In this amazing episode, Jenni offers up a seemingly endless stream of wisdom for leaders in the business and nonprofit world. If you want to be a better leader or build a better team around you, you simply can’t miss this episode.
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello everybody. Hello and welcome. Welcome to our latest episode of the Secrets of the High Demand Coach and I have yet another high demand coach here with me today one of my favorite actually, and that is Mrs. Jenni Catron. She’s a leadership coach, author and speaker, her passion is to cultivate healthy leaders to lead thriving organizations. She speaks at conferences and events nationwide seeking to help leaders develop the clarity and competence to lead well, as founder and CEO of the 4Sight Group, she consults with organizations on leadership team and organizational health. With over 20 years of experience in corporate and nonprofit organizations, Jenni has a passion for helping leaders put their put feet to their vision. And I might add does that exceptionally well. She’s another one of our fellow Scale Architects, someone that I’m honored to rub shoulders with, as we go about trying to help people achieve predictable success. And Jenni, I’m so excited to have you on the show. Thanks for coming.
Jenni Catron
Scott, I’m thrilled to be here. This will be fun conversation today.
Scott Ritzheimer
It sure will. It sure will. I’d love to just open up with your story. Tell us a little bit about who you are, and a bit about how you got into coaching and why.
Jenni Catron
Sure, sure. So as you said, I lead The 4Sight Group, which is an organization I founded about six years ago. And it really was an overflow of discovering what I really loved about my work for the last 20 plus years. And I had the privilege of working in actually the music business in Nashville, that was kind of my dream job as a kid. And I spent almost a decade in that industry. And then I went into the nonprofit side, specifically churches for about another decade. And the thread through all of it was that I loved helping develop leaders, and I loved building great teams. And so that, you know, those two things just kind of kept surfacing everywhere I went, it was really I loved seeing who are the leaders inside this organization? How can I draw out their gifts and their skills and their talents and then like, help them achieve their mission and grow in their work? And then how do I get a whole team aligned around that mission and vision in a way that we see exponential impact. And so that ultimately led to starting the foresight group and getting to work with leaders and organizations across the country, on leadership and staff health and culture.
Scott Ritzheimer
I love that. I love that. Now, tell us a little bit about when you go in and work with a leader with their team, what’s the kind of work that you’re doing with them?
Jenni Catron
Yeah, a couple different things, I have a team of coaches that are part of The 4Sight Group, and most of them will do one on one leadership coaching or executive coaching. So they’re working very specifically with that with that leader in the organization, typically mid level or senior leadership level. So we do a lot of one on one coaching, I particularly love the team dynamic where a leadership team is recognized that kind of hit, they’ve kind of gotten stuck. They’re not having good conversations, they’re, you know, kind of doing the same things expecting different results and not getting those different results. Maybe there’s some tension or challenges internally, or maybe it’s just a senior leader who says, I recognize I need to grow, and I’m not sure what’s next. And so I do a lot of going in and working with that that leadership team and identifying what do they need? And that’s one of the reasons why I love working. You know, being a part of the scale architects group and using predictable success is that we’re looking at a kind of diagnose where are they in the lifecycle, look at the leadership styles of each of the team members. And then from there, we begin digging in and going, Okay, what’s necessary here to help this team kind of unlock their potential and move to that next step. So that’s a big part of the work that I do. And then another piece of it is the staff health and culture. And, you know, I think that that your staff, your the team culture is really the linchpin between purpose and strategy. And, you know, so many organizations have a good sense of purpose, what’s our mission? Why do we do what we do? And then we build the strategy, how are we going to get there? How are we going to make it happen? But that staff, that team that culture in the middle of that is really what makes that possible. And so often, we see organizations and leaders struggling to really build a healthy culture where you attract and retain the best talent. And so we also go in and do an analysis of the culture, diagnosing what the challenges are, and then equipping that leader and their team to move towards a healthier, healthier culture.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, I love that. what ways do you see unhealthy cultures showing up right now as you’re working with teams?
Jenni Catron
Yeah, it’s really interesting, because so much has shifted in the workplace over the last couple of years. That you know, we’ve seen a lot of disconnection, you know, team members just not connected because they’re physically not in proximity like they had been historically whether you’ve, most organizations have not gone back to the office. Full Time, you know, it’s some hybrid version of, of time in the office together or fully remote. And what we’re seeing is we’re seeing culture starting to erode just because we’re not in proximity. And we’re not in proximity. We’re not building relationship, we’re not a relationship. We’re not building trust with each other. And so we’re starting to see some the silos kind of expanding inside of organizations, some of the mistrust and kind of infighting, we’re seeing more of that. And distinct, just general malaise and disengagement of like, people aren’t enjoying their work to the degree that they used to. And my belief in that is that it’s a lack of connection and belonging that’s leading towards, I don’t have as much relationship with you. So I’m not as excited about getting on a zoom call and working on a project with you. Because I’m not feeling that energy of connection and belonging that we have historically, we’ve historically had inside of teams. And so that disconnection piece, I think, is a really big culprit in erosion of culture right now.
Scott Ritzheimer
I remember this was pre pandemic, but a reading that of the top five, like why people stay at the office, like why they’re fulfilled in their job, it’s because either they have a best friend at work, or they love their boss. Right? Those are the two reasons why people stay late. Yeah, and I think what you’re saying, like the pandemic has gone straight to the heart of both of them, right, like building, you know, kind of there’s a to be relationships, you’d or your boss. I’ve seen a lot of those just move to we talk when we have to, right?
Jenni Catron
Totally, yeah. Everything became transactional.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, exactly. And even B to C relationships were even worse, right. So the ability to go in and start working at a new company, and meet someone that is best friend material sounds super soft and squishy. But it’s just how we’re wired as humans. Yeah, it’s a fascinating thing to see. I also remember first year of COVID. So 2020, there were just these fantastic swings in job satisfaction is like the biggest month to month leap ever followed by the biggest collapse month to month ever. Everyone’s like, yeah, working from home is wonderful. I don’t have to commute. And then everyone’s working from home, and they’re burned out, because they don’t know when to stop working, or they’re not really ever working. So they’re not accomplishing anything, or getting the joy of of what that brings. And so it’s a new environment. And I think you would agree with this. It’s not enough to just manage the way that we did before. And so kind of in light of like, what do you see teams that are getting it? Right? Do what what’s the shift that they’re making?
Jenni Catron
Yeah, I think that I mean, I I completely agree with everything you said, too. It’s like, it’s just we’ve had such an accelerated shift in how we work together. That No, I think for employees that Well, I think employers and employees, we don’t really realize what happened, because basically, we’ve been just trying to figure out how to survive, you know, it’s like, how do we actually keep our businesses afloat in a constantly changing marketplace? How do we keep working together with, you know, new workers, work rhythms that are just unknown and foreign and tools that, you know, until two years ago, only, you know, people like me who were on Zoom, most of the time knew how to like navigate zoom, you know, consistently. And so I think the, you know, the challenge has been leaders and, and, you know, leaders and employees have just been navigating so many different things that it, it’s kind of snuck up on them, this issue of culture, it has kind of snuck up on them that they’re not realizing that what I’m noticing is that we responded to the employees desire to keep working remotely, you know, so 2020 happens, we all have to work remotely, we discover that, oh, there’s a lot about this that we like, and we actually can be pretty productive remotely. And so the employees are like, Yes, this is awesome. Let’s keep this I want to, you know, so employers responded with, okay, how do we, how do we satisfy that need, but what was happening behind the scenes is that we were losing connection. And like I said earlier, everything’s transactional. Well, it’s a lot of hassle to say, Hey, Scott, can I jump on a zoom call with you to talk about this issue with this project we’re working on. Whereas if we were in the building together, I pop into your office, it’d be a 10 minute conversation, it would weave chit chat. And we talked about, you know, what we did over the weekend, and then we solved the problem, and we’d go on, but it’s like, it’s so much more of an effort to create the the, like deliberate action of connecting and having the conversation than it is when we’re in proximity. So behind the scenes, this connection piece has just been waning. So to answer your question, the leaders, the organizations that are noticing that and are like aware of But their employees say they want, but they’re also aware of what their employees actually need. Right. And, you know, so that sounds a little like, a are you being, you know, like, you know, I don’t know what I want to say, but just kind of forcing on your employees presumptuous? Yeah.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yes.
Jenni Catron
Yeah, thank you. So, but there is a little bit of that, because in the essence of leadership, it’s helping lead people to where we need to go together. Yeah. And oftentimes, that’s moving people out of what they think is comfortable, but helping get them to a better reality. So I think the leaders who are doing this, well are recognizing those two tensions, hey, let’s, let’s recognize, going back to the office full time, that’s not realistic, like more flexibility, you know, people are finding new rhythms that’s working for people, more flexibility is a win. However, what do we need to do in person, and, you know, Scott, you’ve probably seen this because of, you know, different parts of the country, you know, re, you know, regrouping, at varying to varying stages. Throughout the last couple of years, I noticed that the organizations that I work with, who got their teams back together more quickly, now not back together, 24/7, you know, or Monday through Friday, nine to five, but they started a rhythm of, Okay, we’re coming back into the office two days a week, or we’re coming back into the office for all staff meetings, the teams that started creating rhythms of officing together, figuring out those hours and expectations, doing team events together. They didn’t, their connection didn’t erode. As much as the teams who were distance for an extended period of time, I have one, one client that they will do their first all staff gathering, this fall in over two and a half years. Wow. And we’re wrestling with, you know, a big, great deal of turnover within that team, you know, frustration and tension between different departments and different teams, all, you know, all symptomatic of, they just haven’t had time together. And new team members are coming on board with not a clear understanding of what culture looks like. And I don’t fault them. It’s some of the circumstances. But again, the the leaders who are recognizing this and saying, Hey, I’ve got to strike that balance, I’ve got to live in that tension of flexibility. But where do we need to be together? And then how do I make that really valuable? And that’s the key, right? Like, you know, if we’re going to do all staff meetings together, make that time really valuable like time, you don’t want to miss like, you’re actually like, Ah, I hate that I can’t go in for staff meeting this week, you know, right. So the leaders paying attention to that are the ones who are doing a better job at it.
Scott Ritzheimer
Because even those who’ve done it have done it as an expectation like you work your full time before. Like, why are you? Why can’t you just be here for this? So I like that, I actually is a couple of thoughts that have popped up. One was a study by Harvard, this is around the time, it sounds completely unrelated, but it is they were looking at the the self checking booths at airports, this is when they first started implementing it, and no one would use it. And they realized it wasn’t enough to do the same thing. Right to have an automated teller you actually had to make made it make it significantly easier, or better to do the new thing than to do the old thing to break that habit pattern. And so they actually had to make that process and even easier process than than just setting the bar at, hey, it’s the same thing. You were doing it with a personnel, you’re doing it with a machine. And the second one that popped up for me was anecdotally Yes, I’ve seen what you’ve seen, like the more that folks have come back together sooner, right. And again, not everyone controls that all things considered, but those who got together sooner had it. But I’ve only ever seen it anecdotally. Now in the church world, right, built around, you know, these large gatherings of people on a regular basis, just massive, massive changes in that world. But one of the bits of data that came out of that is those churches that, you know, for whatever reason didn’t stop meeting, right or did for a very short period of time, had are virtually unchanged in membership. They lost some people who are upset by that they gained some people who are in favor of that, but it nets out. Yeah, those churches that closed and the longer they closed, the higher this number is those that closed for any, you know, several months or more lost between 10 and 30% of their weekly membership. That’s right. Yes. Yeah. That’s just a huge number. Right? Yeah. Yeah, it’s staggering. Yeah. And I think that’s going to the exact same thing that you’re talking about in a team dynamic, right, is that there’s so much more to meeting together in person that you just can’t achieve technology. Technology is wonderful. It allows us to do things we couldn’t do before. But it’s it for many things. It’s a cheap substitute of being together in person.
Jenni Catron
That’s right and it It actually takes a lot more effort. So that’s the, that’s the challenge for leaders is that, you know, if we have to use technology, and it’s not even in an if it’s a we are, you know, again, most organizations are doing some level of hybrid staffing officing this day these days. And so technology is a larger part of it. But now we’ve got to figure out new habits and behaviors for how we use that technology to create those moments of connection or to build in opportunities where it’s not just transactional, but we are helping people really see their place inside of the work we’re doing, they feel purpose in it, that’s a that’s something that’s come out in some of the data over the last couple of years is how much more meaningful a sense of purpose is in the work we’re doing. And so you’re not going to catch that if you’re not having really good conversations with your your direct boss and or hearing it from, you know, the the leader of the organization. So there’s a lot more purposefulness in that. And again, I don’t I don’t fault, you know, of senior leaders, founding leaders, for maybe missing this because again, there were a ton of other major issues we’ve been navigating. But we do have to pay attention to it. And it’s sneaking up on us, you know, it’s it’s, it’s everything we’re seeing in all the conversation about the great resignation, and even that people are starting to move around going, Oh, I just saw an article that called it now the great regret that people moved and realizing, Oh, the grass isn’t greener. Now I need to go now, what do I do? And I think there’s an opportunity for us as as leaders to say, hey, how do I really, like lean into and engage my team in a way that they see purpose and meaning in the work that they’re doing? They recognize how they contribute to that? And what are some of the avenues for me to make sure they’re hearing that and knowing that regularly?
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, cause resignation or regret, you’ve got a much more mobile workforce, or a much more foot and, and if you’ve not addressed some of these things, and I think what you’re saying is like, yeah, there’s a time when this would have been a very high, you know, a high luxury problem to do, right, if this was the worst problem we had. So be it. But we’ve moved through the kind of triage of a lot of this in many industries, not all, but in many. And if you’re not dealing with this, it’s going to not only not be an advantage anymore, it’s going to become a competitive disadvantage.
Jenni Catron
That’s right. Yeah. Yeah,
Scott Ritzheimer
that’s exactly right. Fantastic. It’s really, really important stuff. Now, what I’d like to shift gears just a little bit, and kind of zoom out for a second, because you’ve done this work for a while, even before you were full time coaching, you’ve just done so much around the world of leadership. And I’m very eager to see her answer this question. I know our audiences too. But if we were to say, what’s the one biggest secret that you wish wasn’t a secret, right? What’s the one thing that you wish everybody listening knew today? What would you say? That is?
Jenni Catron
Yeah, it’s such a good question. I probably could have said, what we just talked about a little bit of like, developing your team is your great competitive advantage. But we kind of hit that. Another one that I would say, I think this is the thing that snuck up on me early on in my leadership journey, is that leading yourself is the hardest and most important work that you’ll do. Okay. And, you know, maybe that’s not a huge secret. But I think the, I think the harder part of it is actually the discipline to do it. Because the more you grow in your leadership capacity, the further up you go, the organization, the more responsibility, the you know, the bigger the companies getting the the margin for you to invest in your growth, development, health, emotionally, physically, spiritually, you know, like, all the dimensions gets, it gets harder and harder to make space for that. Yeah. And it feels more and more selfish to make time for it. And that’s the thing I think leaders have to perpetually fight is leading myself is not selfish. It’s actually an awareness of, I have to be intentional to lead myself well, so that I am healthy, I am thriving, and the overflow of that is is health to the teams and the organization that I lead and serve. Yeah. And, again, I think we give a lot of lip service to it. But I think the actual act of the discipline of leading yourself well, I think, is extraordinarily hard. And I think it’s the thing that often trips leaders up.
Scott Ritzheimer
There’s a quote, I believe it’s from Kierkegaard and I’m gonna borrow the formula of the quote, not the quote itself. But I think things like this, like leading yourself are things that we’ve made very difficult to understand, to make them easy to do, right? If it’s this kind of a theory or whatever, then it’s like, oh, yeah, I do that, right. We just kind of check the the mental box, when in reality leading yourself is actually something it’s very simple to understand. Right? Right. Difficult to do.
Jenni Catron
To do. Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. I mean, an example of this for me, Scott and in leading my business is, you know, I’m an introvert by nature with a very extroverted job, I produce a lot of content and do a lot of speaking and you know, like output, so to speak. And that’s always, there’s always been an element of that in my work through the years. And so I’m, I’ve always been intentional to read and have some good reflection and quiet time in the morning before I start my day. But, you know, historically, that might have been 20 minutes before I jumped into the rest of my day. Well, one of the things I found as I started my own company, that this is what I do all the time, is, I need disproportionately like, a good hour to two hours every morning, that is me reading, learning, thinking, I’m a person of faith. So reflecting and prayer is like important to me. And if that gets squeezed out, you like, I am not the best person to be around, nor do I have something to give, right. So the the self leadership, part of it is the recognition every day, I have leaders on the other side of a screen or the conference room that I’m coaching and I’m pouring into, might be speaking from a stage might be facilitating a workshop, but I’m showing up in those rooms, and they are expecting me to come prepared, they’re expecting that I’ve done my homework to be able to serve them well. And fighting for you know, and you know, this as a business owner, it’s like, a couple hours of my time in the morning is pretty precious time that I might be reviewing my p&l, I might be working on my projections, I might be coaching some of the rest of my staff. So all of those things have to happen too. And so that’s why I feel that’s why I say it’s so hard to do, because in some ways, it feels like such a luxury because it’s so life giving. But the overflow of that is so critical. So I’m constantly living in that tension.
Scott Ritzheimer
And I think I think this is true of all important work. And as you’re saying it This is really striking me is when you look at something’s really, really important. The folks who aren’t doing it, always ask how can you afford to do that? Right? How could you spend two hours doing like not working? Now you and I know it’s not not working? But the question is, how can you afford that? But when you look at people who are doing it a bit actually doing it and been doing it for the long haul? Their question is, how can you afford not to? Right, right, right. And that’s always a hallmark of found of anything important, like really important in life, it seems to always follow that pattern, which is fascinating. Beautiful, I love it. Okay, so I’ve worked with enough coaches, to know that as coaches, we have a knack for spending our energy, our best energy on our clients. And you’ve just spoken to this a little bit. But I’d like to tease out further and see, what are you doing to spend time working on you on your own business? And so take your coach hat off for a second or CEO hat on with the rest of us and tell us what the next phase of growth looks like for you and The 4Sight Group?
Jenni Catron
Yeah, I love this question so much, Scott. And you know, you and I get other opportunities to talk about this stuff. And you’re often coaching me, because it is such a like the the the running and leading the CEO work of a business, especially when you’re also a practitioner in your business. There’s just such a, there’s such a tension there. And the migration of The 4Sight is, you know, I started the company six years ago, initially, I was a one woman show, you know, it was me kind of doing all the things. And then over time, I’ve added team members, I’ve added coaches, and the real push for me right now is that I am spending the bulk of my time working on the business and coaching my coaches, and just taking one or two really key clients that I have, because I still need to be in the business from the sake of like understanding what’s going on, you know, serving key customers and so forth. But the fight for me is to not just take whatever business pops up. And to actually like transfer that to some of my team members. Yeah, and coach them on the implementation of that work, and really fighting for the space in the margin to be working on the business rather than in the business. And I know that’s kind of a cliche phrase, but it’s like, it’s such a big deal, I think, as a CEO to keep elevating. And it’s a risk, right? Like I was working on my projections, I’ll just get real honest about it. It was working on my projections for the rest of the year. And I had a I had a one or two retainer clients that dropped off mid year. That was the plan. You know, we had we had worked the we’ve done the project. So it wasn’t a surprise. But I all of a sudden have this like, Oh, what am I going to do? You know, because I’m losing two of my retainer clients. And I the cushion of that revenue was really nice. But the reality was, those retainer clients were also consuming a lot of my time every week. And part of my plan at the beginning of the year was I was going to let a couple of my retainer clients drop. So I would just be keeping two or three. And to give me space because I’ve got a book I’ve got to write, I need to be out doing more business development and speaking, you know, just to keep our profile. And more of mine time needs to be shifting to that. But then there’s that tug of Oh, but that’s, you know, X number of 1000s of dollars that I’ve got to make up and another revenue stream either via the coaches or some other passive sources. And so there’s the real of it is that living in those tensions, and really pushing myself that a greater bulk of our revenue is coming through other streams of income than just my direct work, if that makes sense.
Scott Ritzheimer
It does make total sense. It’s a huge transition that folks make, particularly in the professional services environment. So accounting, you know, your insurance guy, your coach or consultant, you’re their attorney, it’s relatively easy to start one of those types of businesses, right and right, and get to get it out of early struggle. But then when you you look at it and say, Hey, what’s the business that’s not dependent on me to deliver all the goods? Well, now getting that thing out of early struggle is a whole different ballgame. And it’s a challenge. It really is. And I love the way that you’re doing that because it’s necessary is there is a stage letting go right where you have to back away, so that you can create the space for these new things to build up. So I love that. There’s a lot in that for a lot of folks actually, in one way or another, every CEO goes through that type of a process. So I love that you were open and honest with that. Thank you so much. Thanks for me massively valuable for some folks listening today. And on that note, some of our listeners are probably sitting there thinking like Jenny’s on to something I can attest, she’s an absolute Rockstar. So if you have any inkling that she might be able to help you and your team out. You’re absolutely right. Pick up your phone and call her now. But what’s the best way that they can get in touch with you?
Jenni Catron
Yeah, simply you can email me [email protected] It’s the word get the number four and the word sight. So you can email me direct that way or just go to the website, get4sight.com and lots of resources there of articles, blogs, podcasts, downloadable resources, etc. Especially around all things leadership and culture. And we’d love to love to serve leaders that way.
Scott Ritzheimer
I love it. Well, Jenni, thanks so much for being here. I love that we finally got to hit record on one of our conversations. Yeah, and I wish you the absolute best for everyone listening. Thank you so much. Again, your time and attention mean the world to us. It’s such an honor that you spent this time with us. We appreciate you and look forward to seeing you next time. Take care
Contact Jenni Catron
Jenni Catron is a leadership coach, author and speaker. Her passion is to cultivate healthy leaders to lead thriving organizations. She speaks at conferences and events nationwide, seeking to help leaders develop the clarity and confidence to lead well. As Founder and CEO of The 4Sight Group, she consults organizations on leadership, team culture and organizational health. With over 20 years experience in corporate and non-profit organizations, Jenni has a passion for helping leaders “put feet to their vision”.
Jenni is the author of several books including Clout: Discover and Unleash Your God-Given Influence and The 4 Dimensions of Extraordinary Leadership. She loves a fabulous cup of tea, great books, learning the game of tennis and hiking with her husband.
Jenni can be found on social media at @jennicatron and at www.get4sight.com.