Isabelle Nussli: Cockfighting

Transcript

[0:00:25] CH: What’s up everybody, it’s Charlie Hoehn, the host of author hour where I interview authors about their new books. Today’s episode is with Isabelle Nüssli. She is the author of Cockfighting. Now, all too often, the relationships Chairpersons and CEOs are filled with tension which affects the entire organization and if you want to create a more productive atmosphere, senior leaders need to identify the source of their issues so they can build a new bond that’s based on trust and respect. That’s where Isabel comes in. After she lived through her own toxic Chairperson-CEO scenario, she decided to uncover the roots behind these complicated relationships. She interviewed more than 70 Chairpersons and CEO’s and that is what she shares in her book Cockfighting. In this episode, we go over her findings on the conscious and unconscious drivers of conflict. The things that intensify those conflicts. If you’re ready to break through the classic Chairperson-CEO conflict, and build a new partnership that empowers your productivity, innovation and success. This is the episode for you. Now, here is our conversation with Isabelle Nüssli.

[0:02:07] Isabelle Nussli: I spoke to other people in senior positions and I learned that I was far from alone. Most of them have experienced similar turmoil but had never spoken about it and interestingly, it seems that admitting issues of this nature as you would, like almost as a taboo kind of admitting that it’s weak management or weak power structure or weak leadership structure. That’s when I realized that something could and actually should be done about it. That’s when I started with my entry process that’s ultimately led me to the writing of the book Cockfighting.

[0:02:47] CH: Wow, you know, what’s fascinating about this book is, was this primarily written for the CEO and Chairperson relationship or is this a book that’s also for the CEO and the assistant relationship, you know? Any sort of dynamic like that?

[0:03:07] Isabelle Nussli: It’s a very good question. I actually started off writing it in context with the Chairperson-CEO relationship or slash conflict. The more deeply I dove into it, the more I realized that most high level relationships, especially on power and exposure, ultimately leadership are involved, that it acts, it affects these relationships too. Even the CCCC and the variant, this Chairperson CEO collaboration contract can be applied by other business couples on some sort of leadership needs to be moved because of the power.

[0:03:48] CH: Right. Sorry to interrupt you. I’m thinking so many people with this dynamic that you’re talking about of the power struggles and the conflict and I want to dig into what this actually does to a person on the receiving end. Personally, I knew somebody, she was in a business couple with one of the top at the time. One of the top 10 CEOs in the world on the Fortune 10 list and which - this was many years ago, he’s no longer on that list so people won’t be able to guess who it is. She was in her early 30s or late 20s. I can’t recall. She wasn’t a chair person but I mean, her body started breaking down. The doctors told her, she had the body of a woman in her 60s like her reproductive organs stopped working because she was under so much stress from the conflict at work. Can you kind of lay out what kind of problems you’ve seen with the CEO Chairperson relationship when they’re in so much conflict? What does this do to them on a personal level and on a professional level?

[0:05:09] Isabelle Nussli: Yes, absolutely. First of all, if you’ve really – if it stretches yourself so much, you learn of course a lot about yourself and I remember like in my case, I was lucky that I was able to sleep well. It was like short nights too but I did sleep well which I didn’t know, how do I know, I cannot practice that. That was a valuable lesson. However, amongst the 70 chairpersons and CEO I interviewed, they were quite many that don’t sleep well. That quality of sleep is a very strong indicator of your health or wellbeing. On a personal level, I think the whole psychological pain, so the doubts and the fears and loneliness, it’s cold and rough up there. That’s definitely something that’s usually kept under the covers, it’s not spoken about it, you can’t show vulnerability, you cannot show like expose weakness to others but that’s actually something that gets to your health and that’s like very often spills over into family life. I see business family like a three leg chair and the three legs are connected and all need to be healthy in order for it to chair to stand properly and to be stable. Suffering can lead to health issues as mentioned. Sleeping disorders or physical pain and of course worse case too. That’s more common than expected or seen because there’s so much pressure. Leadership is supposed to be shining, you got to be terminator, invincible. No, first of all, it’s not true and second of all, it’s not possible, right? That’s more on a personal level but on a professional level, I’ve seen and been told many times how much it harms company’s culture. People’s engagement and productivity and again, ultimately, company’s performance. Because almost all of the Chairpersons and CEOs that I interviewed said that this relationship is absolutely crucial for a company. However, in most of the cases, maybe two third of the cases, these relationships don’t work well. Which I think is alarming because as mentioned, it harms people on a personal level but also professionally.

[0:07:41] CH: Why don’t they work well? Let’s get into the actual meat of the book. What are the drivers of these conflicts that they have?

[0:07:51] Isabelle Nussli: Yes, there are from what I found, there are three conscious and five unconscious drivers and two intensifiers that drive these types of conflict. The three conscious drivers are, impaired trusts or lack of role clarity and role models slash anti-role models. The five unconscious drivers that’s actually undermine the conscious drivers are family origins and the patterns and behaviors that stem from family dynamics and childhood. The time - amount of time these two leaders spend together, very crucial. Then corporate governance, how it’s lived, how it’s applied, transference and power balance. Which brings us into two intensifiers, among which one is birth order and self-awareness. It was really fascinating to see that almost all of the interviewees were functional firstborns. Isn’t that incredible.

[0:08:56] CH: Really? Wait, all of the what were functional first borns?

[0:09:01] Isabelle Nussli: Interviewees – almost all of the 70 chairpersons and CEOs, which I found out only around week six or seven.

[0:09:11] CH: Why do you think that is?

[0:09:13] Isabelle Nussli: We have to go all the way back, it’s all about, it starts with parental attention and of course parental attention is limited. Firstborns means, biological firstborns but also only children that are considered super firstborns or younger children with an age gap of at least five years but also those that stepped into a role of a first born or had to because of unusual conditions. These all are considered functional firstborns. They receive a lot of parental attention, biological firstborns up to 3,000 more hours of quality time and it’s only children even more so. In a way, it’s this mix between being, of course, that the parents, because miracle, joy, but at the same time, fear emerges, fear of doing something wrong. Since functional firstborns spend a lot of time with their parents, this extra time makes actually parents or older siblings become their role models and parents aren’t always perfect. Perfectionism is one of the traits that’s very distinct to functional firstborns. Each child occupies a specific niche within the family, that’s why the second born usually is so very different, tries a lot of questions, how come. The third child is different again because the children look for their own niche. Each birth order rank has specific traits and characteristics and with functional firstborns, for example, it’s – they need to be perfect, they are authority and rule bound, they’re determines their reliable logic analytical task and achievement oriented which helps them rise up to the top end leadership position. There’s a lot of research out there that show how the over representation of functional firstborns in many areas, for example, in leadership positions amongst students and professors at universities and business course. US presidents, Prime Ministers, females with doctoral degrees and Nobel Prize winners. It’s really interesting to learn that these characteristics help raise carrier letter but I believe those are not necessarily the ones that help maintain a healthy relationship at the very top with the counterpart.

[0:11:49] CH: Wow, you just blew my mind. I am a functional firstborn by the way. Five years between my sister and I and wow, this explains so much. I’m really blown away, that’s incredible. The birth order is a big deal, the intensifiers of conflict and then you also said, there’s a lack of self-awareness and there’s toxic combinations, let’s dive into lack of self-awareness.

[0:12:23] Isabelle Nussli: Yes. I realized in my interviewees that some leaders were more self-aware than others and I realized that the ones – for example, the ones that had coaching or even therapy, they were more comfortable speaking about their upbringing, about their strength and weaknesses. Then there was another group amongst the ones that had life changing experience. For example, a loss of a parent or a severe setback or something. Somewhere very self-aware and others less so. Differentiating factor was the active work of personal reflection. Self-awareness is absolutely key, which means stepping back, getting the balcony perspective, looking at the scene from above, instead of just acting from the stage. It really helps us understand what are my patterns, what are my drivers, how do they influence the way I act and behave, how do they influence my relationship with my counterpart and where do they originate. Developing self-awareness does not happen overnight. It needs time to step back and reflect. It’s actually can be addictive and really interesting to find out how supposedly unrelated events impacted or work together and form our drivers now.

[0:13:58] CH: Gosh, self-awareness. You think you have it until you don’t. Until you’re forced to realize that you don’t.

[0:14:05] Isabelle Nussli: One example if that helps.

[0:14:07] CH: Yeah, please.

[0:14:09] Isabelle Nussli: I just remember I had that one Chairperson for example who realized himself that he had a rather lower level of self-awareness and he found out that he was known as being sarcastic by the workforce. But again, he found out later. His employees kind of were afraid of him because of his penchant for needling others and making cutting remarks and even sometimes verbally attacking others. He did create the climate of fear in which nobody dared to show weaknesses and vulnerability. But he was not aware of his behavior. Nobody knew why and then very often, people get labeled, you know? He doesn’t delegate or he’s sarcastic or she’s risk averse. So this chairperson taught me that he grew up with seven siblings. So it was a lot of competition especially for parental attention and he was not the only one that had seven siblings by the way. So if you had five, six, seven siblings. But when you grew up among seven or eight siblings is communication that is what he experienced was quite harsh and rude and he found out that he had to make compromises on his sensitivity. In order to develop a thick skin and I did work with him afterwards for a few weeks and once he became aware of his negative behavior patterns and the responses that he triggered in others he could take responsibility for his action and improve upon. But the first step is actually the psychological awareness or self-awareness.

[0:15:56] CH: Self-awareness that you don’t have self-awareness.

[0:16:00] Isabelle Nussli: Exactly. Exactly.

[0:16:03] CH: Yeah, it is something that you just assume you have it when you are younger I guess and then you have a number of things happen to you and it forces you to realize you are in deep trouble because you don’t have it.

[0:16:18] Isabelle Nussli: Often it is an impending crisis that brings people to a higher level of self-awareness. But it does not have to be that way, so there are tools to improve self-awareness quite a few of them so my recommendation is don’t wait for this impeding crisis to help you open your eyes and you cannot lose anything if you become more self-aware.

[0:16:43] CH: Right, what is a good test do you think for somebody to determine if they lack self-awareness.

[0:16:51] Isabelle Nussli: There is one of the most or maybe the efficient one is ask your family and friends. Ask your close environment. They know you very well, so they are a very good reality check. Another one is any good coach can help you with that but you can do a lot of work yourself just again by stepping back. It can get uncomfortable because then you might even realize that yeah, it is not only shiny but it doesn’t have to be that way. We’re not perfect and we are not supposed to be perfect. By the way, good role models are not perfect either. They are human.

[0:17:28] CH: Yeah, it’s true. Now let’s shift to toxic combinations. This is another one of the intensifiers of conflict, what do you mean by toxic combinations?

[0:17:40] Isabelle Nussli: It’s all the combinations of this consciousness especially on conscious drivers. So seldom you have all of them play into relationship and sometimes it is just to for example there is an empiric trust between two parties both actually say it’s very important value. Trust is very important, however the way they approach build trust can be very different. For example one of them grew up in the [inaudible] and I have experienced this example in one trip or someone see your CEO I interviewed. So one of them grew up in a family where trust was very, very important. It was present handshake counted. So she gave the benefit of the doubt. Trust and then see what happens and then the other person also believed or said trust was very important to her but she grew up in a family where trust was a way that was a lot of mistrust. So she needs to see that trust granted immediately. So she needs to see proof in action in behaviors of others. So both think or believe trust is important which of course it is for our relationship to flourish but they have different approaches. So that’s freedom of one elements at the same time, they see that it leads to certain type of mistrust because they have different approaches which leads them to spend less time together because why would they spend more time together but if they spend less time together not just because the chairperson by definition of his or her role very often is not 100% and it is not always the organization or in the office. but in general because it is more comfortable not spending time together if either you don’t trust well or you see that the power game emerges. So it is easier to just avoid. However reduced time spent together leads to impaired quality of communication and also to reduce the communication. You communicate less or maybe you write down even more which definitely does not add to the healthy relationship. This communication is a key factor. So these for example are two elements and then add any others. So they have organizational rules and functional charts present. They know that I dropped descriptions. They both have clear understanding of their role and as well as the one of the counterpart. However, it is too rare that these roles are discussed out. What does it really mean? So especially when it comes to trace and the overlap, how are these managed. How do we as a couple, as a business couple deal with power division of power. So do we really have our understanding of our roles aligned and if not, we better talk about it and lay it out. So it is not about the what, what are the roles, that is my belief corporate governance often falls short in this context but it is about the how, how are these roles assumed. So then you have seen, then you get the idea of the combination of these different drivers which makes it even harder to understand what’s really going on and to get a handle of this pattern of compounding interest in terms of trying those drivers.

[0:21:08] CH: Yeah, with all of the mixing in and compounding as you said it’s got to be really difficult especially with things getting so heated to be able to work your way out of that but I know that you work and coach these types of leaders in helping them with this. What is your process typically look like?

[0:21:30] Isabelle Nussli: So as a coach you have a tool set, a tool box. You know this is not like maybe it works, maybe not. It really is like any other profession that you go if you need - if you refurbish your house and you look for a carpenter you’d trust his or her skills. So with a coach, a good coach the same holds true. So when I enter into discussion, I see very quickly by the way the person maybe pause and speaks are the words used where I might ask further questions. And by the way, there’s a difference and it is not good or bad. It is just a difference between coaching and consulting because as a coach, you ask questions and you would like your coachee or the person across the table to find his or her own answer. Because with this epiphany and it starts with an epiphany, they own the moments of discovery which is actually quite exciting to see but also to experience. And they want to learn more about it. But it is about opening up, it is about trusting that person across from you. If you don’t trust a coach or if you build these there is no chemistry for whatever reason, you might find some of the reasons in the book. I just don’t go with it. It needs to be a good fit. So again, trust is important. The opening up and then trust the person and the process.

[0:23:00] CH: What kind of results have you seen? I mean what have been the before or after with some of the clients you’ve worked with?

[0:23:08] Isabelle Nussli: One was interesting, well that was actually at the end of an interview, of course that I can speak about, my other coaching experience afterwards but I thought it was interesting. Usually we started off talking about business. Of course leaders are very comfortable talking about business but then I didn’t ask very personal questions. I just asked about whether they had siblings and where they grew up and in the very end, one CEO - he was 59 or 60. He just tapped his forehead and said, “Oh my goodness! I am now realizing I am still proving parents. I am still proving my parents. I really had tried to be the leader. I have been hard driven perfectionist, just go-go-go and no downtime. It just keeps going and going and proving and proving the world but actually I am still proving my parents and maybe this pattern has become unproductive.” And normally he is not the first one and he’s not the number 10th but that’s just normal. And it’s by the way, behavioral patterns are neither good nor bad. They’re just the way they are and it’s not about blaming parents at all because they tried their best, they brought their own experience and pattern with it. It is just about pausing and trying to realize or find out, “Okay, what drives me? Why is this important.” So that is one that’s really beautiful to see but also when you see that someone walks away like straight up and full of energy. Or when the eyes sparkle or when he or her has an insight, an epiphany it still of course has a second part, how do you bring it to life. You know we have an epiphany but how do you really take action on it. That is the second step that is important to take. But it’s to be able to see that energy gets released and that they take themselves a bit lighter.

[0:25:16] CH: I can only imagine how funny it must be at times to think of these CEOs, effectively, just - subconsciously thinking to themselves, “Well what do you think of that mom and dad?” As they are going about doing this really high powered business. bWell this has been really fascinating and I know it is going to your book, Cockfighting is going to help people in these roles and I am curious, Isabelle, I’ve got two more questions for you. The first one is how can our listeners best get in touch with you, if they want to work with you or just reach out and say thanks for the podcast or how can they follow you if you are on the social medias.

[0:26:04] Isabelle Nussli: Yes, they can find me on LinkedIn, first name and last name is there on. I have my own website www.leverage-your-self.com. They can send me an email isabelle@leverage-your-self.com and yes, I really look forward to getting in touch and to exchanging experience in these and ideas.

[0:26:34] CH: And the final question is give our listeners a challenge. What is the one thing they can do from your book this week that will have a positive impact?

[0:26:45] Isabelle Nussli: So it was actually a question I ask or I ended up asking every single interview candidates how do you want to be remembered and then as a second question, a follow up question is are you living your life according to how you want be remembered? And this goes to the insight that you get you can apply in business but also in personal life with your families and friends because it is very powerful. Not always we live our life according to how we want to be remembered. So the question is are you willing to invest in the improvement of any relationships that you have for examples focusing on business and if so, just pause for a minute, step back and get on the balcony and look at the scene from the balcony, instead of acting from the stage only and just take a few minutes to reflect and see what is happening.

[0:27:44] CH: The book is Cockfighting, which will be available on Amazon, Isabelle thank you so much for being on the show.

[0:27:52] Isabelle Nussli: Thank you Charlie, it’s been a great pleasure.

[0:27:55] CH: Thanks again to Isabelle Nüssli for being on the show. You can buy her book, Cockfighting, on Amazon. Be sure to check out authorhour.co for show notes and the transcript to this episode. We’ll see you next time. Thanks for tuning in on today’s show. If you liked what you heard, here is what I want you to do next. Open up the podcast app on your phone or iTunes on your computer and search for “Author Hour with Charlie Hoehn” and then click “ratings and reviews”. Take 10 seconds to rate this show or leave a review. It is a small favor but it’s really the best way to show your support and give me feedback and if you know someone else who’d love Author Hour, take another three seconds to text them a link to this episode. We’ll see you next time.