Episode 158 – Dr. Jonathan Westover, PhD

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Jonathan Westover  0:00  

My number one goal is to help everyone recognize and see their own potential, and to be able to strive then to reach it. And some of that happens to one on one efforts through coaching, mentoring, those sorts of things. But some of it happens through organizational structures and systems and the policies, practices, and procedures in place within an organization that sometimes aren’t terribly effective or might be harmful in some way even if unintentionally. And so always being willing to challenge the status quo being willing to look at what is working, what’s not working, and why. And then let’s fix it, let’s make it better for everyone. So everyone can thrive, everyone can have an opportunity to fulfill their potential. And that’s ultimately what’s in my mind what leadership is, if I’m a leader and I’m effective, then I’m helping every single person on my team to be their very best authentic self, which will allow them to be productive and innovative and to help drive positive outcomes for the organization. If I want to be successful as a leader, I build up and train up those people that I work with, so that they become the next generation of super leaders.

 

Richard Matthews  1:14  

Heroes are an inspiring group of people, every one of them from the larger than life comic book heroes you see on the big silver screen, the everyday heroes that let us live the privileged lives we do. Every hero has a story to tell, the doctor saving lives at your local hospital, the war veteran down the street, who risked his life for our freedom to the police officers, and the firefighters who risked their safety to ensure ours every hero is special and every story worth telling. But there was one class of heroes that I think is often ignored the entrepreneur, the creator, the producer, the ones who look at the problems in this world and think to themselves, you know what I can fix that I can help people I can make a difference. And they go out and do exactly that by creating a new product or introducing a new service. Some go on to change the world, others make a world of difference to their customers. Welcome to the Hero Show. Join us as we pull back the masks on the world’s finest hero preneurs and learn the secrets to their powers their success and their influence. So you can use those secrets to attract more sales, make more money, and experience more freedom in your business. I’m your host, Richard Matthews, and we are on in 3…2…1…

 

 

Richard Matthews  2:09  

Hello, and welcome back to The Hero Show. My name is Richard Matthews. And today I have on the line, Jonathan Westover. Jonathan, are you there?

 

Jonathan Westover  2:15  

I’m here. Great to be with you.

 

Richard Matthews  2:18  

Awesome, glad to have you here. Jonathan. I know you were saying you’re coming in from Utah, right?

 

Jonathan Westover  2:23  

Yeah, that’s right. I’m south of Salt Lake City.

 

Richard Matthews  2:26  

Did it started to warm up over there yet?

 

Jonathan Westover  2:28  

You know, it’s been pretty nice weather the last several days. We did get a little bit of snow last week. So a little bit of late spring.

 

Richard Matthews  2:36  

Winter is not quite over? 

 

Jonathan Westover  2:38  

Yeah, late spring frost, but clear skies now. And it’s probably up around 60.

 

Richard Matthews  2:44  

Yeah, when I was six or seven years old. My parents lived in Salt Lake City for a few years. And I remember the first time it snowed there. Because I was a California kid. And I didn’t know what snow was so freaked me out. But it was really cool. My first experiences with winter were in Utah. So for those of you who are listening or following along with my wife and I’s journey, we are in the Poconos in Pennsylvania right now pretty cool on our way up the East Coast. Finally, after three years of trying to get up the East Coast. And before we get too far into the interview, Jonathan, I want to do just a quick introduction for you. You are an award-winning number one international best-selling author and your number one ranked HR innovation and future of work global thought leader and influence at Thinkers360. So you teach leadership to organizations, is that right?

 

Jonathan Westover  3:45  

That’s right. I’m a full-time professor at the local university here. And I do consulting work with my firm human capital innovations. So I teach leadership, ethical decision making organizational development, and change management. And pretty much anything related to organizational leadership or people management is what I cover at the university with my students as well as in corporate settings.

 

Richard Matthews  4:09  

Awesome. So you’re a professor, obviously, but then you also do writing, which is stuff that you do entrepreneurially. And then you have your consulting practice. You’re a busy dude.

 

Jonathan Westover  4:22  

I like to stay busy.

 

Richard Matthews  4:24  

So my first question for you then is about your origin story. How did you get into the business of consulting in the business of writing and stuff like that we say on this show, every good comic book hero has an origin story, whether they were bit by a radioactive spider that made them want to get into it, or they maybe they started in a job and eventually get into the business side of the world. How did you get started as an entrepreneur?

 

Jonathan Westover  4:49  

Yeah, great question. So I was one of those undergrad students that switched majors a bunch of times and going all the way back into my teenage years. They were, he’s really good at math. And so I kind of got labeled the math kid. And when I went off to college, that’s what I majored in. I majored in math. And my parents thought maybe I’d be a mathematician and engineer and architect something like that. But after a little while, I realized, while I liked math, I was pretty good at it. It wasn’t something I really wanted to do. And I ended up shuffling around a little bit, I went to business management. I then went into accounting, the university I was had a top national accounting program, and so it seemed like a good fit, I was good at it. And he would ensure a stable, successful career with good organizations. But then, I had an opportunity to do an internship and it really did change my life. I had lived abroad in South Korea for a couple of years. And so coming back from that experience, and returning to the university, I was minoring in Korean, and my Korean Professor showed up to class one day and just said, Hey, who would like to go back to Korea for an internship this summer? So my hand shot up, I didn’t even know what the internship was going to be what I’d be doing, who the company was, I just knew that I wanted to go back. And I had no reason not to, I wasn’t planning on doing anything in particular over the summer. So next thing I know, I’m on my way back to Korea, the southern part near Pusan, if anyone is familiar with that area, I was actually living in Cooney. And I was placed within the corporate offices of LG Electronics, in their organizational development office. It was an amazing opportunity. It’s not something I’d ever anticipated. I completely just lucked into it backed into it. And after a summer of doing that, I came back to the university and went to a couple of accounting classes again, and realized, you know what, I really don’t want to do accounting, I want to do what I did over the summer. And so I went and talked to my professors. And they said, that’s great, but we don’t really have that program here. Go do social science. So I switched my major one more time away from accounting to Sociology, and minor in Business minor in Korean. And with the intention that I wanted to go into HR, I wanted to focus on work development and change management, leadership, those sorts of topics.

 

Jonathan Westover  7:31  

Clearly, that was a very risky move, though, I left the certainty of a very stable accounting career for something as unstable as getting an undergrad in social science like sociology. Typically you don’t think of big careers being made by a sociologist. So as I was finishing up my undergrad, I decided to go straight into my master’s program, where I focused on human resource management and organizational behavior. And the intention was, once I got my master’s degree under my belt, I would be able to land a good job in the area that I was most interested in. And I’d done some work as an internal consultant working in the Human Resource Development area of a large organization internally. But also I worked with a consulting firm, an external consulting firm that would go into organizations and try to help them diagnose problems and do training and figure out what to do better. And so I knew that’s really what I wanted to do. And as I was approaching the end of my master’s program, I started interviewing with big corporations, and was a little disillusioned as for the first time, I allowed myself to realize I’m sure this had come up many times before, but I probably just didn’t pay attention to it. As I’m going through the interview process, I began to realize that the type of job track that I was on, was probably going to put me at the office 80 to 90 hours a week. I was interviewing for this management, rotation programs where you would move around the country and work in different parts, different divisions of the corporation and so you’d live in one place for a year, then move, go to a different part of the country, live there for a year and do that. And as I was thinking about that workload, 80-90 hours a week, moving my family every year for at least five years, it just wasn’t what I wanted to do that just didn’t fit with my kind of narrative in my head about what the good life seemed like to me. And so yeah, I clearly remember walking home from an interview one day, we live just north of campus. So I’d finished an interview is a kind of late at night, walking home and just realizing this. This isn’t for me, I can’t do this. I got home, I talked to my wife, and that’s when we decided to go on for a Ph.D. And so I went off got my Ph.D. And the rest is history in terms of being a professor. But I always loved the consulting stuff. And so back in 2007, I started my own firm, human capital innovations. And I’ve dabbled with it, and I’ve done more or less with it over the years. And so it’s kind of add and flowed, in terms of how much time and attention I’ve given to it. But it’s always kind of been word of mouth referral, and just have kind of a fun side gig side project an opportunity to scratch that itch. While I was doing my day job at the university, then getting back to the beginning of this last year, and then we get into the pandemic. And that’s when I decided, you know what, I’m not traveling as much as I used to, for the university, for research and going to conferences and those sorts of things. I think I’m going to focus on the consulting firm, again, developing some more meaningful content, I started a podcast that’s been very successful. I wrote my book that you mentioned, that’s done very well. And it’s kind of reinvigorated my attention to the consulting side. So I’ve been at the university for over 12 years now, and I still love it, it’s still my home base. But I love having an opportunity to do other creative things with my side hustles that I do.

 

Richard Matthews  11:31  

Do you have any plans to eventually replace your full-time job as a professor? Do you want to keep that job and keep all of your business stuff as side stuff?

 

Jonathan Westover  11:41  

That’s a really good question. And I mean, for now, I really like the way it’s balancing, doing both. And it’s been an interesting year, too, because of COVID. I’ve been doing everything with the university remotely, too. So right now I’m in the corner of my bedroom. And I do University stuff part of the day, I do the consulting stuff part of the day, things like this, podcasts I do, for part of the day. And it works very, very well to do it that way? As I think about that question, I thought about it a lot. Part of it just comes down to the growth and development of the firm. Of course, I want to see it be successful, but I don’t want to over-commit myself. In terms of time that I’m not able to give. And then I also have to think about the nature of higher education. And I don’t know how much you or any of your listeners kind of follow the Higher Ed space. But it’s an interesting place right now. And it’s shifted a lot, just in the last 12 years since I became a professor. And I anticipate in the next 10 years, it’s going to shift even more in some of the shifts I’ve enjoyed and appreciated and other aspects of it. I haven’t. And so at some point, I could definitely see hitting a tipping point, where I decide, it was a great run, I think I’m done being a professor, and I’ll just go full time doing the console.

 

Richard Matthews  13:18  

Nice. Yeah. So you’ve got a storied history of getting into entrepreneurship. So my next sort of question for you has to do with your superpowers. We say on this show, every iconic hero has a superpower, whether that’s a fancy flying suit made by a genius intellect, or maybe the ability to call down Thunder from the sky, or super strength. In the real world, heroes have what I call a zone of genius. And that’s a skill or a set of skills that you’re either born with, or you developed over time, that really energizes all your other skills, and it helps you slay the villains for the people that you help. So they can come out on top of their own journeys. And if you really think about it, you have probably a bunch of skills you’ve developed over your life. And there’s one sort of common thread that ties all of them together. And that’s where most people find their superpower. So with that sort of framing, what do you think your superpower is in your business?

 

Jonathan Westover  14:17  

I think it comes back to my ability to focus, for whatever reason, I seem, and it kind of drives my wife and some of my family nuts. But I tend to just be able to focus and I can kind of switch back and forth between things very quickly and very easily. And I recognize that’s not always the way it is, sometimes people have to kind of rev up into whatever they’re working on. It takes a little bit of time to get up to speed. And for whatever reason. Now, I’ve just had the ability for as long as I can remember to just kind of switch from one thing to the other, which means I’m efficient and I’m very productive. I think I’m an intelligent person. But I don’t have some crazy IQ or anything. But I’m a hard worker, and I have the ability to focus. And so I just get lots done, I’m a very productive person. And that’s what I hear from people more than anything is, they appreciate my insights they appreciate, my approach to help I can give them, but they’re also just amazed by how much I get done, like how much I produce. I don’t have any good answer for that other than it just seems to be this ability to focus.

 

Richard Matthews  15:33  

I once had a boss tell me that hiring me was like hiring 10 people. But essentially the same reason. When you can focus and just get stuff done. It’s a really useful skill. But I think what’s interesting about one of the things you said there was the ability to switch focus from one to the other without having any sort of like, spin down or spin uptime. And that’s an interesting skill that I don’t think, is very common. I run two businesses. And I know people think I’m nuts for doing that. But we’ve got systems and stuff to the point where I only have to spend about four hours a day on either one of them. And they’re completely different organizations, different employees, different people that I’m working with, and I can drop one and pick up the other one a minute to the next. And some of my close friends in the business community are like, that’s crazy. Like, I don’t know how you do that, they’d have to be on two separate months to work like that in their head. So I’m just curious, with that skill set, is that something that you developed? Or is that something that you think just sort of comes naturally to you? And how is that helpful in growing your practice?

 

Jonathan Westover  16:49  

Yeah, I think it’s a bit of both. I mean, I definitely remember even as a child, for example, I was just always good in school, always. The school was never a struggle, getting homework done focusing on a project, those sorts of things, that just seem to always come fairly natural to me. So I do think I was lucky to have this nice, capability, even as a child.

 

Richard Matthews  17:17  

DNA jackpot.

 

Jonathan Westover  17:18  

Yeah, and as I grew up, though, I certainly found the opportunity to hone it. And I think of two periods in my life, where it was really put to the test. So I referred to earlier that I spent a couple of years in South Korea. Now, learning a language like Korean, and being immersed in the country, at the age of 19 to 21, is when I went, I learned Korean, I was there and it was just this intense period. And you’re super busy, I was a service missionary for my church, and you’re super busy up at 6 am. working all day, going to bed at 10:30 at night, studying the language every moment you get when you’re not out serving and in trying to make a difference in the community. And at that time, it really put my ability to focus, my work ethic, all those sorts of things to the test. And I thought at that point that I was a good student, but I was good at studying, but I was able to take it to a whole new level in my ability to focus to get things done. And to just make steady progress. One of the things I found during that time as well as, kind of the tortoise and the hare story, that I wasn’t the fastest to pick up on the Korean language. There were other service missionaries around me that picked it up, at least initially, they picked it up faster. But I was one who was very consistent and worked hard at it over the course of the entire time I was there. And so by the time I came home, I think most people would say I was one of the best speakers in the language, even though probably no one would have said that. Certainly not the first half of the time I was there. So some of its just persistence, resiliency, persistence, hard work, and then just kind of training yourself to focus. And then when I got back, I got married young, I was 23 I started having children and I have six children. And so my wife.

 

Richard Matthews  19:36  

I have four.

 

Jonathan Westover  19:38  

Yeah, great big families. And my wife is also a university professor, she teaches math. So we’re both busy. We’re both going through school, we’re having kids were crazy busy. And I kind of had no choice at that point, but to figure out how to get tons of things done in a limited space of time. It was Either that or I was going to burn out and I wasn’t going to finish my program. And so over the years, I just kind of fine-tuned my approach to just making sure I’m present and focused on whatever I’m working on at the moment. And then that ability to switch gears and go from one thing to the next quickly was really honed and fine-tuned during that time.

 

Richard Matthews  20:22  

Yeah, I know, being a parent, especially with a lot of children being able to focus completely like, whichever child or children you’re hanging out with, it’s also really useful to be able to actually give them your attention, I sometimes find a little bit of struggle with like, if I’m working on something really complicated, with one of my businesses and being able to pull out and then focus on your children, sometimes that’s a harder gear to shift than it is from like one business problem to another. So that’s one of the ones I’m working on honing. Because I know like, if I’m in my business world and working on those, I can shift between things really quickly, but then shifting from life stuff, that’s where I need a little bit of a spin downtime to come back into the world where you can actually be present with your kids.

 

Jonathan Westover  21:18  

Yeah, sure, I’m sure.

 

Richard Matthews  21:21  

Yeah, so that’s an interesting superpower. The flipside, of course of superpowers, is the fatal flaw. Just like every Superman, has his kryptonite, or Wonder Woman can’t remove her bracelets of victory without going mad, you probably have a flaw that’s held you back in your business, something that you struggled with, for me, it was a couple of things, things like perfectionism, that kept me from actually shipping products, because I can always tweak it just a little bit more before I bring it to market, or lack of self-care, which for me, led to letting not having good boundaries with my clients or letting my clients walk all over me. And that was something I had to work on and fix. But I think more important than what the flaw is, how did you work to rectify it? So you could continue to grow and continue to actually build the business where you want, hopefully, sharing will help our listeners learn a bit from you. 

 

Jonathan Westover  22:09  

Yeah, it’s a really important question, I share your challenge around self-care, that’s something that, I just grew up from, from my youngest memories, I remember just having it ingrained in me that I need to be helping others serving others taking care of others, which is a great attribute, right? I really appreciate that value is instilled in me and my upbringing. And having a wife and six children, my number one goal, my number one focus is on my family. Secondary to that, then is the University stuff, business stuff. And so recognizing that’s important. Because, to your point about self-care, I need to focus on my wife, I need to focus on my kids. But I also need to make sure I’m taking care of myself and I have had times where I just didn’t do that I was so intent on whether it was a community service assignment that I was doing or the needs of the kids or whatever, and my sleep, my eating, my exercise, whatever those types of things would fade to the background. And I have to admit I would feel selfish, like if I just take the dogs out on a 30-minute walk, once a day, I would feel selfish because I was taking that time, of course, it’s good for the dogs, but it’s good for my physical and psychological health as well. And my wife has reminded me repeatedly over the years that no, you really need that time, we need you to take that time. And so I’ve appreciated those nudges as I’ve gone on. And it’s helped me to prioritize the self-care elements so that I can make sure that I am taking care of myself. And unfortunately, I would say at this point in time, there are ebbs and flows, everyone goes through it, but I would say, I’m in a better place in terms of self-care now than I’ve probably ever been, certainly in my whole life, in terms of being healthy.

 

Richard Matthews  24:14  

I would say, I’m in the same place. I’m probably in the healthiest spot now that I have been my entire adult career. And to your point about taking time for yourself, once in college, I decided it would be a good idea to not sleep, and I could use all that time to get extra work done. That was a terrible idea that lasted about three days before I was puking in the bushes and sick as a dog. But yeah, I’ve been there.

 

Jonathan Westover  24:44  

Yeah. So you absolutely have to take care of yourself. And I would say I mean, the flip side of the focus piece, like I have to be careful to not be obnoxious because that’s also something that my wife gently nudges me on from time to time because I tend to notice things and focus on things. And I wouldn’t say that I’m like, ADHD level, but I tend to be hypersensitive to things around me and those types of changes and things. And I need to let things go. And not everything needs to be perfect. So a little bit of perfectionism, like you’re talking about, don’t allow the perfect to rob the effective or the productive and just make steady progress. I’ve gotten much better at that over the years.

 

Richard Matthews  25:40  

I know one of the things that I struggle with, with that whole being on all the time sort of mentality that I’ve got, that we seem to share is that I like to go from project to project, and I’m pretty good at being on all the time, which can wear on the wife and kids who are not that way. Because I’ll work all day. And then when we’re done, I’ve got a project I want to work on in the house. So I’ll work on that and get the kids involved in it. And then as soon as we’re done with that, I was like, let’s go out and do an adventure, do some other things because we’re traveling around the world to see. And I’ll do that, like all day, every day. And three or four days, and my wife’s like, we need to just stop and take the day off. I’m like, I don’t know how to do that.

 

Jonathan Westover  26:26  

Yeah, that sounds very familiar.

 

Richard Matthews  26:28  

Yeah. So I have to practice. And what I do is, I listen to my wife and as part of that whole self-care thing and say, No, I need to learn how to slow down and also sometimes it’s okay to just sit down and take the day off and enjoy the sunrise and the sunset kind of thing.

 

Jonathan Westover  26:45  

Yeah, exactly. Slow down, take the quiet moments, with your family, with your friends, and enjoy the time be present, be mindful. I think those are all really important lessons that I find myself having to relearn. It’s interesting, like, sometimes, my wife and I are sitting on the couch, and she looks like she’s deep in contemplation about something. And she’s kind of staring off into the distance. And I asked her, Hey, what are you thinking about? And she’s like, nothing, I’m like, really nothing? Because of the way my mind works, I’m always going, I’m always thinking about stuff. But she has the ability to just click quieter mind and to just be there. And without all the years turning all the time. And I’m quite jealous of that. I wish I could turn my mind off.

 

Richard Matthews  27:42  

Do you find that the mind-turning thing makes it hard for you to fall asleep at night? Because I’ve noticed that?

 

Jonathan Westover  27:49  

Yeah, for sure.

 

Richard Matthews  27:50  

Yeah, that’s one of the things I’m super jealous of with my wife, she can just be, I’m gonna go to sleep now. And then two seconds later, she’s asleep. I’m like, how do you do that? It’s magical. Because it takes me an hour, two hours to fall asleep every night. Because I’ve got 1000 projects in my head, I want to detail out. Sometimes I figured some of the best business plans I’ve ever written have been right before you fall asleep. Can’t remember any of them. But they’re all right there. So now will move on to talk about your common enemy. Every superhero has their arch-nemesis, It’s the thing that they have to fight against in their world. In the world of business, that takes a lot of forms. But generally speaking, we put it in the context of your clients. So you work with the human capital. So it’s a mindset or a flaw that you have to fight against, with your clients to help them overcome it. So they can actually get the result they hired you for. If you had a magic wand, you just bop all your clients on the head as soon as you hire them. What’s that one sort of arch-nemesis, you wish you didn’t have to fight all the time?

 

Jonathan Westover  29:00  

My feeling is in business. People get really focused, and rightfully so they’re focused on profits, or they’re focused on the bottom line, they want to make sure that they’re bringing value to the market, that they’re bringing value to the shareholders. All of that stuff is super important. But sometimes we forget how we get there, how do we get to the innovations that allow us to provide meaningful products and services and bring value to the market, and it’s through the people of the organization. And some of its kind of what I would say is just an old school mentality, of my parent’s generation, my grandparent’s generation, of what it meant to be corporate and what it meant to be a business person. And perhaps, we conceive of work differently, younger generations conceive of work differently today than they did I think that might be part of it. But it’s a mentality that many leaders and organizations see their people as cogs in a machine. They’re interchangeable, someone leaves or you get rid of them, you plug a new person in, and you’re going to be up to speed. And anyone who runs a business knows that’s not the case. In theory, that might make sense. But there’s a tremendous cost involved with turnover, whether someone chooses to leave or whether you kick them out the door, you still have to replace them with someone and it takes a while to find the right person, get them up to speed. And even when you think you have the right person. It’s a bit of a crapshoot. I mean, a lot of times organizations aren’t particularly good at hiring the right people getting the right fit with the right skills and capabilities. And so you can end up churning through people, which lowers productivity, it lowers morale, it lowers innovation. And so the number one thing I try to work on with clients, whether it’s a coaching relationship with a leader, or I’m going into to help with a change initiative within the organization, is to think about the culture within the organization. Think about the mindset of the leadership, how do they view their people? Do they see their people as human capital, that’s as worthy of investment as any other form of capital that a business has, you think of plant property equipment, intellectual capital, financial capital, you have all these different forms of assets and capital that were that organizations use, and you have to invest in all of them, you have to upkeep them, you have to maintain them. The same is true with the people in the organization. And my bias is that perhaps human capital is the most important asset that an organization has at its disposal. And so we need to create a culture of empowerment, we need to create a culture of where people feel genuinely valued, where they know that the organization is going to invest in them, and in turn, they will invest back into the organization. And it creates this reciprocal upward spiral of productivity and innovation when done, right. And unfortunately, I see so many organizations where leaders, largely because they don’t know any different, they just know, most leaders have never gone through formal leadership training, they just find themselves in a leadership role. Because, they were good at their job, and they got promoted, and now they’re leading people. But most leaders in that situation, all they’re doing is trying to mimic what they saw other people do before them. And a lot of those behaviors aren’t particularly effective or healthy. And they can undermine the long-term success and sustainability of the organization. So just having those kinds of conversations trying to help leaders understand that helping them to understand and hone their leadership skills and capabilities, and how they approach their people and developing meaningful culture. That’s what I spend most of my time on. And that’s the number one illness that I see in many organizations is just regardless of whatever their best intentions are. They have unhealthy culture, where it’s fear-based, and fear-based culture leads to perhaps compliance. But it doesn’t lead to commitment, and it doesn’t lead to long term sustainable productivity and innovation.

 

Richard Matthews  33:28  

Yeah, one of the things that I’ve been working on studying I mentioned, I got two companies, two different teams. And one of them is one that I built, and one of them was one that I came into. And the one that I built is, I’ve got staff, most of them are overseas. And an interesting thing there, I’ve been thanked a number of times by the staff because of how I treat them. And they’re like, they’re not used to the kind of culture that I’m trying to develop, which is that, every person in the organization has value and they have goals, and they have dreams outside of the organization, and being a part of the organization should help them get there, and should help them get to those places. And because we’re going to be a big part of their life. And that’s sort of the way I approach and view being an employer. And it’s an interesting thing because I’ve found with a lot of people that I’ve worked with over the years, particularly with overseas workers, like if they’re not in the same locale that you are, they’re not coming into the local office. And it’s become more apparent now that a lot of the world is going remote with their work where they’re not even coming into the offices that as soon as you’re not face to face with someone, we start thinking slipping into the cog in a machine instead of a human being with a heartbeat sort of mentality. And it’s an interesting thing you have to be intentional about I think.

 

Jonathan Westover  35:03  

Agreed, you definitely have to be intentional. And my feeling is that most leaders are particularly effective or even healthy. It’s not because they’re not trying, their intentions are good. Most leaders have good intentions they want to do right by their people in their organization. They don’t want to have an unhealthy work environment, they want their people to feel empowered, they just often don’t know how to do it. And if you’re not very intentional, mindful, and present with your people, then you tend to slip into patterns of what you observed how you’ve been led in the past, you tend to replicate those, and then perpetuate those dysfunctions onto your team moving forward. And again, it’s not intentional, I don’t think most of the time, it’s intentional. I don’t think most people want to harm anybody. But you get into the daily grind. And there are frustrations that come when you’re working on difficult things, there are frustrations and things don’t always go well, and you’re putting out fires, and it’s just really easy to slip into the mindset of these people are, annoying, frustrating, lazy, why can’t they do anything, right? And kind of the negative self-talk starts to take over, instead of you remembering that No, these are really valuable people, I’m lucky to have them, I need to be supportive of them, what can I do differently to make sure that they can achieve their potential have the greatest opportunity for success.

 

Richard Matthews  36:43  

One of my personal rules I have for those things like either we have mistakes or things don’t go the way that I want, or they’re not going as quick as I want. My internal self-talk, and it’s something I have to force myself to do and do on a regular basis is if there’s a problem, the problem is with something that I’ve done. It’s either I didn’t communicate well, or we don’t have the training set up the way that we need, or we have a process problem. They’re all things that are in my world that I can control that keeps me from getting it as far as like, hey, it’s your fault. And you’re making these problems, which isn’t empowering, right? So that doesn’t help them. But if it’s something like, hey, this didn’t get done the way that I wanted to get done, how can I communicate that better in the future, and we can talk about it. And that’s sort of the way I approach it. I don’t know if that’s right or not, but it’s what I try to do.

 

Jonathan Westover  37:38  

Yeah, I mean, it’s mutual accountability. So if you can own your side of it, and then help your people to own their side of it, and have a mutually accountable relationship, that is the best scenario to build trust in meaningful relationships, whether we’re talking about at home with wife and kids, whether it’s in the workplace, between managers, and subordinates or with colleagues, you have to be able to understand where other people are coming from, and you have to understand that they’re putting their best foot forward. And when things don’t work out, they’re going to do the best they can to make things better, I’m going to do the best I can make things better, and you just hold each other mutually accountable. Because the reality is, it’s both when things don’t work. It’s both as me as a leader, I probably need to rethink some of the processes, or I need to rethink the way I’m communicating things. But there’s probably, the people that I lead also need to ask for help, they need to be willing to be open and challenge me, those sorts of things. But all that comes back to the culture that you’re trying to develop. And if I don’t have a safe culture, for example, it’s not psychologically safe for my people to directly challenge me or to speak up or to say, that’s stupid, or why are you having us do it that way? If that’s the environment, then yes, it’s all on me. Because I’m not creating an environment where they can do what they need to do. And it’s more fear-based, and they’re gonna end up just kind of skating by doing the bare minimum, so they don’t rock the cart and it upset the boss. But if I’m doing what I need to be doing and things don’t go, right, yeah, have an open discussion. And together figure out what we could all do better, moving forward to make things more productive, more effective.

 

Richard Matthews  39:31  

I like what you mentioned, while we were talking about, mutual accountability also works in the family. And it’s an interesting thing. I know, we try to do similar things at home with the kids. As an example, one of our rules for the kids, we got young kids. So we got rules posted up on the wall. And it’s like, obey the first time and what I’ve been telling my son who’s 11 years old since the day was born, basically is like you have to obey, because I have perspective, you don’t have so I say stop, I mean, stop. Because you might get run over by a truck you don’t see kind of thing. But you can always ask me why, you’re welcome to challenge my instructions. And I’ll tell you why. Right, and we’ll go through those things. I’m because I want to have that and what it’s created is, now he’s getting to be almost a teenager, and he feels safe asking why and pushing forward. And then when I screw up and make mistake, which happens, they’ll call me out and be like, Dad, you kind of overreacted there. Right, and stuff like that. So anyway, it works at home too. Which is cool. And I think it’s just sort of my way of helping to develop them and into being good leaders themselves when they grow up.

 

Jonathan Westover  40:46  

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it’s being generous to each other, being quick to apologize, quick to forgive, being quick to compliment. I definitely believe in the sentiment, never suppress a clean thought. So I just need to own my mistakes, I need to be open and transparent, whether it’s my people at work or my family at home. And just like you, there are some times where I overreact to things and give myself a moment to calm down, and then go back to my childhood, whether it’s a teenager or my youngest, my seven year old, and say, Hey, I’m sorry, I overreacted. I shouldn’t ever do that. And you know what, we give each other a hug, we say it’s okay. And you move on and that’s the kind of environment that we need. And I hope that my kids and my wife will be generous with me in interpreting how I interact with them, and I hope those people I work with will do the same. And I hope that I can do the same for them.

 

Richard Matthews  41:59  

Absolutely. So with human capital, and having the sort of the wrong mentality about human capital is being the number one thing you’re fighting against. The flip side of that coin is your driving force, is the thing you fight for. So just like Spider Man fights to save New York or Batman fights to save Gotham, or Google fights to index, and categorize all the world’s information, what is it you fight for, with your consulting practice?

 

Jonathan Westover  42:22  

Yeah, I mean, ultimately, it’s the tagline for my business that is maximizing the human capital potential of each individual within an organization. So my number one goal is to help everyone recognize and see their own potential, and to be able to strive then to reach it. And some of that happens to one on one efforts through coaching, mentoring, those sorts of things. But some of it happens through organizational structures and systems and the policies, practices, and procedures that are in place within an organization that sometimes aren’t terribly effective, or might be harmful in some way, even if unintentionally. And so always being willing to challenge the status quo being willing to look at what is working, what’s not working, and why. And then let’s fix it, let’s make it better for everyone. So everyone can thrive, everyone can have an opportunity to fulfill their potential. And that’s ultimately what in my mind what leadership is, if I’m a leader, and I’m effective, then I’m helping every single person on my team, be their very best authentic self, which will allow them to be productive and innovative. And that helps drive positive outcomes for the organization. If I want to be successful, as a leader, I build up and train up those people that I work with so that they become the next generation of super leaders. And ultimately, organizations need to also keep in mind how they’re investing from the C suite all the way down through middle management down to the lowest level supervisor, how they’re preparing and training their leadership so that they can do what I just described. Because, as I said earlier, I think a lot of times we think leadership just comes naturally as you find yourself in a position you’re going to figure it out. Well, some people do, some people don’t. And a lot of people perpetuate a lot of unhealthy behaviors and practices. And so organizations should be proactive about making sure they’re providing the training and the opportunities to develop their leaders. Because those are the people that are directly going to impact the culture and they experience the environment of those teams. If I’m an employee at an organization. The organization as a whole could be a mess and pretty unhealthy. But if I have a great boss in our little bubble down here that our little team is super healthy and super empowering and productive. You know what, I’m probably not even going to be all that aware of all the crazy chaos that’s going outside of my little team, right. And so what we need to do is help each leader have that potential to create their own little workplace utopia within their little team of people. And there’s going to be messiness in the organization as a whole, the larger the organization, the more complex it becomes. But empowering each leader to have that kind of an effect on their people. And then again, it will breed the next generation of leaders. And it’s just really a win-win all the way around. Because people are going to be happy and satisfied with their work, they’re going to be more productive, they’re going to develop in their careers, and have more opportunities in the future, the organizations can reap the benefits of all these great productive people. And ultimately, that’s, I think, what everybody wants.

 

Richard Matthews  45:48  

Yeah, and it sounds like if you do that properly if you develop the leaders, and you help the leaders develop the culture that that culture sort of becomes self-perpetuating, and it grows in the organization and stays over the long term.

 

Jonathan Westover  46:00  

Well, you definitely have to continue to give attention to it. It’s harder to build a culture. For sure. So once you have a healthy culture in place, and it’s kind of become muscle memory, and it’s just kind of embedded into the organization, it’s how things are done, then yes, that’s going to be easier to sustain and perpetuate. But you do need to make sure that you give attention to it continually. And that it continues to be something that’s talked about. And that when you start to see behaviors that are inconsistent with whatever the desired culture is, the work environment that you want to create, that you can address it head-on, and try to make any adjustments that are necessary. left unchecked, those unhealthy behaviors can start to dismantle a really great workplace culture, one senior executive can wreak havoc on a really great organization if they’re left unchecked, and they and they do a lot of unhealthy things. So you just got to be careful of that too.

 

Richard Matthews  47:04  

Make sense. So I’m gonna shift gears a little bit and talk about some practical things, I call this the hero’s tool belt. And just like every superhero has a tool belt with awesome gadgets like batarangs, and web slingers and laser eyes, or big magical hammers. I wanna talk about the top one, maybe two tools that you couldn’t live without in your business. Things that help you develop that culture and work with people, could be anything from your notepad to your calendar to something you use for marketing or something you actually use to do your coaching, and product delivery, something you think is essential to getting your job done. And just a practical tool that helps you do your work.

 

Jonathan Westover  47:42  

Yeah, I think for me in my ability to stay organized and productive. It’s very simple, my calendar, that I put detailed information about the meetings that are coming up. And what those meetings are about what we’re going to be covering, if it’s with a client, I know exactly, I have notes in there about what we talked about last time, what we’re going to be talking about this time, if it’s a meeting with my team, we have an agenda, I know what’s going to be covered, just being organized that way, makes a big difference. And so the night before, one of the things that I found to really help me turn off my mind, and not ruminate and try to think about everything that’s coming the next day, is to just take a little bit of time to look over my calendar for the next day. And I have the details in there. And I know exactly what I’m going to be doing. And so then it makes it easier for me to set it aside and not to worry about it or to continue to think, so that’s something that’s helpful for me, in working with clients. Or whether honestly, whether it’s students at the University, whether it’s organizational leaders that I mentoring or coaching or it’s an organization that I’m doing consulting work with. Ultimately, one of the most foundational tools that I found that are more transformative than anything is simple self-reflection. Encouraging, whether it’s my students, whether it’s leader, encouraging them to take time to pause and to think about what they’re learning what they’re doing, what are the key takeaways, what the Aha’s are, how they see it at play in their life. And then setting some just very simple goals around what they want to be doing moving forward. It’s not rocket science. It’s literally just taking 10 minutes to journal to self-reflect and to jot some of those ideas down. And if you can do that consistently, it’s amazing how quickly you can start to transform your own mindset because you’re present you’re aware. You start to see some of your blind spots you start to see some of your implicit biases come out as you reflect back and review what you’ve written. And ultimately, that leads to better conversations with my clients that leads to them having better conversations with their people, or in a university classroom workspace, which means my students are learning more deeply. They’re applying the material that they’re learning in the classroom to real-life situations that will help them to really hit the ground running when they get out into the career. And ultimately, that’s what I’m going for. The other thing I would say in terms of the go-to tool, and just working with organizations as a consultant is something we all learned in like second or third grade, it’s the scientific method. There’s no shortcut for diagnosing complex organizational challenges, and you have lots of big consulting firms, and they kind of have their own little trademark process, or their model that they say, this is the quick fix, you do these things, and you’re gonna be gold. That’s the reality is that’s not the way it works. Every organization is different, every context is different. And the presenting problem within a given organization is usually just the surface level, right? And you don’t want to play whack a mole, or put a bandaid over a surface-level problem, you want to get deep to the roots of the problem and find out what’s going on below the surface. And the only way you can do that is using the scientific method to formulate questions and eye policies, and go and talk to people and observe and do surveys and things like that to collect data, and better understand the phenomenon that’s occurring. And then you can start to put in place implementation strategies on how you can change those policies, practices, procedures, the systems within the organization to get at those root challenges. There’s no substitute for the hard work of going through that systematic scientific method. And it’s not rocket science, like anyone. If you don’t remember what the scientific method is, you can go Google it.

 

Richard Matthews  52:00  

Third grade, right?

 

Jonathan Westover  52:01  

Yeah, exactly. It’s pretty straightforward. But it does take some consistency, to remind ourselves that we need to go through that thorough process. A lot of problems I see in organizations are where they’re trying to have those quick fixes to pretty substantial problems. And you just end up wasting a lot of time and money on bandaid approaches in the underlying problem. it persists.

 

Richard Matthews  52:32  

Yeah, it’s fascinating. I’ve never really thought about it as the scientific method. But that’s the way you approach everything. Like, what if we change something, here’s the way it is, here’s why it’s done, you have a hypothesis, a theory about how you can change it, and then you try to change it and see how it affects it. And either it works with each other or it doesn’t.

 

Jonathan Westover  52:51  

And you iterate.

 

Richard Matthews  52:58  

And the journaling thing, one of the things that popped in my head, while you’re saying that was, one of the things we say in marketing all the time, is that you can’t improve what you can’t measure. And it almost sounds the way you were describing it, that journaling is a way to measure your thoughts. If you’re measuring them, then you can improve them. It’s like metrics on your brain.

 

Jonathan Westover  53:22  

Yeah, I think that’s a great way to look at it.

 

Richard Matthews  53:25  

Yeah. And just FYI, we’re like 160 ish episodes in, and probably a full 80% of the people we’ve come on her, their first most important tool has been their calendar, which I think cracks me up a little bit. Because my friends and family who are not in the business space, when I tell them that entrepreneurs live and die by their calendar, they’re like, That’s crazy. Who does that? I’m like, literally every entrepreneur I know. Lives and dies by the calendar. Like to the point my wife knows, like, if she wants to make sure that I’m booked off for something that we do something for a family, she puts it on the calendar on the family calendar, which blocks off my section in the calendar for that, because if it’s not on the calendar, it doesn’t exist.

 

Jonathan Westover  54:10  

That’s right.

 

Richard Matthews  54:12  

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Richard Matthews  55:51  

So I want to talk a little bit about your own personal heroes, every hero has their mentors, just like Frodo had Gandalf or Luke had Obi Wan or Robert Kiyosaki had his rich dad or even Spider Man had his Uncle Ben, Who were some of your heroes, were they real-life mentors, were they speakers or authors, maybe peers who were a couple of years ahead of you, and how important they’ve been to what you’ve accomplished so far in your career as a professor and your business as a consultant.

 

Jonathan Westover  56:17  

Yeah, I’ve had tons of mentors, and some of them have been more formal mentors, but most of them have been of the informal variety. And many of them didn’t even know that I considered them as a mentor. But they’re people I looked to, and I tried to model my practices and behaviors after. And I try to take the time to thank them, for the impact that they had on me and my career. Again, often they didn’t even realize to the extent they were influencing me, but the impact was real. And there are some specific individuals, that I think, I think about, and reflect on, I’m like, that one person, they help change my trajectory. So I can spot some of those people along my path. But largely, it just kind of this coalition of good people that I try to surround myself with, who are supportive, who are successful in their own right. And I can look to them as a great example, and know what I should try to avoid or what I should try to do. So I certainly have appreciated that. And it’s benefited my crew greatly.

 

Richard Matthews  57:29  

I think one of the most fascinating things about asking that question is how often the answer is someone who doesn’t know that they are a hero or a mentor to you. Whether it’s a mom, a dad, a teacher, or someone who’s just in your life, and if you were to ask them be like, hey, did you know you were such a hero? They wouldn’t even know. Right? And one of the things that always reminds me is that I want to be the kind of person, whether it’s to my kids, or the people that I’m interacting with, that’s worthy of having that kind of influence. Cuz you never know when you do. And chances are you probably are having that kind of influence in someone’s life. So it’s just the thing that’s in the back of my mind that are you acting in such a way that you’re worthy of that kind of responsibility, I guess.

 

Jonathan Westover  58:14  

Yeah, absolutely.

 

Richard Matthews  58:18  

Awesome. So we’re right about the end of the interview. I have one more question. I do here, and it’s about your guiding principles, right. And one of the things that make heroes heroic is that they live by a code. For instance, Batman never kills his enemies, he only brings them to Arkham Asylum. So as we wrap up the interview, let’s talk about the top one or two principles that you use regularly in your life, maybe something you wish you knew when you first started out on your own hero’s journey.

 

Jonathan Westover  58:45  

Yeah, that’s actually one of the things I teach when we look at ethical decision making, whether, in a university or corporate setting, it’s about identifying your core values, and then prioritizing them, so they can guide you throughout your life. For those ethical and moral difficult situations, you find yourself in. For me, I would say, number one, is I want to do no harm to those around me. That may sound strange, but I realized that there are a lot of harms that happen in the world that had good intentions at the root. And so, good intentions, though, regardless of what those intentions are, if they cause harm, then they shouldn’t be done. And so I try to take systems thinking in a systematic approach to the issues that I try to help resolve whether it’s in an organization or in the community or at home, to try to think about those unintended consequences that could occur. At the baseline. I want to do no harm. I don’t want to hurt anyone, regardless of my best intentions or best efforts, and then building off of that, then, I want to have openness and transparency in how I communicate with people. So we can develop trust, and have meaningful, ongoing, reciprocal relationships. And then I hope that then leads into the opportunity to have truly caring, genuine caring, respect, treating people with dignity and respect, and love and compassion. And you know that’s kind of the hierarchy of how I go about my interactions with people. And I try to live up to that. Of course, I’m not perfect, but that’s what’s at the forefront of my mind. 

 

Richard Matthews  1:00:43  

If you figure out perfection, let me know.

 

Jonathan Westover  1:00:48  

Yeah, likewise.

 

Richard Matthews  1:00:51  

So, that’s basically a wrap on our interview. And I do appreciate you sharing your principles there. But I end, every interview with a thing I call the hero’s challenge, and it’s super simple. And I do it basically, it’s a selfish thing to help me get access to stories we might not find because not everyone is out looking to do podcasts as you might be. And so the question is simple. Do you have someone in your life or in your network that you think has a cool entrepreneurial story? Who are they? first names are fine, and why do you think they should come to share their story on the hero show? First-person that comes to mind?

 

Jonathan Westover  1:01:28  

That’s a really great question. Goodness, a person by name right off the top of my head.

 

Richard Matthews  1:01:36  

Yeah, the first one that comes to mind.

 

Jonathan Westover  1:01:39  

Oh, geez.

 

Jonathan Westover  1:01:42  

So this happens to just be someone I was interacting with at the university, they’re full-time professionals, but they teach part-time at the university. His name’s Brian Fisher. Then he just recently moved out to Milwaukee. But he’s done a great job teaching for us part-time in our program, but he does some really great work in the tech space. And he has a legal background as well. And I just, I just think people like him, they inspire me because he’s willing to give back teaching part-time at a university doesn’t pay very much. And so it’s more of a labor of love. And he’s, he’s doing his day job and super busy, but he’s willing to give back to the students in the community through teaching courses. And I think that’s amazing. And he does great work with his organization as well.

 

Richard Matthews  1:02:36  

Awesome. I will see if we can reach out later and maybe do an introduction. Maybe he’ll be interesting coming on the show. Maybe not. But anyways, we try. So in comic books, there’s always the crowd of people who are cheering and clapping for the acts of heroism, so are analogous to that is we want to find out where people can find you. Where can they light up the bat signal, so to speak, and say, Hey, you know what, I need your help, Jonathan, with our human capital organization. And I think more importantly, where they can reach out and who are the right types of organizations to reach out, raise their hand and ask for your assistance.

 

Jonathan Westover  1:03:09  

Yeah, people can find me at www. Innovative Human Capital.com. And you can see the firm and all the things that we do. You can also find me on LinkedIn, if you just search Jonathan Westover, I’ll pop up there aren’t that many Jonathan Westover is out there. Please do get connected. Every organization has challenges and problems. I’ve yet to find one that doesn’t. And it doesn’t matter if it’s a nonprofit, a small nonprofit, a mom-and-pop shop, a government agency, or a large corporation, they all tend to have these similar types of challenges. And so I would say anyone listening, if you feel like, you could use some help, connect with me on LinkedIn, and let’s explore.

 

Richard Matthews  1:03:54  

Awesome, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your stories Jonathan. It’s been a fascinating conversation. And if you are in that spot, you’re running an organization I know, it’s something that I’ve been learning and struggling through is how to build a culture and how to take advantage and grow the human capital in my organization. And I know, it’s a difficult thing to just get right for the first time. So definitely take time to reach out to Jonathan if you are listening, and that’s of interest to you. And I guess before we hit the stop record button, Jonathan, you have any final words of wisdom for the audience?

 

Jonathan Westover  1:04:23  

A final word I would just say, in your own journey, own it. Be authentic and genuine to yourself. is one thing. I’m glad I figured that out in college, I encounter a lot of individuals who kind of were on the same path I was they go into a career because they think that’s what’s expected of them or it’s something that, they found themselves being good at or whatever, and then they get 10-20 years in, and they really hate what they do. I would say just search for what interests you what you’re passionate about. be genuine and authentic and be willing to take a little bit of a risk and usually that pays off.

 

Richard Matthews  1:05:03  

Yeah, absolutely. So you heard him be genuine, authentic, and take the risks. I tell people on the show all the time to take risks. It’s one of my most important principles is to take the risk because you never know what’s gonna happen on the other side. So that’s very powerful. Again, thank you so much for coming to the show today, Jonathan.