not a better moment in time for this book to have come out. So, you know, I think one of the hardest parts of running an agency is that your team is always watching you. Always.

Steve Farber [00:05:58]:

Always.

Drew McLellan [00:05:58]:

And, you know, not in a creepy hide-behind-the-plant sort of way, but in a, can I count—

Steve Farber [00:06:04]:

That too.

Drew McLellan [00:06:04]:

That too, perhaps. That’s right. Can I count on you? And I think as leaders today, how we show up and to answer that question is in a world when anybody can work for anybody anywhere on the planet, how is it that we inspire people to stay on our team and work with us and help us move our agency forward to serve our clients in the way we want to? The book gets to the absolute heart of that, which is How do I show up as a leader in a way that, to your point, where I keep my promises and they can count on me?

Steve Farber [00:06:41]:

Yeah, exactly. Well, you know, you put your finger on the, the foundational— I’ll call it discovery in Jim and Barry’s work— is that credibility is the foundation of leadership.

Drew McLellan [00:06:54]:

Yeah.

Steve Farber [00:06:55]:

And the way that they put it and we talk about in the book is if you don’t believe in the messenger, you won’t believe the message. So as leaders, we could be really good at talking a good game, right? But what people are judging us by, and I think judging is the right word, is the congruence between the words that they hear come out of our mouth and the actions that they see us engage in every day, right? So doing what you say you will do, you know, it sounds like, it sounds obvious. It sounds like a truism, you know, But it really is a very simple behavioral description of what credibility is. And without that, we’ve got nothing. It’s— you can’t— you can inspire somebody maybe for a few minutes.

Drew McLellan [00:07:42]:

Yeah.

Steve Farber [00:07:42]:

With words. But for people that you’re working with day in and day out, it’s all about the experience of working with you and what people are going to see from, from us every day. And they’re constantly going, well, okay, I hear, I hear what you’re saying. But am I seeing the evidence that you believe it to be true? And that evidence is, of course, the way you act in congruence with those words.

Drew McLellan [00:08:11]:

And like you say, it’s a truism in that, of course, of course, everyone wants to show up as a leader who can be counted on, whose, whose words and actions align. And yet, There are many leaders who accidentally train their team not to trust them. So how in the world do we get that wrong?

Steve Farber [00:08:32]:

Yeah. Oh, there’s so many reasons. Yeah. And, and I, and I think that it, that it is, you know, the word accidentally, that’s an interesting choice of words, Drew, because I think for the most part, I think that’s true. I don’t think there are many of us When I say us, I mean, you know, leaders in organizations that every day wake up in the morning and say, how am I gonna pull one over on these people today?

Drew McLellan [00:08:57]:

Right, right.

Steve Farber [00:08:57]:

Right? So my intention, my intention, I’m gonna assume is, is always to do what I say I’m gonna do. But intentions only go so far. So why don’t we follow through on what can be a genuine intention? I, this is the way I’m, I’m hearing that, that question. And I think there are a number of things to consider. One is let’s acknowledge that none of us is perfect and this is not about perfection. And, you know, the technical term for this dynamic is, for one of these dynamics is shit happens.

Danyel McLellan [00:09:33]:

Right.

Steve Farber [00:09:34]:

Right? So I might say something to you, make a commitment to you, a promise to you very sincerely with every intention of following through and something happens that disallows me from doing that. That’s going to happen to all of us.

Drew McLellan [00:09:48]:

Right.

Steve Farber [00:09:49]:

Which means that we have to be hypervigilant to follow through on everything that we say to the best of our ability. Right? And even then, sometimes it’s as simple as bad time management. I forgot. I, you know, there’s, There are a lot of reasons, but I think the most challenging one is this. And we talk about this in the book and it requires a certain level of awareness from all of us. A very certain level of awareness doesn’t quite get there. It requires a very deep level of self-awareness because oftentimes we make promises and commitments to other people that we don’t even know we made.

Drew McLellan [00:10:40]:

Right?

Steve Farber [00:10:41]:

So for example, if I say to you, hey, Drew, you know, I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be in Denver visiting my, my son and daughter-in-law in a couple of weeks, we should have lunch. And in my head, I’m thinking, or not.

Drew McLellan [00:10:55]:

Right, right.

Danyel McLellan [00:10:57]:

Right.

Drew McLellan [00:10:58]:

I already have a packed schedule. I’m not gonna have time.

Danyel McLellan [00:11:02]:

Right. Yeah.

Steve Farber [00:11:03]:

Yeah. But what you’re hearing likely is, oh, Farber’s gonna be in town, we’re gonna have lunch. And, and this kind of thing happens pretty much every day.

Drew McLellan [00:11:12]:

Yeah.

Steve Farber [00:11:12]:

People listen to us, maybe thinking out loud, maybe trying to be nice in the moment without really— we’re not really considering that even though we’re just kind of talking casually, they’re hearing it. As a contract, they’re hearing it as a commitment. So, what happens? We don’t follow through on a promise that we made because we don’t know that we ever made it to begin with.

Danyel McLellan [00:11:41]:

Right.

Steve Farber [00:11:41]:

So, what that requires of us is to speak with a contractual attitude because the rub in all this is even though I didn’t know I made that promise, When I don’t follow through on the promise that I didn’t know I made, it still damages my credibility.

Drew McLellan [00:12:00]:

Yeah.

Steve Farber [00:12:01]:

So we’ve gotta be really aware and, and, and, you know, it’s the old think before you speak kind of a thing. And from a leadership perspective, the higher esteem that person holds me in, the more likely they are to hear what I’m saying.

Drew McLellan [00:12:20]:

As a promise, right? Yeah.

Steve Farber [00:12:22]:

They really want it to be.

Drew McLellan [00:12:23]:

Right. Yeah. So, you know, one of the, one of the analogies in the book, and I think it’s Jim that makes it, is talking about how credibility is like baseball and that you only have so many strikes before you’re out, right? And that, you know, so as I was reading the book, I was thinking, you know, this is things for agency owners. Like we talk about how we, you know, there’s nothing more important than the team, but I’m always late to the internal meeting or I miss it altogether or, You know what, I’m promising role clarity, but then I step all over your role. Or, uh, I say, hey, I, I get up in front of an all-team meeting and go, you know what, we— profitability is important, so we’re gonna stop giving away our work. We’re super smart, we’re worth what we charge. And then I’m the one that does all the discounting on the back end to land the client. Or, you know what, hey, this is your project, I’m gonna step away, but then I can’t help get back in and micromanage. So, It’s not big things, but the things that I just rattled off, anybody listening to this podcast is guilty of at least one of them.

Steve Farber [00:13:27]:

Yeah.

Drew McLellan [00:13:27]:

Yeah. So talk a little bit about this idea of the strikes. And given that you said we’re not perfect, stuff happens, we’re going to make promises maybe that we don’t even recognize we’ve made. So we’re going to have some strikes. Yeah. How do I, how do I fix that?

Steve Farber [00:13:45]:

Yeah. So, so let me, let me just zoom out for a second because what you’re illustrating here, Drew, is doing what you say you will do happens on a lot of different levels. So the simplest level is I make a commitment to you and I either follow through or I, or I don’t. Okay. But what you’re also pointing out here is that it begs the question, to what degree am I doing the things that I say? you should do? And to what degree am I doing the things that I say we should do as an organization? So all of those examples that you mentioned are standards that we’ve set forth, and then I have to— that we’re all supposed to be doing. So then my question as a leader is, am I the walking, talking, living, breathing example of those very things?

Drew McLellan [00:14:36]:

Right.

Steve Farber [00:14:37]:

And the other place that shows up is in, you know, if your agency has this— I’m assuming everybody knows, at least they know they should have— is a statement of your values, right? You’ve articulated the values. These are the things that we say are important around here. Am I, as the leader of this joint, am I acting in a way that’s congruent with those values? Am I doing what we say we will do? So do what you say you will do. You know, the acronym we use is DWISYWD, which is pronounced DWISYWID.

Drew McLellan [00:15:11]:

Of course it is.

Steve Farber [00:15:12]:

Do what we say we will do. DWWD, you know, DWISYWID, a little harder to say, but am I doing what we say we will do? Right. So again, I don’t want to paint— I don’t want to paint a bleak picture here because when you start piling these things on top of each other, It begins to sound like an impossible task.

Drew McLellan [00:15:34]:

Right.

Steve Farber [00:15:35]:

But we have to remind ourselves once again, nobody is perfect. But the, the, the thing is, if I want to hold other people accountable, which is a huge problem in agencies. And that’s the way I typically hear the word accountability used, right? Accountability is that thing that we desperately want other people to take.

Drew McLellan [00:15:57]:

That’s right. I think it would be good for you Maybe not so much for me, right?

Steve Farber [00:16:02]:

These people, right, need to be more accountable, which may be true. But this is about holding ourselves ridiculously accountable to our own words so that we have the credibility to set the standard and demand that of other people. And the upside to that is, is tremendous. Because if we, if we can really And it’s just a matter of focus more than anything else. Awareness and focus. If we can consistently have that reputation of being a credible leader that people really believe in, it sets us way beyond the norm.

Drew McLellan [00:16:45]:

Yeah. And you know, the good news is the bar is low.

Steve Farber [00:16:49]:

Yeah. And you know me, I am the furthest thing from a cynic you’re ever going to find. So I don’t mean this to sound cynical, but, you know, I’ve been on this planet for a while and through my experience, I have come to realize this profound statement. People who consistently do what they say they will do are exceedingly rare.

Drew McLellan [00:17:12]:

Yeah.

Steve Farber [00:17:13]:

I wish it weren’t true, but it is. And therefore, for us, it means we have a tremendous Competitive advantage. If we can establish a reputation as, as a business, as an agency that does what they say they’re gonna do. And, and that comes all the way down to the, you know, me personally as a leader and everybody in, in the organization, in the enterprise. If we hold ourselves to that standard, given that we’re gonna screw up from time to time, we’re way, way ahead of the game.

Drew McLellan [00:17:45]:

Yeah.

Steve Farber [00:17:45]:

And it just, it just feels good on top of all of that.

Drew McLellan [00:17:49]:

And it, and it’s how we want to show up. I don’t, like, again, like we said at the top of the hour, no one is like, I would like to bamboozle my team members. I don’t think that’s how most leaders are. So we wanna show up and yet we have this drift that happens. So I think, I think it’s a little like New Year’s Eve, New Year’s resolutions, right? We all start out, we are going to the gym every day and you know, by February the gym is empty again.

Steve Farber [00:18:14]:

But yeah.

Drew McLellan [00:18:15]:

So the intentions are good, but there’s slippage. So talk a little bit about how do I fix the slippage? If it’s inevitable that I’m going to slip, how do I fix it?

Steve Farber [00:18:30]:

Yes. And you put your finger on another element of this, which is, I think, in a lot of ways, even more challenging for us. Am I following through on promises and commitments to myself, right? That’s the gym analogy because we break our commitments to ourselves.

Drew McLellan [00:18:50]:

All the time.

Steve Farber [00:18:51]:

All the— readily, easily, right? I know I’m overgeneralizing, but it does tend to be true.

Drew McLellan [00:18:57]:

Yeah.

Steve Farber [00:18:57]:

Why is that? Because there’s probably nobody more forgiving to ourselves than ourselves. So we can get away with that, right? So how do we avoid the slippage? For one thing, Again, it comes down to awareness. I think we have to do a little reflecting on where our say-do gaps are. Most of us have tendency in one area or another. So for me personally, the gaps that I encounter for myself between what I say and what I do arises from my tendency to say yes to people too readily because I’m a nice guy.

Drew McLellan [00:19:39]:

Right.

Steve Farber [00:19:40]:

And I might like the idea in the moment. So when somebody says to me, kind of the flip side of the, hey, we should have lunch kind of a thing. When somebody says to me, hey, what do you think of, you know, let’s write a book together. I’ll write the book. We can put your name on it. I go, yeah, sure.

Drew McLellan [00:19:57]:

Okay.

Steve Farber [00:19:59]:

Yeah, that sounds good. In the moment. So my becoming aware of that is changing the way that I show up in the moment. So I identified that gap for myself. So when I’m having that conversation with somebody, I’m very clear in the moment to not overcommit. So I recommend that people take a look at where their own personal say and do gaps are. And what you’re likely to find is that you have certain patterns. Like what I discovered in myself. And maybe your pattern has to do with, you know, bad time management. You’re not, you know, setting up your calendar appropriately to follow through on your promises and commitments. Maybe it’s— it could be any number of things. So to be aware of that. And the practice then is to try and experiment for a week and just keep a journal. Whether it’s pen and paper or electronic, whatever it is. And every day make a list of the promises that you made and the commitments that you made. And also, this is the hard part, make a list of the unintended promises and commitments that you made. So how do you do that? I just had a conversation with Drew. Afterwards, I’m going to sit back and go, okay, Was there anything that I said that he might have construed as a promise or a commitment?

Drew McLellan [00:21:25]:

By the way, Steve and I are writing a book together. It’s coming out in just like 2 months. It’s going to be awesome.

Steve Farber [00:21:30]:

Right? Yeah, exactly. And what you find yourself saying— I was just with a YPO group last week and we were talking about this and it was so funny because in the conversations afterwards, people would say, to each other, hey, you know, you know, we should blah, blah, blah. We should, we should XYZ. People are saying, is that a commitment?

Danyel McLellan [00:21:53]:

Right?

Steve Farber [00:21:54]:

Right.

Drew McLellan [00:21:55]:

Catching each other. Catching each other.

Steve Farber [00:21:55]:

Is that a commitment?

Drew McLellan [00:21:55]:

Right?

Steve Farber [00:21:56]:

Right. Oh, yes. Yes. That’s a commitment. So take it, do that self-analysis, take a little inventory for a week or so at the end of each day, you know, look at your promises and commitments, mark yourself, you know, did I check if I did it? Put in a little arrow to carry it over to the next day if you need to. And then at the end of the week, go back and look at it and say, okay, where did I follow through? Where did I fall off? Why did I fall off where I did? And what can I learn from that? And how— what can I change moving forward into next week that might close that gap a little bit more?

Drew McLellan [00:22:30]:

Yeah. You know, in the book, uh, we’re gonna take a break, but when we come back, in the book, I think, I think it’s Kat, who talks about, uh, contractual attitude. Yeah. Which is really what you’re talking about. So, yes, we, let’s take a quick break and then let’s come back about how do we strengthen our contractual attitude?

Steve Farber [00:22:51]:

Yeah.

Drew McLellan [00:22:51]:

Uh, so that we do show up the way we want. So we’ll be right back. Here’s the deal. If you don’t really understand your agency’s money, you are guessing your way through the hardest part of agency ownership. Money Matters is our 2-day workshop for agency owners, GMs, and finance leads who want simple, practical agency math they can actually use. You’ll learn a handful of financial benchmarks that matter, how to read the right reports, how to turn AGI up, how to increase utilization and turn staffing ratios into clear decisions about pricing, hiring, and profit. If you are ready to stop feeling blind around the numbers and start running a more profitable shop, grab your seat for Money Matters. We’re gonna get together on October 15th and 16th in Denver, and you can register at the Agency Management Institute website. All right, we are here with Steve Farber and we’re talking about his brand new book, which is really brilliant. It continues the, the legacy of great business parables that Steve has written over the course of his career, but we’re talking about this idea of having a contractual attitude. So frame that up for us from the, from the book.

Steve Farber [00:24:05]:

Yeah. So it again comes back to this awareness, this awareness thing. If it’s true that people are likely to construe what we say as a promise or contract, then we need to develop the, the habit of speaking as though everything that comes out of our mouth is a contract. The old, you know, saying, my word is my bond.

Drew McLellan [00:24:37]:

Right.

Steve Farber [00:24:38]:

To really take that literally and develop the attitude that says there’s no such thing as a casual promise or a casual commitment. And that is an attitudinal approach Right? It’s, first of all, I’m making a decision that that is going to be the standard that I set for myself. And then it comes back to that awareness. It’s, it’s, can I hear the words? Not only can I hear the words that are coming out of my mouth, but can I hear the words that are about to come out of my mouth? Because I want to make sure that I can follow through on whatever it is. And there’s nothing wrong with thinking out loud. There’s nothing wrong with dreaming with somebody. I’ve just got to be clear that that’s what we’re doing, right?

Danyel McLellan [00:25:22]:

Right.

Steve Farber [00:25:23]:

Let’s think out loud. Let’s imagine what if. And, you know, I’m not saying this is a promise or a commitment, but let’s explore it and see where that takes us. And so it’s not about being so cautious that we never brainstorm with anybody. It’s just being about really clear about the context. Is this— if my attitude is to speak contractually, then I just need to be hyper-aware of the conversations that I’m having. And it’s really, speaking from my own experience on this, it’s really not that hard once you decide to do it. It’s the deciding to do it that’s the challenge. And what I mean from my own personal experience, Drew, Let me put it this way. I had the idea for this book 10 years ago, and it just publishes on the day that we’re recording this. It just publishes today. Okay? I had the idea 10 years ago.

Drew McLellan [00:26:31]:

Why?

Steve Farber [00:26:32]:

It didn’t take me 10 years to write the book.

Drew McLellan [00:26:34]:

Right.

Steve Farber [00:26:34]:

It took me 10 years to make the decision to write the book.

Drew McLellan [00:26:41]:

Right.

Steve Farber [00:26:42]:

Because, I mean, I figure it this way. If I’m writing a book that advocates for people doing what they say they will do, I damn well be a pretty good example of that myself.

Drew McLellan [00:26:56]:

Right.

Steve Farber [00:26:56]:

And that was scary to me. It was like, I’m going to write a book that says, do what you say you will do. And then I was just imagining the, you know, the emails that I was getting from people. Hey, Farber, you told me you were going to call me yesterday at 10 o’clock and you didn’t, Mr. Do What You Say You Will Do Guy.

Drew McLellan [00:27:13]:

Right.

Steve Farber [00:27:14]:

So I had to come to terms with this before I even sat down to write it. And what I’m finding is because, and maybe it’s magnified a little bit for me, you know, as the co-author of this book, I’m finding that my awareness level has increased dramatically.

Drew McLellan [00:27:34]:

I’m sure.

Steve Farber [00:27:34]:

In the moment when I’m talking with people. And it feels really good because the other element to that is I’m thinking back and I said, I made a commitment to somebody that I would, let’s say, introduce them to a colleague of mine that I think would be helpful for them, which is things that I’ve done a lot over the years.

Drew McLellan [00:27:55]:

Sure.

Steve Farber [00:27:56]:

And things that I’ve suggested and not followed through on. Over the years, hey, you need to meet my friend Drew. I’m going to send an email and connect the two of you. You know, okay. And then sometimes I would, sometimes I wouldn’t. What I’m finding now is that the words that I keep hearing in my head are, because I said I would.

Drew McLellan [00:28:17]:

Yeah.

Steve Farber [00:28:18]:

Because I said I would. And I’m doing it a lot more often, not 100%, but I’m getting a lot better. And it feels so good. To know that, wow, I was just so reliable in that moment. Now, some people are listening to this right now and thinking, well, that’s, that’s obvious. I mean, I—

Drew McLellan [00:28:39]:

That’s table stakes, right?

Steve Farber [00:28:40]:

I always follow through on stuff like that. Sure, maybe you do, but there are other things, there are other gaps that you have that I don’t, and vice versa. So you need to find what those are.

Drew McLellan [00:28:53]:

Yeah.

Steve Farber [00:28:53]:

And try to close those.

Drew McLellan [00:28:54]:

You may be making promises you don’t even realize you’re making. So you keep the ones you know you’re making. Yeah. But maybe you, you’re not very aware of what, how your language or your body language is leaning in and making promises that you don’t even know are happening.

Steve Farber [00:29:08]:

Which, which gets back to the, uh, question that you asked earlier, you know, what, why, why don’t we follow through? And, and sometimes it’s because I said something in the moment that I really did intend to do. But as time goes on, I don’t feel quite so excited about it anymore.

Drew McLellan [00:29:24]:

Yeah, right, right.

Steve Farber [00:29:26]:

So, it’s doing what you say you will do even after the mood has passed.

Drew McLellan [00:29:31]:

Yeah.

Steve Farber [00:29:31]:

Right? Because I said I would. So, to say that, well, I don’t feel like it anymore, isn’t good enough.

Danyel McLellan [00:29:39]:

Right.

Steve Farber [00:29:40]:

It’s, I don’t feel like it anymore, but I said I would, so I will.

Drew McLellan [00:29:44]:

All of that’s great, but we know we’re going to screw up. And so, in the book, the character that we sort of follow along with and, and watch her learn this lesson is a character named Janice. So we are all gonna pull a Janice. We’re all gonna show up the way Janice does. So when we, when we realize that we have violated that, we, that we have not done what we said we were gonna do, especially with our team and especially in ways that are very public, like again, showing up on time for meetings is super important, but you’re the one that’s always 10 minutes late. Like, Everybody who’s listening has already thought about like, oh, okay, I, I got a couple of these. Drew’s ratted off, rattled off a couple of these. What’s the first step I need to take in rebuilding trust? So as people are listening to this, as they’re reading the book and they’re like, okay, maybe I’m not as good at this as I want to be. And I have some, I have some gaps to repair. I have some, I have some trust issues that I need to repair. How do we do that? And how do we do that in a way that doesn’t sound performative? Like, yeah, it’s just lip service.

Steve Farber [00:30:56]:

Right, right. It’s a great question. First of all, the power of the apology is something that you can never underestimate. And the idea, of course, is to create a scenario where we don’t have to apologize that often.

Danyel McLellan [00:31:12]:

Right.

Steve Farber [00:31:13]:

But, but to say, to somebody, you know, I said I was going to do XYZ, it didn’t happen, I’m sorry, let me make it up to you, uh, is, is a very, is a very important thing to do. Having said that, if I find myself apologizing too much, again, after a while my credibility is being damaged. It comes back to the, the strikes analogy, right? So strike one, I’m so sorry. It was a swing and a miss. I didn’t follow through. Happens again in another context. Strike 2. Oh, I did it again.

Drew McLellan [00:31:50]:

I know.

Steve Farber [00:31:50]:

I’m terribly sorry. Then strike 3, whether or not it was something that I personally didn’t follow through on or something happened that got in my way, strike 3, that’s it. There’s no turning. There’s no apology.

Drew McLellan [00:32:04]:

Right.

Steve Farber [00:32:05]:

That’s going to fix that. It’s like, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. And after a while it’s like, yeah, you are. You are the one sorry dude. Right? So that’s one thing. But to preempt that, there’s also, and I talked about this, you know, way back in The Radical Leap, there’s tremendous value in inviting people in on your own credibility journey.

Drew McLellan [00:32:29]:

Yeah.

Steve Farber [00:32:30]:

By asking for feedback. To say to your team, these are my intentions, this is my aspiration to be this credible leader and to follow through as close to 100% as I can get. How am I doing? And can you— I’m asking you to help hold me accountable to my own words and give me feedback along the way, and I will do the same for you. Because it’s a reciprocal sort of a thing, but leaders go first, right?

Drew McLellan [00:32:57]:

Right.

Steve Farber [00:32:58]:

So you ask for the feedback. instead of making assumptions. So there’s the, the more, uh, you can make this part of the collective conversation in, in your agency, in your, in your enterprise, it, it becomes— it, you know, on one level it’s kind of gamifying it, you know, in, in some way. Uh, but what a, what a great game to play. And, you know, winning, winning that game has— it’s, uh, There’s— it’s a big payoff.

Drew McLellan [00:33:28]:

Yeah. I mean, just the trust and the retention of your team and, and again, you setting the example so that they are more accountable as well. You holding yourself accountable first, and then you have the right— you’ve earned the right to hold them more accountable. But it’s interesting because one of the things I think that is true about all of your books, and I certainly have done in my organization, is I’m not a big, we have to have a book club sort of thing. That’s not sort of my model. I know that I read a lot more than a lot of my team members do, but I’ve made everybody on my team throughout the years read all of your books. And this book to me is a great book to read as a team and talk about how do we as an organization— because one of the things we haven’t talked about, and I probably need to have you come back so we can talk about it, but one of the things that we haven’t talked about is If I as a leader am credible and do what I say I’m gonna do, which then creates an environment where my team does what they say they’re gonna do, that very quickly translates to our relationships with clients and partners and all of that.

Danyel McLellan [00:34:35]:

Absolutely.

Drew McLellan [00:34:35]:

And we become known as an agency that honors their word and that, that, you know, my word is my bond kind of a thing. And in today’s world, where everything’s artificial and I’m not even sure I’m talking to a real human being, to talk to a human being who actually does what they say they’re gonna do, I think is a huge differentiator in the business world. And so this is, this gets exponentially bigger if we start with ourselves. We infect our team with this attitude and this belief and this commitment to be somebody who does what they say they’re gonna do. And now we as an organization, I mean, you, I can just see as I was reading the book, I can just see how this expands out in a way that has huge impact, financial impact on your business.

Steve Farber [00:35:25]:

No, no question about it. And, you know, the simple terminology that, that we use as business people is, uh, is the promise of our brand, right? I mean, that’s what it is. A brand is a promise. Of this is who we are as an organization, this is the service that we provide and the value that we provide, and we capture it in this catchphrase, logo, whatever. But, but it’s a promise. And to what degree are we as an organization doing business in a way that’s congruent with that, with that promise? So the solution to this isn’t isn’t to, well, let’s radically reduce the, the level of promise and commitment that we make so we can follow through on it. I mean, maybe we need to do that a little bit, but it, it’s about, can I continue to raise, raise the standards of excellence that we’re offering to the world and making sure that we’re following through on that? Which means that we have to, along the way, we have to develop everybody’s capacity to do that. It’s not simply enough to say we’re going to give a higher level of service that our customers are going to love. We have to be able to support people in their ability to deliver on that. So what, what additional training, coaching, etc., do we need to give people so that we can follow through on the promises? And let’s not make those promises until we’re really sure that people do have the capacity to live up to them. Including and starting with myself. Yeah. By the way, Drew, I wanted to say the style of the book is that parable novel style. And, you know, most of my books that I’ve written, I’ve written in that way. The Radical Leap, The Radical Edge, Greater Than Yourself were all written as parables. So in writing this book, I wanted to bring in some of the characters from that universe.

Drew McLellan [00:37:23]:

Yep.

Steve Farber [00:37:24]:

Which, which I did. So for people who have read, say, The Radical Leap, or any of those books, really, but let’s say The Radical Leap, you’re gonna, you’re gonna experience characters that you’ve experienced before. But it’s not a requirement.

Drew McLellan [00:37:37]:

Right? Right.

Steve Farber [00:37:38]:

You can just come in cold to this, and you’ll enjoy it. But the purpose behind writing, writing the meat of this as a story is, is to give to give the reader the experience of what it’s like to follow through and to not follow through.

Drew McLellan [00:37:59]:

Right.

Steve Farber [00:38:00]:

So the story arc is, you know, the main character Janice kind of loses sight of her own values. It takes the eye off, takes her eye off the ball. And, and it creates kind of a crack in the armor that falls apart. So that’s something that we all face to some degree or another. I’m not going to say necessarily every day, but certainly through the course of our careers. So to have the experience while you’re reading that and kind of feel it in your heart, it creates more of a desire to want to do something about it. And then there’s that action section in the back, the framework, the application.

Danyel McLellan [00:38:39]:

Right.

Steve Farber [00:38:40]:

You know, how do you put this into practice? So I think we’ve created a good experience that will Bring people along that inspiration scale, but not just leave them there.

Drew McLellan [00:38:48]:

Right. And tell them what to do. Right.

Steve Farber [00:38:50]:

Yeah. Now here’s, here’s what to do with it.

Drew McLellan [00:38:52]:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think so too. I think, I think the structure actually leads to my very next question is people are listening, they’re rec— they’re recognizing themselves as I’m sure they do when they read the book, like, oh, okay, maybe I am a little Janice-like in moments. I wanna be better at this. So we talked earlier about One of the first steps someone can take is to sort of do that journaling for about a week. So I’m going to jot down both my intentional and unintentional contracts and then score myself in terms of how many of those did I honor and which ones are still sort of left hanging.

Steve Farber [00:39:30]:

Right.

Drew McLellan [00:39:31]:

What are a couple other things I could do after listening to this episode to begin to elevate my my own awareness. So I’ve also heard you say I should say to my team, you know what, this is important to me. Read this book, realized that I have some room to grow here. Would love some feedback from you on how do I show up in terms of keeping my promises? What, what else could I do to start this journey? Because like all, like all, I think important skills like this, this is a lifelong journey.

Danyel McLellan [00:40:04]:

Yeah.

Drew McLellan [00:40:04]:

We are all, we are gonna continually try to be better at this. But I got to start somewhere, right? So I’m going to journal. I’m going to ask for some feedback. Is there one other thing that you would recommend that we do to start?

Steve Farber [00:40:18]:

Yeah, sure. There are, there are a number of things, but I think a really good place to start, and this is one of the, the elements of the framework that we talk about in the book, is start by really focusing on yourself. And this has been a theme of what we’ve been talking about in this conversation. Discover yourself means not, not just to identify your say and do gaps, but to do a deeper dive into what are your personal values as a leader. Now, you may have your, your organizational values like we talked about earlier, but, but for you personally, what, what, what’s the essence of your personal leadership philosophy? What do you say is important in the way that you live and operate? And I wouldn’t put, I would say as a human being, not as a business person or in your personal life, but as a human being, what are those values? Now, why is that important in the context of doing what you say you’ll do? Because I go back to, if I don’t believe in the messenger, I won’t believe the message.

Drew McLellan [00:41:31]:

Yeah.

Steve Farber [00:41:31]:

So what does the messenger, aka the leader, believe in? Can you answer that? And the degree to which you can answer it, the more you can hold yourself accountable to really acting in a way that’s congruent with those beliefs. So you’re starting by discovering yourself and then you could take it from there. to really looking at what are the values that we all share as an enterprise. So these are my values. What are your values? What are your values? What are your values? And then if I can uncover the values, not just because they’re on the wall in a, you know, on a laminated poster, right? But because I know you, I know you and I know you and I know you well enough To know what your values are, what’s important to you. And then we could find the values that we all share.

Drew McLellan [00:42:31]:

Yeah, the common.

Steve Farber [00:42:32]:

And so to shine the light on those and do whatever I can to, as we call it, affirm those shared values in the way that I show up every day. So just a couple more on the list. Yeah.

Drew McLellan [00:42:49]:

You know, I just feel, and I said this earlier, but I just feel like maybe one of the reasons why it took you so long to write the book is because the— I’m not sure the world has ever needed this book now more than right now. I just think we are in a plethora of ways, politically, technology-wise, where everybody is a little unsure of what’s real. And at the end of the day, somebody who does what they say they’re going to do feels real.

Steve Farber [00:43:18]:

Yeah.

Drew McLellan [00:43:18]:

Like, that is solid foundation I can count on. I know that that person is gonna be there and is gonna deliver what they say they’re gonna deliver. And I think that is a critical, critical moment for us as leaders, for us as human beings, for us as parents, as partners. It just feels like this, the moment for this book is now. And so, uh, I’m super glad that you wrote it and I’m super glad that we’re having the opportunity to talk about it because.

Danyel McLellan [00:43:48]:

Thank you.

Drew McLellan [00:43:49]:

I think it’s an area where we can all improve and create better connections with people that are more meaningful and deeper. And I think the world needs that right now.

Steve Farber [00:44:00]:

Uh, thank you for saying that. Uh, I’m inclined to agree. And in a world where we’re— we are not sure what’s real and what’s not, one thing we know pretty much for certain as at least as certain as any human being can be, is that we’re real. And can I show up in a way that, that shows other people how real I am in, in, in the way that the degree to which they can count on me?

Drew McLellan [00:44:37]:

Yeah.

Steve Farber [00:44:38]:

And part of that, you know, part of that realness is being imperfect. And part of it is setting the example that people know they can count on. So they’re not sitting back going like, as we do with AI, was that image AI or not? Is that—

Drew McLellan [00:44:55]:

Right. Are there 6 fingers?

Steve Farber [00:44:57]:

Is that article that I read AI generated or not? Is that real or not? Is that real or not? When they’re looking at us, we’ve asked that of other human beings. Are you for real?

Drew McLellan [00:45:09]:

Right.

Steve Farber [00:45:10]:

Are you for real? So we don’t want there to be any doubt that we’re for real in a world that is— so many things are questionable on that scale.

Drew McLellan [00:45:21]:

Agreed. Agreed. This has been a great conversation. And like I said, I, I’ll circle back and have you come back because there’s, there’s a much bigger picture to this that I want to dig into.

Steve Farber [00:45:33]:

And I—

Drew McLellan [00:45:34]:

we just don’t have time. But if people want to follow your work, if they want to hear from you, if they want to get a copy of the book, what’s the best way for them to track you down and to, to make contact?

Steve Farber [00:45:44]:

Yeah, I think a great place to start is just go to theradicalpromise.com, and you can, you can download a sample of the book, some other resources, and we’ll continue to, to add additional resources there. Um, we’re in the process right now, by the time somebody hears this, it might already be on there, of putting together a, a discussion guide. No, like you said, this is, this is something you could read with your team. You know, here’s, here’s a good way to approach it. So lots of resources will be available at theradicalpromise.com.

Drew McLellan [00:46:11]:

Awesome. Thank you for coming back. Thanks for writing the book. Thanks for, for inspiring us to be better leaders and really your whole career. But I think, I think this book really calls us at a completely different level. So thank you for, thanks for being a part of, part of our world. I appreciate it.

Steve Farber [00:46:29]:

Yeah, it’s a, it’s a real, it’s an honor, Drew. Always great to see you.

Drew McLellan [00:46:31]:

You too. All right guys, so Steve and I gave you your homework for this week. Do the journal, ask for the feedback, and really think about how you wanna show up as a human being. What are your core values that are really non-negotiable for you, and are you honoring them in that non-negotiable way? I think that is great homework for you, for your team. Have a conversation at home about this. I don’t think this is just about work. I think this is about our humanness and how we show up in the world. And so that’s your homework. Before I let you go, you know my last 2 things. Huge shout out and thank you to our friends at White Label IQ, the presenting sponsors. So as I told you at the top of the hour, you can check them out at whitelabeliq.com/ami. And I don’t get to hang out with friends like Steve and have these conversations as often if you’re not listening. So I am very, very grateful. that you keep coming back week after week. We’re coming up on episode 600 pretty soon. So we’ve been together for a while and I’m gonna keep coming back if you do. So thanks for listening and I’ll see you next week.

Danyel McLellan [00:47:33]:

That’s a wrap for this week’s episode of Build a Better Agency. Visit agencymanagementinstitute.com to check out our workshops, coaching and consulting packages, and all the other ways we serve agencies just like yours. Thanks for listening.