Wake Up Eager Workforce 
Episode 97 Transcript

Suzie Price: [00:00:00]

Today we continue my conversation with two leaders, Mike Wilson and Mica Lunt. They are with T2 Professional Consulting, and they're changing the world by Confronting the Challenges of Local Government with Nobility, Service and Excellence. As a reminder, the work they're doing in local government, even if you're not involved in local government, their work impacts everything local government does. And everything the local government does impacts us. As they point out, permitting trash collection, police support and all the things that are important to making our homes safe and livable and having great value. So the work they're doing is really important. And I can't wait to share part two with you. Michael. Hit it.

Intro/Outro: [00:00:48]

Welcome to the Wake Up Eager Workforce Podcast, a show designed for leaders, trainers and consultants who are responsible for employee selection and professional development. Each episode is packed full with insider tips, best practices, expert interviews, and inspiration. Please welcome the host who is helping leaders, trainers and consultants everywhere Suzie Price.

Suzie Price: [00:01:19]

Hi there, I'm Suzie Price and you're listening to the Wake Up Eager Workforce Podcast, where we cover everything related to helping you and employees in your organizations build a high commitment, low drama, wake up eager workforce. Bottom line, we help leaders and organizations make good decisions about their people and so that everybody is waking up eager. We have a wake up, eager workforce. We have people who are committed, involved, interested, engaged in their work, and they're a good fit for their role. The business is thriving while the people thrive. So in this podcast we provide tools, tips and expert interviews for the entire employee life cycle. In this episode, we talk a little bit about hiring. We talk a little bit about team building, leadership development, and conflict resolution. This is episode 97. It's part two of what we started in episode 96 of Confronting the Challenges of Local Government with Nobility, Service and Excellence. I'm talking with Mica Lunt and Mike Wilson, the executive team for T2L Professional Consulting. We've talked about the challenges in local government, how it impacts all of us, how they're using TriMetrix to build a baseline and overcome bias, and how they're using their experience motivators and communication strengths to inspire and support others. You can find the show notes for today at pricelessprofessional.com/localgovernment, pricelessprofessional.com/localgovernment. Let's go to our discussion part two.

Suzie Price: [00:02:53]

Now let's go into talking about the assessment. I like to always share what your individual Motivators and your individual communication styles are. And then I've got a talent tracker that if you're watching the video, we'll talk about what the talent tracker is. Mica, do you want to start about your Motivators, what they are? I've got it pulled up to if you need me to pull it up. But your Motivators and your Style and a little bit about what all that means to you or how it helps you.

Mica Lunt: [00:03:25]

My top motivator is Individualistic Political and you read the short summaries on there and I'm like, oh man, that always makes me sound like maybe not the nicest person in the room, the power player commanding and so on. The piece that really, really resonates for me is the ability to be free to make decisions. I love to define what the box is and then use my creative ability to work within that box. I really, really like that. And when I'm constrained or there are new constraints that come up that we're not a part of that box before, or I'm working for somebody that those boundaries keep changing. That is very, very frustrating for me to handle. So I try to work through that. And then my second is Theoretical and Knowledge. The learner, intellectual studying, constantly looking at facts, and I mean that's me to a T.

Suzie Price: [00:04:25]

Tell me about your degrees again. I had it in the bio but real quick...

Mica Lunt: [00:04:31]

Psychology is my main piece. And then there was a point in time where I was really crazy and dabbled in physics and math. 

Suzie Price: [00:04:40]

You love to learn and education, and you and Mike both share that Motivator. You both have it as top interest. And then with the Individualistic Political, I mean, it's all neutral language. It depends on how we use it. But if you didn't have people who were willing to step in the visibility place, then you wouldn't have people who start new companies who start to work with Mike on T2L and stand in front of city managers and be on the firing line. Sometimes people have that same reaction about that particular Motivator. But there's a lot of people or a lot of things we wouldn't have in this world if there weren't people who were willing to be out front and be visible. And I've seen you in front of a city council just by video. And you tend to have a lot of charisma that captures the energy in the room. And Mike, you've probably seen that from him as well. And so that's a talent.

Mica Lunt: [00:05:38]

Yeah I've had some experiences in life that have forced me to be in front of some situations that were very difficult to deal with and having I guess some of that natural Motivator has definitely helped. But certainly my experiences have helped refine a little bit of that in a trial by fire kind of way.

Suzie Price: [00:06:01]

Your number six is Aesthetic. High Aesthetic wants harmony and balance. The number six is Aesthetic says, I don't really need to stop and smell the roses. I'm good. I don't love chaos around me, but I can handle it. It doesn't send me under the covers and hiding under the bed kind of thing. Yes. Do you see that?

Mica Lunt: [00:06:23]

Yeah. And I mean from that of just pausing to take some time for self and things like that, I do have to be reminded of that from time to time.

Suzie Price: [00:06:32]

So we have our strengths on all of these. And then there's like okay what does that point to as a potential "oops" I might overdo sometimes. That's cool. We all do it right. How about you Mike? I love seeing your Motivators by the way.

Mike Wilson: [00:06:47]

So we're both Theoretical. I'm really driven by this. This is my top Motivator. Continuous learning. Sometimes it can be about just some abstract things. But I do like facts. I do like to identify the truth and try to become an expert in anything that I endeavor. Probably my second Motivator is a very high driven passion, and that's a Social Altruistic. I have a hard time saying no. And also throughout my entire life I really would do this free. And if it was at all possible and I think a lot of that's just driven through upbringing. I'm a second generation cop, so I grew up seeing parents serving and back when they served it was not rewarded financially like it is now or with the equipment that they're provided or the training. So coming from those humble means and a family of public servants I really think shaped that. My number six is I hate the box. I'm very low on Traditional.

Suzie Price: [00:08:15]

It made me smile when I saw that number six and he scored it indifferently, which if you don't know what that means, it's like, I really don't like it.

Mike Wilson: [00:08:22]

I'm always looking for better ways to do things. It is not logical to me why we continue the same approach and we expect a different outcome. A lot of times when we go into clients, I'm the first one to tell them, especially if they're dealing with a level of turmoil. We're not talking about a person or people. We're talking about your system, and your system is broken. Why are you doing it like that? Well, it's how we've always done it. And so that motivates me to find new ways to do that.

Suzie Price: [00:09:00]

And it's interesting. A lot of the government is Traditional Regulatory, which is why there's a lag behind, so what a great thing that with the Individualistic that you have Mica, and then the number six Traditional Regulatory which is we don't have to continue to do it this way. It can be done differently. It is really bringing something to the table for these folks. I mean, you're driven by doing it new. And then on top of that, you've got the servant's heart, and then on top of that, both of you have this beautiful experience. I mean, it's just like a formula for goodness all the way around as I see it. Very cool. And what I smiled about with you, Mike, is if you didn't know Mike, if you can't see him on video, you might be intimidated by him because he's got a kind of a strong looking and both of your strong looking, but you know, you have you could be very serious facially if you wanted to, you know, and so you wouldn't know that there's a Mother Teresa lurking within until you get to know him.

Mike Wilson: [00:10:00]

Absolutely, absolutely.

Suzie Price: [00:10:02]

That's cool. And so the communication style, you both had similar communication styles, which is the High D and High C, which is task orientation, getting things done and thinking them through before you get them done and working that way. And so communicate wise, you probably really connect because you communicate similarly according to the assessment. Any thoughts on that?

Mike Wilson: [00:10:26]

Really there's not a lot of stress around the communication. We take on a project and we can lay out what that project will be and the steps in that project pretty quick with some different milestones. Sometimes because I'm so high on the Theoretical I would like to have more information to process that may frustrate at times, but I'm a firm believer in let's measure twice, cut once for the sake of time. Just because that makes sense. But no, being very similar in the communication style makes it easy to take on these hard projects and be successful.

Suzie Price: [00:11:16]

That's awesome. I don't know if you can see now. I just shared the talent tracker. Can you see it?

Mike Wilson: [00:11:20]

Yes.

Mica Lunt: [00:11:21]

Yes.

Suzie Price: [00:11:21]

This is an example, and I don't think I've ever shown this on a podcast before, but Mike and Mica said it was okay to do it, especially since they're sharing their Motivators. The Team Talent Tracker gives the team members' names. You see Mica's name first, and then you see the Motivators what they just talked about number 1, 2 and number 6, and then their communication style. And then you see Mike below that. And then there's a little cheat sheet on the page. So I just want folks to know that that's available to help your team communicate. So you can very quickly be reminded of what Mica is most interested in, what Mike is most interested in. And so in your meetings and discussions, what you most and least want. And then there's a back page that is usually pretty helpful words that work blind spots and stressors. So the Talent Tracker is a free tool that people use, and it helps teammates. You guys have known each other for a while. And so you probably most of this was not new news for you. But for teams that go through any of your training or are trying to remember what was the what was the style, how did they like to communicate. And then there's a very short little communication tool right here that talks about this. So the D the High style tip is and I can imagine your interactions with each other okay. You've got it. Okay. Good. See you later. Because the High D says be prepared, be brief, be gone. So very quick conversations I'm sure you do talk more too. But in general. And then the High C uses logic, give them time and give them all of the details. So it's kind of like a little key there. So just wanted people to know about that. And I didn't know if y'all used the talent tracker yet with clients.

Mike Wilson: [00:12:57]

We've not yet, but it's definitely a tool as we go into it. We've been getting a lot of questions around team development and how we could utilize some of these tools because of the effectiveness that they've seen in the search and selection process. And so this is a very valuable tool for members of teams to get really quick, up to speed on folks that they serve with so that they can understand them at a depth to where we can save time and efficiencies, because that's some other feedback that we've received, is the level of how comprehensive a process is, are and the ability that we can deliver a desired outcome within a very aggressive timeframe. That's what people are looking for. The days of spending 18 months to diagnose and start to fix issues just no longer works in any environment.

Suzie Price: [00:14:04]

What are you going to say, Mica?

Mica Lunt: [00:14:05]

This may have just slipped his mind, but we actually have a private sector client that we have utilized this with where we assisted with a placement and, and provided exactly this, this tool to the supervisor and the newly hired person. And one of the things that I've gotten from that client is these two individuals, you know, they're two individuals, just like always, but they also have a lot of cultural and nationality differences. And this tool, when we provided it to them and provided the directions in terms of how to use it to to sit down and have that first conversation of, you know, this is kind of what I prefer from a communication style. This is what I prefer and so forth. As they had it, we've gotten some really great feedback on the utility of this being something that they continuously reference as they work on projects, even think about sending emails and other forms of communication to one another. It's a very valuable tool.

Suzie Price: [00:15:19]

What I was just thinking about, too, when you think about a city manager, when the future would be interesting to see the city manager's top reports. Helping the city manager up for success. Having the city manager's top reports, I don't know that the city council would be willing to take the assessment, but if they ever would, he could, you know, he or she could have input. So I just want to touch base on that. And I love you all sharing. I think it helps everybody learn. It helps us understand you more and so appreciate you sharing that. Talk a little bit about who's most influenced you in your life and career. You both mentioned a few different things, but maybe pick somebody or something and talk about who's most influenced you.

Mica Lunt: [00:16:00]

So for me, it's my wife Shannon. She encouraged me way back at the beginning of my career to go down this path that I had always kind of been interested in, where I didn't necessarily have that same encouragement elsewhere. And what's been really cool about our relationship, and we get this feedback from long term friends and family members, is that she's also sort of an executive level leader, but in the academic sector, and oddly enough, we've both experienced many similar challenges in terms of ethical dilemmas and things like that. And so we both have found ways to support each other in terms of standing up to some oppressive issues, some ethical issues that we've uncovered, and been there through the thick and thin. And it's been amazing. She's always encouraged me to follow your heart, follow your mind, keep that moral compass pointed in the northward direction and everything will ultimately work out. It may be tough for a while, but everything will ultimately work out, and that support has been invaluable to me.

Suzie Price: [00:17:19]

Wow, having that from your spouse is incredible. That's wonderful. How about you, Mike? Who's most influenced you?

Mike Wilson: [00:17:26]

Actually two people. I was very fortunate. I had two great mentors. First was as a young cop, my chief, who served as my chief for 15, 16 years and a commander who recognized potential and looked past being rough around the edges, who invested a lot of time over many years. The number one, keep me out of trouble. Number two, steer that path and helped me realize how to recognize blind spots that I had that were able to help me kind of soften my approach. And just really being blessed by having those people in my life because they really guided my career. And even though I didn't quite understand why they were doing what they were doing at the time or placing me in assignments that they were placing me in, they could see the bigger picture, and they could see talents in me that I had not yet recognized. So the importance of having those coaches and those confidants and the patience really allowed me to achieve what I was able to.

Suzie Price: [00:18:41]

Are you in touch with them today still? 

Mike Wilson: [00:18:44]

Yeah. So we have checking calls typically once a month, twice a month. If I'm going into a pretty stressful situation or they see a news article, they'll call me and say, why are you doing that? And yeah, so it's continued to pay dividends. And it's also been cool to see how they've gone from being more in a direct leading role to now just really confidante, friend. But still a coach when necessary.

Suzie Price: [00:19:22]

That's awesome. Nice to have people who care about you and your corner. We all need that. All right. Let's go into you know what this is the Wake Up Eager Workforce Podcast. But we talk about having a wake up eager life. Talk about being wake up eager leaders, wake up eager teams. And it's all about creating a life and work that when we wake up, we're happy to get up and go. And so talk a little bit about what you personally do in your life to have mental clarity, physical health. And then when we talk about spiritual, it can be anything, but it can also include close friends, family, some kind of habits or things that you do that keep you on track.

Mike Wilson: [00:20:00]

Well. So my biggest difficulty is mental clarity because it's really hard to shut my brain off, you know? But what I do engage in is a lot of audiobooks. I probably go through about three a week along with building in just good habits when it's time to shut down, just shut down and and try to redirect that attention to family activities, my spouse. Sometimes I do that well, sometimes I don't. But that's always an intentional focus. Body? I go to the gym six days a week. It's very much an addiction because I feel off if I'm not able to. And I try to do it first thing in the morning because that really sets the tone for the rest of the day. Having to be active. I'm not good just sitting in 1 place. Whether it's making events with the kids that's a really high priority, staying in touch with friends or folks that, you can say I consult with, but they're just friends and it's good times to get out. Experience, kind of go into their neck of the woods and see how things are playing out there. Spiritually? Just a lot of prayer. You don't get to this point in life, doing the job that we've done without a force much powerful than you, looking over you and guiding you. I try to live in a state of gratefulness and thankfulness for that. And also remember that we wouldn't be where we are helping the people that we're helping if it's not part of what I believe is my purpose for this point in life. So just really trying to stay grounded.

Suzie Price: [00:22:13]

Wonderful, Mica?

Mica Lunt: [00:22:15]

Really pretty similar along those lines. Totally agree with what Mike said. If the good Lord hadn't been, number one having a sort of a higher plan than than what? I had a couple of different times and just watching over, I wouldn't be anywhere where I'm at. I do listen to some podcasts, certainly yours, but yours is more for work. Simon Synek's, A Bit of Optimism is one of my favorites. I really like his material on there because it's just all over the place. But the similar theme. I really do enjoy that quite a bit. Body? I've got a pretty nice home gym that I utilize as well. I also haven't done it on this podcast, but I stand up a lot. Jack up the standing desk. I've even got a little treadmill in here that I walk on sometimes, so that keeps me moving around while I'm working. I know you've got your like, stability, like balancing ball thing you stand on sometimes. Yeah, I'm gonna try that.

Suzie Price: [00:23:16]

Yeah a standing board looks like a surfboard.

Mica Lunt: [00:23:18]

I may fall if I do that.

Suzie Price: [00:23:20]

Yeah. It's fun.

Mica Lunt: [00:23:22]

And then, family. I love to be outdoors. Boating, hiking, backpacking, all of that good stuff. I've got two four legged kiddos that like to take everywhere. They're behind me asleep right now, but the dogs are certainly an important part of my wife and I's life. So they all keep me sane.

Suzie Price: [00:23:47]

That's good, that's good. Okay, so what advice would you give your 20 year old self or 25 year old self?

Mica Lunt: [00:23:53]

I wrote this down whenever I thought about it. So I'm a PhD school dropout times two. I've been in two different PhD programs. Didn't finish either one of them. That is an unnecessary marathon for anything that I am destined to do. And it took me two different programs to figure that out and a lot of money and time. That being said, I am about to finish up my MBA and that's been an incredible experience of learning the true business acumen that I needed at this point in my career. So again, that Theoretical Motivator has always been there, but the PhD realm is not necessary for what I need to do. So I would say save your time, save your money and devote that to something else.

Suzie Price: [00:24:45]

Yeah, don't do that twice. But you benefited from it and it's got you to where you are, but yes. How about you, Mike? What advice would you give your younger self?

Mike Wilson: [00:24:55]

Not to overthink things because you know that caused a lot of stress and just a lot of wasted time, being Theoretical, but also the Social Altruistic. So you can easily get into your head and create a lot of frustration because you want to fix everything. You really want to stop the hurting, and sometimes to your own well being that can cause more harm than good. So my advice would be don't overthink. 

Suzie Price: [00:25:33]

So that's interesting. The high Theoretical with the High C style. So the High C style wants accuracy and wants to get it right because that's measuring how we like to work. And then the Motivator is, I like to spend all my time thinking and learning, and so you put those two together and it does magnify it. So that's so smart that we all have to learn. We all have our blind spots and we all have our opportunities. And that you've seen that like okay, how do I do that? And then the me me conflict is well the logic tells me this, but I really want to help these people, and you said it, I want to remove pain and suffering in the world. So sometimes they feel like they're at odds within us and they're not, but until we have language to describe them, it's hard to overcome it. Interesting. Very cool. How about a billboard? If you could put a billboard anywhere for the world to see. What would you put on it? Where would you put it?

Mica Lunt: [00:26:31]

Identified two quotes that I would put on mine. So if I had a billboard, I'd have to have it split. There would be two sides, but the first one is "The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." It's a quote by Plato. That just speaks to what we talked about at the beginning of the podcast of local government, the indifference to that. Yet its far reaching tentacles touch everybody. If you don't pay attention in a democratic situation things can go badly. 

Suzie Price: [00:27:09]

Can you say the quote again? Before you go off of it, say it again.

Mica Lunt: [00:27:11]

Yeah, absolutely. "The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." It's a quote by Plato. And then the other piece which represents a lot of what Mike and I've been able to do successfully with T2L is, "Stop being afraid of what could go wrong and start being excited about what could go right." And that's by Tony Robbins. Very, very often when you start talking about progressive approaches or a different way of doing business, we hear, but that's the way we've always done it. This resistance to change. And well, if we do that this could go wrong and that could go wrong. Okay. But what if it actually worked? What if it went well? Just because we embark on this journey doesn't mean that we can't make modifications and tweak things as we go through, but that can be a real struggle to get folks to take that initial motivation to go on a new path.

Suzie Price: [00:28:15]

Wonderful. I like both of those. What do you think, Mike? Are you just going to tag on to his billboard? You've got your own.

Mike Wilson: [00:28:23]

I send a lot of different kinds of quotes out to my kids, probably 3 or 4 days a week, and one that I really share with them often is number one. I'm a Teddy Roosevelt fan, so I would probably have to have two billboards.

Suzie Price: [00:28:44]

Okay.

Mike Wilson: [00:28:45]

But one would have to be huge because it's referring to the Man in the Arena, and I don't know if you've ever read that piece. The Man in the Arena talk really applies to what we deal with and what we're struggling with today. In today's world. "It's not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming. But who does actually strive to do the deeds? Who knows great enthusiasms, great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who had the best knows, in the end the triumph of high achievement? And who had the worst. If he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." That was something that we had to memorize as freshmen for our football team.

Suzie Price: [00:30:00]

That's fantastic. What a great coach you had.

Mike Wilson: [00:30:03]

Oh, yeah. Amazing coach. And you know that really stuck. And the shorter, more poignant quote is this, "It's hard to fail, but it's worse to never have tried to succeed." And I think a lot of times we forget about that because we're so focused on not failing, but it's through those failures that we learn how to fall forward, and it's through many failures that we reach success. And so being a TR junkie, those would be the two messages that I think, for good and for bad have guided my life and my focus. But I also think that those are two messages that our young people need to hear. People our age need to be reminded of. Our citizens who are senior to us, they knew it, and we saw it play out in all of their achievements within their lifetimes.

Suzie Price: [00:31:09]

It's wonderful. But that last quote, quote it made me think of, you can't get it wrong because you're never done. You can't get it wrong. So keep going, but fear really does stop people. You have to try. Those are great. Those are very inspirational. I'm very inspired from having spent this time with you today and knowing you prior to this and our future work together. I'm just really proud of who you are as people and the work that you're doing. I want to close with one last comment from both of you. What advice or wisdom would you want every city government leader, or all leaders/and all leaders to remember from our discussion today?

Mike Wilson: [00:31:48]

That's a good question. I think for me, Suzie, it's to remind them it's okay not to know everything, because there are people who stand ready to kind of slide up beside you as a sounding board or a voice of reason to help you make the best decisions that you can possibly make, and with the tools that are available now, those decisions can be strong, data driven approaches, so don't sweat those things that you have no control of. Align yourself with resources. And lastly, be willing to put your ego and attitude aside because they're always going to be the barriers to success, to consensus, and to building collaboration with all stakeholders.

Suzie Price: [00:32:42]

Great advice. What would you add or share Mica?

Mica Lunt: [00:32:46]

I guess particularly to your question of what would be something for government leaders, is that one of the things that every single government leader shares is the burden of protecting the public trust. So we talked about how sometimes in local government, our citizens don't get that involved and so on. And that just intensifies the fact that those who are in those positions of leadership have that tremendous responsibility of protecting and bearing the burden of public trust. And while it may take a long time, if a unit of local government isn't providing the best of services for citizens to vote with their feet and move away and that kind of thing, you can lose that public trust in a heartbeat. And it certainly takes a great deal of time to repair that and bring it back, but we are there to partner with that. Mike and I both have a lot of experience in the jurisdictions that we worked in, of building and repairing public trust, and I think it is a pretty proud achievement in that area. And then with our firm, we've helped institutions to grow in their deposits in the trust bank, from their constituents. And we are here to help accomplish that and help make that responsibility a little bit easier to bear.

Suzie Price: [00:34:30]

Wonderful. Thank you for the work that you're doing.

Mica Lunt: [00:34:32]

Thank you. Suzie, real pleasure to partner with you.

Suzie Price: [00:34:35]

Well, it is my pleasure. And thank you for being on the Wake Up Eager Workforce Podcast.

Mike Wilson: [00:34:41]

Thank you, Suzie, for having us.

Suzie Price: [00:34:43]

I hope you enjoyed part two of my discussion with Mike and Mica. You can get the show notes, watch the video, get more information, some of the links on how to how to contact Mica and Mike at pricelessprofessional.com/localgovernment, pricelessprofessional.com/localgovernment, and some of my top takeaways and some of the things that I learned as I've been working with them. I started working with them probably earlier this year. I found it alarming how many challenges the local governments are faced with. I see it, I've just never really gotten involved in it or paid a lot of attention to it, and just the realization of how they made a good case about how it impacts us, every one of us. And it's so interesting to me that local government elections are usually decided by 10% or less of the population that they're serving. So kind of the takeaway for me is one, I'm very thankful that people that have honor and nobility and a heart of service, like Mike and Mica, are that they're doing this work in these governments, and I'm honored to be able to be a part of that indirectly or behind the scenes. And it also just reminds me, maybe I should pay a little bit more attention and not ignore some of the local government discussions and pay a little bit more attention because the decisions they make directly influence our lives.

Suzie Price: [00:36:07]

The other takeaway I don't know if you picked up on it, I'm just such a nerd about the value of these assessments and how they impact our ability to be successful and happy in our work. And I hope you notice how their individual work experience and then their top Motivators tied directly together into the amazing work that they are doing today. I touched on it a little bit, but the fact that they both love to share knowledge and learn, and then they use that with the heart of service and a drive for leadership, which are all descriptors in their top Motivators for changing traditions that are no longer working. It's just a beautiful formula for seeing what great fit is, because not only do they have that in their Motivators, and their communication style is direct and accurate, which is very important and fits probably really well with the people that they're working with, but their experience ties into because it gives them credibility. So we always talk about the five areas of fit, and one of them is background and experience. In the car analogy, it's roads traveled where they've been and where they want to go. And so the roads traveled really give them credibility with the local governments that they're working with.

Suzie Price: [00:37:22]

And then what puts gas in their tank, makes them want to go matches this work, what they're doing every day. So they're so passionate about it. And they get to be who they are in their work. And so it just makes for a wonderful formula for waking up eager. So they're good examples of those very passionate about what they do. They are a great fit for the work that they are doing. And ironically, one of the things that they do is focus on providing a great fit in these key hires, where you've got city managers who are running the city and responsible for large budgets and impacting the daily lives of many, many, many people. So anyway, I just kind of wanted to highlight that. Hopefully you caught all that and heard all of that. I particularly liked how they described the benchmark process. I've been doing TriMetrix for so long that any time you hear how other people talk about it and how other people describe the process and how it helps, it's really helpful as another way to understand how it works and how they see it. But I loved how they've got an environment of people with different agendas. Not that that's bad in any way, but they're all coming from different places in their work and their background, and they're there as volunteers.

Suzie Price: [00:38:32]

And then you've got the paid employees, you've got lots of dynamics going on there. And so it's easy for that type of environment to create an inability to come to consensus on something. So when they're making important decisions, and especially with the hiring decision, they're able to use the process to allow them to have a voice and that they create something. Mike and Mica are the facilitators of the process, but they create something that becomes their benchmark, and it serves as a baseline and an anchor, like the word anchor. Anchor meaning grounds us. So when we start to swirl out and want different things than what we thought was important or our biases come in, we can go back to the benchmark and say, okay, this is the work that you created about the position. Let's go back and visit that so we can use that to overcome bias. And one of the phrases that I think Mike might have used is helping the decision makers have healthy conflict without casualties, healthy conflict without casualties. That's functional leadership. When we can have healthy conflict, and this process of creating a benchmark and agreeing with the superior performance attributes are for a role before you hire and then as you go through the hiring process is powerful.

Suzie Price: [00:39:48]

What I've seen with some of the different work that they've done is I've noticed that some of the groups will have specific people that they want to get in the role because that person meets their agenda. And that's okay because that's normal. It happens in private companies as well. But we need to make sure that what they want really is what the job needs. And with this healthy conflict, people can have their own priorities, but they can continually go back to this baseline that was set up through the benchmark. And if you ever have any questions on how the TriMetrix works, please by all means reach out to Mica and Mike, especially if you're in a local government or have responsibility within the government entities. They are going to be your best match, but I'm also happy to talk through any of that for you. The other thing that meeting them has helped me understand, and I was hoping they would bring it to the podcast discussion today. They just highlight the need for innovation and adaptation in local government and the importance of community empowerment and trust building. They really highlighted that and I loved their last bit of wisdom. I liked the quotes that they shared.

Suzie Price: [00:40:59]

I want you to go back and revisit those. We'll have them highlighted in the episode, but I'll leave you with, "Stop being afraid of what could go wrong and start being excited about what could go right." We have a neural bias sometimes to focus on what is wrong. Or what could go wrong. And we just want to make sure that that doesn't take over and we can train our brain to think and expect good things and to anticipate what could go right. And that's how we move forward, and that's how we make a difference. So we want to make sure you focus on that. And be sure to visit the show notes at pricelessprofessional.com/localgovernment. And a reminder if you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to subscribe to the Wake Up Eager Workforce Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. And I'm reminding you also that we're giving away a Workplace Motivators Assessment. It's a 24 page report with over 100 development resources. It's a value of $350. We've got a debrief video so you can understand the results. And the way we're giving that away is to folks who give us a review. So really if we have more reviews, more people can find the podcasts that are looking for this type of information.

Suzie Price: [00:42:17]

Leave us a review, shoot me a note suzie@pricelessprofessional.com. Reach out to me that way, or you can reach out to me on LinkedIn and I will send you a link. You can use it for yourself if you have already taken the Assessment. Maybe you're not interested in that, but you could give it to a family member, a friend, a colleague, or an employee. So we'd love that. If you're not sure how to leave a review, go to pricelessprofessional.com/review, and we walk you through a little mini tutorial to figure out how to do that. Okay, so leave us a review and send me a note. We'll send you a complimentary Wake Up Eager Workforce Workplace Motivators Assessment. You can find all the episodes of the most recent at wakeupeagerworkforce.com, and there's a full directory there. You can always reach out to me suzie@pricelessprofessional.com, suzie@pricelessprofessional.com. And don't forget the show notes where we have links to Mike and Mica's contact information at pricelessprofessional.com/localgovernment. Thanks for tuning in and we look forward to connecting with you soon, and we just appreciate you and hope that you're having a wake up eager life which is made up of wake up, eager days and all the best to you. Take care.

Intro/Outro: [00:43:44]

This episode of the Wake Up Eager Workforce Podcast was brought to you by Priceless Professional Development. Thank you for tuning in. If you enjoyed today's show, head over to pricelessprofessional.com to gain access to more professional development resources.