- 1 day ago
What happens when operational excellence collides with human-centered leadership in a world demanding more speed, more efficiency, and constant adaptation?
In this powerful conversation, Hanna Bauer, founder and CEO of Heartnomics, explains why sustainable business success depends on more than systems, KPIs, and compliance. Hanna shares how leaders can scale organizations without sacrificing culture, ethics, purpose, or the people who make the mission possible.
Drawing from her experience as a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, Baldrige examiner, Maxwell Leadership faculty member, and author of Hustle with Heart, Hanna reveals why meaningful work creates loyal employees, how burnout often stems from broken decision-making systems, and why organizational identity becomes the foundation for leadership under pressure.
This episode explores:
• Why employees disengage long before they resign
• The hidden warning signs of unhealthy teams and toxic cultures
• How leaders unintentionally create burnout inside organizations
• Why operational excellence fails without the right company culture
• The difference between compliance-driven leadership and adaptive leadership
• How alignment between values, authority, and responsibility makes a huge difference
• The role of ethics and identity in leadership decision-making
• How to create environments where innovation, accountability, and loyalty thrive
Hanna also shares powerful real-world examples about leadership during disruption, building cultures rooted in purpose, and helping employees connect their personal dreams to the organization’s mission.
If you are a business owner, CEO, executive, HR leader, sales manager, or team leader navigating growth, culture challenges, retention problems, leadership burnout, employee engagement, or organizational alignment, this episode delivers practical insight on building resilient organizations where people and performance succeed together.
⏱️ Chapters:
00:00 Introduction to Heartnomics
00:55 Understanding Heartnomics
03:10 Leadership Lessons from Organizational Disruption
05:28 Why Leaders Must Understand Employee Motivation
08:03 Meaningful Work and Employee Loyalty
10:49 Early Warning Signs of Unhealthy Teams
14:05 What “People Problems” Really Mean
16:09 Compliance vs Innovation in Business
18:30 Leadership During High-Pressure Situations
21:04 Navigating Crisis with Agility
21:45 The Power of Organizational Identity
23:40 Leadership Burnout and Decision Fatigue
26:49 Ethics, Values, and Leadership Decisions
30:50 Why Alignment Changes Everything
🔥 Key Topics:
Leadership • Organizational Culture • Employee Engagement • Human-Centered Leadership • Leadership Burnout • Operational Excellence • Lean Leadership • Team Performance • Business Growth • Leadership Development • Workplace Culture • Decision-Making • Employee Retention • Executive Leadership • Company Culture • Organizational Alignment
Connect with Mason Duchatschek:
Website: https://masonduchatschek.com/
In this powerful conversation, Hanna Bauer, founder and CEO of Heartnomics, explains why sustainable business success depends on more than systems, KPIs, and compliance. Hanna shares how leaders can scale organizations without sacrificing culture, ethics, purpose, or the people who make the mission possible.
Drawing from her experience as a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, Baldrige examiner, Maxwell Leadership faculty member, and author of Hustle with Heart, Hanna reveals why meaningful work creates loyal employees, how burnout often stems from broken decision-making systems, and why organizational identity becomes the foundation for leadership under pressure.
This episode explores:
• Why employees disengage long before they resign
• The hidden warning signs of unhealthy teams and toxic cultures
• How leaders unintentionally create burnout inside organizations
• Why operational excellence fails without the right company culture
• The difference between compliance-driven leadership and adaptive leadership
• How alignment between values, authority, and responsibility makes a huge difference
• The role of ethics and identity in leadership decision-making
• How to create environments where innovation, accountability, and loyalty thrive
Hanna also shares powerful real-world examples about leadership during disruption, building cultures rooted in purpose, and helping employees connect their personal dreams to the organization’s mission.
If you are a business owner, CEO, executive, HR leader, sales manager, or team leader navigating growth, culture challenges, retention problems, leadership burnout, employee engagement, or organizational alignment, this episode delivers practical insight on building resilient organizations where people and performance succeed together.
⏱️ Chapters:
00:00 Introduction to Heartnomics
00:55 Understanding Heartnomics
03:10 Leadership Lessons from Organizational Disruption
05:28 Why Leaders Must Understand Employee Motivation
08:03 Meaningful Work and Employee Loyalty
10:49 Early Warning Signs of Unhealthy Teams
14:05 What “People Problems” Really Mean
16:09 Compliance vs Innovation in Business
18:30 Leadership During High-Pressure Situations
21:04 Navigating Crisis with Agility
21:45 The Power of Organizational Identity
23:40 Leadership Burnout and Decision Fatigue
26:49 Ethics, Values, and Leadership Decisions
30:50 Why Alignment Changes Everything
🔥 Key Topics:
Leadership • Organizational Culture • Employee Engagement • Human-Centered Leadership • Leadership Burnout • Operational Excellence • Lean Leadership • Team Performance • Business Growth • Leadership Development • Workplace Culture • Decision-Making • Employee Retention • Executive Leadership • Company Culture • Organizational Alignment
Connect with Mason Duchatschek:
Website: https://masonduchatschek.com/
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:05welcome to the mason duke check show and before we jump in this episode is brought to you by
00:12workforcealchemy.com helping leaders uncover hidden profit leaks inside their business operations
00:18today's guest is hannah bauer she is the founder and ceo of heartnomics she's a lean six sigma
00:26black belt baldrick's examiner maxwell leadership faculty member and author of hustle with heart
00:33she is known for blending operational excellence with human-centered leadership to help organizations
00:40scale without losing their people in the process hannah welcome to the show super happy to have you
00:46here oh my goodness thank you so much for having me a true pleasure mason so for someone hearing the
00:51term for the first time what are heartnomics well heartnomics is a combination if you can see two
00:57words one is heart and the other is economics so as a ceo and leader and you know an entrepreneur
01:03with
01:04a payroll on my back i started realizing that the economy there is a true roi to doing not only
01:10hard
01:11work but but also the hard work and in that sense what does that mean the economy just like we
01:16see
01:16it's a system right we're not one system to its own we are a system within systems there's an ecosystem
01:22what we call you know it's our customers internal internal so heartnomics is the my answer in what i've been
01:28able to train and leaders and organizations and even what transformed my own organization
01:32through not only hey yeah getting my processes and my systems in place which is what i call the
01:38excellence aspect where we're learning from our failures we're catching our failures we understand
01:42what the impact excuse me of any defect that may come through what is the impact to the overall
01:49mission but also the what i call the love part of what we do and the love really looking at
01:55our people
01:55as the assets looking at treating them like that being able to build that report be able to be that
02:02empathetic leader that they need the coachable leader and really they're the heartbeat of our organization
02:08so we can't pretend to be selling to other humans and servicing other humans if we don't
02:13one embrace acknowledge and love the humanity with our own organizations so for that i find that
02:19leadership is the really the oil that makes both work to make the organizations work with both love
02:26and excellence and that's heartnomics is really the roi of doing hard work i love what you said about
02:31that because i i had a guest on maybe six months ago his name was les landis and he talked
02:37about it
02:37because i wish businesses would just focus more on looking at people as the solution instead of the
02:42problems yeah the people are the solutions they are i mean it's honestly everything has been created
02:49so far as far as i know by another human right yes why do we have a winning streak on
02:54you know
02:55solving problems for other humans so take us back to a moment in your career when you realized that
03:02something was off inside an organization that looked successful from the outside what did you
03:08notice that others were overlooking oh my goodness okay so i have quite a few learning moments i had a
03:13lot of failures in my journey but i would say it will be probably at the very beginning of my
03:17you know
03:18taking having my real big shot at my positional leadership where i got to not only start overseeing the
03:25growth of the company but looking at the products and the projects and of course here's where i was
03:30assigned with a task because we were looking we were facing a lot of disruption in the organization
03:35and where did we start looking at well how can we reduce expenses that's where lean six sigma started
03:41coming in right that's where my training started going through and of course i completely embraced
03:46it and what's part of six sigma well you got to ask questions you need data so data is going
03:51to
03:51require asking questions sometimes asking you know just process questions well who who gets this or who
03:57gets that coming into a place i didn't realize how much culture that the existing culture had in
04:05really obtaining the data that i needed to be able to help the organization to help the people that
04:10we're doing work with and something that i thought would be a very much a not a big deal asking
04:17of course
04:17people want to talk about their work realizing that because the previous work i personally had not put in
04:23the work of getting to know the people i was asking questions from it started creating an even greater
04:28culture of fear because asking questions even though you're looking for solutions not in the right
04:34environment again where the human the person knows that they're the ones that matter not what they do
04:39the process only is where i realized that something's off i started thinking well is it that people just don't
04:47like me i started thinking it personal but people started you know again added on to an already
04:52existing culture of fear because again we were going through disruption i mean there were a lot of
04:56things we didn't know so i was looking really for solutions my that was my intent it wasn't coming
05:00across as that intent it was coming across as a cold way of trying to get knowledge and information
05:07and that was when i realized i was doing things backwards i needed to do things both parallel to each
05:14other but i also didn't have the report i needed to build the human first so i can also help
05:20them
05:20with their processes and systems that would help them be more effective in what they did we talked
05:24about going back into the human systems first if you could go back in time what would you have done
05:28differently do that get to know people's names okay that's what i was getting at like like what are
05:34some of the things you might have started started with their names anything else in particular that
05:37might have helped my goodness what really changed was when i realized that you know just like an
05:42organization we have a vision right we have a vision we have a mission you know what would the
05:46world look like if people were using our services when they're using our services you know what is it
05:51that we want to change right that's what our vision for organization was well and this is what people
05:54were the people that were doing work with me in the organization share the same vision but what did
06:00that mean to them understanding why they were doing the work that they were doing why they
06:07they found themselves a place to belong was key i realized that really it couldn't just be like hey
06:13this is our dream our bringing together collective dreams if i didn't know what each individual dream
06:18also was and when i realized what their dreams were and they were very different like i remember one of
06:24my sales people he the reason why he was there every day and you know he was one of my
06:28my hustle
06:29hustle guys is because he had never had a vacation with his dad that he could recall at the beach
06:36and
06:36he just had his first child and he was working so hard because he really wanted to see his baby's
06:42little toes in the sand and i carry that with me the moment i realized that like okay that's his
06:47dream
06:47in our vision here in this organization it's going to help make that possible and guess what he did he
06:52had a chance to do that but it made it made me even be more creative how can i make
06:57this happen and
06:58also what kind of organization do i need to be do i need to create what environments where dreams like
07:03that can live and there was a different dream than somebody who was at her last part but really this
07:09was going to be her last job she was one of our front ladies in the front office where she
07:13would
07:13take the ap and the ar and i remember asking her you know why was she still here with us
07:18i mean she
07:19didn't have to you know she already was a past retirement age you know she was well her kids took
07:25care of
07:25her and i remember her telling me because she wanted to end her career well and i'm like wow
07:30you know again what kind of environment what kind of work must we bring the communication
07:36the excellence so that somebody at the end of their career can really speak to like hey this is a
07:43i did a
07:43job a job well done and be proud of finishing the last years in that they had in work with
07:51us and i
07:52wanted to be that i wanted to become that i wanted to become that organization and it changed it changed
07:57the way i not only looked at productivity it changed at the way at the numbers i was looking at
08:01it changed
08:02at the way that i looked at innovation it's i'm sitting here reflecting on some of the things that
08:06you're saying when it comes to conversations that people have about things like employee engagement
08:13labor costs and things like that i'm imagining there's some people out there thinking all this is just
08:18warm foofy fluffy hr stuff and i'm not one of them and the reason i'm not one of them i
08:24love what you
08:24said about understanding what people's dreams are and what their aspirations are and what their goals
08:29are it's the meaning that work gives them the reason i think that there's a lot of reasons i think
08:33that's important but the people that are out poo-pooing and brushing off comments like what you made
08:39the same ones that have toxic cultures yes where where people start getting nervous about going to work
08:46on monday starting sunday night they're the ones that have people sitting outside in the outside the
08:51office in their car dreading walking in they're the ones that are crying in the bathrooms during breaks
08:55when they don't think anyone can hear them and they're the ones calling in sick when they're not
09:00just because they can't fathom like i can't take it today oh my gosh yeah you're right when you align
09:07and create a work environment where this guy's coming to work to do his best because in this particular
09:13case his dream was to go on vacation and see his baby's toes in the sand that's a way different
09:19feeling going into work or being at work than someone calling in sick when they're not or crying
09:24in the bathroom they don't think anyone's listening and that is a choice that you as a leader can make
09:30and i that's one of the reasons i was excited to have you on here and i really appreciate you
09:33touching on that because i think a lot of businesses in the spirit of productivity and
09:37efficiency are missing that and it's an expensive mistake it is very expensive because we know that
09:43people that find meaningful work also do productive work you talk about imagine that
09:50if i feel like i'm also engaged it kind of goes together you know so people that actually find
09:56meaning in the work that they do will also not be looking around for the next opportunity they will
10:01actually take a pay cut for being in a place where they feel both valued and there's meaning
10:07to the work that they do because that compensates in so many other areas because you're right there's
10:12going to be hard days in everywhere i mean it's going to be hard days on the things that you
10:15do
10:15there's going to be uh those days that like hey there are wins so if having that meaningful work having
10:21a place where you belong makes all of that much more easier and then there's goes right into hope i
10:27mean
10:27hope there is a place for hope at work that's the whole reason why we have a vision otherwise we
10:32wouldn't be working if we didn't have hope it can come true we wouldn't even spend the time doing a
10:38vision or a mission or creating kpis that reflect that so yes it is based on hope it is based
10:44on these
10:44other parts so think of a leadership team that you've been around that was struggling what were the early
10:51warning signs that things were not as healthy as they seemed well when they had time to hang together
10:57like meaning lunch hours if it's a small group even after hours were they choosing to even spend time
11:03together did they even know so that was like an initial thing i think that the isolation and i think
11:08you see that with everybody kind of like you know connect the very very formal in how things are followed
11:15if i'm connecting with you it's going to be via email or send me a text i will start seeing
11:19that
11:20again when given a choice are we participating in the social opportunities that we have in the
11:26after work parts those are some of the signs turnover that is a key predictor as well not only in
11:32the
11:33reducing the times the hours perhaps but also in you know where where are they going you know who's coming
11:39in why are they leaving in different reasons i think there's a big mistake when we're not doing those
11:46exit interviews but even in those exit interviews really understanding what happened and what happened
11:51to that team and the other part that i see with those early warning signs is once there's a some
11:56sort
11:56of shift in the team even internally maybe the chancellor to another job another department is the group
12:03dynamic within that team what happens to that not paying attention not looking at the productivity not
12:10having a good way to give that feedback so a quick way for example in the meeting room
12:16when you're asking for questions when you're asking for suggestions you may have only the same
12:20people be the ones that open up or even a quiet part there's a lot about reading the room there's
12:26a
12:26lot about the temperature in the room where even in calls even you can even feel some of the attention
12:32even through zoom the early warning signs is even looking at the engagement when you ask for things
12:37you know how much are you things that you would expect from the goodwill right from hey i need i
12:42can offer
12:43a suggestion or i can ask a question or i can hang out or i can do these things what
12:48is the kind of
12:49participation you're getting with that and that told me right away um and i've worked actually we
12:54just worked recently with a team like that where everything seems fine i mean as far as the money
12:59coming in the money's coming in um as far as like the the team being there they're there what's not
13:05happening is i knew ideas that are being brought up basically you have the main leader being the one
13:11that is creating the ideas creating the agenda so guess what the leader's burnt out and feels like
13:16i don't have a you know i i don't really know what's working but everything that the leader is
13:21asked to do gets done so essentially it's a one-way conversation so profitability may not currently be
13:27impacted continuing this path it will because you know again the leader's already in the burnout state
13:33so it's just like causing health things it's starting to cause a health toll on the on the leader
13:38right now there's rumors a couple of them of moving you know for x and y reasons different
13:44things but also they're because they're moving there's not a way to capture the knowledge and
13:50there's really not an effort to capture the knowledge because guess what nobody else is looking
13:53out for that only the owner but the owner is burnt out right so they're not forecasting that
13:58those are some of the dangers that can come in so when a ceo says we have a people problem
14:05based on your experience what does that mean people problem well you're looking at immediately
14:09what comes to my mind is well people don't leave organizations people leave people so uh again what
14:15is the people problem who owns the system and i know this might be an uncomfortable uh you know
14:20conversation but really the ones that can do something about even your people systems is the
14:25system owners the system owners are the leaders so you gotta look at what is the system owner
14:31saying what what is being right now rewarded what is the behavior that's being rewarded what is the
14:37things that you know what what do people get recognized for what is the actual pathway of growth
14:42and a lot of times you see that with with people right if i don't see a way that i
14:46can grow here
14:47or if i have a perspective that you only grow here if you're in good with this person or that
14:54and you
14:54start seeing you start seeing that the focus is start shifting perhaps from what you're thinking
14:59productivity to people pleasing so you've got to really really see what is the culture right now
15:05nothing happens outside of the culture every decision is inside it's like the same thing like
15:10a body like you cannot make decisions outside of your character every decision that you make as a human
15:15as a person is happening in this body is happening it goes along with my character i'm known for my
15:20character same thing with the organization every decision that happens that means every person every hire
15:24that means every person that every decision that happens every product is developed it's all happening
15:29within the culture so if there is a people problem we need to look at what is the culture currently
15:35supporting what is the culture currently sustaining and the question is how do i know how do i know
15:41what my culture is currently supporting is it because i have things on the wall am i rewarding that
15:46is it because of my value statement my mission or my vision that may be found somewhere on my website
15:51how am i adding to that how do i know i'm adding to that how do i know that they
15:56know how do i know
15:57that my people know that's what we're standing for i would say start asking those questions okay so tell
16:02me about a situation where a team was doing everything right i'm using air quotes for those who are listening
16:07on paper but was still not getting the results that they expected what was missing okay so one of the
16:15places you got to think about the the way that the organization works right there's some that are very
16:20traditional where it's a very vertical way of kind of like the command and and follow you know you have
16:25some institutions that are like that you have like education for example you have military for example
16:29right so um a lot of times what happens and what i've seen i haven't worked with education a lot
16:35of
16:35my educators is they very much compliance it comes into place yeah i see that like yeah so um and
16:45there's
16:45something that can go where operationally everything can be compliant it doesn't mean
16:50that because it's compliant you're necessarily having capturing the heart of it or like the other
16:57things that may go be going along outside of compliance or the other things even the innovation
17:01to where we are stuck doing a process which is a lot of times why change is difficult to to
17:06implement
17:06because in essence the compliance overtakes sometimes even common sense we can't even talk about it
17:13right yeah i'm saying that they're not so what's going right is yes we're compliant yes we we check
17:20the box yes we we have it we we have a very clear if i want this it goes this
17:25it goes this it goes this
17:26what's going wrong is because of that we're missing the threats that are coming we're missing the
17:32opportunities that are coming and we may even be missing the very heart of the people that we're looking
17:38to serve because now we're leading by compliance instead of leading by really not only the customer
17:44experience that comes into place but even looking at the opportunities that the marketplace may be
17:50bringing because of the changing situations so they're easier to break in a sense when you have
17:56disruption in a large disruption will be very hard to overcome so that is what it goes wrong a time
18:02of disruption is you're so rigid i mean think of a tree right you have a storm come it cracks
18:07it's the
18:08same way or it comes out from the roots so and that's what we're seeing a lot of times is
18:12is that
18:13were you leading by compliance instead of really leading by that permission that permission that you
18:17need both from your customer internal customer and your external customer and you get permission
18:22when you're building that report when you're building solutions that work for them today
18:27so in a high pressure situation maybe a tough quarter or a major transition what separates in
18:34your opinion leaders who steady a team from those who just make things worse well again the culture
18:41they have been building to that point because when times come crisis and they come to all i mean we
18:47know that is uh there's seasons not only there's seasons there's there's times sometimes you know is
18:52isn't it a quarter sometimes it's two sometimes it's ten so the culture really starts rising up
18:58the leaders that i'm able to see that really are able to make it through are those leaders that are
19:03both purposeful in what who they are but also are able to bring the perspective the identity of the
19:09purpose of the organization something that comes in disruption everything is questioned i went through
19:14that i had a publishing business and we went through the disruption of the ebooks you know at the time
19:19we were 99 print so how did we how did we do business in a digital world we didn't know
19:26but
19:26we weren't the only ones who didn't know the entire industry didn't know so it wasn't like oh i can
19:30grab
19:31this playbook from so and so or from so and so because there was no playbook there was no business
19:36plan there was no idea of how to serve that so what happened in a time of disruption it tested
19:43everything but what really got shaken was what's our place you know do we even have a part to play
19:49in this new digital world when we're print and those are true real questions the leaders that are
19:55able to in a time of disruption bring light to what the purpose is and identify the core factors the
20:03key
20:03metrics for really what measures success are those that are going to be able to not only identify but
20:09define and measure and be able to adapt to whatever crisis is going because one thing a crisis does and
20:17i think personally it makes you question everything who am i who do i want you know who do i
20:21serve
20:22but we look at you know personally what happens right there's trauma that's like can i get over
20:26this loss one of my experiences first coming in as a leader i had to let go of 60 of
20:31my workforce
20:32that was trauma it was horrible it was a layoff how was i gonna make it back from that how
20:37can i even
20:37show my face even from that something that it was in something i inherited it wasn't something that i did
20:42of course it's like i mean i wanted i could blame game but it didn't matter i was the one
20:46associated
20:47with this so how do i work from that you know again the internal alignment knowing who i was but
20:54most importantly too as you're leading is knowing what are you leading and aligning your team to and
21:01unless you know the identity of the organization you know what is that value and it may not be something
21:07that you know like oh me on my own no this is where you engage this is where you leverage
21:11your people this is where you leverage heart in those times of crisis so you can bring a spotlight
21:16and and adapt because it's going to require that times of crisis are going to require adapting they're
21:21going to require agility they're going to require doing things faster maybe even not even faster
21:27sometimes it's decreasing things and it just takes as much art as much effort to slow down and not do
21:33things as many times as it takes to accelerate and that's what lean principles show us lean is not about
21:39hey what what other program can i add is more what can i get rid of so there's clarity and
21:44we're able
21:45to go faster i like what you're saying about you've mentioned a couple different times identity that's a
21:49theme that's popped up several times in the course of today's conversation and i'm reflecting back on a
21:54conversation i had with david lapin and he helped nelson mandela put together his government in south
22:02africa and he was talking about how there was so much chaos and so much political pressure and social
22:08pressure and economic pressure we were just really talking about leadership and he was working with a
22:14company that he felt had the best product and best service and was at a point where they were making
22:20a bid
22:21to acquire a huge portion of business it became very evident to him that bribes were going to be
22:28necessary to get the business and he didn't do it and the reason he did it that didn't do that
22:35he goes
22:35because i believe in our products and i believe in our services and we have the superior offering and
22:40bribing to get business is not who we are it's not in our identity and he ended up losing the
22:45business
22:46surprise surprise sarcasm intended for those who can't who are just listening and not watching
22:50but he was really nervous about going back and telling the ceo that he and i'm using air quotes for
22:55those listening that can't see blew the sale and the owner went up gave him a hug and shook his
23:02hand
23:02and said thank you for protecting our reputation that's so good you were you identity wise are true
23:08to who we are and you represented our company the way you represented our identity and when you start
23:14talking about you mentioned identity a few times it really reflected i reflected on that and and he's
23:19right like that really limits the cult the identity of the culture limits what the company and the
23:25people who work that company will and will not do so you don't have too many choices by oh should
23:30i do
23:30this or should i do that is this in alignment with our identity yes or no if it's not then
23:35it's not even
23:35worth a discussion and i think that's kind of what you were hinting at a little earlier you said it
23:39better than me but i just that was just another conversation maybe someone's trying to get a message
23:43through to me after i hear this multiple times so for leaders who feel stretched or on the cusp of
23:51burnout but can't quite pinpoint why what patterns have you seen in your career that they should
23:58perhaps pay attention to so let me let me back up a sec because i you what you just mentioned
24:03with
24:03that and i think it goes along with this question because what you're talking about is the decision
24:08making filters right and being able to honor that decision making and in this particular case from
24:13from what you just shared is like hey i know who we are therefore i know what's the right decision
24:18for
24:18us you know there's other people so that really because not only did that person understood the
24:24identity he was able to make a decision that honored the company but also it makes it that much easier
24:30for
24:31anybody following to understand how decision making process happens where do i see a lot of leaders
24:36burned out it's because they have to be the decision maker on everything like they're like
24:42the little things the big things the constant interruptions hey this and then sometimes i hear
24:47even like a lot of these can't they just make that decision on their own don't they know you know
24:51and then we talk about empowerment we talk about delegation we talk about these other parts but what is
24:56key is what you just said because we can have we can take classes on delegation we can take classes
25:01on
25:01empowerment we can take you know like all of these things but if we don't live and understand the
25:08values and know how to use them to filter and make decisions we are going to be stuck making every
25:14decision for the organization and there is no true succession plan because when you're talking about
25:19succession the burnout happens when again you feel you have to do everything because there's conflict
25:26and that is one of the things i uh one of the latest stats that i saw not only about
25:31the 77 percent of
25:32the professionals being burnt out but also with it not burning out over 56 percent of the leaders don't
25:38feel equipped for decision making and that is one of the key things that a leader does we make decisions
25:45sometimes they are welcome sometimes they're not sometimes they are the right solution at the right time
25:51sometimes they're the right solution at the wrong time you know like there's conflict that comes
25:58with that but to be key when you're having to make consistent decisions and we're all the time
26:03it burns you out being able to transfer that decision making well is going to be tied exactly
26:09to what you said knowing the identity knowing the values and showing your leaders your people your
26:15decision making from everywhere how to make decisions that both align and honor the identity
26:20and what we're trying to do together there was i'm going to chime in because my conversation with
26:25him was very relevant to the one that we're having right now one of the other things he talked about
26:28was that some authority is some leadership is granted authority like hey you have been given this
26:37position of authority so act accordingly he said but one of the things is yes you can be given that
26:42position but but that kind of authority can also be taken away and he talked and we talked a little
26:48bit
26:49about you know and the spirit of burnout those leaders who feel stressed because the positional
26:54authority that they've been given might be demanding or wanting them to make one type of decision but
27:01their own personal values might be requiring a different one and i asked him what would you do in that
27:07and
27:07that does cause burnout that does cause stress and i totally understand why and we talked about that
27:12he said i've never regretted making a decision that wasn't in alignment with my values and what i felt was
27:18right not that i didn't have consequences for it right not that i didn't have to pay a price but
27:23i
27:23didn't regret it correct because i could put my head on the pillow at night knowing that i did what
27:28was
27:28right for the people and for our company and if that doing what's right costed me that position of
27:35authority that i was given then that's not a position i needed anyway it was a powerful conversation
27:40i learned a lot from me i was gonna say mason mason mason you're bringing ethics yes absolutely
27:47ethics the self-alignment and honestly yes we're called to collaborate but we're not called to
27:52compromise on the values that we have that we hold there we can the one person we cannot get away
27:56from
27:57is ourselves so you can say that's that's a mic drop moment we are called to collaborate not
28:05what was what was that quote we go to collaborate but not to compromise against ourselves you know i
28:10love that not get away from you you're gonna get that shirt you need to put that on t-shirt
28:15you definitely should i mean that that's uh it is it's so true um and i agree 100 a lot
28:23of burnout
28:23that causes is when leaders and and that's why my my motto for heartnomics is i am not for everybody
28:30but i am for the leaders that don't just want to do the thing but want to do the right
28:34thing and do
28:35the thing right and doing the right thing it has to deal with ethics it has to deal with you
28:41know hey
28:41this is what i like which is why it's so important in the onboarding it's so important to understand in
28:46both ways that you know what are the values what are the vision of the organization you know and
28:51living through to that right because i'm i'm all in i'm all in so when i'm all in how are
28:57we living
28:58how are the values being reflected in that and again you know them by the fruits and in personal
29:03and same thing with the organization right you know about what is the action what do people say
29:08you know so even that goes also on the person that's joining a team what are other co-workers
29:12saying you know what are other platforms what are the customers saying about them you know what do
29:16they say about themselves does it align or is it kind of a bit disconnected i hear you saying this
29:21about you but i'm not seeing that reflected in that part so that it goes along with with the
29:26things because i find that where maybe it was a monetary decision for taking a position or taking
29:32a growth but then realizing that yeah i'm responsible for a lot of things but i don't
29:37have the authority over things and that's where the conflict comes in you cannot speak about
29:42responsibility without authority and that goes also for leaders when you're delegating something yes
29:47you're gonna give responsibility but along with that responsibility there has to be authority
29:52to be able to do that because i cannot hold you accountable or hold myself accountable or anything
29:57if you don't also have the authority in making decisions so you're responsible for the outcome
30:02and that goes again to ownership we're wanting we're having leaders that want to delegate their
30:06responsibility without delegating the authority and yet hold people accountable or have the results
30:11that we need they don't it doesn't work like that you're gonna have you've been on the receiving
30:15end of that that is a terrible place to be absolutely that's a lot of my middle line managers
30:20i feel the pain of this you know a lot of times because usually they're receiving something
30:25and they have to carry it out and it's like hey why did somebody ask you about this and a
30:31lot of
30:31times that's what i feel with my middle line managers that they don't have that that voice and
30:37that's where a lot you see a lot of burnout is in those your your next line of leaders are
30:41coming
30:41into other levels of leadership already burned out so if there was only one piece of advice that you
30:47could give to people watching or listening today what would it be and why alignment alignment you
30:52have to be you know your your word has to match your actions and that goes both as a person
30:58because
30:58the way you do one thing is the way you do everything and same thing for the organization
31:02the way that you do the way that you attract those employees is the way you're gonna have to keep
31:05them
31:05so the way it's the same thing one of the greatest things as a leader that we have to do
31:10is
31:10consistently align and it is not bad it's not a bad thing that you're coming out of alignment it just
31:15means that you're actually doing something so this fear that well we could never be alignment look at
31:19the race cars the race cars they actually have time off right i mean because they're going super fast
31:25they need a lot more alignments and your car is sitting in the garage and you just go to the
31:29grocery
31:29store every day that means that those cars they know they're going to have to pull over and align
31:34because they're going super fast with other people so what happens they have to take a break they have
31:39to they make the time to align so they can go again so the fact that you are going to
31:43be out of
31:44alignment means that you're actually doing something it's not bad and you have to make
31:48time to align because otherwise what happens if these cars don't pull over crashes accidents you
31:54endanger other people so i would say to a leader not only wait until really not wait until something
31:59is off of alignment but knowing that because we've done so much we're doing a lot of times we need
32:04to
32:04take a break and we need to take the time to align with our purpose internally with our identity and
32:09our purpose as an organization and really do what is necessary the changes to sharpen ourselves both
32:15individually and for our teams so that we can go even faster do better reach new milestones
32:21in a spirit of authenticity and openness i'm going to share a story about when i was 16
32:26okay that that i think illuminates the importance of what you're talking about
32:33when i was 16 years old i had a a fast sports car and i was by all by all
32:40definitions i was very
32:41responsible i was a good student i never got in trouble i did things the right way and was very
32:46responsible my achilles heel my vice was i liked to drive my fast car very fast because i was responsible
32:55air quotes here again with a fast car i would go outside of town there i live in a small
33:03town about 30 miles south south of st louis and i would go out into the country and there was
33:07one
33:08particular stretch of kind of an unincorporated area unincorporated area probably five to seven
33:14miles outside of town where it was a straight stretch there was no really no roads coming in
33:19from the side where i just had a really good stretch where there's not any cars there's very light
33:23traffic it's a straight shot not but no stop lights or anything to get on i mean it was just
33:29very remote area and it was straight and in my mind i'm like well if i'm going to go fast
33:34i don't want
33:34to put anybody else at danger or put anybody else at risk because i'm going to let this thing fly
33:41and i said and i also know that i'm not a professional race car driver and i don't have
33:44skills so if i can just hold the thing straight i should be okay that's a 16 year old thinking
33:51he's
33:51being responsible hey i'm going where i'm not going to hurt anybody else i'm not going to hurt it myself
33:55because you know i'm just going to go straight fast and i remember watching the the light poles
34:01instead of it you know at 55 or 60 miles an hour they go at a certain cadence well at
34:05the speed that
34:06i was going which was about twice that um they were going really quick just bam bam bam bam bam
34:12by me
34:13and what i realized was at 16 that if i'm going let's just say for the sake of discussion 50
34:20miles an
34:20hour and i turn a little bit then i'm going to gradually pull over to the next lane but if
34:26i'm
34:26doing twice that high speed and i turn that little bit the amount of distance that i cover is
34:32dramatically more and just a little shift if i'm and imagine instead of me choosing to steer over
34:39into the left-hand lane it's an alignment issue and an alignment might not show up at 50 miles an
34:44hour
34:44hey i can stay between the the the the ditch and the yellow dotted line yeah but if i'm going
34:52twice
34:52that speed and i'm out of alignment and i cover twice as much space in the same amount of time
34:57and that can send you off and so when you're talking about alignment i'm just thinking about
35:02a business that's going at a good speed and there may not be a line that's not a problem it's
35:08not that
35:08bigger deal well but if you have aspirations of doing more better and faster particularly a lot
35:14faster and you're not aligned then that will that that can very easily send you into the ditch and i
35:19that's that was a lesson i learned at 16 yeah and uh i look to tell about it i did
35:25that more often
35:26than i'd like to admit but that's so good i learned a lesson about alignment that that applies to business
35:33today and i when you were talking about that that hit home for me it's like i understand what she's
35:39talking about and why of any of the because i know you're a very accomplished leader and you have lots
35:43of great advice for a lot of people and when i ask the question what's the most important piece of
35:47advice and you say alignment and you didn't hesitate no i understand why yeah so thank you for sharing
35:53that if people want to know more about you your company the work you do your books what's the best
35:58way
35:58for them to engage with you thanks for asking me son um well linkedin i'm very uh active there
36:04under hand up hour and also heartnomics.com that's my website i'm sure you'll put the handle there but
36:09it's heart just like the heart h-e-a-r-t nomics and o-m-i-c-s.com and
36:14i have a complimentary
36:14assessment there you can take too for your heart leadership and honestly i think it's so good and i
36:19love that story i'm gonna use your story for this because when we're talking about faster that's one of
36:24the promises we're getting right now with technology with ai oh you can do this faster faster
36:28faster so just apply that think about it the same way that you did the promise of going faster
36:33introducing that into a company that may not be aligned in everything yet you see the disaster that
36:39can happen so that's where my heart is is in bringing that alignment so these tools that work
36:43for us that make us go faster or adapt or do the shifts that we need to do we can
36:46do them successfully
36:47and not disastrous but really benefit all our customers thank you so much for joining me and i hope
36:53that people listening benefited as much from our conversations i did thank you so much
36:57thank you mason thanks for having me
36:59you
36:59you
36:59you
37:08you
Comments