Kristiana Corona
Hello and welcome to the Worthy to Lead podcast. I'm your host, Kristiana Corona, and I'm so excited that you decided to join us today because I have an exciting special guest joining me. Welcome to the show, Patty.
Patty Shull
Well, thank you so much. Glad to be here.
Kristiana Corona
So before we jump into our conversation, I did want to give you just a brief introduction so you can learn a little bit more about Patty and why I really wanted her to be here. So our guest, Patty Shull is the founder of Leadership and Performance Company. With over 15 years of experience in the competitive world of executive consulting and coaching and advising, Patty offers something unique in the leadership development space.
So she has worked as a global change management consultant for Fortune 50 companies. And she's a trusted advisor to multiple C-suite multinationals. And she also coaches small businesses. So it's really great. She has this kind of full range of experience. Four of her clients set industry records thanks to the strategies that she brought to them about how they can lead their organizations differently. So Patty holds a master's degree in organization and human resource development. And she has a pretty impressive list of professional certifications.
which also includes the fact that she's certified in a groundbreaking performance improvement method that was created by Dr. David McClelland. And he's a Harvard University Professor Emeritus. And also she's a certified contractor using Korn Ferry, executive assessments, and programs. So I'm sure some of those names are things that you've heard of before. And I think what truly sets Patty apart is her unwavering commitment to craft.
So I know that that will really resonate with this audience as that is something that's really important to you all as well. And so she wasn't just striving for competence. She was really aiming for mastery.
It's like guiding leaders to become virtuosos. So this idea of virtuoso is something that's really new and interesting, and I'm excited to dive into it today. So we're going to talk about things from leading in the zone, so knowing how to draw that expertise when you need it, similar to maybe how you would see a jazz musician.
when they're just in the flow and they're just riffing and creating this beautiful music. We're going to talk about how she uses humor to break down barriers and open up important conversations. And then we're going to talk about why the best results for business actually happen when we're living in the present moment. And part of that is about being in our creative energy and letting go of the stress and the pressure of perfection.
And that one is really important to me. So I'm super excited for this conversation. I think you're going to learn a lot. With that, let's dive in and talk to Patty. So.
Patty Shull
Thank you for that wonderful introduction.
Kristiana Corona
My pleasure. My pleasure. I'm so glad to have you here. I really appreciate you taking time. I know you have a lot in your plate, so, I'm just going to dive right in. if we could just have you to kick off, tell, tell us a little bit more about your story and how you came to start the coaching and consulting business that you have today.
Patty Shull
Well, it started at a very, very early age. In fact, I grew up in a multi-generational family business, and most of my aunts and uncles were entrepreneurs. So without even knowing it, I was being homeschooled in business and the operations of business and the importance of customer and strategy and profitability. And my mother was a bookkeeper, and I'd watch her.
downstairs, going over the books. And so I was really immersed in work as family, in family as work, because we really were. And we often talk about our work family and how close those relationships become. So, you know, my grandfather was a...
beekeeper and my father grandfather and grandmother and siblings were in the retail grocery business Another aunt and uncle were in the prosthetics business. They advised President Reagan on soldiers and rehabilitation And another another aunt and uncle two aunt and uncles were farmers so Literally, I was on the in the farm
shoveling cow manure, and milking cows, watching the operations of the milk go to the grocery stores.
Kristiana Corona
my goodness. I can really relate to that, being that I grew up with a family of entrepreneurs as well. They were, but they were artists. So definitely, you know, small business owners doing all the things, trying to make ends meet, you know, and learning hands on what it looks like to run your own business. I think that's so valuable.
Patty Shull
It was, it totally was, and it was play. Like, let's watch grandpa go out and get the bees. And still today, if you go to the Kansas City farmers market, you'll see a stone in the wall that says, Mathis Bee Honey. So it was play as well.
Kristiana Corona
You came up with this theory about leading from the zone. and the way I interpret it, and I would love to hear if I'm interpreting it correctly is that leading from the zone is kind of like being in the flow, where you're just fully immersed in what you're doing creatively and that that helps you kind of transition, from.
just being an expert to being something more than that, what you would call a virtuoso. Can you talk a little bit more about like what that is all about?
Patty Shull
Yes. So, and I love this topic, being from the zone, living in the zone, working from the zone. So the way there's so much literature out there on flow states and it's all super helpful. What I saw is people would go into the zone and have great ideas. Time would disappear. They'd be at their best. However, they had skipped some steps of actually being a
fully competent or expert leader first. So you can enter into the states of flow or the zone, but not have that foundation of competency as a leader. And that's where my studies with Dr. David McClellan, who has passed now, but he was professor emeritus at Harvard University. And the place that I start with all my clients is have you ever been assessed?
as a competent or expert leader based on your impact on the P &L. Not a 360, not a competency, but I mean hard measures on the P&L. And very few leadership executive assessments were linked to Dr. McClellan's research that...
Great leaders create great work climates. He didn't call it culture. He called it a great climate where six key criteria were met that allowed your employees or contractors to perform at their best and give you, what? Something called discretionary effort. So when leaders can trigger those core motives, thoughts of their team by basically turn business into a game that everybody wants to win and it's rewarding, then employees will give an extra discretionary effort and then you can go on to set records or be the top division.
And actually, if a leader scores high in all six of these criteria, they're actually an expert because after assessing over a thousand top executive director leaders, CEOs, the most I see is they get five out of the six. so after you have that, you can go on to meet a situation having learned that and then improvising in the moment with situational awareness.
Not a formula, but every situation in the military, they call it situational awareness because like the Navy SEALs go in, they prepare for a mission. They don't know what's gonna happen. And leadership is the same way, right? You've experienced that, you prepare and then, my gosh, an investor walks in or now the CEO walks in or half my people aren't here and we have a deadline.
Kristiana Corona
No.
Kristiana Corona
So that sixth competency is really the wild card. Really the like, here's how you perform when everything is potentially different than what you had hoped or planned for.
Patty Shull
The first key criteria is are people clear on the vision, the mission, the strategy of their director and higher, right? The OKRs or the KPIs and then their role. So they need the clarity and the role. The third one is standards, which again, every upset can be traced to, I have this standard. My teammate has that standard and our standards are in conflict.
Kristiana Corona
Hmm.
Patty Shull
It takes a lot of conversations to get to that fundamental, but that's what it is. So what is the standard of excellence? It could be 70%. Right? Of agile, just send me a draft. No, no, I can't possibly send out half-baked work. Remember when we went through that transition? Standards-wise, so that's a third one. Then flexibility. Can I?
Kristiana Corona
yeah.
Patty Shull
Can I get to the goal with flexibility? Am I interrupted by bureaucracy? The fifth one is rewards. This is the one that of the leaders who got the top five, correct? They still miss out on rewards because they can't differentiate the difference between a compliment or let's go to lunch or bonus compensation for.
the conversation that says, when you did this, it helped produce this result. So the kind of, in this dimension, it's recognition of, it's like a learning organization. If you remember Peter Singhy back in the day, just constantly talking about, when you did this, it worked. So starting a meeting, what's working? Because how do I know?
Kristiana Corona
Hmm.
Patty Shull
my executive summary was really landed if I didn't get that feedback.
Kristiana Corona
Mm-hmm.
That's amazing. Trust.
Patty Shull
And the last one, the last one just to is trust. Like do people trust, do people trust that you are dedicated to the mission that you say you're about?
Kristiana Corona
Okay. I'm just taking a couple of notes here. you said the first one is the clarity, the vision mission strategy, KPIs. The second one is role clarity. What am I responsible for? The third one is standard of excellence and are my standards aligned to other standards? Are they in conflict? The fourth one is flexibility. Can I get to a goal without the interruption of bureaucracy?
I love that one a lot. The fifth one rewards, do I know what's going to move the needle on performance? And essentially like, am I rewarding people for the thing that they most want in order to help them want to do more of that thing? Right?
Patty Shull
It actually gets into micro rewards or micro recognition so that during the week, the high performance teams had five times more conversations about what is working specifically than what's not working.
That is an insane difference.
Kristiana Corona
Yeah. So is it, is it about the focus and awareness of reward on almost like a daily basis versus leaving it to a quarterly assessment or an annual review or something like that? Like you're just much more present with how are they doing on a, on a daily basis?
Patty Shull
Yes, and just like this podcast, Kristiana, you gave me the questions you'd be asking me and we talked about it a month ago and then it's right there on a Google Doc so I get that really worked.
Kristiana Corona
Hmm. I love that.
Patty Shull
That simple, right? Because you want your guests to be at their best, right?
Kristiana Corona
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. that's, that's super interesting. And I'm sure so, and then the, the sixth one trust, do people trust that you're dedicated to the mission? And you also kind of hinted at like, how do they handle ambiguity? Right? Is that part of the sixth one or is that sort of a separate overarching secret sauce?
Patty Shull
Like you can have a lot of ambiguity if you know what the end game is, what excellence looks like. Like we're going for market share instead of profitability.
So then that strategy guides my decision and we can have some, we can have chaos, can have ambiguity, but we all know where second base is. We all know where home base is. We know who the catcher is.
Kristiana Corona
Mm-hmm. Yeah, and that matters so much, right? Because if people don't actually have alignment on those things, then they're potentially all working in completely different directions. Yeah.
Patty Shull
Yeah, so it's interesting that, you know, this is BFO, big flash of the obvious. Anybody who's led teams has heard about these things. The difference I see is leaders haven't been measured against top leaders across industry and gotten that kind of feedback so that they can adjust and then retest.
Kristiana Corona
And so you mentioned also before when we were talking about this, that when leaders are leading from being in the zone, that there's also a tangible effect on like stress levels. Like you can see a real difference. Can you talk a little bit about that part of this?
Patty Shull
So just to give some context, after one has become a competent or an expert leader, and maybe you're using a formula, then going into the zone, right, which is the beginning of stabilizing as a virtuoso leader, you're not going to be relying on
knowing the right answer, you're going to start relying on your connection between people. And you've, you're so competent that you have muscle memory in those six things. We talk about muscle memory in sports. As leaders, we have muscle memory in the correct conditions that are going to bring forward that discretionary effort. So, so then we can leave our mind or
are thinking about the right answer, our attachment to formulaic approach, we can move into curiosity and we can get curious, I wonder what's gonna happen in this meeting. I wonder when I lead my town hall meeting today, I wonder how the audience is going to react.
And literally your attention is not on yourself. Your attention is on what's going on in with the people and the situation. So our attention is out versus in our heads. Now I can as a virtuoso, you can go back into your memory if you want, and it will temporarily interrupt that flow. But people who go into the zone, they'll say, wow.
Kristiana Corona
Yeah.
Patty Shull
I can't believe I said that. Whoa, that was really brilliant. How did I know to say that?
Kristiana Corona
I love it. So it's, you're talking about this, I feel like there's a lot of similarity to how one handles a coaching conversation where you maybe have a certain framework of questions that you're going to ask, but if you're focused too much on the framework and you're focused too much on the structure, you miss the nuance of the energy in the room or the body language or the signals that someone else is giving you and being able to adapt and say, Hey, what
you know, I noticed the shift, what's going on, and to get curious about what does this person need right now, you know.
Patty Shull
Exactly. Because you may have an agenda for a meeting and my gosh, that person just had a fender bender on the way to work. And they're still reverberating that word from that minor accident or they got news. And as a leader, as an expert, if you're focused on the task accomplishment,
Kristiana Corona
Yeah.
Patty Shull
exclusively, you're going to miss the signals that are going to take you into virtuosity. If you're in the zone, you're more likely to see what's actually happening and say, Is this really the optimal time? Should we just push through it? Like again, that situational time, place, condition.
assessment.
Kristiana Corona
Yeah. Yeah. And I love the idea of just shifting the focus away from how am I performing to what is the group or what is this individual need? how often are we just stuck in our heads thinking about how well am I performing right now? What are other people thinking about what I'm saying? how do I look? did I sound stupid? Did I say, too many times versus.
What is the message that this person or group needs right now? And am I expressing something that is going to be helpful to them? Am I helping solve their problem and noticing the things that I need to notice about this group of people? That is a tough one. It really is. But I love that challenge to say, how often are you operating in an outwards positioning versus an internal?
Patty Shull
Yeah.
Patty Shull
Yes, while also keeping that mission focus. So again, virtuosos can rise above paradox. We need to have this done by Friday. My person is not present or this isn't a good time. My schedule is packed. So now we're in a paradox, right? But when you're in the zone, you're much more able to be in the context of both.
Kristiana Corona
Hmm.
Patty Shull
and in the connection, in the dialogue, then creativity shows up because you're not the cortisol is down, you're not so stressed.
Kristiana Corona
So you mentioned the word curiosity several times and I know that you call it like connected curiosity where people are sort of collaborating in a really open way and they're not so attached to the outcome that they can't do something new or have a new insight. So how do you help leaders to actually cultivate this environment of connected curiosity?
Patty Shull
So it's really challenging. And what I loved about my mentors, they said, if you are going to leave being an expert leader, consulting coach, to move into virtuosity and onto mastery, it's going to cost you. It's going to cost you having the right answer, predicting certain types of outcomes, and you're going to need to become a beginner.
And I mean a beginner. So if you think of Tiger Woods, he injured, he went from one handed using one arm for golf swing to another. I mean, that kind of beginner, not that you don't remember all of your training up to expertise, but the biggest reason people don't get stuck
For some people, being an expert is great. I'll live the rest of my life. I love it here. I have the identity. I'm the go-to person. For other people, it feels like a dead end. Where do I go from here?
Kristiana Corona
Hmm.
Patty Shull
The thing with virtuosity is you're 100 % committed to those outcomes and you're not attached.
Kristiana Corona
So do you have an example of what that would look like in the workplace? Like just a client you've worked with or a story that would help us understand like a completely different way of handling a situation as a virtuoso?
Patty Shull
It's a difference between I'm going to fail. I'm just, my ego's going to be shattered. That kind of fear versus focused on the result with this incredible focus. So last week, I was working with 10 leaders on progressing their 2025 goals.
And I said, could we do it with improvisation? Can we throw some improv games into discussing how you're progressing on your quarterly and annual goals? And I actually didn't know how it was going to go, but I knew that by now they're seeing the challenges, maybe even feeling a little defeated. So if I could get them.
again, out of their heads into a creative place of play, then they could see their challenges from another filter. And that would have them still focused on the outcome, but not be attached, not have the pressure. Because as a virtuoso, you talked about stress, the pressure comes off.
and it's replaced by focus. In fact, I know I'm going to walk into these leaders. They're going to be totally, they're going to be pressured. So do I have the confidence to say, would you be willing to include improv games as we progress your goal and look like I am out of my mind?
Kristiana Corona
you
Patty Shull
And I was out of my mind, literally, but I was focused, right? And so, and so they looked at their goals like, all right, if you were an engineer, how would you see this problem? If you were a ballerina, how would you see this problem? If you were unlawful and you did something that was unlawful to get to your goal, what would that be? and of course they came out of their knowing, started laughing, got into the zone. And so they said, could we do this every month? Every month in 2025, because they got into the zone.
Kristiana Corona
I just, first of all, I think that is so delightful that, you know, your approach is to come into what I think probably most corporate organizations feel like from the outside, which is very intense, full of pressure, very, you know, kind of rigid structure, probably by necessity in many ways, but you're, you're kind of coming in and you're just blowing it up a little bit at saying, okay, let's put all the structure away. Let's put the pressure away. Let's take all of that.
But keep our goal in mind and go in every direction, potentially.
Patty Shull
Yes, and that is, I mentioned the cost and how much I appreciated my mentors saying, if you want to pursue virtuosity, you're actually going to leave cultural standards and create new standards. And people are really going to need to trust you. So you're really going to need to focus on results. That's the same. that's why I'm saying like,
going into a virtuosity in any field, whether it's sports, music, art, podcasting, whatever it is, you're not leaving your expertise, you're just detaching from it so that your brilliance, what is unique about you, can come out.
Kristiana Corona
Yeah. There's something beautiful about just, the importance of play and how like quick we are to abandon that or to say, well, now that we're at this level, play is not acceptable or we don't have time for play, but really you're sort of disrupting that in a major way and saying, actually this type of player or like focused play with a certain intention is the path. Like that is how you overcome some of those stressors and barriers and
blockers, even all the way up to the executive level. Like there isn't a level that is exempt from this strategy, correct?
Patty Shull
And in fact, a professor, want to say Dr. Charlie Spielberg from the University of Florida, he did a study on air traffic controllers, which at the time was the most stressful job in America. And guess what the top teams had that differentiated them from typical teams.
Kristiana Corona
I don't know.
Patty Shull
making jokes, throwing nerf balls, ribbing each other, right? Practical jokes because they took the pressure off. So when it really counts, pressure is not your friend, focus is. Extreme focus, not pressure.
Kristiana Corona
Yeah, this is, this is really well aligned, I think with, a lot of the experiences that my audience would have coming from different organizations like Amazon or Target or different places like that. We're in the design process. We have this sort of discovery phase where the intention is to kind of wander a little bit to, to explore broadly and to have multiple options and to not decide and advance like this is the right path, but to.
to force ourselves to say like, okay, I really like this option, but I'm going to force myself to come up with five to seven other options just to see, have I really explored this fully? And when you do that, inevitably you're always going to get a better product at the end versus when you're confident like, well, this is the best solution. I'm going to go forward with idea one. We're going to just make it. And then later on during the process, you learn, I didn't.
I didn't anticipate this or I didn't really think it through or that was clunkier. It could have been easier, more streamlined. And so I think there's a piece of that thinking that's really baked in there, but I love that you've expanded it. It's not a design exercise. This is a creative play that applies to any type of role, right? Like technical roles, business roles, executive roles and things like that. love that.
Patty Shull
I love that. It's such a great takeaway is, yeah, you think you have the right idea or the best idea, let's push for five more, six more, seven more.
Kristiana Corona
So, okay, I have to dive into improv because personally that is an area that makes me feel super awkward. Like the idea of doing improv with my coworkers. I love my coworkers in general. They're amazing. But how do you get people who are used to being serious and straight-laced and like no nonsense, get this done. Here's my agenda to do improv.
Patty Shull
Great question because it is counterculture. Not every organization is going to say that. even when you ask people to do that, they'll say, isn't that a waste of time? I've already got five more things I can't get to this week. So in organization change management, I know we study change. It's really great when you have sponsorship, when lead by example.
So if I see a leader or someone I respect or an expert in the organization, whoever, someone that's well respected using improv to get to the result, number one, I have permission. Because inside people think that they don't have permission if they play, because how many times have we been scolded for not paying attention instead of early childhood learning is all about discovery and play. That's how young children learn. So whole body super learning. So I always lead with results. one of my clients who set an industry record,
Patty Shull
It was so important that their client wanted them to construct a natural gas plant in 30 % less time that had ever been done according to the Project Management Institute. So I go in, like I typically do, and do a needs assessment. The CEO said, can you help us with that? And I said, I don't know. I've never done this. I do know my...
Toolkit my tool chest is robust and I Would love I'd love to engage with you on this my my thing that I love is less set an industry record. Why not? so So anyway, I watched their town hall meetings and it was a huge yawn factor I mean I had trouble staying awake and I needed to learn learn their business and
People in the elevator, hey, I'm a consultant, lead, you know, facilitate change. Oh, things will never change. And big legacy employees, 20 year. And so I knew that number one, we needed to engage people. Number two, there's a mindset, nothing's ever going to change. It is the way it is. And number three, there is these intense silos between engineering, procurement, field construction.
Huge silos. So I had a relationship, a few wins with the CEO and I said, would you mind if we started turning your company meetings into comedy shows? What I would like to do is use Saturday Night Live sketch comedy to say it.
or to say, if we fail at this, here's what's gonna happen, which is a good source of humor. And I said, what if we say these three key points through sketches or song parody or props or, but I was pushing the envelope and he actually said yes. And I said, I know this is really out there.
Would you and the executive team mind being the actors for this?
Kristiana Corona
I'm trying to even imagine this world where something like this would happen. It's so great.
Patty Shull
And he happened to be an Eagle Scout or Boy Scout leader. It is personal life. So he loved the idea of the arts or doing things, skits or whatever. He actually loved the idea. And so I said, we'll just start small. Like we're not going to just vary three to five minutes, something new in your next meeting. And he's like, that's a small risk. So we did it. Well, guess what?
People are standing, you know, they're leaning in their chairs. They're laughing. I cannot believe that so-and-so dressed up like a wig and showed themselves incompetent and failing. I know them as always being right. So what are we doing? We're leaving the knowingness of the past and we're opening, what if I don't know this person as well? So fast forward.
We even rented out a comedy club for the night, invited families. The senior staff did kind of a talent show. And I'll always remember at the end of the night, this gentleman who was a new engineer, fresh out of school, came up to me and he said, Patty, guess what? And I said, what? And he said, I went to
the CEO and I told him what we need to fix in engineering. I told him, and you know what? He wanted to know. And I wasn't afraid to go up to him during the break and tell him what I really wanted to tell him. Now this company went on to, they completed that project in 28 % less time.
than ever the performance management. And the humor allowed people just to be people and to get to know each other outside of that fixed frame.
Kristiana Corona
Yeah, that is such a cool story on so many levels, but I think what really resonates with me is it creates an approachability to how people at all levels can work together to solve a common problem rather than I'm in charge, you need to do what I say, or you need to get my approval, or a lot of the other ways that often leaders are perceived, or.
employees are maybe trained to approach them. So that kind of breaks through all of that hierarchy that was blocking. Maybe that's what you were saying before, the bureaucracy that's blocking people's access to solving a problem.
Patty Shull
And even with that situation where we did the goals, progress your goals...The first thing I had them imagine is you're not in the office. You are at an amusement park. You are at a restaurant bar that you enjoy, or you are at a dude ranch. So take anywhere but the office because our mind likes, we call it regularity, our mind likes, we want certainty. We can't have that in life, so we...
create regularity to have us feel secure. So of course we want that. And then how do we build on that? Let's create uncertainty in a safe way, still focused on results. At the end of the day,
Kristiana Corona
Yeah.
Patty Shull
It's one team headed to the same destination with flexibility. And that's why going back to those six key criteria that you can create those high performance environments on the foundation of here's what we need to produce. Now let's get out of our heads and get creative.
Kristiana Corona
I'm imagining there was a soul or two along the way who's like, I'm not funny. So how do I do this if I'm not funny? What do you say to them?
Patty Shull
my gosh, they are the best people. So I was working with one of our nation's top hospitals and I said, instead of the typical holiday party with nice food and this, what would you think about a talent show that looks back on all we went through this year? Cause they had implemented Epic Medical Records, huge IT transformation, really, really tough year. And so I said, I have a structure.
and boundaries and so the CIO said sure. So the most serious people, they got on their video and they did a Star Wars and in the middle, back in time and we started and we had these legacy systems and blah, blah. And so the standard was not everyone needs to be on stage, but everybody participates. So whether it's lights, video.
scripting, costumes, come up with your top 10 list. And that holiday party, I left literally my stomach hurt from laughing because I had been with them that year. And so them making fun of themselves, it was the best.
Kristiana Corona
Well, and those are like what core memories that you will never forget. Like ever.
Patty Shull
Yes, and so exactly. And to this day, that CEO, he still has people calling him 20 years later saying, you are the best leader I've ever worked for. We had more fun in a hospital. Like, can you imagine? And now this was the IT department. So some hospitals, I've approached humor and it was like, not at all. Like, no, no, no, no.
And so that's their culture. So some of this does need to be led, well sponsored.
Kristiana Corona
Yeah. I mean, that takes a lot of courage on every level. Like, especially as a leader saying, I'm going to make everyone completely get uncomfortable and out of their comfort zone and try something new. But like, once you give permission to do it, I think people really have a desire to be creative. Like they have a desire to express themselves. And a lot of people have side hustles or talents. Like I think a lot about the people that I've worked with and how talented they are in all different directions.
Patty Shull
Yes.
Kristiana Corona
And you're like, how come we don't see that at work?
Patty Shull
Exactly like they sing there or they play my eye doctor. just saw him in the band plays a lead vocal in a rock band...like, ooh! But you're right. Like people have so many talents that they could bring to work. And I love to make it safe. Like the standard is everybody participates. And that might be.
Kristiana Corona
Yeah.
Patty Shull
bring five props to a meeting, like super, super small steps so that the zone has this parameter of it's challenging, but it's still realistic. So if it's too challenging, they're going to go to end of fight or flight. So again, this is going from expert leader to virtuosity, like knowing where to set those standards and knowing your audience.
Kristiana Corona
Yeah.
Patty Shull
I made a lot of mistakes along the way until I stopped thinking about it. Look in the person's eyes. Look at their breathing. Look at their facial expression. And then leaving the room.
Kristiana Corona
Are they going to pass out? Yeah.
Kristiana Corona
They found their exit. I did it in a small way. It wasn't like improv or anything, but I have started incorporating role plays more into different types of workshops because I find that if I can get two people who are part of that team to stand up and do this sort of cheesy role play, everyone is like more emotionally attached to what's happening.
because it's people they know, it's kind of funny or weird or whatever, and then they get to like laugh about it together and it's like one of their own, right? And I don't know, it's just like a small thing, but finding those moments where people can connect with each other and yeah, it like you remember it differently than if I was like an outside person coming in and then I was to read something to them, they're like, great, you know, no, no emotional connection, but having
Patty Shull
Totally. That is...
Kristiana Corona
their own people come up and role play has been really fun.
Patty Shull
That is, I love that idea. Love it, love it.
Kristiana Corona
So I know that this is not all just subjective. Like you actually have ways of measuring corporate humor to know if you're successful. Can you talk about, I think you have a ratio that you look for?
Patty Shull
Yeah. So when we were, when we were doing a comedy show called environmental hazards, mental being mined, we had six sketches that showed what happens in a work climate when these six criteria are not met. And failure makes for good humor, right?
So in professional comedy and humor, was, my director said it's one laugh every 15 seconds. And so our key result or KPI was one out loud laugh every minute.
Kristiana Corona
One laugh a minute sounds kind of like a big deal when you think about like a typical hour long corporate meeting. Like how many times is anybody laughing? Like once an hour. So that's quite a, quite a big shift.
Patty Shull
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes, our show is 40 minutes, so. And we had great, great team. Same way a great leader is going to read their impact on the room. What's the impact of having right now on this person? Are they more motivated to get to the goal or less? Am I creating an environment of honesty?
Kristiana Corona
It's interesting too, because it can be quite disconcerting to go in and say, I don't know how this is going to go. Back to the theme of the improv, back to the theme of allowing yourself to be a beginner, the not knowing and going in and then just letting it play out, feels like such a lack of control.
Typically we do plan, we plan every minute, we plan every agenda, every meeting, every 30 minutes, what we're going to be doing and how we'll accomplish those goals. And we work backwards from those goals. And there's, there's just this absolute leap of faith required that like, I have what I need. I have the skills. It's going to work out. The people in the room are going to help me get there. it requires a great deal of belief and courage, I think to operate in that way consistently.
At the end of the day, we don't know where it's gonna go. But what we do know is we're competent and we're committed and here's what we can count on. I'm a big proponent of pilots. Like maybe you did that with your role plays at meetings. let me just pilot this. If it bombs five minutes out of a meeting, no problem. We can all laugh. And so those small practices along the way.
Kristiana Corona
Yeah, so like in essence making small experiments to test and learn. Yeah.
Patty Shull
Yes. Yes. Yep. What's sometimes called fail fast, but I like learn fast.
Kristiana Corona
Hmm. Yeah, I like that. So if my listeners are thinking about like, okay, I see a lot of value in being a virtuoso. what would be your advice? Like how can they start moving in that direction?
Patty Shull
Well, the foundation of our coaching programs is linguistic. We really get into how are you thinking and what we call the ontology of how you're thinking. So we have all been conditioned to focus on those results, drive to the task, how much can we get done? And that's a really good thing.
If I'm at Starbucks waiting in line, I want to get my caramel macchiato or whatever it is. So that is not bad. Okay. It's just, it, it, it limits you in a doing task-based ontology. Whereas the upgrade is not only what needs to be accomplished.
but what's happening in this situation and what's the result to produce?
And that will quickly, and then what do I need to perform at my best? I actually need a drink of water. I actually have an upset with my coworker. Let me go clear this upset. And now let's, we can perform at our best. And that's what I learned from Dr. McClellan. What's the result? What do you need to perform at your best to get there in this situation? And are you speaking up?
Kristiana Corona
Love that. So, if my audience wants to hear more from you, where can they go to find you?
Patty Shull
and make.
Patty Shull
Thank you. You can come to my website, pattyshull.com or you can call my business number. Somebody will pick up 713-446-8700.
Kristiana Corona
Awesome. And some of the services that you offer, like you've kind of hinted at, you know, the coaching and consulting and how you work with CEOs. Like if someone was out there and they just maybe wanted to do like an improv workshop or to get your take on like, how could they change or shift the culture to be a little bit more flexible? How, what would be the best way for them to work with you?
Patty Shull
Yeah, sometimes it's just simple. I want to compare my leaders. I want to see if I'm a competent leader or where those gaps are. And it's a 30 minute online survey. It's less than a thousand dollars. And it's just, it's three coachings. will do the assessment, three coaching package under a thousand dollars. And then you get to benchmark yourself against top performing leaders across industry. And I wish everyone had
Kristiana Corona
Yeah.
Kristiana Corona
Hmm.
Patty Shull
those opportunities that I had when I was coming up through leadership. And then of course, we engage around change, AI, what is the pivot your organization needs to make, we'll facilitate. We come in and I either I or my team, we facilitate that steering committee, that cross-functional team, and we run the communications and.
the OKRs and make sure the reward and recognition is in place and the clarity, those six things. So we engage with individuals, we engage with organizations. And then last year, we offer a 12-week class that gives the linguistic unlock to move from personal conversations into
conversations that support you stabilizing in the zone. And so that's a 12 week program.
Kristiana Corona
I love that you also have that leadership assessment in a quick online survey and then some coaching sessions. I'm sure there's a lot of people that are curious, like, how am I doing on those different fronts? So.
Patty Shull
As a virtuous, so you're going to challenge community standards and that's not always easy. So you want to rely on a strong foundation.
Kristiana Corona
Yeah, absolutely. Definitely can see a lot of scenarios where if you don't know what you're doing, you could drive off the road. So thank you again so much for just coming on and sharing all of your stories and all of the tools that you've used to help leaders and organizations think differently. I think it's such a unique approach and there are just so many organizations that could benefit from this. So thanks for making time for me.
Kristiana Corona
I hope you enjoyed that episode with Patty Shull and came up with some new ideas for how you can insert more creativity and more play and more improv into the work that you do and the meetings that you have so that you can really help people release from the stress, release from the pressure that we all feel to deliver results because that in and of itself is actually the thing that is going to deliver the best results. So.
If you are enjoying this podcast, don't forget to subscribe so that you get all the new episodes as I release them. You can go to worthytoleadpodcast.com/subscribe. And don't forget to share this with other leaders and friends in your life that need to hear these messages. With that, I wish you the best on your journey to becoming the worthy leaders that I know you are. Bye for now.
