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How to Drive Your Career with Leadership Coach and Author, Ed Evarts
Jenn DeWall:
Hi everyone. It’s Jenn DeWall, on this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit. I sat down with Ed Evarts, who is the founder and president of Excellius Leadership Development, an organization focused on coaching mid to senior-level leaders and their teams in business environments. With over 25 years of innovative leadership and management experience, Ed possesses the ability to build awareness, create action, and deliver results. He is known for his business acumen and his ability to resolve complex human relations issues, and his enthusiastic, accessible and responsive style. Ed partners with managers and leaders in business teams to explore clarity and communication and traverse conflict and change. And today, Ed and I are going to be talking about how you can drive your career.
Meet Ed Evarts, Author of Drive Your Career
Jenn DeWall:
Hi everyone. This is Jenn DeWall. And on this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast, I’m sitting down with Ed Evarts. Ed and I are going to talk all about how you can drive your career, which is such an important topic right now is we’re hearing things like the mass resignation or people are talking about burnout, or maybe people have just been waiting ideally to determine what that next move is. Or maybe you’ve just been sitting there because you’re like, I don’t even know where to start. And those are the questions that we hope to be able to answer today. So Ed, thank you so much for joining us on the show today.
Ed Evarts:
Thank you, Jenn. I’m thrilled to be here.
Jenn DeWall:
So can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your business Excellius what do you do?
Ed Evarts:
Sure. So today, I am a leadership coach. I’m a team coach, and I also do small business strategy. I’ve authored two books, Drive Your Career, which I hope we’ll talk about a little bit today. And my first book, Raise Your Visibility and Value. And I also host a podcast called Be Brave at Work, where we talk a little bit about how people can be braver in the workplace and hopefully leave them with one or two ideas or strategies and things they can do in order to be more successful. In my prior career, before I became a leadership coach, I worked in human resources and provided business strategy to mostly retail organizations from college for the first 20 years, and then worked at a business to business services company for the next ten years. And then, I  left that company in 2008 to start my own practice.
Why Should We Drive Our Own Careers?
Jenn DeWall:
Yes. And well, you’re doing important work, and I guess starting out, I kind of have a question because a lot of organizations, you know, I, for my first time, I just got brought into an organization to talk about career development and I don’t see a lot more organizations necessarily bringing in someone to talk about their career development. And why do you think that is? Like, why do organizations kind of shy away from taking a role? And it really just lies with the leader.
Moving Beyond Performance Reviews
Ed Evarts:
Well, organizations evolve as time passes. And you know, I think we’re finally getting to the point where we realize things like performance assessments, the way we have done them for the last 40 years, are not working. That training the way that we have done it for the last 40 years isn’t working. And organizations used to be the place where you, where you went to work, and they would do all this for you. They would provide you training, and they would provide you all these things. And I think that’s evolving as well, where they now expect you to do it, right? So, Hey, we’re not going to provide you the training necessarily. There’ll be some basic skill enhancements, but then, you know, some people call them softer skills. I call them harder skills like communication, delegation, accountability, conflict navigation, things of that nature. You know, we’re not going to provide you. You have to go off and find that as well. So it’s a fairly subtle change, but you can see it happening in organizations around the globe where you are becoming more the person that you have to take responsibility to do those things versus your organization, doing it for you.
Jenn DeWall:
Yes. I appreciate that insight. I just, as you were speaking, I was thinking like, how happy would the workforce be if we could change our performance appraisal conversations, or even the whole process, which depending on what your organization does, it can feel really long and tedious. And I often used to wait for the email reminders just to be like, this is your last day to submit, but wouldn’t it be lovely if organizations could replace that whole process with just more dialogue around how to drive your career at work and talking about how are you going to achieve this goal? What can you do? How can I help you? How can I support you? I mean, bringing in all of the Ed Evarts in the world and helping people navigate this, instead of feeling like, okay, what’s going to be my goal for this. And I mean, I’m not sure about the clients that you’ve worked with, but I know in my experience, sometimes it feels so redundant to do a performance appraisal because it’s something that is a set and forget. I don’t feel like every company actually monitors it. And so you spend two, three hours again, depending on how time-intensive it is. And I’ve, I’ve done a few of them, but why, why does someone forget? Like why are we continuing to help or make people do this? It is just. It’s the definition of insanity in my book because if we’re not going to use it, why are we wasting people’s time and having them create it just so we can check a box and say they did it?
Ed Evarts:
Oh, no, that might be their motivation. I agree with you. I think it would be lovely if we moved away from kind of the structured annual performance assessments, which have failed. They have not achieved whatever it is that they were originally intended to achieve. And by the way, this is a model that was created back in the forties and fifties where the work structure and the way that we operate we’re different. And so today, we’re much more technologically advanced. We’re much more conversational. People know things about you and me that, you know, ten years ago, they never would have ever known because they can look us up on LinkedIn and Facebook and the internet and find these things out. So, you know, companies need the model and mirror what people are experiencing. And so clients that I work with, and there are some that still have forms or online systems that use people still get numbers.
Ed Evarts:
Like you’re a 4.5 out of five and things of this nature. And it just feels so archaic. And what I’m attempting to do. And I have colleagues who do this only for a living. They manage performance assessment processes is move people to more frequent conversations about how you’re doing what you need to do to be successful more frequently. So we can fix it at the moment versus waiting until the end of the year when so much time has gone by. I can’t even remember what it is that you’re talking about and helped me at the moment. So I hope organizations kind of wake up and see that there are more effective ways to manage performance, manage career and manage people. Then these stuffy processes that we inherited from people of the past.
Jenn DeWall:
Oh my gosh. And just to all the leaders right now, think about the time that you would get back from having to do because all of the leaders have to then do their own work for each employee’s performance appraisal. And that is also insanely time-consuming. So we’re planting seeds right now. We’re planting seeds efforts are hoping that people will start to say, like, yeah, there’s gotta be a different way. So we’re going to dive into,
Ed Evarts:
I guess, just quickly, Jenn, I mean, and to your point, people don’t do performance appraisal writing effectively. So it’s not just the process itself that doesn’t work, but I would guarantee you that nine times out of ten, most performance assessments are written the night before that, you know, people put it off because they don’t enjoy it. They don’t get energy out of evaluating others. And so I put it off, I put it off and then Monday is the day I’ve scheduled to meet with you. And I will guarantee you that Sunday night, I am working to craft what it is that I want to talk with you about. So it’s not just the delivery system that doesn’t work. It’s the creation system that doesn’t work either. It doesn’t work for anyone.
What Inspired You to Write Drive Your Career?
Jenn DeWall:
Yeah. That’s great. I appreciate that insight because you’re right. It’s, it becomes then less about, you know, really thinking about what that person is and truly evaluating them and more about being, you know, short to complete the appraisal before the meeting. And so then I think it leads to more generic feedback, not thought out, probably, maybe he was like maybe more of a knee-jerk, emotional response that’s close to. So whatever you experienced in the moment, instead of thinking about, you know, the length of your relationship, I just, oh my gosh. I think that’s such an interesting perspective and where we get it wrong. We’re going to be talking about your book, drive your career. So nine high-impact ways to take responsibility for your own success. What inspired you to write this book?
Ed Evarts:
Well, I’ve been a leadership coach now for about 15 years. And my first book, Raise Your Visibility and Value was really based on my 18 years in corporate America. And what I had experienced as a leader growing and evolving, and sometimes not growing and evolving, in order to be more successful. And after 15 years as a leadership coach, I realized that there were certain stories that I would share with clients repeatedly. And regardless of whether they were a president or a frontline supervisor, these stories came up naturally. I didn’t bring them up purposefully, but based on their situation and their needs, you know, these stories came up and, you know, one of those shower moments where I said, you know what? I should pay attention to what these stories are. Because I noticed one day that I once again shared another story with another client, and I ultimately identified nine behaviors or actions, whatever you’d like to call them, that I think people should be more aware of in order to drive their career. Most people or many people are more passengers in their career. They end up wherever they end up, and I believe people need to be more of a driver of their career. They need to think about where they want to go. They need to then think about how they’re going to get there, and then the need then need to take action in order to make it happen. So what do you want to do? How do you want to have an impact? Where do you want to go? And let’s drive your career in that direction
Jenn DeWall:
I really appreciated your book. I mean, not only the nine strategies on what we can do or the ways, you know, the techniques, but really those stories because the story is normalized. I think some of the shame, or just fear that we have around our career development, but before we dive more into some of those stories, cause I want to talk about that when we talk about the nine ways, why is it important to drive your career at work?
Are You the Driver or the Passenger?
Ed Evarts:
Well, as I mentioned a couple of moments ago, most people wake up one day and say, how did I get here? What am I doing? I don’t enjoy it. You know, why am I doing what I’m doing? Right. They have this moment where it just doesn’t feel right or doesn’t sit right with them. And so I’m attempting to help people really restructure the context of how they’re operating to say, well, when’s the last time you asked yourself, am I doing what I want to be doing? You know, some people are even in the wrong career, they may be in, you know doing audit and the finance department, and they don’t like audit or don’t want to be doing auditing. Right. So, you know, the needs and experiences of people are significantly different. So it’s more about restructuring the context and saying, Hey, let me think about what I want to do next, where I want to go and what I want to do.
You know, Jenn, we hear a lot of people have these mid-career moments where they were an attorney at a big New York City law firm, and they quit. And they now run a bed and breakfast in Vermont. Right? I mean, it’s just like significant changes. And it’s like, well, how did that happen? Well, it happened, I think because they said at one point, why am I here? What am I doing? I’m not enjoying this as much as I thought I would have. Now. I thought being an attorney at a big New York City law firm would be wonderful, but it’s not. It’s not what I thought it would be. And so this is designed to help people earlier decide what I want to do. Where do I want to go? Where I want to be and take certain steps and actions in order to make it happen.
Jenn DeWall:
Oh gosh, I, I want to ask the question because I think that’s where the meat is. Why do we stay the passenger? I know in both of our work as coaches, we likely have a lot of, we see a lot of different things, a lot of different things. And why is it that people still stay stuck from your perspective? Why is it that we remain the passenger instead of jumping into that front seat and owning it? What do you think what’s the motivation or the narrative or the messages that we’re telling ourselves that we’re just not, you know, building up that motivation to actually change.
Ed Evarts:
Yeah. I think it is more of a narrative, and I’m not a sociologist, so I have not studied this technically, but the workplace moves quickly, right? We work in places at time, goes by very fast. And you know, we always joke, I can’t believe it’s already X month in the year, or I can’t believe it’s X year, or I can’t believe I’m turning X age. Right. I mean, we’re very tied to time, and I believe it just goes by very quickly. So, you know, we’re just not in an environment where people ask us to think about what we want to do next and how we want to do it. That’s why going back to our earlier comment about performance assessments, you know, I believe those conversations also need to include career development, and you should be asking people who are great auditors, or great attorneys, or great manufacturing professionals. Do you enjoy this? Is this providing you what you hoped it would provide? What’s missing from what you’re doing. I mean, these are great motivating conversations to have with people. And who knows that attorney might’ve said, it’s so funny. You should ask that because I was just speaking with my spouse yesterday, and I don’t know that I’m enjoying this as much as I thought I would. That would be brave to say at work, but those are the types of thoughts and comments. But you know, I think it’s a narrative based on just how fast the world turns and time goes by. And now I sit here and say, Hey, I’m going to join this company. I’m going to stay for about a year and then move on. And then the next thing, you know, five years have gone by, and it’s like, how did that happen? So I think it’s time moving quickly and faster than our ability to keep up with it.
Jenn DeWall:
I’m curious. Do you still see, because I hear a lot of this that, you know, people staying stuck in their career become, it comes down to, well, there’s either the comparison. Well, I feel like everyone else’s wants this in my organization, so I should want it too, or what I notice a lot more with gen Z and millennials is that there’s this pressure or perceived expectation that their parents want them to do this. Or that the people there need to see them, you know, maybe pursue this organization or this type of, I guess, career. And so they feel like if they don’t do what other people want them to do, then they’re not getting it right. And so then they just stay there and tolerate a job that they don’t like or they’re not passionate about.
Ed Evarts:
Yeah. There’s a lot of reasons why people do what they do. And just to echo some of your thoughts, some of its hierarchy, my parents were teachers. So I thought I needed to become a teacher. Or the parents may have said, we want you to become a teacher. It’s a great life. And you know, we really want you to do this. Some of it might be financial, right. There may be times where you’re now at a salary rate that you just can’t give up and of your personal finances and the house you have and the cars you have. You just can’t walk away and say, Hey, I’m going to leave that law firm and become a bed and breakfast owner because the drop of income will be so great that I just can’t do that. So, you know, I think there’s a number of reasons why, and they all vary, by the way. Your reasons may be different than my reasons, but may be different from someone else’s reasons.
Ed Evarts:
But you know, we all have reasons why we are doing what we’re doing. Now, let me pause for a second and say, there’s a lot of people who are doing things they love doing. I’m not suggesting everybody is stuck in a role that they don’t enjoy. You know, there are many people who do exactly what they want to do, and are really, really good at it. And you know, certainly celebrities and people that we see in the news, maybe examples of some of those. But, you know, there are a subset of people who may not be doing exactly what they want to be doing or enjoy it and need to stop, pause and drive their career.
Create a Positive Relationship with Your Boss
Jenn DeWall:
Yes. I love that. And maybe that’s time to dive into it because it’s, this is an important conversation. If you are sitting here, you’re in the passenger seat; we’re going to help you shift into the driving or the driver’s seat. And even just thinking that no matter what your age is, no matter what your background is, no matter what the financial limitations are, you can still change. Now. I’m not saying the change is going to be easy, but I am saying to, you know, keep an open mind as Ed and I are going to dive into his book, drive your career, to talk about the nine ways that you can drive your career. So let’s dive into it. And I love this. And I want you to share that story from chapter one by talking about your first one. So one of your first ways was to have a positive relationship with your boss. Tell me a little bit more about why that’s essential in driving your career.
Ed Evarts:
So this is such an important characteristic of behavior, of most work environments, and I’m sure many of your listeners are shaking their heads saying, yeah, I need to have a better relationship with my boss, or I do have a great relationship with my boss, but you know, our boss-subordinate relationships are so critically important because your boss is really the gatekeeper for your career. If there are projects or assignments or roles that are being discussed, they’re the ones who might say, Hey, Jenn is a great person for this. I think she’d be perfect for that. If you don’t have a great relationship with your boss, that may not happen, right? They may pass you over or not think about you, or don’t want to think about you because you don’t have a great relationship with them. So my point in the chapter is that it’s important to sit back and say, you know, on a scale of one to six, if I was to think about the relationship I have with my boss, where would I score myself with one being horrible?
You know, we don’t talk to each other, and we avoid each other at all times. Or we’re a six, right? We finish each other’s sentences and know we love each other. And we go out to dinner every Friday night. We’re great friends and coworkers, et cetera. So, you know, where are you? And not suggest that if anybody is at a four or lower, that there are things they need to be doing, and this is you, not your boss. And that’s another challenge people have. They say, well, why shouldn’t my boss do it? And all change starts with you. So if you want to have a better relationship with your boss, you have to start doing things in order to plant the seed or get that conversation going. And I will guarantee all of the listeners that the better your relationship is with your boss, the better career experience you will have. The worse a relationship you have with your boss, you are not having a good time at work.
Jenn DeWall:
Right? That is the place that you love. I love you’ve shared one of the stories here, and I think it’s important because someone might be thinking right now. Well, I have a great relationship with my boss. I don’t even need to worry about this. I’ll tune out for this part of the conversation, but you have a story here about a gentleman who had, you know, received or achieved a lot of different success. He had a great relationship with his boss, and then things changed. Can you share that story with us?
Ed Evarts:
Sure. This is, you know, all the stories in the book are based on real-life experiences. So the names have been changed, of course, to protect the guilty. But in chapter one, we talk about an individual who was hired by a boss with whom he had a great relationship. And during the six years they worked together, everything went great. Salary grew, the role grew, goals, projects were given to this individual, and they had a great relationship to the extent that, and I didn’t mention this in the chapter, but to the extent that the employee may have taken it for granted like, Hey, this is just how it is. And this is how I’m experiencing it. And everything is fantastic. The boss ended up leaving for another opportunity, and a new boss came in, and the individual and his new boss could not be more different.
So this new person was not like his prior boss could not be more different in respect to leadership style and behavior. The individual in the chapter did not make any effort to say, gee, this relationship is not great. What am I going to do in order to improve it? Projects diminished, visibility diminished. The island this person was on got smaller and smaller until the point he was laid off. So this is a very common activity. When new leaders come into an organization, oftentimes, new leaders bring in people they used to work with because they know these people, and they know that they can work with them well. That doesn’t mean that the door for you is shut, but it means you need to go into overdrive in respect to ensuring, Hey, you’re a new boss, I’m a new employee. Let’s talk about each other’s styles and how we can work together because I want to be wildly successful for you. I want us to have a great relationship and ensure that things work out well. These are not conversations that we’re having in the environment. And if chapter one, if that employee had had that conversation with the boss, you know, my impression would be that they would not have been laid off, and things would have gone a lot better.
Take Ownership of Work Relationships
Jenn DeWall:
What would you say to people that think that maybe the leader is the one that needs to drive that conversation? Because I think there are plenty of leaders that probably aren’t having that conversation with maybe a new employee or someone that they’ve inherited. As you talked about in the book. What do you say to the individuals that feel like the ownership is on the boss to drive that conversation? Because I think there are probably people that feel like they might be overstepping a boundary if they’re the ones that are driving it.
Ed Evarts:
So, you know, all I can tell you, Jenn, is that if you’re feeling something you own taking action on it. So if you’re feeling that you don’t have a great relationship with your boss, you need to do something. You can’t sit back and wait for your boss who may not know, or may not care about the state of your relationship. But if you don’t think you have a great relationship and it takes bravery to say to your boss, Hey, I think our relationship is fairly strong, but I think it could be better. Are you willing to work with me to identify two or three things that we could both be doing a little bit differently to enhance it? Of course, I would hope the boss would say, absolutely. Let’s talk about it and you figure it out two or three things it might do. And that’s just the start. That’s just getting going so that you can continue, can continue to have these conversations with your boss. This isn’t a time discussion, but this is an ongoing annual or twice a year type conversation. But you know, all I can tell you is that if you’re feeling something we can’t, we can’t manage the emotions of others. We have to take action in order to improve it.
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Jenn DeWall:
Now in that chapter, you also talk about something that I think doesn’t come to mind earlier on it. I mean, it didn’t, at least for me in the early part of my career, which is what your bosses’ goals are? What are their career aspirations? What are they hoping to accomplish? Why is that important to understand what your boss wants?
Ed Evarts:
Well, in this fast-paced environment we work in, we are all obsessed with our own goals, our own projects, our own performance, you know, it’s all me, me, me, me, me. And in order to build a great relationship, you have to find space and time to understand what’s important to others. Because if you are all me, me, me, then that’s all you will ever be. And you won’t have great relationships with others. So in that effort to have a better relationship with your boss, one of the things you might ask is, what do you want to do? How do you want to be successful? What’s important to you as a leader in this organization, because I want to help you get there. But if I don’t know what they are, I can’t help you. Now it’s disappointing in some respects that bosses don’t know this and say to people, Hey, I just wanted to get the team together. I wanted to talk to you a little bit about what I think is important. What I think we should be working on, et cetera, lots of bosses don’t do that. But I think it’s a great relationship enhancer. If you find time to talk with your boss about what’s important to him or her on their career and their goals, how did you get here? What are you looking to do? What’s important to you. For our listeners, I think that’s a great thing and a great activity to do in order to enhance the relationship.
Are You a Helper or a Hurter?
Jenn DeWall:
Yeah. And you talk about the notion of being a helper. And I think that when you think about it, through the perspective of being a helper, it gives you may be a sense of purpose and how you can develop that positive relationship because you’re there to serve, right? It’s servant-based leadership, then what can I do to help? And hopefully, there’s reciprocity in that where that leader will then, in turn, say, how can I help you? But let’s talk a little bit about being a helper. And I forget the other word that you had said, be a helper, but not a blank.
Ed Evarts:
A hurter! So if you do that, if you do that exercise of assessing where you are on a scale of one to six, if you’re a four or lower, you might be a hurter. And you know, it sounds overly simplistic, but it’s how we think about people. You know, when you think about your team or think about people you work with, some people are helpers, right? If you need something, they always say yes, or they challenge you and ask you a little bit more about it, whatever it might be, but they help you in respect to moving forward and making great progress. Others are hurters, right? They’re what we call high transaction people. They take too much time. They ask too many questions. They pull down the energy and the mood. In order to help things move more effectively, I would tell you that as a spouse, as a parent, as a next-door neighbor, as a leadership coach, as a person, I want to be a helper.
I want to be somebody who, if somebody crosses paths with me, even if I only direct them to somebody else, they’re always going to view me and see me as somebody who felt I do not want to be seen or be experienced as a hurter with anyone. Now, there may be one or two people that that might be appropriate. I’m not saying the world, but in general, you know, I want to be a helper. And so you should think to yourself when I think about my relationship with my boss, and by the way, you can also think about this with peers and subordinates. Would my boss say I’m a helper? Or would my boss say I’m in the middle? Which isn’t great. Or would my boss say, you know, quite frankly, Ed, you’re asking the question, and I want to be honest with you. I feel like you’re a hurter, right? That you’re hurting our efforts. You’re hurting our organization, and you’re hurting the projects. And here’s why. So it’s hard to hear these things, but you can’t make progress unless you know how people feel about you or else you’re always going to be in la-la land thinking that it’s better than it really is.
You Need Self-Awareness AND Self-Management
Jenn DeWall:
Oh my gosh, I love this. And I think it’s a great segue into the second way. But you know, as we wrap up the first way, have a positive relationship with your boss, you know, get to know, understand their career aspirations. And I love that asking yourself and asking them, are you a helper or a hurter, but that leads us into self-awareness which your second way is that no one knows you better than you do. Why is that an important piece in career development? There’s a lot of ways I think people get that wrong, even though they’re the ones that know themselves the best.
Ed Evarts:
Well, lots of people I’ve worked with. And again, these stories are based on client experiences. And many of the people that I work with never took time throughout their career. Again, due to the pace and the effort on goals and projects and meetings and initiatives to reflect back on themselves and know why do I feel the way that I feel? Or why am I experiencing what I’m experiencing? As a leadership coach my number one goal is to help people build their self-awareness so they can self-manage more effectively. That doesn’t mean it’s all strengths. It doesn’t mean it’s all weaknesses. All of us have strengths. All of us have areas of opportunity. I need to know them so that I can manage myself a little bit more effectively. I’m sure we have all worked for people who have low self-awareness and are like the proverbial bull in the China shop who just operate in a way that we’re like, how did this person ever get this job?
Ed Evarts:
I mean, you know, they are so bad at something or the way they handle themselves or how they interact with others. And that’s because their self-awareness is low. And they don’t either care or are interested in building their self-awareness. And so chapter two is really to remind folks that, you know, once or twice a year, you should find even a half hour and a whiteboard to sit back and say, how am I doing? What’s important to me? Am I where I think I should be? And if not, and if there’s gaps in those answers, what can I do next in order to close those gaps? And so nobody knows you better than you do. Jenn. Nobody knows your truths. Nobody knows your lies. Nobody knows little things that you’ve done, that you haven’t ever told anyone about, better than a spouse, better than a parent. Nobody knows you better than you. And is the strongest asset you should use in order to make great progress. If you’re not honest with yourself and doing what you believe you should be doing, you’re never going to get there.
Jenn DeWall:
You know this, and you’ve answered this in this chapter. And I want to talk about it because we also asked this at Crestcom in our emotional intelligence course, but what is the difference, right? Are self-awareness and self-management the same thing? And that’s, you know, getting people to really think about that question. Cause I think a lot of people think they’re the same. Yeah. You’re shaking your head. No, we know it’s no. Tell me more.
Ed Evarts:
Well, self-awareness is your ability to understand how others experience you self-management is doing something about it. Right? So I might know how people experience me, but I don’t care. And so I don’t do anything about it.
We have all had great bosses, and I’ve had bosses. So I’m like, how did this person ever get to this role? But if a boss, for example, is somebody who takes over every meeting. And even if there is an agenda, and even if there are important things to talk about, they just take over and talk, and they know they do this. That’s self-awareness; self-awareness isn’t just good things. It could be challenging things as well. Self-Management is somebody who says, wow, I understand I do this. Now I’m going to do something different in order to have a positive influence. So I see them as significantly different. Self-awareness is your understanding of how others experience you. Self-Management our actions and behaviors to modify it, to have a better experience.
Jenn DeWall:
Yes. Thank you for answering that because you absolutely can have great self-awareness and not do anything about it. And you share a story, and I definitely want to get to that story. And it just makes me think of a personal experience for me. I have always been described as passionate, right? I’ve always been described as passionate. You are so passionate. And I had just the sweetest, I think of this boss, Dave Meyercord bless his heart. He was my boss in my second position of my career post-college. After I got my first promotion and I just remember him sitting me down and saying, Jenn, and this is all related to emotional intelligence, which I was this 20 something. I had no idea about this. And he was just like, Jenn, you weren’t so passionate. And I’m so happy that you are passionate. We are so grateful to have that, but you also need to tone down your passion. Because what passion really looked like, if you’re talking about, am I a helper or hurter, passion then was that I would get so frustrated if things weren’t maybe done my way or the right way is how I perceived it.
Or just thinking about all the different things I would be, you know, integrity was a huge value. So when someone would do something wrong, like that would be massive, like triggers for me. I honestly didn’t have a clue about emotional intelligence. And you know, it goes back to the first piece of, I had all these positive relationships with my boss. I had gotten all this feedback. I’d always gotten it right. I knew I was so passionate, but that’s not, you know, that’s your strength, but that’s also your weakness. And going back to having a positive relationship, I feel like that passion because I was aware of it, but I didn’t manage or do anything to really take that feedback into consideration actually caused me to be a hurter and not have a positive relationship with not my direct boss, but my boss above. And you talked about an example. I think her name was Sarah in the book, how she knew this whole time, all of the feedback, but yet she didn’t do anything about it. Or you tell me in your experience, how do you see this play out?
Ed Evarts:
I see it play out all the time. And I typically ask clients when we get feedback. And in many of my client engagements, we do a 360 where we go out and ask people confidentially and anonymously. What do you think of, and how do you experience working with Jenn? And please tell me candidly, right? Jenn even does the invite to let people know that this isn’t some kind of test being done, but she is curious to know. And so, she collects the feedback. And when there is feedback, that’s constructive. Like Jenn’s very passionate, but sometimes it takes over, and it would be good if she managed it. I say, is that news, is that new for you? Or is that something you’ve heard? Oh, I’ve always heard that.
Jenn DeWall:
We always know!
Ed Evarts:
No again, nobody knows you better than you. So you do know in most, although you might deny it or suppress it behaviors or activities that you’ve gotten little pieces of feedback, even going back to junior high and grade school and high school. A lot of the behaviors we demonstrated have been consistently with us. So, you know, we do know these things, but we’re not motivated or we don’t have the incentive to modify it. So we just keep going because that’s who we are. And that’s what we do with our career as well until somebody like your boss sits down and says, Hey, here’s your strength. But if it’s not managed, it becomes a weakness, right? So I need you to manage your passion so we can ensure that you are a helper, not a hurter. I just want to pick up Jenn. You also mentioned a key word that has to do with self-awareness, which is triggers.
And we all have triggers and these are words or phrases of behaviors that set us off and self-awareness apply is somebody who realizes a trigger has happened. And rather than reacting, without thinking, and then coming back later and apologizing. Self-managing. So that’s a great example of the difference between self-awareness and self-management. Self-awareness is recognizing that you have a trigger and it might be a word. It might be a phrase. It might be a behavior self-management is how you handle it when it happens. So you’re not constantly reacting. And then sending an email later that afternoon, apologizing to everybody cause you so overly reacted and so forth and so on. So you know, very, very important differences between self-awareness and self-management,
Use Self-Awareness to Drive Your Career in a New Direction
Jenn DeWall:
I mean, I laugh, I’m just laughing and giggling through this, because when you said, like, we can typically know it earlier, I think of in high school, I was a pretty driven student. I really needed to get scholarships because I needed to fund college. So I, you know, signed up, volunteered, participated in numerous school activities. Right. I mean, it’s kind of embarrassing how big my high school bio is because you know, none of that really matters today. I mean, not to say it doesn’t matter. It does to some extent, but it’s just funny because I laugh because I’m like, why was I like that? And I think of one piece of feedback I got from a friend of mine when I was younger and he’s like, Jenn and how would I describe you in college? Or excuse me, in high school, you were overzealous.
And if I think about passion and overzealous, I always had drive. That feedback was always there. I just wasn’t willing to admit it. And so I’m just giggling for that because a lot of you if you even think here’s your self-reflection for the day, think about a common theme in the feedback that you’ve received. If you haven’t taken time to really, you know, take that half hour to ask yourself those questions, at least think about what are the similarities and the common themes. But one thing I also want to talk about because the big change for me in terms of knowing yourself, right? No one knows you better than you do is when I was in this first career, right where I was in a buying track. I loved it. I loved what I did, but yet I just didn’t fit in, in that culture.
I don’t know if I’m even a misfit, right? A corporate misfit. I’m not sure if I fit there fully, but when I thought about passion as being something that was always, maybe a negative attribute. Now, when I think about passion, right? It’s actually a strength. It’s a strength because I can use that in podcasting. I can use that in speaking. I can use that in coaching. And so even thinking to people that sometimes when you hear all this feedback, maybe you’re in the wrong environment? Maybe you are in the wrong place where you just cannot let it, you know, it can’t necessarily show you in a positive light. And so that self-reflection. Are you actually in the right place? Any takes on that.
Ed Evarts:
Well, I, you know, I’m not bad enough for it to pick up on that story, right? There are, there are famous comedians who were not always a comedian. They were business professionals and they just constantly heard from people. You know, you are so funny. And then they did open mic night at a local restaurant just to give it a shot. I have a good friend who did an open mic night at a restaurant, you know, not locally, but in this state that we’re in. But you know, it’s, it’s finding that point in time where you finally decide you want to drive your career and I could stay as a business professional and be told that I’m really funny, or is there something I could be doing that makes me happier and satisfies me greater that I could switch. And, you know, I use that attorney to bed and breakfast owner jokingly, but those are real stories, right?
I mean, I would almost promise you that most bed and breakfast owners were not always bed and breakfast owners. I would guarantee you that used to be in some other type of corporate role. Now, some people might say this is moving from one chapter to another, that I love my job as an attorney, but felt that I wasn’t doing anything new. So I wanted to do something different. I fully recognize that and get that as well. But you know, it’s knowing yourself, and that’s what chapter two is about. No one knows you as better than you do. And if you have certain strengths that you can utilize and capitalize on, are you, and if you’re not, it might be a good time to think about it a little bit because there might be something else you could be doing that utilizes those strengths more effectively.
The Bell Curve of Great Ideas
Jenn DeWall:
I gosh. Okay. I, oh my gosh. I’m just loving this conversation at, and I know we don’t have time to go through all nine ways, even though that’s why everyone’s going to have to get the book. But I do want to talk about bell curves rock, because in my experience, I don’t know, did you, can you guess what I’m going to probably say, like, I hate bell curves. Tell me why you love them. Why do they rock?
Ed Evarts:
Well, first of all, my wife is a former math teacher and she says, I use the term bell curves incorrectly, but I think it’s just a good visual because you know, too often what happens in organizations because we are so focused on success, that we focus on the right side of the bell curve, which is the positive side. You know, the number of people who are doing things really, really well. And we don’t spend enough time on what are the risks of what I’m suggesting, even if I love the idea, what are the risks of what I’m suggesting, what could go wrong? You know, what might somebody say or ask negatively about what I’m suggesting? So I don’t go in like a cheerleader thinking that what I’ve got is the greatest idea ever, only to have someone raise their hand and ask something that is de-energizing to the idea.
So it’s important to recognize that all ideas and all behaviors are kind of on a bell curve, and you should spend as much time on what could go wrong and what tough questions might you get? What are some of the more risky or behavioral-type questions that might influence it? And what is the good stuff? You certainly want to spend time on the good stuff as well. And here’s why, if you don’t do that when you get the tough questions, you won’t have good answers, and it might deflate the impact you’re attempting to have or delay it and say, well, look, I don’t have those answers. Give me a couple of weeks. Let me figure it out. Now there’s a couple of weeks added. And a couple of weeks turns into a couple of months, et cetera. If you think about it in advance and get an accountability partner to say, okay, what’s wrong with this idea? What don’t you like? What tough questions can get asked. And at that meeting be prepared. And if somebody says, well, you know, this sounds like it’s going to conflict with our budget or what else? And I’ve got those answers. It could get approved that day and we’re moving, right? So it’s just thinking about the whole bell curve and the pluses and minuses. So you’re more prepared to move forward effectively.
Jenn DeWall:
Okay. So what I’m about to say, like driving your career, when I think about, you know, understanding the bell curve, I think about that as suspending your own ego. Not saying that I need to be right. Not saying that I need to be perfect or have the best answer, but saying there’s a possibility that, you know, something else could happen. It’s actually not about me. It’s for the benefit of the team or for the organization, but yet we are still in our career, I think, you know, that’s the misstep in terms of driving your career, is that fundamental desire to be right or desire to push your idea through. Which newsflash—   may well alienate you from other people in your organization. They may not like working with you if they feel that you’re a bulldozer. What have you seen in terms of behaviors and leaders in your experience?
Ed Evarts:
Well, I think what you just described is accurate that I get so caught on the benefits of my idea and even seduced by the benefits of my I’m not spending any time thinking about the risks or the issues or the challenges that might exist in it. And so I go in thinking about, oh, I’ve got this great idea, and it’s going to wow you all, and here I go, and all I get hit with are negative or critical questions or reactions. And I’m stuck because I didn’t spend any time thinking about all of those. So I think it’s potentially part ego. I think it’s a potentially part seduction with the great idea. We all love being right. You know, when we grew up in junior high and high school and college, we were expected to always have the answer, right? The teacher would say, you know, what country is this or who is the 12th president?
And they expected every hand to go up because we were expected to have all the answers. And so this is kind of how we’ve been raised. And so now, when we present ideas, institute solutions at organizations, we want to present the good stuff and focus on that. And the experiences that I’ve had with clients is that if they had spent more time, not more time, but additional time on the issues or challenges that their strategy might’ve presented and the positive answers that they can provide to address it, the likelihood of the answer getting accepted would have been more effective.
Jenn DeWall:
Oh my gosh. I, I just, I love what you just shared because it just makes me think of what would happen if we just detached and let things go, right. How much happier would we be in our careers? How much happier would we be if we didn’t put that pressure on ourselves to have all of the answers and just said, Hey, here’s one consideration open to others. I am not, you know, because together we rise, right? You need other people to be the bastard to find the best solution or outcome. But how much more, I guess sanity- I would just say- and he would exist at work if I could just relieve that pressure and stress to feel like I have to know and be everything to everyone or have the right answer. I feel like you can see everyone.
Ed Evarts:
Yeah. Well, I think it’s also its part vulnerability, right? That you don’t think that you’ve got the right answer and there are no other answers out there. So it’s part recognizing that there could be modifications to your idea that are welcome. It’s part, empathy. You don’t want to come in as a cold business person, but recognizing the impact that your idea may have on others. That’s always a critical area that people don’t think you’ve thought through the impact that something is going to have on others and the potentially negative impact that might have on people. So I think there’s a number of behaviors you want to demonstrate to show that you’ve thought through the idea, both the positives and the critical to ensure that the idea that you have amongst multiple ideas is the best one.
Pausing is Powerful
Jenn DeWall:
Let’s dive into one more way because you’ve got nine. We don’t have time for all of them. That’s why you’re going to have to get the book. Pausing is powerful. What does that mean? Because you know what, we’re in this fast-paced environment, and we’re supposed to move and do everything as fast as possible. Are you telling me to slow down? Pausing is powerful.
Ed Evarts:
Right? Well, that’s part of the pressure in respect to pausing is the culture is so fast-paced that we think pausing is going to allow our competitors to get ahead of us. And that the only way to make progress is to go, go, go, go, go, and never pause. And you know, I give an example in the book, and some of us might remember the 2017 Oscars where and I’ll just tell the story quickly, Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, who was celebrating the 50th anniversary of Bonnie and Clyde, that they both starred in, we’re giving out the best picture. And they were given the wrong envelope. And all Warren Beatty had to do was say, Hey, I think I’ve been given the wrong envelope. Can I get the right envelope that wouldn’t have been earth-shattering? Right. They would have said, oh yes, Mr. Beatty, we apologize. But that’s not what he did. What he did was he looked at it. It didn’t make sense. People thought he was melodramatically dramatic.
Jenn DeWall:
Wait, tell me, because I don’t even know this story. What was in the envelope?
Ed Evarts:
It was the best actress. So he was so it said Emma Stone for LA LA Land. So he’s looking at it and he, and this is live TV and he’s pausing and people think he’s being melodramatic. And so he hands it to Faye Dunaway and she opens it and says, LA LA land won best picture, which is not at all what the card said. So the LA LA Land people come on stage and they’re celebrating. And as they’re talking, you could see this head in the crowd going around. And it was a you know one of the employees and they then grabbed the person who was speaking, whispered something into his ear and he handled it beautifully of all the people up there. The one person who handled it beautifully was the producer of La La Land, who said, Hey, I’ve got to pause right now. There’s been an error. We did not win best picture. The best picture is Moonlight. And the Moonlight people are like, nah, you’re just kidding. And he’s like, no, he goes, no, I’m serious. They were given the wrong envelope. So Warren Beatty had to apologize. Jimmy Kimmel had to apologize. You know, every, it was all this time taken out. If Warren Beatty had just paused when he got the wrong envelope at the beginning and said, Hey, I think I’ve been given the wrong envelope. None of this would have happened.
Pausing can Actually Speed Things Up
Ed Evarts:
So pausing is not about slowing down. It’s not about letting your competitors get ahead of you. It’s about ensuring whatever you’re about to do. You take a little time just to think about it. So if you’re at a meeting and you’re about to kick off a new project, you might say to your team, Hey, we’ve talked about a lot of ideas.
Everybody’s leaving here with deliverables. I want everyone just to think about everything we’ve done today for a couple of days. And on Friday, if you have any concerns, any new ideas, any issues, any things that we should know, let us know because this is important, right? But oftentimes, we don’t do that. And so we leave the meeting, and everybody goes, and then down the road issues happen, which delay the deliverable. So more than one project has been delayed in life because something we didn’t anticipate happened or we didn’t think about something. And so that’s where this behavior plays a big role. That pausing is a great way to move faster versus move slower.
Jenn DeWall:
And I think even the pause could also, you know, it’s related to also looking at your career possibilities, looking at, do you have to keep, and again, this is me and my twenties, and our listeners have heard this probably many times before, but I was a very, Ooh, let’s call it overzealous. Right? Very driven person and wanted to do great things. That when I thought about a pause like that’s what I determined and labeled a lateral move. Well, that’s just a pause. That means I’m not growing. That means I’m not achieving. Why would I do that? That’s a waste of time. And now that I know more, I, you know, it’s hard to try to help people suspend your ego. Lateral moves are one of the best things you can do for yourself to be the best business driver. You get a broader perspective, different points of orientation around the business. It’s not a pause. It’s an opportunity for you to actually develop a different, unique insight that makes you more valuable. But yet, I don’t get the accolades when I do that. They’re like, I don’t, I don’t get to say like I got that promotion, that raise. It’s I got a lateral move. You know that again, ego comes in the way. So embracing the pause, curious how you see that play out.
Ed Evarts:
Well, I think it’s largely due to culture, and we’ve grown up in environments where you had to climb the corporate ladder, and you started out in the mailroom at IBM and you retired 40 years later as the senior vice president of sales at IBM. And you held all these roles in between. That’s no longer how the world is working. Again. These are all very subtle changes. Performance assessment processes are subtle and career development is very subtle. And it’s a very effective tool to move laterally to other areas of the business. And oftentimes presidents will tell you of companies that one of the reasons they’re there is because they spent one, you know, one or two years as the SVP of sales and they spent one or two years as the SVP of operations and they spent one or two years as the SVP of human resources, right. They were being groomed and trained in order to get that higher role. So it’s a fantastic career builder to demonstrate the people that you’ve not just been in a funnel in sales ,to pick that as an example, but you’ve also had some other areas of opportunity, which makes you more valuable. So it’s hard to do. And of course there’s financial impacts and there’s kind of career growth impact, but longterm, it could prove for many people to be a really effective strategy.
How to Get in Touch with Ed
Jenn DeWall:
Yeah. Embrace the lateral move. And thank you so much for taking time to be on the show today. I’ve really enjoyed our conversation. I wish we had time to talk about all nine ways. How can our how can our listening audience get in touch with you?
Ed Evarts:
Well, first of all, Jenn, I just want to say that your passion today was a strength because it helped me feel more passionate. So I think we had a better conversation because of your passion. So it was not an area of development today. So thank you for demonstrating that. I think folks can find out more about me at my website, which is Excellius.com E X C E double L I U s.com there’s information and stuff about the books and the work that I do there
Jenn DeWall:
At Everett’s. This was great pickup as book, where can you get the book at, from the website, Amazon drive your career nine high impact ways to take responsibility for your own success, because it’s on you. We can’t blame it on anyone else. Where can they pick up this book? It’s a great read and there’s so many great stories.
Ed Evarts:
That’s right. Change that. Start with you. Yeah, it’s available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble.com, on my website. You can order it as
Jenn DeWall:
Well. Great. Thank you so much for being on the show today.
Ed Evarts:
Thanks, Jenn.
Jenn DeWall:
Thank you so much for listening to this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast. If you want to connect with, add, get to know more about him, you can go to Excellius.com, or you can head on over to Amazon, and you can purchase his book, Drive Your Career. If you know, a friend that is maybe in the midst of making it for your change. And it’s just not sure what to do, share this episode with them. And if you enjoyed this, please leave us a review on your favorite podcast streaming service. And don’t forget, if you’re in the midst of even thinking about my team needs this or my team needs leadership development, reach out to Crestcom.com. We would love to come to your organization for a two-hour leadership skills-building workshop. Thank you so much for listening until next time.
