“When they say let’s take the emotion out of the decision, that’s even an emotional decision.”
Louis Roden is the founder of Inspire Consulting Group, an international leadership development consultancy, and has spent more than two decades in organizational development and service culture across hospitality, logistics, and finance. His book Everything Is Personal: Embracing Stewardship in the Workplace and Everyplace argues that leaders who hide behind “it’s just business” erode the trust their people need.
We cover the phrase “it’s business, not personal,” stewardship, why work feels neutral for so many people, how leaders build trust day to day, and why the golden rule gets it wrong.
What we covered:
- The COVID lockdown and the nudge from his wife that got the book finished
- Mark Twain’s “Be good and you will be lonesome” and Following the Equator as the first travel blog
- Why nobody says they loved a job because they were well managed
- Work as a gray, neutral 80 percent of waking life
- Why Louis can’t stand the phrase work-life balance
- Stewardship of the people who hand a leader a big piece of their lives
- Layoffs, hard feedback, and the trite cover of “it’s not personal”
- Why no one can take the emotion out of a decision
- Frederick Taylor, scientific management, and work as a negative good
- Rational and irrational anger, and empathy for joy as well as sadness
- Trust built in small moments and eroded by paper cuts
- The bartender whose smile disappears when the bar gets busy
- Thirty authentic seconds over a scheduled one-hour one-on-one
- The weekly check-in as a box to tick
- Flipping the golden rule: treat people the way they want to be treated
- The Princess Bride, Inigo Montoya’s sword, and anyone selling a magic bullet
People:
- Mark Twain, author
- Daniel Goleman, psychologist and author
- Simon Sinek, author
- Frederick Taylor, father of scientific management
- Dart Lindsley, previous guest on this show
- René Descartes, philosopher
- Antonio Damasio, neuroscientist
- Ernest Hemingway, author
- John Steinbeck, author
Books:
- Everything Is Personal, Louis Roden
- Following the Equator, Mark Twain
- Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman
- Descartes’ Error, Antonio Damasio
- Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
- The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
Organizations:
- Inspire Consulting Group, Gallup, Starbucks
Find Louis:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/louisroden/
Website: https://inspirelsc.com
Book: https://everythingispersonal.org
Music licensed through Soundstripe. Code: DLQOKHPSWUMSTCMH.
