What Are You Carrying Into It?

Nicole Morris: And so, part of what I've had to unlearn, especially in this particular cycle of work, is how to step back and and let it fall apart if it needs to, because it's not my role to fix. This is The Lagging Team. Falling behind is a position, not a verdict. Today's episode: What are you carrying into it? I have one of the most amazing guests that I've ever had in my entire life, my entire lifetime, and I've spent more than a half a century on the planet. But allow me to introduce someone to you who does really amazing things, and she happens to be my wife. Her name is Nicole Lynn Morris. She has spent more than 20 years in corporate leadership, strategy, and transformations, running implementations, re-engineering how work moves across whole organizations. The part of the project where the plan actually meets the people. She's the founder of Labels Be Gone and the author of "It's Not Me, It's You: Take Their Labels Off," and the host of The Permission Slip. As I said to you, this is my wife, so y'all gotta treat her special. And here's what I gotta say to you: Before she was my wife, she spent like 17 years running implementations, which is exactly why I'm having her here. She's watched what teams carry into a room before anybody whispers a single word. Here's the deal. Here's the premise. What I keep coming back to, a team gets called behind long before anybody actually proves it, and once that word lands, people start working like it's actually true. What I would love for you to do, Nicole, is take me to an implementation where you first saw a team get labeled before it got measured. Well, thank you, husband. First and foremost, got me teasing and stuff. So, thank you for that wonderful intro. Okay, so I have a lot, actually, a lot of experiences where teams are perceptively behind. Sometimes, maybe even actually behind, and generally, what's happening before they get into a room. Number one depends on which room they're going into. From an implementation perspective, especially if it's external client-facing implementations, there's a lot of rooms with a lot of different perspectives and conversations happening about that same implementation. So I think the first way to shape that particular response, what happens before they walk into the room, is to say, "Which room am I walking into a room where I have a an anxious client or an anxious consultant or an anxious external partner?" And then what's happening internally once that message, that perceptive messaging of being behind, whether it's true or just anxiety, is happening, is that looks like missed communication. Honestly, is what that looks like. It looks like maybe it's a missed expectation that was set during initial scoping. Maybe it's a missed opportunity to communicate timeliness. Maybe it's a missed internal communication about resource constraints that does not yet bubble up to the teams who are responsible for messaging externally, so I think there's a lot of things that can play into what's happening before a team even comes into the room. Or in my particular field of work, if a team is perceptively behind or actually behind for too long, those teams actually end up changing sometimes because client satisfaction becomes key. So I think it depends on which role. The is it perception versus actuality? Is there something that you need to deal with with messaging, or is there something that needs to happen from a resource perspective? Yeah, a lot of times you you hear people say out loud that a team is behind, and and what are some of the things that you actually do so that you know whether they're behind or is just something other than that. Well, again, it all comes back to expectation and what expectation was set at the beginning of a conversation. If deliverables are actually not being met on time, then from my perspective as a as a client facing PM, the team is is behind. There there's no way to shape that. However, I think managing the messaging around what behind really produces in terms of risk that becomes the pivot. Yeah, that's that's interesting because a lot of times when I go into rooms, it's one of those things where it's almost like they're saying I'm behind. So you know, when when you see these situations happen, who really gets that blame first when it comes down to these teams, that's a good question. The messenger, whoever is the messenger, is the one that that kind of can get the blame, and I have a hard time with the word blame, right? Because typically, it's not about it's not about the people, right? And it is usually if something is behind or is not being delivered in the time in which it was committed to, it's usually about a process breakdown. It's not necessarily about the people, and so there's either a gap in the analysis, there's a misunderstanding in the requirement or in the scope. There is something a communication breakdown at the forefront or the kickoff of a project that just doesn't allow what actually needs to be done to get carried through. Sometimes, a lot of times in my particular industry, it is not understanding the requirements. Sometimes you can't understand the requirements until you get into unpacking them because they're so nuanced. And then it is actually having though the person or the people leading that know how to quickly put their hands on a solution, or know how to ask the right questions, or get the question or the need in front of the right senior leadership, so that things can start moving. Is typically my experience, but I have a I have a I have a challenge with that word blame because when people hear the word blame, they internalize it like they did something wrong, and many times, they people were put into position by circumstance. It's not necessarily like we're showing up and we did something wrong, or we didn't know, or we half did something, or misunderstood. So, you know, that word blame makes me go like that. Well, you know, well, you you you said beautifully in the book that you write, you know about labels, right? And blame seems to be one of those labels. And so I'm I'm curious when you see that word blame, whether it's being called out as the name blame, or you see it in the activities that's happening around you, how do you deal with the impact to the team, and how do you communicate that thought to leadership about that particular label? Well, first of all, I think we should probably take a step back and say, "Does why does the need to blame come up versus having a solution-oriented conversation. Sometimes it just is what it is, and you need to fix it. And you can go back and do a post mortem, a five why, or whatever the root cause analysis is for the delay. You can go back and do that after the tensions are reduced. And so I think the first thing is to think about what puts a person in in a position where they feel like they need to assign blame. I remember I was interviewing at one of the big three firms, and I was interviewing for cost containment role, and the hiring manager. This is the first time I had ever heard this term. He said, "You're gonna be the one throat to choke if something goes wrong," and I was like, "Huh, that's interesting." And then, of course, I took it like a personal challenge. Like, bring it because you're never gonna choke my throat because I'm gonna make sure that the teams fall in line. Now I didn't end up getting that role, and I'm glad I didn't because that was a that was a unfortunate statement for me to make to try to put the whole weight of the responsibility of success on me for an entire you know what do we talk about you know 17 departments minimum cross functional some of them working agile. Some of them work in waterfall. Some of them are tech-related. Some of them are operations. They speak very different languages. Oftentimes, not to each other at the same time, using the same terminology. And for me to be like, "Well, bring it," I was taking on an incredible amount. I was able. An incredible amount of unnecessary pressure that nobody asked me to do that, but in that moment, the leader that may have that sort of expectation or want to place that on the team is probably somewhat someone that struggles with perfectionism or feels like they have a lot personally at stake, a lot where maybe the success of their job is a direct reflection to them perceptively of how successful they are in life, and I think a lot of times we bring those attributes into our leadership roles and into our into our work interactions, whether we're leading from behind or you have a formal title, I think a lot of those things that we that come with us, you know, throughout our whole life, kind of show up in how we show up in spaces. So I would even start there. Like, what's that leader bringing to that table? And then in terms of how, so if if I am the person that is leading the team, I think you got to be careful with that, right? Because sometimes your natural response is going to be to go one way or the other. It's to go all out to please your client, whether it's an internal or an external stakeholder, or it's going to be all out to protect your team, and one of the things that I work to balance, no matter what kind of project I'm working on, sometimes I'm advocating for my clients with my internal partners, and then sometimes I'm advocating for my internal partners with my clients. Like sometimes it's okay to just say no, and I think that's a natural reaction. Honestly, to find that balance, that's a natural reaction of some of the work that I've done. The work that I've done on myself to not like let myself either be the the overachiever in me who wanted to be perfect all the time, and not just kind of lean into let me get this done, which can then produce some negative outputs to the team. If I'm getting this done at all costs, that usually means I'm grinding my team and I'm grinding their spirit, and I'm and I'm probably not being very gracious when I do it. So it's been learning how to not show up like that, and really being cautious and conscious of the impact I'm having on people. So, I personally, if I'm in those positions, I really try to strike a balance. And when there needs to be accountability for the team, like it is what it is. However, we are going to have a factually based conversation about what's happening. Why is it, you know, why is it delayed? What do we need to? What do we need to get it back on track? What do we need to get back to green? Is it even realistic? Do we need to have another conversation? And then who do I need to hand that conversation to? That sorts of things. So it's all sorts of ways to kind of navigate some of those. But from a balance perspective, that is all that's aligned with who I am as a person, I I do accountability both ways, including to clients, which is sometimes uncomfortable, but it is what it is. So so, man, that's a that's a lot to unpack, right? And you you said 17 departments, right? 1500 Data points, you know, you you just took us inside of that, and and then what you kind of ended that with is really three different perspectives that you have to deal with from your seat. Client, you said leadership, and you said the team, right? And then with 17 departments, some of them gonna be ahead on time. Some of them gonna be behind. That is a lot to balance. So, how do you initially approach that when you like step into it? So, when you have that much cross-functional coordination that's happening, and it's typically the same team, the same type of work that the outcomes have to be the same, even if the way that you get to the outcome changes in scenario by scenario, you kind of have a sense for which teams which teams may give you a little bit more challenge to manage than the ones that don't, especially because it's repetition. So it's it's most most importantly is getting familiar. My first step when I go into any organization is to get familiar with that organization, and one of the things that I tell people who report to me, the most important thing that you can learn about this role and about this organization is how to get around this organization, because with so many cross-functional interdependencies that are tiered in phase. In how they have to be executed is is not a linear process at all. Being able to understand how quickly you can get a question in front of the right person is going to be critical. So it really is spending the time to understand how to get around the org. I have a leg up because I've been doing this in the same industry for a while. So generally speaking, I kind of know, or I know how to assess where an org or a team might have a particular challenge. If they have a team of new folks, and I just have a couple of conversations, and I can hear they may struggle, let's say, with the data exchange portion. Do they understand what the data exchange portion is, or do I understand how this org thinks about data? Right, because it's important for us to understand as people who are effectuating the change. It's important for us to understand how to phrase the question to get the response that we need. So again, that's another fourth layer, right? Like, where do I fit in the middle of all of those perspectives? Is another thing, and and how quickly I'm a person. I like to cut through the noise, and so I'm going to find out what's important to everybody up front, and then like basically, how do we keep everybody on page and on front with like delivering according to the expectations that you have, or do we need to adjust this expectation? Am I the messenger for that expectation adjustment? Not all the time. Sometimes I have to be, and we deal with that. But no, that makes sense to me, and I'm curious because we we we've been talking about leadership and everything else, and and you are a leadership that has you know your own stuff that you walk into the room with, right? And I'm curious when I think about the word just some identities, the expert, the strong one, the peacemaker, the overachiever. Which one do you classically walk into the room with? Do I have to pick? You don't have to do anything. You know what? Honestly, because my so my personal trauma makes me show up as an overachiever because it was a coping mechanism, and so my work became the way that I escaped. I didn't escape into other habits. I escaped into work. So my personal trauma has me walking into the room as the person who's going to get it done and get it right, which lends itself very explicitly to the strong one, because I'm also going to be the person I want everybody to feel safe, and because I want everybody to feel safe, I'm going to be the one that people can relax into and say, "Okay, I don't have to necessarily think about it because Nicole's got it." But now, why does Nicole have it? Nicole has it because she's an overachiever who found validation of her inside of her internal self through the outputs of her work because that was the only thing that I could control. So I'm feeding my control mechanisms through my work and how I show up in a project, the expert again lends it. How can you overachieve if you don't know everything, right? Or if you don't have a semblance of being able to know everything? And I forget what was the other one that you said. Strong one. Yeah, I said that we talked through the strong one, the the okay, and even the peacemaker. It's like I joke, I joke sometimes at work about like the dentist and Django. So the dentist and Django like would go in and he would set all this stuff off, and then he'd jump off of his carriage and be like, "Everybody, calm down." And I always joke that like I'm the dentist and Django. Mine is blowing everything up unless I need to, but I'm always the one like everybody calm down, and then I get everybody calm, I get everybody dependent, I get everybody reliant, but the challenge for that becomes that I don't get a respite, and then I set an I set an expectation that number one is probably ego driven more than anything, and while I'm able to meet it, I cripple the team when I do that. Okay. And so part of what I've had to unlearn, especially in this particular cycle of work. Is how to step back and and let it fall apart if it needs to, because it's not my role to fix, which is difficult for somebody right who was the expert and the answer and all the things. And so I had to get comfortable letting people stand up. It created very unhealthy work-life balance for me with outcomes because we would joke in my first marriage that I was cheating on my husband with my laptop. Yeah, yeah. And my children, when when they were growing up, it was almost just like don't talk to mom because she's working, and the messaging was almost like the work is more important than you. And really, what I was chasing was just coping with things that I hadn't dealt with, which is kind of some of the stuff we talk about in the book. But that's how it showed up at work, and so for my for my leadership and for my and you know for my management, it was like amazing because they could give Nicole just about anything and not have to worry about it. But it wasn't healthy for me. And the other thing was, I set myself up, which is important as a black woman to say so. You know, I set myself up to not command the right value because I showed up at 250%, no matter what the salary was, no matter what the reciprocity was, no matter whether or not they saw my humanity and respected my gifts or my talents. We were talking yesterday about a a former. place where I was employed, where one of the owners would not even acknowledge my humanity. He would just be like, "We never had that skill set here before." And but the ego in me, the person who was still working from a damaged place and needed the validity of that job, still showed up for somebody who clearly did not appreciate everything that I brought to the table for whatever reason, and that's not a good place to leave from either. So I know this is we can have this conversation from a number of perspectives, right? In terms of how leaders show up with the labels and how that can come out, with how employees show up with the labels and how that can come out. Honestly, how it kind of turns into like this new element that I'm exploring, like the cultural algorithm of an of a work environment, like what is celebrated, what is tolerated, are we even aware, like what we're pulling out of people based on the standards we set, so that conversation can go a lot of a lot of directions. Here's the deal: before I even touch on the cultural algorithm, right? We talked about those four identities, and you gave us a really good description. We talked about the expert. We talked about the strong one. We talked about the peacemaker, and you also talked about the overachiever. I'm just curious, just to make sure I'm not confused. Which of the four is the most expensive one for a team to work under? The most expensive one. That's a good question. It's probably the strong one because when you because when you project the strength, you're afraid to acknowledge your risks and when you might not have it all together. And just like personal personal dispositions, you've got to be able to say something is wrong. This needs help. This is a risk, and you've got to be okay. Even if that, even if you're going to take that in as a reflection of you personally, it's a level of vulnerability that cannot coexist when you are always projecting strength that teams need. They need to be able to be successful. Okay, so then the question I would ask you, just to kind of tag on to that, is how did the team learn to work around it. I think they just push through. I think they really, honestly, just ground themselves in just getting it done, which is good because you deliver, but it's not good because that's when turnover tends to spike. Because in that you don't have room to have a miss if you don't have an environment that is safe for that, or you don't want to carry that. That's where burn. Pops up, yeah, I definitely can see that, and so then I'd ask you this because if if you can, you've done the work to see those kind of things inside of you. So can you tell from the outside which leader that you're working with that's carrying some of that as well. Sometimes you can. It depends because it depends on the leader, and it depends on what they're carrying. It depends on how they interact or how closely. Some leaders are more vulnerable, open in in groups that they're not comfortable with. I am definitely a person. I am very open in every group that I go in, so people would be easy would easily be able to tell that with me. But I don't, I don't know that everybody is like that. And I think you have some people that are like that with people who they spend a lot of time with, or they work on a lot of projects with. They'll know that. But it it really just depends, and honestly, my my observation of that is it really kind of depends on how comfortable that person is with themselves, and how much permission they want to give the room, and that really is about how they want the room to feel when they're in it or or not. And some people, I'm just here to get this done, and that is what it is. And then some people, or people like me, I believe that everywhere you go, there you are, including work. So I'm going to create a space that is holistic, no matter where I am. So I think it depends, and I don't think there's a right or a wrong way to be. I think there's just consciousness about it, so that we understand who we're dealing. Because a lot of times, you can you can spend time trying to be seen by somebody or by a space that doesn't want to see you because that's not where they're there. And the leaders can be the same thing, right? They could, they could, you could completely have a person who is capable of changing the entire direction of your team or influencing teams in a certain way, you can have a group of people that make up a team that can really turn a rudderless ship into something that avoids the iceberg ahead. But if the leader is not, you know, perceptively positioned to see that, then it's it's going to be missed opportunity. Yeah, yeah, I definitely can see that. And here's a here's a question, right? That that somebody might be curious about. You being a person that has worked on yourself as a leader, leading you know these millions upon millions dollar transformations and implementations, right? When you see that you've gone too deep into a particular identity and is not being beneficial, are there some telltale signs that help you to recognize that from the inside of you that maybe you need to dial that back a little, or whatever that is, you know, how can you actually tell that? That's a good question. It's draining. Okay. When I am out of when I am out of position, it's draining. It is the and the ideas are not received as well. It's almost like the parable, not the not the parable of a sower, but like it's three different grounds where you can drop the seed on. One is hard, and and the seeds will just go on top, and the birds will come eat it up. And then you know it's another layer, and then there's one where the ground's been tilled and the soil covers and it grows. When you're not in the right position of influence and yet you're trying to give influence through your work or your ideas, it's just not received, and it becomes a friction In the exist in in the existing relationships or interactions or exchanges, it just becomes a friction because typically, if somebody is trying to give out an idea, it's because they care. When the idea is not received, it feels like rejection, and that doesn't feel good, especially when you believe you have something of value to give your organization, employer, church, sorority, you know whatever it is, right? I'm trying to give this to you, and you don't want it. So typically, if I've gone too deep, it creates a friction within me because something's not being received, and that doesn't mean that people have to accept everything that I'm saying or accept everything I'm doing. But that's one of the first telltale signs. And then it's like if I'm having to do a lot of convincing, right? If I'm trying to do a lot. Of convincing, then that's another sign. And at some point, very early on these days, you know, you provide the feedback and let it land. And if it doesn't, then that's you know that's okay, and you know just kind of move on. But that's one of the telltale signs, right? It just creates this friction that probably doesn't have to be there if you if it was being received the way that perceptively you think it could be. So it's so we was talking about labels, and we was we was talking about leaders, and we definitely talked about you, and so when label like behind is handed to a team, when do you start seeing them carry it in themselves as a team? Depends on the team, and honestly, depends on the person. If it depends on the person leading the team, honestly. So if the person that's leading the team, there's usually there's usually a leader, at least in my in my experience, right? There's usually a leader, and how is that communicated downward? And I actually can think of a recent experience where this huge project that the messaging that came down was that this has been going on for X amount of time. There is, and there have been people in the room, but they've not been participating. Like all of this, these negative perceptions that came through, and initially when it came down, it came down in as behind identity and panic. Okay, it came down as panic, and it took a person really making an independent assessment again of the expectations of the scope of work, direct experience with the stakeholders to find out it was actually ahead, But in the the the perceptive panic that people didn't have access to the information in a transparent way, it really gave a nervousness and the visibility of the work gave a nervousness to the to the potential to the owners of the team of the work that allowed that messaging to come down, and so it came down because it they the team took on that identity initially and the panic that came with it because of how the message was delivered only in a courageous. Honestly, it's a courageous. It's a courageous position to take to go in under those circumstances and not absorb the panic and not absorb the label, and then to recognize that sometimes it's just it's a messaging thing, and and to have the influence, to have the people who are panicking because of the the lack of process, right? The lack of process that didn't give the visibility into the progress. To say, just trust me for a little bit, and let's do this assessment, and then confirm actually that we're ahead. That's interesting. You brought up something that many people don't think about, and that's there's always levels of management. There's always levels of leadership that exist, and that that that team leader, whatever you want to call them, manager, supervisor, executive director, whatever that is, right? When they believe something, or when they think something, or their perception really could shape what the team is thinking. I want you to just take me back to when that perception, you see that perception impacting the team, and the team is taking that on. My question for you is, what does it cost when that team actually starts believing that? Um, that's a good question too. It costs. It's opportunity cost. It is. There's a social. There's a social component. That it costs. There's a psychological safety that can get depleted depending on how that perception is managed. Yeah, yeah. I have observed in some instances, again, huge Meaningful projects where the leader just sometimes became inappropriate on the calls, and you know people ended up taking leaves of absences because they just couldn't handle the pressure. It is, you know, and you know, pressure does one of two things potentially, right? It bursts pipes or makes diamonds. Without being, without a leader understanding who's in their org, or having been intentional about developing their org? Because I believe you can develop. I've worked. I've worked in organizations where the development from top to bottom was intentional about about the endurance to absorb the kind of pressure that can come with high visibility, large scale engagements, where those people will respond in a positive way to the pressure, but the way that that that was offset was through rewards. So people understood what was in what was on the other side of them in a positive way. They have visibility into what their future payoffs would be, so it became worth it to them to kind of figure out how to endure that. And I think the other side of that sometimes is that I I see a lot where organizations they want those kinds of results, but they haven't cultivated that kind of culture in order to do it, and I've seen a lot of. I've experienced a lot of. I've experienced a lot of good things too. But I've experienced a lot of things where it's it's it's it's leadership by verbalization. If I say it, that means you can do it. I haven't assessed the infrastructure. I haven't. I haven't assessed. You know the. I haven't assessed. You know if the tools are there, if the processes are there. It's just I said to do it. Now you should be able to do it. Yeah. And sometimes it's like that's that's going to be painful. Yeah, no, you you you bring up something. What that leader thinks and says, yeah. And so, and and them thinking that work can just happen because they deem it that way, I think that's an important nugget there. I'm curious about the difference of when a leader, at whatever level, right, says that a team is behind on a project versus when they say a team who's always behind, those are two different perspectives, and I'm curious about the difference between them. If is it the same leader? Let's say it's the same leader. If the feedback is consistent and the T, it may be valid. Yeah. And then the question becomes to assess why. Yeah. And and in that in in those moments where the perception doesn't match the reality. So let's say that one example that I gave you earlier, where the perception was that it was behind, but then you go in and you do some assessments. Like actually, right? You will see the results. You will be able to prove out what is or isn't happening. So in the instance where there's a perception that a team is always behind. It's probably true, but then the question becomes that from from my perspective, then that's not about the team. That's about the leader of that team, because then why are they always behind? Are they always behind on the same type of deliverable? Yeah. Um, and what feedback are they giving? Yeah. And what feedback? And I think it's important to get feedback from the people who are actually doing the work. Yeah. Yeah. And not necessarily the people who. Are leading the work getting done because it's just completely different vantage points, and what are those people telling you that they need? What do they not understand for them to always be behind? Would be my question. So that's the difference, and especially if it's if that sentiment is echoed across the organization, then it's likely valid, but then again, that's for that's a leadership issue. That's not a team issue, because either that team doesn't have what they need, or maybe that's you know that's not the right team. Maybe you have a mix, like, but that's a leadership issue at that point. If a team is always behind, yeah, and and then when you do that investigation and you you find out why whatever that reason is, then you go and you approach and try to figure out how to maybe solve those problems in some reasonable way. And again, it it could be the team, it may not be the team, it could be the leader. But what I hear from you definitely is, it is worth an investigation. Oh no, it's absolutely worth an investigation because you know nobody's at work, so that that just goes down to basic ROI. If that team is always behind and is impacting at work, period. So if their if their productivity is delayed, and it's it's consistently, and especially if it's consistent across the org, then there is an impact, and there is something that is worth investigating. Now, as a person who's done some of those investigations, getting some of that feedback, or living through teams who are always behind, sometimes you find that the work's not ready to absorb it, absorb the feedback. Yeah. So then you just have to sit on it until it's time to give it to them, or until they're ready, or to be able to assess it. But then you use that information to guide how you interact with that particular team. It's always my experience that, like, when teams when teams are consistently behind, there's always there's always a couple of people though who know how to kind of go in and get things done for you, which is why I said spend time navigating orgs because then you can go through and kind of cut through some of that noise and at least figure out how to get what you need. And sometimes people are frustrated with that. That's one of my tactics. They're like, no, but it's not just about you and what you need. I'm like, yeah, well, for my project, it is. Yeah, you know how to go get things done. That's a little bit different, right? Just a little bit. And so I'm curious, right? That team that is labeled as behind, whether it's valid or not. You mentioned people who get stuff done for sure, but what are the people on a lagging team actually waiting for permission to do. I don't know. Yeah, I'm curious about it because it's one of those things when you start to get labeled behind. At times, you see changes in the work. You see changes in different things, and so I'm just curious as to what what are they what are they waiting for, right? Sometimes people just want direction. Yeah, they want they want to feel like they have explicit steps that they need to take in order to do their work. Yeah. So sometimes it's that. I mean, I think it really can just change from team to team. I am trying to think of. Sometimes they're waiting for permission to innovate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sometimes they feel constrained from trying things. Sometimes they're they're waiting for permission to get resources. Human or technical or other type of like capital that you could use to to grow. Yeah, I had an interesting observation recently where a team was told, "Just go innovate. Just go do it. You let me deal with all that other stuff, and you just go, you just go tinker. Yeah, and that's a safe space to mess around without risk, without the downfalls of finding out because. Those teams probably felt constrained, right? When you take the perceptive constraints off and give people room to play, like room to play, without judging the outcomes of how they played or how they failed or you know if they failed or whatever it is, but just room to play and permission to play. Yeah. Um. People do some magical things. You can do some magical things when you don't feel constrained. Yeah, that's amazing. So then the the question is, once that's granted to them, they're granted permission to innovate. They're granted to do whatever it is, right? What are some of the changes that you see happen with a team that's truly granted the permission to move forward. Process changes, product releases, product enhancements, productivity going up, open sharing, more open communication, more relatability, people feeling like they can breathe, they can breathe and just be and not. Sometimes people are bracing for the next note, which constrains your ability to cry out. Then I'm just going to show up and do what I'm paid to do. Or like one of my jokes is, my deposit comes every two Fridays. That I don't have to battle you. I just get my paycheck. But if I'm feeling like if I'm feeling incentivized or protected to play and to explore, and it's going to be received, then I'm going to do that more. It's more rewarding. It's it's reciprocity that people look for in in in work relationships, sometimes. So then, what what does it's like? What does a leader do that actually keeps people waiting without actually meaning to do that? Think about themselves first. Think about how an outcome is going to reflect on them first, and then ends up with a lot of bureaucracy, checkpoints, control, trying to control the outcomes, so that people start trying to learn how that leader thinks, so that they don't get to know or the rejection, instead of going to create. Yeah, and you see that happen more and more often than you want to see it happen, right? And so here's the deal: we've been talking about permission, and I'm curious, and I gotta ask you because you would know this better than anybody else, right? Where did the name Permission Slip come from? Oh, that switched things up for you. You did. The Permission Slip was a natural derivation of encouraging people to take the labels off of them from other people's expectations, and telling somebody to take their labels off. It's like the dictatorial leadership, like we did before. Take those labels off. You don't have to believe that, but real leaders they show the way too, and so The Permission Slip was born out of wanting to show people what it looks like when you actually take permissions off. Take when you when you actually take labels off. So what does it look like to let go of the label overachiever? Well, it looks like me saying it's ego-driven. It looks like me saying out loud that my addiction to working was a coping mechanism. It was vulnerability in me saying I was an overachiever because I was coping with things that I did not want to emotionally face, and it fed my ego and it fed my need to control things because I could control the outcomes of work. Yeah, I couldn't control anything else, and even then, that was an illusion because I couldn't control the outcomes of work because you can't control people, but it felt like I could. So that's why I have all this gray hair. It's beautiful, but girl. Well, I understand. I like your gray hair. It's very nice. So then here's a here's a really good question because you you said it. So I'm going to repeat it back to you into a question: Why is taking the labels off at home the same muscle as taking them off? You have to see yourself. Okay. You have to see yourself. You have to, you have to be okay with pulling back the parts that don't present as well, and that is embracing the fullness of yourself beyond statements like we say flaws and all, and where you turn that into empowerment in a workspace is you then you create the safety space for yourself to be vulnerable in rooms because you've accepted that you're not going to be perfect, and so that doesn't mean you walk into a meeting and start telling everybody about yourself, but it does mean that you may walk into a meeting and make statements that are less declarative and more curious. And declarative statements are more likely to receive a challenge from somebody in the room. A curious statement means it's open to interpretation, open for discussion, and encourages an exchange of ideas. Where a declarative state, a declarative statement, and for some invites almost a challenge to the idea. So being comfortable at home, everywhere you go, there you are. Being comfortable with the with the flaws and the things that you want to work on in yourself personally, it it takes some intention to not show up at work and just do that. But it lends itself to being more comfortable that you don't actually know it all, and that's okay. Like you're not supposed to. So then, what did that look like for you the first time it worked? I don't. I don't remember the first time it worked. I remember though. I will tell you this: I've had more success at maintaining at maintaining peace. When you are my experience of hanging on to that overachiever, it it almost made me feel like I needed to do that in every area of my life, and because otherwise there was going to be some sort of chink in the chain that I did not want to accept, which gave people sometimes a difficult experience of me. And then because I knew myself, and I knew that I was not trying to cause harm to people. I was always confused at like why were people receiving me this way, like everywhere that I went. Well, everywhere that I went, if everybody's receiving me that way, then it's probably not everywhere that I'm going because I'm the common denominator, and so accepting that gave me a lot of peace because then I got to start saying, and it took some years, some of the relationships for them to know, and some people are still getting to know it. I'm eight, nine years in, eight or nine years in at this point, and some people are still just learning how to trust that that version of Nicole that shows up, and it's like, yeah, I don't know, and I don't have to know. And sometimes people have they got so used to me showing up knowing that they became dependent on me knowing, and then I give the responsibility right back to them. That's that enabling things. I was enabling personally. I was enabling at work. I was not being valued at work. I wasn't being valued personally. Like from my perception, in not all instances, right? But everywhere you go, there you are. So then, this is a two-part question. So actually, the first part first, and I have an idea of the exact answer, but I have to ask you, so I'm not making any assumption. Which of those labels was the hardest for you to let go of? I'm gonna tell you the label that I'm never gonna let go of, and you say it all the time. I'm never gonna be able to let go of the label of the good girl. Okay, all right. See, and that's the reason why I have to ask the question because we only talked about a few, right? So then, why? Um, people pleasing is it was natured and nurtured into me, and so I always wanted to be the good girl. I didn't want to cause problems. I know we we talked about overachievement and all that stuff, but the one that's at the root of all of that is a good girl because I don't want to cause problems for people. I didn't want my mom to be mad. I liked getting the claps, and you know. I liked getting all of that stuff. It always came with rewards as a kid that I valued. And if you think about how the messaging is reinforced as we matriculate through life in the U.S., right? You go to school. What happens when you're a good girl, a good boy? You get A's, right? If you go to trying to be good enough at church, trying to be, you know, you just you start chasing other people's validations, and I think that's ingrained in you, and I think it's just ingrained in in the part of who I am, and I actually appreciate it too. So I don't actually want it to go. I want to make people happy. My problem was I wanted to make everybody happy. I'll make everybody happy, and I can't make me happy, and you can't make anybody happy. And so that that lends itself to his to his own set of things. You probably thought I was gonna say overachiever, didn't you? Did I did I was I was on it. I was like overachiever. I was gonna ask questions straight about overachiever, and then you just throw me the thing out left field. So I get it. I was wrong, but I didn't make the assumption. I want everybody to know that. No, no, but I know. But you, I know why you were saying that too because of how much I work and how much I always try to take on, or like I get a little bit of space in my life, and it's like here comes something else. The chase is different now. Yeah, she she overachieves so much that she under she under achieves on me. I'm joking. I'm not overachieves me too, right? So I'm gonna say, look, and my chase is different, husband. Thanks to thanks to my husband, my chase gets to be different. So it's it's all kind of ways that you can that you can go into that into why some people kind of do what they do. But having the right people around you is a part of the equation that makes that makes your ability to relax and do work easier sometimes. So then I'll I'll ask you, you know, I've been blessed to be a part of your journey for you writing your book, and I'm curious about something. Okay, how do you actually help other people take off their labels without making it about you? Telling the story is is is telling the story. Even if you if you were you get the book, um, it's right here behind me. It's not my issue. There, you're right there. Take their labels off. I talk from a space like I did before. I tell on myself, but I tell on myself in a way that gives people permission to like observe themselves in the same way. And so that's how the book is written. It is a series of reflection over phases in my life. At the end of each chapter, and it's an easy read, and that was done purposefully too. And at the end of each chapter, it's a reflection, and then it's reflection questions: Have you experienced this same thing, or is there a time when somebody made you feel these are emotions. The thing is, there's nothing new under the sun, so these are feelings that are very common. They're common to people, but sometimes it's hard for us to see that in ourselves. Like we don't we we want to be the strong one, or we were labeled as the fixer. One of my sons, he's a peacemaker, right? So when he feels like there's going to be a family disagreement, he's like, he he's tensing up, and then he's going to try to figure out how to solve all the problems. And so it's being able to say that to them, and then let let it be with them without it being about me. And I can tell you about my journey. I can tell on myself and give you permission. And a lot of times, which is why we have The Permission Slip podcast. It is a very transparent conversation of people saying, "Yeah, me too." Yeah. So then I'm curious, what's one thing that someone that's watching this video or that's listening can give themselves permission to stop carrying this week. They can give themselves permission to stop carrying other people's expectations. You can. Simple example, and I'm going to demonstrate what you just talked about. Simple example. I had gotten people around me so used to depending on me for being the expert and the answer and all of that that my. Mom would call me and ask me for bank hours. She couldn't call the bank. She used to call me. That was the expectation that I set, though, right? Based on you know some of the things how we were nurtured, you can simply just redirect people. You don't have to answer every time people call, and initially, when you're doing that and resetting those boundaries, it is going to be uncomfortable because it it can feel like you're breaking a promise or you're letting someone down. But on the other side of never letting everyone else outside of you down, what I found was that I was letting myself down because I wasn't paying attention to myself. So I was picking up every call, I was doing every Google search that people could do for themselves. I was moving across the country trying to take care of people that it's not that they weren't mine to take care of, but that I have to do that to to help. No, yeah. So you, one thing that people can put down this week is other people's expectations, and and it's okay. And and make and start small. Yeah, start with a small. No, and in the spirit of using that same muscle, how would taking some of those labels off look for a team that does that same thing in the moment? Take some labels off, especially that behind label off. How will things? How do you think things will look for them if they're able to do some of that? I'm going to give a practical piece of advice there. I'm going to give a practical perspective, and it would be to take the risk to acknowledge what's happening first. Sometimes we teams, people, teams are just made up of people. Yeah. Even reject the notion that a label fits. Yeah. Embrace it. Embrace the perspective. It reduces the the automatic defensiveness, the the need to either feel like you need to defend or prove through overvalidation at the expense of team morale, or team psychology, or team psychological safety, so that is a risk to take in team vulnerability, especially if it's an environment where it's not safe to be behind. Because for some teams, it's you know you can overcommit, and it's acknowledged that you may have overcommitted, so then you just adjust from cycle to cycle. So acknowledge that the the the truth could even exist that that they could be behind first, and then fairly assess: is this accurate? If it is, why? If it's not, why not? If it is, what do you need to fix it? And be ready to articulate what you need. And if it's not, if you're not really behind, then what's the message, and who needs to hear it? Many times, it's it's just a leader a couple levels up that maybe feels like they have something on the line from the perspective of the team. So, how do you get that leader? Matter of fact, I could share transparent. I could share a transparent story with this. Actually, got some feedback from a leader recently, that they weren't feeling comfortable with where things were. Yeah, they were absolutely right to feel that way, because I hadn't given them the tools that they needed to have the visibility into progress, and and you know, in the back of your mind, like I kind of knew, right? And so I took accountability for it, and I said, "Okay, this is how I'm going to fix it." But it turns out that I needed something from my leadership team, so I got off that one call, and I called my leader, and I said, "Hey, I got this feedback, and I think this person's right, and here's what I need, and so now we're gonna fix it. And so, you know, she gotta embrace it first. Put it down. I I absolutely love that, and I have one final question for you. Okay. And that question is, what would you tell a leader whose team is behind right now, and they know it? What would I tell a leader? The leader knows, and the team knows that they're behind. Understand. Have an honest conversation about why, and what does it cost? What is it costing for your team to always be behind? What is it costing in terms of real dollars? What is it costing in org morale? What is it costing in team morale? And what do you need? Like, what do you really need to? That's tangible. That's measurable. That you can see progress from week to week. If you dedicate a resource or create a certain space, but typically if they're really behind, they probably it's a resourcing. What do you need? What do they need to fix that? And then can you do that? Because if you can't do that, then do you have to adjust expectations? Because then somebody has a need somewhere that's not being met, or the expectation needs to be adjusted. So, but it starts with acknowledging first that that's what it is. And a lot of times, as leaders, especially depending on the level you're walking in, you do not want to be the one to walk into that room and say, "Yep, we are." You do not want to be the one to carry that message, and so I think that's where a lot of that can kind of come from. And then that's when people start being asked to do more with less, and all those things. And it takes a really courageous person to say, "Wait a minute, like, is this is this realistic? Is this possible? What is true capacity? What is what expectation are we setting for these people? And is that realistic based on what it is we need to do? Well, I must say to you, this has been an amazing conversation. I have enjoyed every single aspect of it. I know the listeners are going to get a lot, a ton of value out of this conversation. So I'm going to ask you this, right? Where should people find you, and tell us what's coming up for you? Okay, so you guys can find me on every major platform at LabelsBegone. You can also find us@labelsbegone.com. You can listen to the podcast. It's called The Permission Slip. All of our episodes are archived at PermissionFromWho.com. So please come in, like, subscribe. But we're also on every major podcasting platform wherever you listen. So for The Permission Slip from Nicole Morris, and what's coming up? I'm so excited. We are actually getting ready to record and release season three of the Pod. We are already in. I want to say 23 countries, we're just a little over four months old, and so this conversation about introspective relationships with yourself, which is what the Permission Slip is meant to do, it's really resonating with people. And there's a there's a strong response from segments. And so I recently, literally, was just looking at the audience yesterday, and we are in Russia, and I'm like, holy smokes! So, like, literally 9% of the Permission Slip audience is from the Eurasian continent, which is like incredible. So, we're getting ready to release season three of the Permission Slip the week before Thanksgiving, and we're talking about what it means after you've done the work or while you're doing the work to go back home, and people still want to interact with you based on who they knew, not who you are. And so we're going to have some very specific conversations about what does that feel like from people who've actually gone through it and maintain their sense of self even in the challenge. How did they do that? So I'm really excited. We're actually going to have a therapist on with us, Dr. Tiffany Bell, and she's going to talk about some of the grief that comes at the holidays and what happens when that that chair is empty, where you needed something from that person and they're no longer there to give it to you. And how do you not let that make you fall back into an old pattern. So that's what's coming up for us. We got a merch line launching. 2027 is going to be an amazing year for Labels Be Gone and The Permission Slip crew with more podcasts, more live events. So I'm I'm really excited. And thank you, husband. Thank you, husband, for having me. And and and showing the world your wife. I'm usually behind the scenes, just we we making each other go. So I appreciate you. Well, you a you know what? Whether I mean you're my wife, no question. But you have done the work. That's the difference, right? And you've done the work. They can see from the conversation that I I think you're amazing, but how amazing you are, and what you have to give to this world, and the things that you birth for this world to actually see. So I have enjoyed this conversation thoroughly. One day she'll bring me on her podcast. You know, even though hers is way older than mine. She'll bring me on her podcast, but I'm not gonna say anything about that. I'm gonna say that's the guilt trip, y'all. So he gonna be on the next one when we do with the married couple, and then he gonna be sorry that he uh that he put this plug out here because now I'm be like, husband, come on, all the ones, act the fool is what I'm gonna do. So well, that's that's what you do, and I and I love it. And I'm gonna be over here just looking, and they're gonna be like, "You don't pay no attention to him, do you?" Like, no. Well, you know, that's that's that. So we're gonna see if I ever get on. Maybe in 2020 28. Maybe you don't bother me. It is what it is. So I, you know, we're gonna see. We're gonna count it down. If if I get on her show, I'll let her come back on my show. We'll see. We have a competition. See, my husband, we gonna have to go with the. Okay, I got you. I got you. On that note, I'm gonna say to everybody, this has been an amazing conversation. We're gonna say bye to you all right now, and we will see you in the next conversation. Bye, bye, everybody. Thank you for joining us. Where every Tuesday and Thursday, we work toward bridging the gap for teams that are behind.