Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:14] Speaker B: Hello, everyone. Welcome to Communication Makeover. My name is Todd Wahl. I'm excited to be your host today. And we're going to take a coach spotlight today like we've done so many times. But here's the problem. We really need to walk through, you know, one thing that never changes in our life. And our guest talks about this. One thing that never changes in our life is that we always have to engage with people.
We have to engage with people in this way, that way, sometime for a season, sometimes just a period in our life, sometimes on a permanent level. The difficult thing with dealing with people is oftentimes it gets confusing and personal in many elements to where, you know, it's. We either get defensive or you get aggressive. Aggressive, or it's really unders. It's really important to really find a vehicle to be able to handle how to handle different types of people in so many different ways. And so one of the things we're going to be talking about is how to work with different personalities. Because sometimes, you know, it's just, you know, someone's. Sometimes a person may be really aggressive. Sometimes they're overly passive. Sometimes you feel like when you're dealing with that person, you're walking through a minefield of different. Of different things. And so it gets confusing. It can get challenging. It's always something we have to figure out, though. If we don't figure out how to deal with and work with different personalities, whether at home or. Or at work, we're just gonna live in a place of constant frustration. So what I love about my guest today, the coach, we're gonna spotlight Richard Flint. He's been dealing with people for his entire life. Well, just like everybody else, but as. Not only as a Christian counselor, but as a minister. And now with RichardFlint.com, leading people through this very unique program that caught my eye called A Day at the Zoo.
What I love about this, and I think you're really going to enjoy, is it gives us a vehicle to be able to label and identify the people that are around us and figure out really what's the best way to get through the zoo with all of our fingers and toes intact. So let me bring my friend on now. Richard Flint. How are you doing today, my friend?
[00:02:55] Speaker A: Hi, Todd. I am alive and well, healthy and fit and happy today.
[00:03:00] Speaker B: That's really good. And as always, your colorful shirts, they keep us all awake and they keep my ADD occupied. So I really do appreciate that.
So, Richard, let's talk through this program. You've been Doing it for quite a while. A day at the Zoo.
First off, before we go into how you built it out, because that part of the story is intriguing, tell me what. What do people get out of this day at the Zoo? Just the overview.
[00:03:31] Speaker A: What.
[00:03:31] Speaker B: Why do people want to go through it?
[00:03:34] Speaker A: Todd, you know, you said it in the opening that every day our life is filled with people, and people are always interesting.
And sometimes we look at the person and we react to the person. And the reason we do that is we don't understand the personality of the person. And if I don't understand Todd's personality and I have some kind of misnomer or a conflict, you know what I'm going to say, man, Todd is really a difficult person.
And the reality is, the reason any human is difficult is because we don't take the time to. To understand the personality.
Everyone is two things.
You're a person, and that person is what I see.
But you're also a personality, and that personality is what I experience.
So if. If I don't understand Todd's personality, I'm going to react to the person if it creates frustration or confusion with me.
[00:04:51] Speaker B: That's interesting. So break that one layer deeper. For me, the difference in a person and a personality.
[00:04:59] Speaker A: The person is what I see. And most of the time we're so busy or we got so much going on that we don't take time to really invest.
Different is when I don't take the time to slow down and get to know you as a personality.
The personality is your behavior.
The person is what I'm looking at.
[00:05:27] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:05:28] Speaker A: That can create a lot of confusion.
[00:05:31] Speaker B: And that behavior ultimately is the actual obstacle that we actually run into. The beautiful thing of that is behavior can be managed and it can be adjusted or. Or you can have ways of working around that. So, okay, I want to get more into the zoo, but give me the background really quick of how the research that went into this day at the zoo.
[00:05:56] Speaker A: Well, it was a couple of different things.
Number one, there are so many articles that are written on working with difficult people.
And every time I read one of these articles or I speak at a convention where there's a breakout session on working with difficult people, I want to just break in and just celebrate. Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. You're classifying people. You're making an assumption because you really don't know whom that person is. And they're different because you lack the understanding to their personality. The real individual is what I see.
But beyond that, they're what I experience.
And if I don't have the time or if I don't want to invest the energy to get to know you and you create frustration for me, then the reality is the frustration is not the person, it's the personality. But if I don't understand your personality, I have no idea. Idea what to do with you.
[00:07:09] Speaker B: Yeah. And separating that behavior from the person, man, that's just. That's just such a vital and powerful tool.
So tell me more about the research that went into this, because I'm really intrigued with. With. With how you. How you went, how you did the deep dive with each animal.
[00:07:28] Speaker A: I was on a. I was on a flight from Atlanta to la, and the lady next to me was just so frustrated.
And we got to talking, and she had just been promoted into management with a major 500 corporation. And she was frustrated, and she looked at me and said, you know what? I have always wanted to be in management.
And she said, the challenge that I have is that I got the position, but the environment is out of control.
She said, there's only one way I can say this. My people live in a zoo, and there's so many different personalities for me to understand.
She said, I got 30 people that. That report to me, and they're all so different. And she said, what am I supposed to do?
And it just clicked in my head.
It really is a zoo out there because there are all of these individuals who have a personality for leadership to understand.
Yet in leadership today, there is so much going on because we have changed the whole dynamics of leadership, because leadership used to be people first, product second, profit third. But we've switched that. It's now profit first, product second, and people last.
So in that design, it's not built to understand whom you're working with. It's not built for you to understand the personalities of the people. And this is what intrigued me. So I came up with this idea that why not take animals? Because everybody loves animals. Well, most everybody.
The cuddly ones, yeah.
There's some in this zoo that I don't enjoy. But so I. I approached the Miami Metro Zoo and got permission to come down and. And research the animals.
So there are 18 animals in the zoo, and I have physically worked with every one of them, and I got to learn their personalities. And, Todd, every time I learned one of these animals, people's picture came into my mind, and I could identify their personalities with people in my life. And I thought, you know what? That's the key if you understand the personality Then you can create a leadership presence that understands them from the inside out from the person. We understand people from the outside in.
[00:10:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:27] Speaker A: But once I understand the personality, the light goes off and I begin to understand the uniqueness. Every personality is unique. Every personality has characteristics. So take the characteristics of the animals and apply them to people, give some leadership techniques, and then show you the other animals in the zoo that their personality relates to, and all of a sudden you begin to understand why this person chooses that person or that person to be their friend. I love it. It's just hysterical. It's intense.
But it's one of the greatest lessons and being able to be effectively efficient in the lives of people.
[00:11:17] Speaker B: I love it, Richard. And we're going to carry this over to the next segment, so hang on real quick. All right, everybody, I love this conversation. I love what this will allow us to do. Moving from the inside out. You know, even from a business perspective, how often we just say, oh, we just need to get rid of that person. We need to fire that person and just hire somebody new. But now you're starting all over again, and ultimately you always find yourself in that same place. I still don't know how to get this person to do and man and handle the situation that I'm needing for them to handle. So this getting to the inside, inside out perspective, it's valuable. I'm intrigued to figure out, am I, am I the buffalo that I think I am? Am I the elephant that I think I am? I don't know. We'll see.
[00:12:06] Speaker A: Let's.
[00:12:07] Speaker B: Let's find out together right after this. Stick with us.
All right, everybody, welcome again to Communication Makeover. My name is Todd Wahl, and our guest today, Richard Flint, talking about this program, the research that he's done into understanding the personalities of the people that are around you so that ultimately we can work with the people around us from the inside out, not taking an external judgment at them, but going, what does it take to relate to. So with this concept of a day at the zoo, where do we start with it? Where do we go? What's the beginning of this conversation?
[00:13:05] Speaker A: Well, you know, Todd, this fits right into the title of your show, Communication Makeover.
Because in order to really build a effectively efficient relationship with people, people, you got to learn how to communicate with them. And if I'm only communicating based on what I see, there's going to be a lot of miscommunication. There's going to be a lot of disconnect, because I'm finally going to say, you Know what? This person is just too difficult to work with. I can't work with them. I don't want them around my life. But if you understand the personality, then all of a sudden, what are you doing? You're making over the communication you have with them because now you're understanding the innerness of this people. One of the great things about this, and it took me five years to research this program and to create it, is that when I got all 18 of the animals laid out, what I understood is there had to be some predominant personalities.
[00:14:09] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:14:10] Speaker A: That all the other animals in the zoo relate to.
[00:14:13] Speaker B: Natural. We've all seen the Lion King, so. Yeah, continue.
[00:14:16] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So the three, and then we can talk about them.
[00:14:20] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:14:21] Speaker A: Is the two hump camel, monkeys and parrots.
[00:14:28] Speaker B: I did not expect those to be the three. You just gave me a curveball.
So all of it derives from those three?
[00:14:38] Speaker A: Yep. Every other. Every. Every other animal relates to those animals. Because each of us have four personalities.
[00:14:46] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:14:47] Speaker A: One is your dominant.
[00:14:49] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:14:49] Speaker A: The other three support that dominant personality.
[00:14:54] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:14:54] Speaker A: So the most important animal in the zoo, if you said, richard, you can only pick one personality or animal to work with, where would you start? I'd start with the camel.
Why?
[00:15:08] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah. I need to know why.
[00:15:12] Speaker A: Well, when you study the camel, you find that it has basically some foundational personalities. Number one. First, understand there are two types of camels, one hump and two hump.
[00:15:27] Speaker B: And that makes a difference.
[00:15:29] Speaker A: And that makes a big difference.
[00:15:30] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:15:30] Speaker A: Because the one hump camel. And we'll get to this. But is your little parrot, your little new person who comes in and wants to grow.
They have this. This aura to them, this energy to them, this hunger to them, this eagerness, this excitement. And they bring that with them to work every day.
And the thing they want to do is they want to get out of being that one hump camel. And they want to make it to Camelot. And when they make it to Camelot, that's where their maturity sets in. And people don't really understand many times what maturity is. Maturity is simply the process of becoming.
And when you have that little one hump camel that is eager, excited, they want to learn. They'll give everything they can, even if they don't know what they're doing.
[00:16:25] Speaker B: Can I highlight that phrase really quick with you? Maturity is the process of becoming.
[00:16:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. What you learned about the little one hump camel, they're known for endurance. This is why in the Arab world, they get together and they race. The one hump camel they're known for their speed. One hump camels are known for their speed. And this is that excitement. When people are excitement, they have excited, they have energy. When people are eager, they have desire, they have energy, but they have a challenge. They're naive because they lack the maturity.
[00:17:05] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:17:07] Speaker A: And so you've got to spend time in training these.
And when you get them through the process of a two hump camel, that's when they're, they become the most valuable personality in the zoo. Why? They're known for endurance. That's why they use the two hump camel in the desert. It can go a long distance without nourishment. But if leadership doesn't understand that, you know what they tend to do, Todd? They tend to abuse their two hump camels.
They've got other people that could do a certain job but they know if they give it to them, they're not going to do it or it's going to be.
[00:17:48] Speaker B: Yeah, they put, they load them up, in other words, they load them up with too many things.
[00:17:53] Speaker A: And that two hump camel, you come to them, they've got more on their plate than they can do. But they know if you give it to that monkey, they're going to mess it up and then clean it up. So who do they want? You? They go to the person they know they can count on. And two hump camel doesn't have time, but they know that if it's not done right, it's going to mess everybody up. So what they do is they'll say yes to it. And without realizing it, they're punishing that two hump camel because of their commitment, because of their loyalty, because they always say yes.
[00:18:36] Speaker B: That person always says Yes.
[00:18:40] Speaker A: I interviewed 201 hump camels that had left organizations, okay. And I asked them why did you leave? They didn't want to leave. They gave leadership every opportunity to keep them. But the number one reason, and there were eight reasons that I got number one reason was they'd lost respect for leadership because they saw the leader not confronting the people who were messing up the environment and they got tired of cleaning it up. Okay, but here's, and this is just two of the characteristics of the two hump camel and this is factual. When a two hunt camel gets angry, mad or upset, it will walk to it finds a human and spit on them.
[00:19:28] Speaker B: Interesting, okay? Because they finally just, they get to their limit and they've got to get it out, they've got to get the.
[00:19:35] Speaker A: Poison out because you know there's Two types of enough. There's enough with a semicolon where I say, you know what? I'm going to give you one more chance. I don't want to leave. I like it here. And I want to be part of the value of this organization. But they see that person having the title of leader, sacrificing the little parrots to the monkeys who are going to destroy that little parrot. And finally, they've had enough. Was an exclamation point.
And so when they walk in, they're done, they spit.
And here, one more interesting fact right here.
When they leave and they go to another company, a majority of the time, they don't go for more money.
They call, they go. Because of the environment, will always interview the person that's interviewing them.
[00:20:28] Speaker B: Interesting. Absolutely. Yeah.
It's all about the environment. I love that. Okay, so what's the. What's the next animal?
[00:20:39] Speaker A: Next animal. Let's do. Let's do the monkey.
[00:20:42] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:20:42] Speaker A: And the monkey is the second most dangerous animal in the zoo.
Now, you wouldn't think of a monkey being dangerous, because when you take kids to the zoo, where's. What is one of the cages they always want to go see.
[00:20:59] Speaker B: It's the. It's the monkey cage. Every single time, it's the monkey cage. They're going to do crazy things. They're going to throw unfortunate stuff at the. At the cage or at the screen. But yeah, it. Everyone. You always have to visit the monkey cage.
[00:21:12] Speaker A: Yeah. Because they're cute and they do funny things. I remember I was at the Oklahoma City Zoo, and in the center of the zoo, there was this one cage with this big monkey in it, and that monkey was the official greeter. So I was with a group of students that I had that I was working with, and we walked over and we were just laughing and having fun. And the monkey was up on a trapeze toward the center of his cage. And it looked at us and it went.
Well, we didn't pay any attention. All of a sudden, monkey came down off of the trapeze, came over to the fence, jumped on the fence, began to shake the fence and scream at us. Well, we turned and we watched it, and all we did was applaud. And the monkey went back to its trapeze.
[00:21:57] Speaker B: Huh.
[00:21:59] Speaker A: And that's one of the characteristics, is a monkey will always create environments where they're noticed.
[00:22:08] Speaker B: Yeah. And they're going to put on a show.
[00:22:11] Speaker A: And it's amazing how leadership won't confront the monkeys. And one of the reasons is they show up every day. They're a body.
But as a body, you know what they do? They love to gossip.
They love to pick on management and pick on the two hump camels.
Everything about them is negative. And if leadership does not confront them and majority of leaders do not like confrontation.
[00:22:40] Speaker B: No.
[00:22:41] Speaker A: They will put it off until they're ready to explode. Then it's not confrontation, it's criticism. Confrontation is the leadership skill of finding resolution.
[00:22:56] Speaker B: Interesting. I love that. The leadership skill of finding resolution. So let's, let's move quickly to the, the third one before we wrap up the segment.
[00:23:05] Speaker A: Ah, the parrot.
And the, The. The parrot is your new person who doesn't know enough not to be excited. And this is, but this is important because the little parrot only has one characteristic that's important.
You can teach him to say anything you want him to say.
[00:23:27] Speaker B: He's the yes man.
[00:23:29] Speaker A: Yeah. And here's what we found in our research.
Companies talk about training, but the majority of the training with the little parrots is not done by leadership. It's done by the monkeys.
Ooh.
That is because they invite little parrots into their world. Ooh.
[00:23:54] Speaker B: Richard, I need a pause right there to go jump to the next segment. But this gives us something great to jump into. Now we can begin engaging with how to interact and who. Who's really controlling the zoo. All right, everybody, stick with us. We'll be right back. This is just getting better and better. Stick with us.
Hello, everyone. My name is Todd Wahl. Welcome to Communication Makeover, where we believe that intentional communication will lead to the breakthrough that you're looking for, both in your business and in your life. We also believe that the greatest illusion of communication is the belief that it has occurred. Today's guest, Richard Flint. We're talking about a day at the zoo. It's giving us this ability to understand what are the personalities of the people around us and how can we navigate this community, not just different people, but the personalities that exist within it so that we can. We don't just have to shove someone off to the side. Judge them based off their external appearance. We can understand what's going on on the inside and what the environment they need to thrive the best. My friend. Richard, it's so great to have you on. I'm loving this conversation. And it's just getting even more intriguing at this stage. So where do we go from here? So we've talked about the three main animals and you threw me off with that. With the camel, the, the, the parrot and the monkey. So now, after You've blown people's mind with that. Because I thought you were going to go. I thought you were going to go elephant. I thought you were going to go lion. So now how do we trickle down from there in. In understanding this community?
[00:25:57] Speaker A: Where.
[00:25:57] Speaker B: Where do we go next?
[00:25:59] Speaker A: Well, Tom, I need to remind everybody that all of us are two things. We're a person, which is what we see, and what that is about is we stand outside that person and we judge them.
[00:26:14] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:26:15] Speaker A: Without knowing them. Yes.
[00:26:18] Speaker B: Instinctually.
[00:26:20] Speaker A: Yeah. And we've all looked at somebody and said, that's a difficult person. But difficult only exists when you don't understand the person from the inside out. For inside, they are a personality.
[00:26:35] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:35] Speaker A: And that personality has four different fronts to it.
[00:26:40] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:26:41] Speaker A: And if I spend the time understanding the personality, I remove difficult and replace it with different.
And in all of the. All of the trainings that I've looked at, what I find is more time is spent on the person than the personality. We're trying to pigeonhole the person, but you can't do that if you don't understand the personality. And again, everybody's poor.
[00:27:14] Speaker B: You know, it's interesting, when I call, when I label them as difficult, I'm giving myself an out. I'm really defending myself in that situation. They're a difficult person to manage, so I'm really creating a scapegoat of that person. But if I rewire and call them different, then it's just about strategy at that point.
[00:27:36] Speaker A: Yeah. If. If I label you difficult, what I've done is, you're right. I've given myself an excuse, and it shows that I'm really not a leader. Leaders take time to understand the personalities of people. But if I take the time to understand their personality, then what am I doing? I'm learning how to work with them. I've seen companies throw away people.
[00:28:03] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:28:03] Speaker A: Because all they saw was the person. And that person goes to another company, goes under the leadership of someone who knows their personality. And what do they do? They blossom under that. You can't ever forget. The number one thing a human life wants to know is that they matter. And these two hump camels, they thrive on praise, but yet leadership doesn't have time for the praise because they're too busy fighting the fires that the monkeys have brought them. And don't forget, the monkeys travel in herds, so you never get to deal with one. And while you're trying to fight one fire, they're setting the next one.
[00:28:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:28:44] Speaker A: And if I don't understand this, then I'm in trouble, because these monkeys always travel with three other personalities. They travel with the vulture. And the vulture is the personality that's always waiting for someone to make a mistake. And then they pounce on that personality. And they go after them with a. With a viciousness. And they will go to leadership and say, I'm not gossiping, but you need to know about so and so.
[00:29:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:29:16] Speaker A: And they're always planning an attack. And then you got a constrictor who loves to wrap itself around you and squeeze. But you better be aware of the squeeze, because it can be fatal. Yeah. These are people that pretend to be your friend, and at the same time, they're stabbing you in the back.
The last one is the. The bat and the vampire bat. Their major source of nourishment is blood. And to the vampire bat, everybody is their enemy. And I don't care who it is, it can be a child because it has to win at everything that it does. And if it knows that you. It can't win with you, then it's just going to suck the life out of you.
[00:30:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:03] Speaker A: And if you understand this, and these are people, and I tell people all the time, if you got one of these four in your life and you cannot fix them, but they will destroy you in the process of you trying to fix them. The only thing you do with these personalities is you eliminate them. And Todd, this can be family members. It can be someone you think is a friend. It can be a co worker, but you can't. You can't work with these people. And you got to know how to eliminate them. And so, you know, I joked with you, I told you everybody's four personalities.
[00:30:42] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:30:43] Speaker A: And when we finish the program on Sunday morning, you have a sealed envelope in front of you. And in that envelope are the four personalities I think you are.
[00:30:54] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:30:54] Speaker A: And I learned you by watching you during. During the retreat. Mm. And if you were there and I had an envelope in front of you, you ready for this?
[00:31:05] Speaker B: Okay, I'm ready. I'm ready. Seatbelts on.
[00:31:07] Speaker A: Here are the four personalities I think you are. When I was there in Houston with you, I learned so much about you.
[00:31:14] Speaker B: Okay? And so you're gonna talk about me, okay? Okay. Okay. I'm ready.
[00:31:17] Speaker A: I'm ready.
You're my spotlight right now.
[00:31:20] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:31:21] Speaker A: Okay. Number one, you are a two hump camel.
[00:31:25] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:31:26] Speaker A: Because you are in a world of growth, the two hump camel is always looking for ways to improve.
The two hump camel, many times is a loner.
They get their best work done when you just leave them alone and let them work.
The two hump camel is also a trainer because they like to see the little parrots. They like to find people who have talent and they like to invest in that person to help them grow. And they will protect that little parrot from the monkeys.
[00:32:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:04] Speaker A: And you're in a position right now where you have to protect the parrots that you have around you. And you've got to be able to identify the monkeys and know how to work with them. Besides a two hump camel, to me you're all, you're also a giraffe.
And a giraffe is a personality that can see above the normal. Because of its height. It can see things other people don't see. I was in Busch Gardens in Tampa, was speaking at a convention there, and the guy brought me in. We were at the Swiss house having lunch and he said, flint, look behind you. And I turned around and there was a giraffe just staring at me. Now, if you ever study a giraffe, they're always doing one of two things. They're either sticking their toes, their tongue up their nose, or they're really intense at what they're looking at. Okay? And to me, what I saw in you when I was in Houston was your intensity to make things better and to improve.
I think you're, I think you're also a zebra. And why a zebra? Because the zebra has the toughest hide known to mankind. I have a friend here in the Palm Beaches who is a big game hunter, okay? And when I was working on this, I spent a lot of time with him and I, I was in his office one day and he just come back from a safari in Africa and he, he had, they had killed a zebra, okay? And he said, richard, here's what you don't understand about a zebra. You got to use armor piercing bully bullets to bring it down. He's had a normal bullet just bounce off its height. And with what, with what you're doing right now in the direction you're going, you gotta have a tough hide because the decisions you have to make are not going to be popular. And some of the lessons that you need to help people learn are not going to be popular.
[00:34:08] Speaker B: Right?
[00:34:09] Speaker A: And you have to have a tough height. And listen to me close now, because the fourth one is your dominant personality.
[00:34:17] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:34:19] Speaker A: You're a bear.
[00:34:21] Speaker B: I thought you were gonna say monkey, but go ahead.
[00:34:23] Speaker A: No, you're a bear.
[00:34:25] Speaker B: Why?
[00:34:26] Speaker A: Because a bear knows when to be playful and when to Be serious.
[00:34:31] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:34:32] Speaker A: And it knows it has to have a playful spirit.
But it also knows it needs to hibernate.
It needs a personal room in its life. It needs to be able to be able to get away and recharge.
[00:34:46] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:34:48] Speaker A: And a bear is a loner.
You, you, you study bears. And many times bears are by themselves. They don't travel well together.
And in order for anyone to provide leadership, they gotta understand they need time away from people. And one of the things I learned about this because you and I have a similar background. We both went to Southwestern Theological Seminary when I was doing some studies for a series I just finished on six of the greatest parables that Christ taught.
One of the things I learned.
Working with people can be exhausting.
I mean, he walked among the people. The people were pushing, the people were grabbing. The people had questions. They wanted more of him. And Christ always knew when he needed to go away and recharge.
[00:35:46] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:35:47] Speaker A: Because if you and I in the world where we are surrounded by people with personalities.
That if we don't have that time to recharge, pretty soon we lose our value.
[00:36:01] Speaker B: You know, Richard, I often tell everybody I'm an introvert. That everyone thinks I'm an extrovert because of that valuable time that you're talking about. I need to push the pause here. Let's jump into right after this, Richard, how the people at home can use this as a. On a regular basis. Let's keep getting practical and tactical. All right, Everybody stick with us. This is getting very interesting. He laid out animals I did not think he was going to lay out. But as he laid out those traits things, the pieces fit and it just made sense. Let's bring it home to your world in just a minute. Stick with us.
[00:36:49] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:36:55] Speaker B: Welcome to Communication Makeover, where we believe that intentional communication will lead to the breakthrough you're looking for in your business, in life. Today we're talking with Richard Flint about a day at the zoo. Not just about the snacks and the walking and the steps you can get in, but really understanding. It's giving us a tool that we can use in order to. How to navigate all the different personalities around us so we don't judge the people.
Give us some practical and tactical tools. Do you have a list or anything of how to really value? Because you pulled some animals out that I didn't expect for you to pull out. So where do we go from here in making this really practical?
[00:37:39] Speaker A: You know, Todd, one of the things I did in order to pull this program together is I came up with my list of zoos and don'ts.
[00:37:49] Speaker B: Okay, I love that. Zoos and don'ts.
[00:37:52] Speaker A: There can only be one zookeeper in the zoo. I've seen so many organizations where you have more chiefs than you have braves. And you got to understand this. Someone is always going to train the little parrots. And most of the time, the trainer are the monkeys.
So there has to be one leader. And if the person given the position is not that person, someone else, and 98% of the time, it's going to be a monkey that's going to step up and capture your little parrots. There can only be one zookeeper in the zoo. Number two, the zookeeper must not spend their time picking fleas with the monkeys. The monkeys cause the issues. They bring all of the problems to you, and they dump them in front of you. And before you know it, you're sitting there picking fleas with them, and you're caught up in the problem they're putting in front of you, and you're not understanding what they're doing. They're coming to make sure you have the time not to be the leader. Number three, zookeepers are humans and must not appear to be one of the animals. It was sort of like what Christ did. He walked in the midst of people, but he didn't become one of the people. A true leader walks in the midst of their people with a positive presence that is present when they're not present. Their spirit, their understanding, their personal power allows them to earn the respect. Number four, the animals will respond to the confidence of the zookeeper. You see, if a leader is not leading, then they become a participant in the confusion and the chaos. The role of a leader is to lead. They do that through leadership, not participation.
And so they've got to have that positive presence. That's where they earn the respect.
That's where they get the loyalty. It's also what scares the daylights out of the monkeys, because when the presence of the leader becomes more powerful, that leader then usurps the power of the monkeys.
The zookeeper must not forget that they need feeding, too. This is one of the things that I find in so many people. They get into the position of leadership and they camp out.
Every leader must be a student and at the same time a teacher. But they can't be a teacher if they've dropped out of the classroom. And that's why a program like this is so important, because we're not going to deal with the fluff. We're going to go deep inside and we're going to deal with the information you need in order to become a leader to these, these people.
The zookeeper must be an educator, not a dictator.
Every day they walk in a world of improvement. What many leaders don't understand is that their leadership is either taking people from yesterday to today or today to tomorrow. And if their leadership is from yesterday to today, they are a dictator because they don't. They don't empower people with growth. They become a controller who denies people the opportunity to grow, and then a huge one. A zookeeper must be trustworthy.
I must be able to trust the leader. I've seen this so many times when someone will come to the leader and want to talk to him in confidence, and they. They share something with them that the leader needs to know about. But for some reason, then the leader turns around and tells it to somebody else. And then it gets back to the person who had that conversation in pr, in private. And so the respect is lost, the loyalty is lost. And all of a sudden, you don't have a leader. You have someone that cannot be respected.
Zookeepers must understand the personalities of the people around them. And again, this is why this program is so important. Five years of my life trying to help people understand the difference between person and personality, the difference between difficult and different. The understanding of, how can I take an individual that everybody says is difficult and learn them and help them to grow? Because so many times these people are difficult. There are different. They're valuable. But once they're classified as difficult, they're difficult to everybody.
The zoo doesn't have to be a zoo.
The behavior, again, of all people, is consistent with the positive presence of the leader.
[00:43:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:43:01] Speaker A: If the leader is weak, the zoo becomes the Wild West.
[00:43:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:43:07] Speaker A: The leader. The leader must study and know the dietary habits of the animals. That's why the personality is so important. If you don't understand the personality, you're going to conflict with the person. And all it takes is a communication makeover. You just got to stop and not look at the person, but invest the time and energy to learn the personality.
[00:43:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:43:33] Speaker A: The zoo will have spectators.
[00:43:35] Speaker B: I'm so interested in this, the not labeling them difficult, but once they're labeled as different, then that means that my belief as the leader is that there's always a strategy in. On how to feed, on how to engage in community and how to engage with that person and, and make sure that they're enabling the zoo to operate as a zoo. Should. I like that. That's a. That's a very significant Paradigm shift. And it leads to very. A very important leadership understanding.
[00:44:05] Speaker A: Yeah. And Todd, it's also under. It's also important that as I understand this personality and I understand the personalities that they hang out with, it gives me an insight into what is important to them. What are they searching for?
Because the people that we hang out with become a huge part of whom we become.
[00:44:31] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Like you said, the parrots can. Will become just like the monkeys unless the, the camel kind of separates the herd a little bit.
[00:44:39] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's interesting because the parrot hangs out with the turtle hangs out with the ant and these, all these new personalities.
And it just blows my mind when I watch leaders who won't invest in getting to understand their people because that's what leadership is about. Leadership is about leading. And most people don't lead because they're too busy being busy with everything except the investment in their people. And I've had leaders tell me that's not my job. My job is to hire them and to put them in place and make sure they do their job. And I say, then you need to be fired because your job is to mold people into a partnership where through understanding you can direct them in the direction where their value increases and the company grows because of their presence, their growth. It will. Is what will take an organization from today to tomorrow.
[00:45:42] Speaker B: Absolutely. And I really want to take this opportunity to also talk about how people walk through this program because it's not just an assessment you can take.
You've set up a retreat environment to really understand this in depth. Talk to me a little bit about that.
[00:46:00] Speaker A: What we do is we have a three and a half day retreat and it's limited to 15 people because this retreat is governed by. By conversation, it's governed by communication. And as we talk about each of these different personalities, then the people have the time to share with each other. Personalities like this, they've worked with and what have they done with them. And we do it. We begin on Thursday night with the reception and then we all have dinner together. And then on Friday, Saturday we have a full day from 8 to 3 where we talk about and we go into depth with the animals, not only their characteristics, but I'm going to give you leadership skills that you can use to work with the personality.
And then I'm going to show you the people, the personalities they connect with in the zoo and what strength does that create.
And then we end up on Sunday morning at 11:30 and we end up with our zoos and don'ts. It is One of the funniest things you'll ever go through. I tell people, take your study guide and as we're going through, write the names of people next to the animal that you know and then take it back and leave it laying around the office and just see what happens.
[00:47:19] Speaker B: Yeah, I. I absolutely love that, Richard.
[00:47:22] Speaker A: This is.
[00:47:23] Speaker B: This has been extremely valuable. I have really enjoyed this. And anyone who goes through that retreat, and I'm looking forward to going through it myself, is in understanding this in depth because this is an extremely valuable tool. Once a person really embraces this because it removes the. It's not personal. There's a strategy to hit to the personality.
[00:47:47] Speaker A: Yeah. And it actually allows the leader to lead because now they're not looking at the person.
They're growing to understand the personality. You don't lead people if you don't understand the personality.
[00:48:04] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. That is at the core, the heart and core of all of this. Richard, thank you so much for the time. This has been a valuable, valuable conversation. Will lead to the makeover. Makeover that people are looking for. Thank you very much, Todd.
[00:48:20] Speaker A: If people will just go to richardflint.com There is a whole section and on my website on the zoo program.
[00:48:26] Speaker B: I love it. And I went there myself and it's easy to understand. Thank you so much, Richard.
All right, everybody. I know you enjoyed that. That is. It's an intriguing concept, but getting to the personality that's actually at hand and not just judging and pushing people away, but becoming a greater leader is about transforming your understanding of the people around us. I love you. Stay courageous, stay intentional, and we'll see you next week.
[00:48:59] Speaker A: This has been a NOW Media Networks feature presentation. All rights reserved.
