Why Leaders Can't See What the Room Already Knows | Kristine Frost on Leadership Blind Spots

TRANSCRIPT Why Leaders Can't See What the Room Already Knows | Kristine Frost on Leadership Blind Spots

 Kristine: The chief executive who’s answering, his or her own questions, and the room is quite silent. And then of course as soon as the meeting breaks, you have folks in the C-suite walking out, pairing up in twos and threes, and discussing what wasn't said, what really needed to be said.

Roger: This conversation reminds me of a saying: if you're not at the table, you're on the menu. Meaning if your perspective isn't part of the deliberation, there's a good chance the decision being made will land on you, whether or not anyone in that room thought about you.

Kristine Frost has spent her career on both sides of that table. As an executive, and now as an advisor to the C-suite, she's made a career of bringing humanity back into that process, and representing the people in an organization who don't have a seat. 

The very people most impacted by the decisions, and the ones expected to implement those decisions.

The lesson here for us is the same if we’re advising leaders or in how we approach our personal decision making process. 

If you're like me, when you're facing a big decision, you probably build a list of pros and cons. You weigh the perspectives of the people closest to you. It feels rational and defensible. 

But what quietly gets squeezed out of that deliberation is your own humanity, your own emotional needs, overshadowed by those rational ones. 

It happens in one person's head. And it happens in a C-suite.

Which brings me back to the saying. If your humanity isn't at the table, what exactly ends up on the menu?

I'm Roger Kastner, and this is What Do You Know To Be True? a personal development and leadership podcast for people discovering, building, or already living into their purpose and possibilities.

I’m glad you’re here, let’s dive in.

Kristine: Hi, my name is Kristine Frost and I am the founder, the proud founder of Shattered Glass Advisory. I have spent years in the C-suite as a CHRO, as a global enterprise leader. For fun, I spend a lot of time with nonprofits and my family, just enjoying life.

Roger: Welcome, Kristine. You've gone from being in the C-suite in public companies to the person who the C-suite calls when they have hard problems and big decisions to make. What was the moment that you decided that you needed to be advising the C-suite rather than a member of the C-suite?

Kristine: You know, maybe it was the day I was leaving corporate or the day after, but I was sitting in a pool and it hit me that I needed to help those organizations that recognized that they really needed to change the culture that was happening in the C-suite, where oftentimes they get stuck in a tunnel of thinking where it's the chief executive who is the one who is setting the pace, who's answering his or her own questions, and the room is quite silent. And then, of course, as soon as the meeting breaks, you have folks in the C-suite walking out, pairing up in twos and threes and discussing what wasn't said, what really needed to be said. You know, I always wonder, why are we not saying those things? I've always been one to want to actually take the opportunity to say the unsaid. And, you know, maybe that was not popular with some CEOs and maybe it was incredibly welcomed and popular with some CEOs and boards. But I think cracking the code on executive culture, something that, again, shatters that glass. We talk about diversity in the boardroom, both at the C-suite level and in the board, and oftentimes that is, we're choosing people who don't look like us or don't think like us. But how are we integrating them into the organization, into an organization that's maybe rested on its laurels for decades? How do we make the room comfortable so that those diverse opinions can actually come out and flourish? And in the end, we make better business decisions.

How do you get diverse perspectives to actually speak up in a C-suite?

Roger: You were just talking about having more open conversations by having more diverse perspectives, but just having people who come from diverse perspectives in the room isn't enough. So what's that next step? What do you help teams do today, now that you have maybe diversity in the room, to actually be able to create that sense of belonging, create that sense of inclusion, to where we actually get to hear those diverse perspectives that are unfiltered?

Kristine: I don't think there is a one-size-fits-all answer to that. But I think the most important component is having a CEO and a board that are supportive of having multiple voices in the room, who are supportive of having debates happening and that know that, from having multiple perspectives provided, leaning in on critical thinking, that there are better business decisions being made that are better for employees, better for the board, the C-suite, shareholders. I do really think that the most important part is that realization that maybe you are living in a bubble as a board or as a CEO, and that the time is ripe for those perspectives to shift.

Roger: Yeah. And I mean, the research is clear, like more diverse teams are higher performing teams. They're not necessarily the most fun. Actually, the research says that higher performing teams with more diversity are described as less fun than teams that get along really well but maybe don't perform as well. But the research is clear, like the diverse opinions, open conversation, debate, healthy debate drives more performance. So if the data is there, but maybe the experience, the willingness, like what gets in the way of boards and CEOs from encouraging more connection, more healthy debate once we have that diversity in the room?

What is the cost of being the only woman in the C-suite?

Kristine: You know, I really think it comes down to comfort levels. I am genuinely comfortable when things are uncomfortable. And it could be that I've been in the people business and people are unpredictable. So you always have to be ready for the unexpected. Or maybe it's just that I thrive in chaos. I'm not sure. But I do think that when something is unfamiliar, we tend to put up barriers around it. And I can speak from a lot of personal experience, typically being the singular female voice in the room, the singular disabled voice in the room, the singular LGBTQ voice in the room, that it's lonely. If you are different, it is lonely. I mean, at times it can almost feel like you're on your own island. And breaking that mold has been tough, and when it is successful, it is phenomenal for everyone in the room. But I will say, and I've talked to many folks who've been sort of that different person in the room, that we really need to be careful about bringing diversity into the room. And I talk about diversity of thought more than anything, because if the room is not ready, it is an uphill battle. It is fraught with frustration and miscommunication and misalignment. And I really do think that CEOs and boards, when we talk about diversity and we talk about diversity of thought, or people who are coming from different backgrounds or lived experiences, that we really need to be open to hearing different opinions. We really need to practice critical thinking skills. You know, I know what I think. I know it better than anyone. And I can recite it, of course, but I want to know what you think. I want to know, genuinely, please, if we disagree, I want to hear the other side because that's how I learn and that's how I grow. Not hearing the same thing in an echo chamber all day.

Roger: There's a jazz musician, Roy Hardgraves. I'm not getting the last name right, but it was probably like 20 plus years ago I heard him telling the story of how he, a jazz musician, trumpeter, moved to Harlem to be part of the music scene, but specifically to meet Miles Davis. And he finally runs into Miles Davis on the streets of Harlem and tells him, "Hey, I'm a musician. I'm trying to make it in the business. I've been wanting to meet you. I'm so excited that we finally get to meet. I'd love to learn from you." And Miles Davis instantly says, "Well, what can you teach me?" And I love that, just that idea of the leader looking towards someone else and saying, "Hey, what can you bring that could benefit me?"

Kristine: Absolutely. When I first join a company, I will walk the manufacturing floors and I will talk. And I'm definitely not the person who walks in and only stays in the perimeter and I'm wearing dress shoes. No, I'm showing up in plant attire because I think that's probably going to be disarming in a lot of ways. And I talk to each one of the operators and it's like, hey, what can you show me? And I actually will, if I'm somewhere for a few days, I'll actually find an operator who wants to show me how to do something, and I'll stand there on the line or in the cell and they'll teach me how to do the job. So I want to know what it's like, like what is your experience? Are the ergonomics correct? How can we make your world better? And that garners you so much, I think maybe respect, but like kinship or understanding that we are all human.

Roger: A saying that keeps coming up for me is they don't care how much you know until they know you care. And that walking the floor is demonstrating.

Kristine: Yeah. And not just, I mean, I see it all the time. I've been there when I was in other levels of the organization and you would see these people come in dressed in suits and they would just walk around with the plant managers or the directors or members of the C-suite and they would all just, and then they go into like a private lunch and they close the doors and nobody sees them. And I'm like, well, what is the purpose of that? Get out there, sit with the people. Like, okay, it's lunch time. Well, I'm going to go have my lunch in the cafeteria where everyone else is at. I'm just going to sit at a table. We're going to have conversations. I mean, yeah. Like, I don't know another way to be.

Roger: And there's something that not only it's beneficial for the leader to be able to build those connections and hear the perspectives and have that inform the decisions, but then the adoption and the people who are going to carry out those decisions, if they feel like they've been heard, if they feel like some level of gratitude or appreciation, they're going to make that thing happen more. So there's going to be a higher level of compliance with those decisions. Whereas if people don't feel heard, if they don't feel like their input had any say, or they don't feel like they're appreciated, performance and engagement are just going to wane.

Kristine: Yeah. It's a connection. So now you're connected to a person in the C-suite and you're like, all right, well, I have a human face and it's somebody who cares and it's somebody who's genuinely interested in me and what I do. That again, going back to connection, it can propel so much in an organization. And again, I don't know any other way to be. Like, I can't just show up in designer clothes and jewelry and sit there and just have a free lunch and stay in a boardroom or in my office. Like, that's just not me. I mean, there's times when I have to do that because it's part of the job, but I make as much time as I can for people.

Roger: And I love the idea of you as the adviser going and walking the shop floor, working with and having conversations and connecting with people 10, 11 layers down the org chart from your clients, from the people you're going to work with. Because when you get into that room with a C-suite, you're going to be able to speak through those perspectives. You're going to speak with the credibility of knowing what it's like. You're also role modeling a behavior that is probably really important for those leaders to see.

Kristine: Exactly. And I think it's that again, walking the talk, role modeling the behavior, like almost like undercover boss, like, okay, you're not going to wear a suit today. You're going to dress like everyone else in your facility, your distribution facility, your plant, whatever, your engineering center. We're going to walk around. We're going to show you how to talk to people. And just show that genuine interest as opposed to like, what are you working on today? And giving unsolicited advice from your ego as opposed to genuinely wanting to help. And there's that critical thinking, like the way I'm navigating the office or the way I'm thinking about how to show up at work. Is it serving me? Is it serving my team? Is it serving the organization? It's the willingness to ask those questions and think about, okay, what are other options here and what's going to work best for all involved. And I find that when I do this, there's always some leader somewhere who's absolutely intimidated by it. Like, don't talk to my people. What are you trying to do? Are you trying to get me fired? And I typically need to sit down with them before, but there are some people that just genuinely are that way, and no matter how many times we have a conversation and it's trying to understand one another, they're just so protective of whatever it is. I will say that I'm typically, I would say more than 90% of the time, once I have sat down with a leader and had a conversation, as everyone hates HR, right? Like, oh, HR, she could walk in and fire me. So people immediately get on the defensive or there's some intimidation factor. And I think you probably get this as a consultant too, like, oh, the Bobs are here to fire everyone. Yeah, I totally get that. And I want to disarm everyone. Like, we're going to sit together. We're going to have a conversation about you, about your career, about what's happening in your world. How can I help you? And I'm going to talk about my experience and my approach to things so that you immediately realize that I'm not just the grim reaper of careers. I'm here to partner with you to make your life better, the lives of your teams better, and better business decisions.

How do you become comfortable with discomfort as a leader?

Roger: There's this idea that you started with, though, of being comfortable in the discomfort. What has helped you be comfortable in the uncomfortable?

Kristine: I've had to cope with it throughout my career, do my absolute best to understand the role that I play and really be comfortable with myself and showing up as myself. You know, we talk about masking and I think that people wear masks, various masks, in the workplace every day and you want to fit in, right? I think one of the best examples is, maybe you work for a company where there's an annual golf outing and everyone's really into golf, and so you take lessons so that you buy clubs so you can fit in. I loathe golf, by the way.

Roger: How many golf clubs do you have in your garage right now?

Kristine: Oh my gosh. I recall a couple years ago having to go to some executive golf event, and my partner looking at me when I picked up my golf clubs from when I was 13 and said, "Oh no, you're not showing up with this set of clubs." And went out and had me fitted for all these new clubs, which I used once. Because it was after that that I realized, you know what, I'm just going to tell people golf's not my thing. Like, I appreciate the invitation. But if I'm going, I'm just turning around and trying to hit balls into the water because I love that kerplunk. So that's all I'm going to do. I'm not going to play golf. Back to this idea of masking. It's exhausting. It's exhausting playing a role or being an actor or an actress. I think with Shattered Glass and maybe the few years leading up to Shattered Glass, I had to have a conversation with myself to say, this is in fact exhausting. And this in a way is absolutely killing me, showing up with a mask. I just said, you know what, I'm about to be 50 years old. Enough's enough. This is who I am. I'm generally adaptable. I'm agile. I'm likable, but this is who I am. And I'm not going to wear a mask anymore. And it has been like just opening your eyes and seeing the sun for the very first time.

Roger: So I love when you were talking about exposure therapy as a way of becoming comfortable in the discomfort. You're a triathlete. You have four Great Danes. You're a kidney donor. So you're doing things that constantly move your envelope of comfort to experience that discomfort. And that is one of the proven ways to become more comfortable in the discomfort. And so I'm sure there's a lot of encouraging of the leaders that you work with to do, just take the small bites, take the small steps, experiment. And before we hit record, I was talking a little bit about some of the themes that I've heard in this last year of these conversations. And one of those themes is this idea that reinvention doesn't necessarily happen by choosing to do something new and have that big pivot moment. The reinvention happens in the weeks, months, years prior of these small little steps. But the pivot comes from letting go of something, and then all of the work that you've done leading up to it, once you let go of that thing that no longer serves, then it gets to flourish. And you were just talking about being the only woman in the room and what that costs as far as having to continue to either wear the mask or carry the burden or the frustration and the just the cost that came with that. But what did it do for you as a leader?

Kristine: I think it made me a much better leader. You mentioned a whole lot of things that I've done, which when I reflect back, I see them all as very special moments. Moments where I sort of did something that others said wasn't possible. I think I do have some sort of illness that when somebody says, "No, there's no way you can do that," that's absolutely what I'm going to do next. And as a leader, I also employ that strategy. I'll have folks who say, "Oh my gosh, I could never make a comp plan." And so I say, "Well, guess what? We're going to work on a comp plan together." Or, "I could never speak in front of the C-suite." Well, guess what? That's going to be the next thing. And I don't just go, here's your assignment, good luck. I walk that path with them step by step, and at the end there's a success, and there's a repeatable success, and that's how you help your team to grow and expand their comfort zones. And I'm a big proponent of expanding your comfort zones. Find something that scares you and then just do it.

Roger: That thing that you do doesn't have to be big. It doesn't have to be the triathlon. It doesn't have to be donating an organ. But it could. But it also could take those small steps, that little thing that creates discomfort, that little thing that creates a little anxiety. Taking those small steps and the series of small steps lead to bigger steps.

Kristine: Yes, that's absolutely true. I'm a bit of a do as I say, not as I do type person, because not everyone will one day sign up for Iron Man and be afraid of water and in 12 months become a decent enough swimmer to jump into the Hudson River and swim 2.4 miles. I don't advise it for everyone. What I do is, as you mentioned, practicing those small steps because they do add up. And now that I'm a bit older and a bit wiser, I am not shooting for the moon from a physical standpoint, mainly because I've developed a disabling condition, but I still yearn to learn and to grow and to expand my comfort zone, and more so to continue to help others expand their comfort zones. And with Shattered Glass I'm able to do that for C-suites and boards, and I absolutely love this.

Roger: There's a theme that's coming out in this conversation for me around connection. You were just walking us through, when you're working with maybe it's an employee who says the thing that they're afraid of, well, you put them in that opportunity, you put them in the arena, but you're there with them. When you're working with a leader or a C-suite or a board and you're advising them, you're walking with them. And it's through that connection that you're helping them take those small steps. There's a sense of generosity. There's a sense of this is the path. Let's walk it together. Where did that come from?

Kristine: My general philosophy to make a small positive difference in someone's life every day. I mean, that comes from my grandmother. She was a woman who survived a very abusive marriage to someone, unfortunately my grandfather. He had fought in three wars, and there was not mental health treatment, there was not recognition of PTSD then. And so she, with five children, took it upon herself to carve out a career as a nurse, and then later she was a manager of a government subsidized housing co-op. She was the founder of a community hospital, one of the founding board members. And she also, despite being very handicapped in her later years, and by later years I mean 50s and 60s, she worked with nonprofits and helped people every single day, even the days when she just felt awful. And that has stuck with me. She passed away when I was 19, but I hope I can make her proud. I hope I can continue her legacy. That's just been, I think, probably where all of my best ideas have come from.

What does bringing humanity into business decisions actually mean?

Roger: And I love this again, this sense of connection of connecting with other people. And your superpower. We talked about how there's kind of three pieces to this superpower, but it culminates in this idea of bringing humanity into decisions. And it starts with understanding people through connection, through deep connection, understanding who they are, what makes them tick, what it's like to be them, which then informs the problem solving of understanding what's the true component of the issue so that we can make better decisions and that humanity gets pulled forward. Tell us a little bit about how that superpower, who or what inspired it.

Kristine: I think innately I am fascinated by people. I could sit down at a cafe with a stranger and just listen to their story, listen to where they came from, how they grew up, what the conditions were, what they aspired to do versus what they're doing now. And maybe a little that goes back to my early days in Pontiac. We're talking late 1970s, early 1980s, post-Vietnam War, and we had in our government subsidized cooperative, we had so many refugees from Laos and Vietnam post-Vietnam War. And to hear these stories even as a kid, like I probably didn't quite realize the gravity of it, like leaving in a boat in the middle of the night and eventually making it to the United States. I think that there's just so much value in really learning about people. And I do that in my work in manufacturing on the plant floor. Learning about the jobs that people are doing, like their backgrounds, what are their pain points, what is their family like, what do they do outside of work? And that just brings such a humanity to my way of thinking as an executive, so that when we are in the C-suite I'm connecting all of the pieces, all of the puzzle of the people, to help bring a sense of humanity into some of our decision making. I mean, business decisions are business decisions, yes, but businesses don't run without people. And I think we need to keep that human aspect in all of our business decisions, and more so even in connecting the people in the C-suite to one another so that they understand each other and they feel a certain level of comfort in being able to express themselves openly.

Why is it lonely at the top, and what helps?

Roger: That makes me think about something you said earlier about how it's lonely to be a leader in the room who's unlike any other leader in the room. And yet what I'm hearing from leaders, every leader feels lonely. Because when you're at the top, there's only so many people you can talk to. There's only so many people you can connect to. And when there's a lot of power and influence dynamics going on in the C-suite, when you're fighting for resources, fighting for favor, it's hard to connect there. And so I think leaders can make a couple different choices there of whether to connect or to pull away, to pick up other maladaptive behaviors, when the answer is through relationships, through connections. You don't have to give up your power or your influence. There's a way to thread the needle there between being isolated and then giving your power away. And it is through connection. But it takes a certain type of connection with intention.

Kristine: Absolutely. Yes. We talk about power. We talk about influence. We talk about all the gamesmanship and all the things that you need to do to be successful and how we've built those rooms. But the ego component is not necessarily the best thing to lean on. Certainly if you want to make the best decisions, like leave the ego out of it. Your point to loneliness. Yeah. I think that affects everyone that's sitting in the C-suite. There isn't anyone you can really turn to to talk to about it other than maybe a peer outside of the business, or someone like me who's a bit of a thought partner at times as well in the work that I do. Having a little bit of vulnerability, leaving the ego at the door and creating a culture in that room where people can truly belong and can say what is on their mind and can share and reflect together, is again, this isn't maybe seven individuals or eight individuals vying for a business decision. This is a team. And I think that we forget that because we let the ego override everything.

Roger: And I think I see this play out not only in the C-suite, but I see it play out on all teams. Like this isn't unique to the C-suite, but I see these same kind of decisions play out on teams throughout the organization where if we're not getting the input, where if we're not inviting the collaboration and the diversity of perspectives and thought, we're not making great decisions. And one of the things that I've seen that's been really surprising, and this is something I discovered maybe two years ago, which is a little embarrassing to say after being in org development for so long and working with team dynamics, is this idea that when we're really clear on decision rights, what I sort of had the assumption that if all we had was input or maybe advising rights but we didn't get to make the recommendation or we didn't get to make the vote, I've seen in other companies where people just are like, "Well, if I don't get a vote, I'm not going to contribute." But lately, I've seen just the opposite. I've seen people actually lean more in when it's like, "Oh, I don't carry the responsibility or the accountability of the decision, but you want my input. Oh, I'm going to be more involved." And I wonder if that's something to pull forward around being really clear around decision rights, and maybe you've seen this with a CEO that says, "Hey, I'm going to make the final decision, but I want to invite you all to participate in the conversation, to challenge the ideas. Let's get into healthy debate and get to a place where I can make the best decision because of your contribution."

Kristine: Yeah, I think you really nailed it there. Welcoming the conversation, the debate, the discourse is the most important part of it. Yes, we know ultimately the person who is responsible and accountable for the decision is the CEO in the room. That person needs to be open to feedback, open to new ideas, and also to kind of check the ego so that there isn't an emotional response when you find yourself listening to a different perspective and accepting that different perspective. And I go back to again my first mentor. He was so funny. He would let us debate and debate and debate, the whole team, and this would go on for five, 10 minutes, and then he would just sort of put his hands down and say, "Thank you for your opinions. Here's what we're going to do." Because he knew ultimately the decision was his to make, but he also knew that it was incredibly important that each of us in the room had the opportunity not only to speak but to actually be heard.

Roger: There's a growth moment. And I'm thinking about the younger Roger who used to be a project manager or who would lead programs at times, trying to remember how many times did I solicit other people's opinions and when did I learn the power of bringing other voices into the conversation. And I think it's probably, I think it's always been there. But I imagine if I went back or if I talked to people who I worked with 20 years ago, I probably wasn't as good at it and I probably didn't have the same tactics and poise to do it as well. But I think that gets back to, okay, small steps. Trying it, try it once, see what it's like to get other people's opinions, see what it's like to get that additional data without giving up ultimately the accountability, because you can't give up the accountability when you are the lead.

Kristine: That's true. You know, I think we all probably have had to learn the lessons somewhere along the way where we went a little bit rogue as a leader, just kind of testing our will and our might as opposed to really bringing our teams along. But I think it's so important. These teams are here for a purpose. You hire people for their expertise or their ability to grow into subject matter experts or leaders, but also to help everyone on our teams along and to develop them into the next generation of leaders and subject matter experts. People who get into leadership often think, oh well, there's going to be more money, there's going to be a bigger title, there's going to be a different level of respect, if you will. I often, when I find folks who are just, all they want in life is to be a leader, I stop them and I have the conversation about what leadership is really about, and it is about developing people. It's about making sure that everyone has a voice and everyone is heard, and taking care of discipline and rating performance and giving feedback and getting your own feedback, and all of these things that typically make people incredibly uncomfortable. Probably halfway through that I lose half the people who are just vehemently wanting to be leaders, because they're seeing dollar signs or they're seeing that ego boost. But my gosh, it is tough work, because leading people every day, people are unpredictable. They are not machines, they are not products. I always say there's no design failure for people, so buckle up. It's not easy.

Roger: I'm curious about your superpower. Once you discovered the superpower of bringing the humanity into the room for making decisions, what has been one of your most difficult challenges you've had with your superpower?

Kristine: Not being valued. Oh, you know, "You're just HR." I've heard this more than once in my life. "Why do you need to be involved in this decision? You're just HR." Okay. Well, no, I'm not just HR. I happen to be a lawyer. I happen to be involved in boards of directors. I have done all these other things. And most of all, I spend more time with the people in the company that are actually making the products, that are actually coming up with the continuous improvement ideas to keep our business running, to keep our business growing. It's not just HR. When you get into the C-suite, whatever your functional area has been, that hat is put on the shelf. Yes, you're going to bring those perspectives in. Yes, you're going to report out and still lead a function, but you're not in the day-to-day of that function anymore. You are now an enterprise leader. You're bringing perspective from what the function you previously led was, but you're also somebody who needs to be able to get up to the 30,000-foot view and see how the entire enterprise operates, to understand how the entire enterprise operates. Those companies that don't see the value of the individual members in the C-suite, they're going to lose the battle every time.

Roger: So Kristine, in this moment, what do you know to be true about your superpower of bringing humanity into business decisions?

Kristine: I will continue to utilize it, to grow it, to apply critical thinking to it. All of the things that I help teach others or grow in others, I will continue to do myself.

Roger: What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Kristine: Absolutely.

Roger: What's good for the gander is good for the goose, I guess in this case.

Kristine: Yeah. Yeah. We can all use a little lesson or spoonful of critical thinking every once in a while. For sure.

Roger: Oh, for sure. And I think about the title of this podcast. I was reflecting on it earlier this morning and it's like, what do I know to be true? What you find is not always truth in this world. There's a lot you have to sift through. And I think again, back to that point of critical thinking, that is a tool that comes out of my toolbox probably more often than any other tool in my toolbox, frankly.

Roger: And it requires a certain level of self-confidence to question your own thoughts. You have to be secure enough to be willing to do that.

Kristine: Absolutely.

Roger: I'm interested in hearing, is there a story or is there a moment when you realized that you had that power of critical thinking, of questioning your own assumptions? Like where did that begin?

Kristine: Oh, I think I definitely need to go lay down on the psychiatrist bed, because my gosh, we're going to go back into the history books here, for good or for worse. My life has been surrounded by people I would consider, well, I would consider, I think the DSM would consider to be narcissists, with world views that were individual world views that were without falter. Despite the fact that the world views would be shared with others, shared with me, and I would disagree. How can you be so absolutely convinced of something? These absolutes don't exist in this world anywhere. So how could an individual be so convinced and be prioritizing this conviction? And maybe from an early stage, I became the narcissist buster, because I would, my own dad included, I'd call them out on their nonsense. And so maybe that's where the critical thinking came from. And I think, for me, I have all these things I've achieved and it's been great. But it's not to say that I'm anywhere near perfect or there aren't better ways to do things. And I just think that throwing that ego aside when it's more of a liability than a strength is important.

Roger: Thank you for sharing that. You and I have that in common, in that seeing someone else be so sure of something that they're willing to almost bet their life on it and then find out, oh no, that was completely wrong. Or maybe you had this issue too, where they give you advice and then you find out that's the worst advice for me in this situation. I think there is some training there of, okay, now I really need to lock down on anything I hear specifically from that person, but maybe from anyone. It's a little unsettling. It's like, wait a minute, the ground I'm standing on is not as solid as I think it is. But then there's something really important about being able to turn that inspection on ourselves and the things we believe to be true. And this is why I love the name of this podcast. That sounds narcissistic, but I think there is something about questioning, about identifying, okay, what truths do I hold and why? Why do I believe that to be true? What was true at one point? Is it still true? And most times we see that those truths change over time, which gets us to the point of, okay, wait, is nothing true? Is it like our current beliefs, that's what we believe to be true? But being willing to accept that those might change over time and that, okay, it's true right now, and I have to navigate through the world with a set of beliefs and principles, so I need to hold on to them, but I don't need to hold on to them that tightly, because I know my own growth, whether it's spiritual, whether it's my own well-being, whether it's my own physical or mental health, requires that growth, requires the questioning and coming on to new truths.

Roger: That sounds like a very intentional segue to the next question about what did you believe early on about your superpower that you've come to learn to not be true?

Kristine: This is a really great segue. I think very early on I just genuinely wanted to trust. I think it's something that I've yearned for in my life. And early on I would, I think somewhat blindly, just trust. Like that's my default position. And I think that that's kind of shifted to a trust but verify. Keeping myself from being a cynic and being more of a pragmatist or a realist. I think that my connecting with people is a way to understand people's motivations. You know, there are times when lies happen or mistruths or strong convictions. And I think that you're able to get around that or see the truth of that by getting to understand the people and their motivations. I'd rather see what the other side or the multiple other sides, what they're thinking and why it differs from mine and how it differs, and come to some sort of alignment or connection, because there just seems to not be any singular source of truth out there in the world anymore.

Roger: I saw a post from Angela Duckworth, who wrote Grit, was talking about how the further research she has, saying that the further we are from our phone, the more smart we are, we're relying on our innate intelligence, not the artificial intelligence. So I think there's something really powerful here, that if we want to be more impactful leaders, that we need to be more connected with the humans around us and less utilizing the technology around us.

Kristine: Yeah, I absolutely agree. Although I will say, I recently got into developing an agent that specifically disagrees with me. I'll put an idea or a world view out there and ask it to debate me, to see what else is out there in the world. And maybe it's just me trying to exercise the other side of my brain. But I do find most of the AI tools out there are very much aligned with whatever the user's viewpoint is. And I think that's a slippery slope for all of us.

Roger: If an audience member wants to follow you or ask you a question, where do you want to point them to?

Kristine: I would say getting a hold of me through LinkedIn. My name, you can find me on LinkedIn, that's easy. You can also get a hold of me at shatteredglassadvisory, all one word, .com, a website, and there's a link to connect with me there.

Roger: Well, Kristine, I really appreciate you and I appreciate everything you've shared here. It's really powerful to hear that someone, because many of us don't have exposure to what it's like to be in the C-suite and we don't know what those conversations are like. It's all sort of black box closed-door meetings, and many of us work in organizations where it's a few levels up and those decisions do have impacts on us. And of course, sometimes we like the decision, sometimes we don't. So getting a little insight in this, oh, they're just like us, they run into those same kind of dynamics. And I think the same things you were talking about about leaders, some leaders are ego-driven and they don't listen to other people in the room and they don't foster collaboration or a healthy debate. Right? And then we see other leaders that do. That happens at that level. It happens at a level, wherever level we are in the organization, that happens. And the antidote is more connection, more humanity, being willing to question our own ideas and invite other people to share perspective and question the prevailing idea, because what's better for all of us is on the other side of that conversation. So thank you for bringing that idea to us and sharing your experience. And it's just so good to know you. So thank you for being here.

Kristine: Oh, I've really enjoyed this conversation and our previous conversations, and I look forward to absolutely staying connected. This has been great. So thank you.

Roger: Awesome. Thank you. Take care. Bye-bye. 

Kristine: Bye-bye.

Roger: Thank you all for being in this conversation with us, and thank you, Kristine for sharing how you bring humanity back into the c-suite, and the ramifications for our personal decision making process.
 
What Do You Know To Be True? is a Three Blue Pens production. I’m your host, Roger Kastner. We are recording on the ancestral lands of the Duwamish and Suquamish people. 

After this conversation, why don’t you check out this one with DeDe Halfhill on The Real Reason Your Team Avoids Difficult Conversations. And you may want to check out this conversation with Nil Demircubuk on how and when to use you intuition in decision making.  OK. Be well, my friends, and, love you, mean it!

Questions This Episode Answers

How do you get diverse perspectives to actually speak up in a C-suite? 
You need a CEO and a board that genuinely want multiple voices and are willing to sit with the discomfort of real debate. Then you have to make the room safe enough that people say the unsaid thing instead of saving it for the hallway.

What is the cost of being the only woman in the C-suite? 
It is lonely. Being consistently different from everyone else in the room means you carry the burden of breaking the mold, and it wears on you until you decide you will not wear the mask anymore.

How do you become comfortable with discomfort as a leader? 
You expand your comfort zone deliberately, in small steps. Pick something that scares you, do it, and let the sequence of small steps lead to bigger ones.

What does bringing humanity into business decisions actually mean?
 It means understanding people deeply enough that you can see how a decision will land on them. Business decisions are business decisions, but businesses do not run without people.

Why is it lonely at the top, and what helps? 
Everyone in the C-suite is isolated, not just the person who is different, because power dynamics make real connection risky. What helps is vulnerability, leaving the ego at the door, and one trusted peer or thought partner outside the room.