“Once you find your center, everything becomes quiet. Then you can start observing life unfolding as a rotating pattern around you”, says Maria Kellis, in Episode 11 of Career Nation show.
“The number one indicator of success is the degree of self-awareness and emotional intelligence a person has. Now 85% of people think they’re emotionally intelligent and only 10-15% actually are. So, it’s never too early to become more self-aware. It’s also never too late”, says Johanna Lyman, in Episode 12 of Career Nation show.
Johanna Lyman is a professional speaker, business consultant, entrepreneur, and author. She is a business coach at NexGen Orgs and the president of the Bay Area Chapter of Conscious Capitalism.
In this video, she explains how to become successful by handling failures effectively and shares insights about life, success, failure, wisdom, and career.
Here are some highlights from this episode:
- How to develop your business?
- Why emotional intelligence is critical?
- How to innovate and scale your business faster?
- Why business should be conscious of their capitalistic tendencies?
- How to handle failure – at a leam level as well as at an individual level?
- What is ‘that’ combination of success?
- What is Pattern Matching, and why is it important?
Career Nation:
Hey Career Nation, welcome back to the show. And today we have a phenomenal guest. She is an author, she’s a business coach at NexGen Orgs. And she’s the president of the Bay Area Chapter of Conscious Capitalism. Please welcome Johanna Lyman to the show. Johanna, welcome to the show.
Johanna Lyman:
Thank you, Abhijeet. Happy to be here.
Career Nation:
This is great. And, you know, you and I have been planning this for a while, so this is super exciting for me. Johanna, why don’t you give us a little bit about yourself and your role in this various organizations?
Johanna Lyman:
Sure. So NextGen Orgs is my company. I founded it in its early version founded it 16 years ago this month. It’s gone through a couple of iterations and it’s been about 40 years that it’s been NextGen Orgs. And we help companies have sustainable profitability and build highly cohesive and productive teams. And then as the board president of Conscious Capitalism, a role that I’ve been in for about six months now, I’ve been involved in the organization for a couple of years. Maybe almost three. And, so Conscious Capitalism is about unleashing the heroic spirit of business. So it’s about business as a force for good in the world, which aligns very much with the work that we do at NexGen Orgs.
Career Nation:
Oh, I love the synergies there. Because on one hand you’re helping businesses as part of NextGen Orgs. And on the other hand, you are working, with Conscious Capitalism to help business and be a force for good. So there’s a lot of intersections there. So why don’t we dive into this a little bit more? What does NextGen Orgs do? Do you guys help startups, established companies and sort of how do you help them?
Johanna Lyman:
Yup. So we work with companies – small, fast growing companies, privately held and we do, there’s four basic things that we do with them. First, we help them understand their values and their purpose and their vision. We help them, with Conscious Communication. So emotional intelligence, how to conflict management. We also help companies actively embrace failure so that they can be wildly innovative and scale faster. And then the fourth thing that we do is we help companies become radically inclusive. And you know, there’s, there’s a strong business case for all of those things, which is why we do them. We put it together and we call it building brave cultures.
Career Nation:
Oh, that’s outstanding. And I can see a lot of companies who would love to take advantage of that because that’s an area as companies are fast growing, culture and improving, sort of teams is an area which is a lot of times overlook. And this is a really interesting area that you’re working in. And as we shift towards sort of Conscious Capitalism and businesses becoming a force for good. It is a, it is such an intriguing topic because on one hand, a lot of companies here in Silicon Valley, they’re trying to grow fast. And in that process they may not be paying attention to being more inclusive or, some of the things that we have going on locally, such as, diversity or housing or gentrification and all those type of things. And, how are you encouraging businesses to be conscious about their capitalistic tendencies? How are you influencing them?
Johanna Lyman:
That’s a great question. It has to start really at the very beginning and it has to start with being the founder or founders being mindful about their values and the values that they want the company to bring into the world. And then once they’re clear on their values, then we can come up with a purpose that is beyond profit. Profit is essential. And studies have shown that actually purpose-driven companies outperform the S&P 500 (Index) by 14 times. So it’s not just a good thing, it’s not just a nice thing to do. It’s really good for business. But then you have to not only have these values and understand what your greater purpose is, but you have to operationalize that. So how would your customers or clients see that you were living your values? See that you’re living the company’s values? How does that show up in how you do business?
Career Nation:
You know, it’s interesting you say that. Because a lot of times people in companies are compensated and incentivized in different ways because, you know, they may be incentivized on sales or product or you know, those type of things. And that includes bonuses and stock options and all of those things. And, having a purpose is great. And many companies have a great purpose and they try to move towards that, but there is also a set of companies who may have a superficial purpose. Their real purpose is to disrupt and other things. So how does that, how does Conscious Capitalism get manifested in companies where, you know, the people are incentivized differently or their purpose may be just a little bit more flimsy, if you will?
Johanna Lyman:
Right. I think that biggest thing that I’ve seen with later stage companies is they might have a purpose. They understand their values when they’re just starting. But then they hit an inflection point, they start scaling and they bring on, you know, 50 more employees and, somehow the purpose and the values gets diluted at that point, if they’re not operationalized. If they’ve got a very clear set of ‘this is how we do things’ and they onboard their new employees to understand that, then it doesn’t get diluted. But that’s such a huge problem that I see all the time.
Career Nation:
Great. And as these companies are growing and they’re trying to innovate, one of the topics you mentioned earlier who was about failure and I know that this, topic is very close to your heart and you’ve written about it online as well. You know, I’ve always struggled to understand the question about failure, whether it’s individual or at a team level. And as we see, especially in tech companies, we are always trying to innovate, push the envelope just a little bit more. And through that, a lot of times there is failure. And failure sometimes is taken as, ‘Oh, here’s something new we learned’ versus sometimes it’s like, ‘Oh, you failed’. That’s why we’re going to move on to a different project. Or you should not be working on these innovative things anymore. So it has got this double-edged, it’s a double edged sword. How do you think we should handle failure? Especially in companies at a team level, at an individual level?
Johanna Lyman:
We have to get comfortable being uncomfortable. Absolutely have to. And there’s stats behind it. Something like 84% of leaders know that innovation is critical to the success of the company. But only 4% of them – this is from a McKinsey study – only 4% of them are actually doing something about it in their strategic plans. And it’s not, so it’s not because they don’t know it’s important. They just don’t know how. And I always like to say, if I could change one thing about our society, I would change the way we educate our kids because we set them up to learn at a very young age that they can’t fail more than 30% of the time. You know, that’s a C-grade, right?
Johanna Lyman:
But in reality, 80 to 90% of startups fail. Like 92% of product innovations fail. Like there is no success at all with out failure first. So, and we like to do it by… (Laughing) We teach the innovation, by playing games. Because it’s fun and people learn 10 times faster when they’re having fun. So we get them. It’s the only way to get comfortable being uncomfortable is to practice.
Career Nation:
Yeah. I love that. And I think you’re so right about failure. And actually, thankfully in Silicon Valley at least we have a culture that celebrates failure a lot of times, which is great. And that actually is very helpful for companies that are trying to innovate, break glass and move forward quickly. And having that inclusiveness for failure is super helpful. Do you have any advice for, executives, managers who are, who would like to encourage their team to innovate? And at the same time there might be a little bit of them failing. And how do you, how can one develop an appetite for a certain level of failure while as we go through our innovation cycles?
Johanna Lyman:
I think there’s a couple things that happen. First of all, they could, you know, do some sort of a team building process that actually gets people together and does like, like a ropes course or something where they get to practice things like this. And it helps to build morale. It helps to build a sense of belonging. And at the end of the day, whether they, whether you say you’ve got a culture of innovation or not, you really don’t have a culture of innovation if you’re not failing a lot, and then learning from it. So what’s the key learning here and how can, like, where’s the point of failure and how can we, like if we start there just before that, how can we do it better next time? The other thing is that, you know, the reason besides the school thing, the reason we’re so afraid of failing is because we’re afraid of getting kicked out of the tribe, right?
Johanna Lyman:
The psychological safety and belonging is so crucial. And so, and we’re hardwired to kind of sort for sameness and to keep ourselves safe, right? So we have to kind of retrain the amygdala with part of the limbic system to notice that when we fail, we don’t die. Cause the limbic system is hardwired to keep us safe and safe means alive. And the only thing it knows for sure we can survive are things that we’ve already survived. So kind of fatal flaw and the operating system there. But so I always tell my clients to like, celebrate the crap out of your failure and like say, ‘Oh my God, I just did something for the first time and I didn’t die’.
Career Nation:
That is awesome. You know that is so interesting because, it reminds me that failure is not just at the team level, could also be personal and it’s okay to fail and there’s a lot of learning there and no, you’re not going to get kicked out of the tribe and no, you’re not gonna die. And it’s gonna make you stronger and more alerted and it will help you to, quite frankly, propel in the right direction if you’re not able to open some doors. That means you’re actually, destined to open a different door, which is more success. And so have you seen any, examples or ways, to deal with personal failure. Especially in careers and especially for Career Nation where we have people who are trying different things or trying different types of jobs or domains and what have you. And they’re kind of going through their careers and trying to navigate the best they can. Anything that you can share about sort of dealing with personal failure?
Johanna Lyman:
Yes – don’t take it personally. So you have to separate the action with the Dewar. Okay. So if I’ve just, you know, been fired from a job, for example, I have to separate out like these are the actions or inactions that caused me to get fired and they’re not who I am as a human. If they are who you are as a human, then maybe it’s time to get some coaching.
Career Nation:
Yeah, that’s a great point to separate yourself from the actions because your actions don’t always represent who you are. That’s a great hack. I love it. Johannah why don’t we shift gears a little bit and learn a little bit more about you. And we’ll get into our Favorites Game, which is we ask you some favorite questions, rapid fire, and you are expected to answer them and tell us why that thing is your favorite. Johanna are you ready?
Johanna Lyman:
Ready as I’ll ever be.
Career Nation:
Awesome. Uh, why don’t we start with what is your favorite app?
Johanna Lyman:
My favorite app, this is going to sound silly, but it’s a cribbage app because I love to play cribbage and my husband doesn’t have the patience to learn how. So it’s the only way I get to play enough.
Career Nation:
Oh, very cool. That’s great. You get to keep your hobby. That’s a good thing. What is your favorite book? And this could be a fiction or nonfiction book.
Johanna Lyman:
That is such a hard question for someone like me who reads an average of at least two or three books a week. But I will say that probably the book that most impacted me was Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.
Career Nation:
Oh, very cool. Oh, I can definitely draw some connection points there to Conscious Capitalism and, yeah, that’s awesome. How about a favorite quote? Do you have a favorite quote that you would like to put on your computer, on your wall or just like as a mental tattoo?
Johanna Lyman:
Yes. I actually had one that was on my wall for 10 years before I figured out what it really meant. “I’ve been absolutely terrified every day of my life, but I’ve never let it stop me from doing a single thing” by Georgia O’Keeffe.
Career Nation:
Powerful. I love that. And then also kind of relates to failure because yes, some of those things might result in failure, but that’s the way it is. Failure and obstacle is the way to move forward. On a different note, what is your favorite restaurant?
Johanna Lyman:
Oh, anything that can make me a good New England lobster roll.
Career Nation:
Ooh, nice.
Johanna Lyman:
There is actually a place in Burlingame, I think. I believe it’s called The New England Lobster Company. And I will take a drive up from San Jose on a pretty regular basis just to get my fix.
Career Nation:
Oh, that is so cool. I will check it out and put that in the show notes. Johanna, now that we know you a little bit more, we would love to figure out what’s sort of the secret sauce behind Johanna Lyman’s, career success. So here’s the part where we’re trying to understand what are your strategies and approaches towards your career? Do you have a morning routine? Do you prep yourself? What are some of the strategies that have really helped you become successful in your career?
Johanna Lyman:
Yeah, there’s a combination. Yes, I have a morning routine. Before I turn on my computer or open my phone, I have, like a devotional reading that I do and then a short meditation, a journal on a regular basis so that I can capture my own insights and my own learnings. And then I am a connector. So when I meet a new person, and I think you’re like this too, cause we were kind of going back and forth when we first met. When I first meet somebody, my first thought is, how can I help you? How can I help you get what you’re looking for? And I think that is not as rare now as it was when I first started in corporate. But it’s still somewhat unusual and all the go givers that I’ve ever met have all been successful. Have you read that book, The Go-Giver?
Career Nation:
I have not, but I read Adam Grant’s Give and Take. Similar topic, but I haven’t read The Go-Givers. That is a very interesting title because it’s different that’s not go getters, but go givers. I love that title.
Johanna Lyman:
It is just a parable. It’s just a really short read. I forget who the author is, but…
Career Nation:
Awesome. Johanna, as you help companies through NextGen Orgs and through Conscious Capitalism, there might be many important projects, meetings. Tell us, how do you prepare for a big meeting or prepare for a big project? What sort of preparedness and sort of how do you help your stakeholders, your clients become successful? What sort of preparedness and what mechanisms do you use that you would like to share with Career Nation?
Johanna Lyman:
So to prepare for like a big meeting or a big team delivery, something like that, I take my morning practice and I double it. And the other thing that I do, to be honest with you is I know that when I can tap into the wisdom in the room, I have the ability to – it’s kind of a strange and unique gift, I love it – to tune into any organism, whether it’s an individual or team or an entire organization. And I can sort of, in a way, it’s hard to describe, but I can see what wants to emerge and I can see the highest potential that’s in the room in front of me. And so when I can tune into that and just let myself be guided to speak to what I can see. Pretty magical stuff happens.
Career Nation:
That is super magical. And that is almost like you are, you’re sensing the room, you’re sensing the people, you’re sensing the individuals. Are there any cues that you look for? Is this like body language or do you see like people are bringing up certain topics, so tell us a little bit more. Give us a clue into your super powers.
Johanna Lyman:
Yeah, so I think, I am highly intuitive, so there’s that. But I think, cause I’ve been trying to unpack this for myself for about 10 years. Like how do I do that thing? I think I am really good at pattern matching and it happens so fast that it occurs as intuition, but really I’m just, I’m paying attention to tiny little cues. It might be how someone looks at another person in the room and body language for sure is part of it. And just like, just having a sense of the energy in the room and being able to speak to that.
Career Nation:
That is fascinating. I would love to develop something like that. Although you are like, several, several levels, higher in terms of pattern matching and sensing this. Is there a way someone like me who’s a novice and let’s say understanding patterns, et cetera, develop this like is this like a having a lot of different types of experiences and then trying to figure out patterns because I played a bit bit, for example, mental models and I’ve tried to figure out, okay, is this situation, can I apply this type of a mental model? Like for example, the parade or rule 80, 20, for example. Right? So things like that. So those mental models. But I’d love to understand a little bit more about pattern matching and it seems like to match patterns first I should know patterns and identify patterns. So tell us a little bit more. What’s sort of behind is, what’s sort of the method to the madness, if you will?
Johanna Lyman:
Oh, so… I think the secret is presence. So the more present you are, the more emotionally intelligent you are, the more you have positive mindsets, I think the better you’ll get at this kind of rapid, fast pattern matching.
Career Nation:
Yeah. And so the presence aspect is so important. And in a world where we are overloaded with our digital signals emanating from all these devices, how does one develop presence? Is there a, it sounds like a quality that is, you have some stillness at the same time you are actively engaged. And so how have you experienced that presence? Whether it’s your presence that you have developed over a period of time you’ve seen others exhibit and demonstrate presence?
Johanna Lyman:
Yeah. first of all, it’s learnable. Everything is figureoutable, right? It really has to do with developing emotional intelligence. So developing your self awareness first and foremost. So that’s why I start my mornings the way I do. To have those moments of silence and connecting with myself. And then once you’ve got a good handle on the self-awareness, then you can get into like self management and then social awareness and relationship management. So those are the four aspects of emotional intelligence. So, it’s really just like how you get to Carnegie hall practice, practice, practice.
Career Nation:
Yeah. That’s a great, and overnight success has been 20 years in the making as they say.
Johanna Lyman:
Oh yeah, for sure. 16 years and counting for me.
Career Nation:
That is awesome. Johanna this has been a phenomenal conversation and as we start to wrap up here what would you like to share with Career Nation? And we have an audience that is sort of early in career, in the middle of their career, or late in career across. So we have got a broad spectrum of audience. What would you like to share with them in terms of guidance and insights based on your experiences?
Johanna Lyman:
The number one indicator of success is the degree of self awareness and emotional intelligence a person has. Now 85% of people think they’re emotionally intelligent and only 10-15% actually are. So it’s never too early to become more self aware. It’s also never too late.
Career Nation:
I love it. And I think one of the distinctions there also, Johanna, is the sort of ‘the know it all’ versus ‘the learn it all’. And so it sounds like 85% of people think that they’re emotionally intelligent and actually only 15% are. That’s a stark difference between the know it all and the learn it all right there.
Johanna Lyman:
Right. And I think, you know, humility is such a misunderstood and important quality in leaders. And that’s the idea that I’m not better than anyone, but I’m also not worse than anyone. So it’s, you know, treating everyone with respect.
Career Nation:
You’re so right. And that’s the, that’s the least thing anybody can do for anyone else – be kind, be respectful. And it doesn’t matter, even if you’re, working intensely in a startup or in a large tech company or anywhere else, it doesn’t matter. But treating others the way, they should be treated is so important. Johanna, thank you so much. This has been a wonderful conversation. We got so much out of it. Thank you for your time. And also we wish you all the very best for NextGen Orgs and for Conscious Capitalism.
Johanna Lyman:
Thank you. Thank you. And folks can find me on LinkedIn. It is Johanna Lyman. I come up pretty fast. And also if you’re curious, check out ccbayarea.org for conscious capitalism. We have online and in person events and, NextGenOrgs.com is my website.
Career Nation:
Wonderful. Johanna, thank you so much.
Johanna Lyman:
My pleasure, Abhijeet. All right. Take good care.