Empathy, Insight, Impact

Transcript - Empathy, Insight, Impact

Rich: On this episode of Team Building Saves The World.

E.G. Sebastian: It is not about judging and labeling. It is about understanding and communicating better. So we don’t think and do, we just do. If it’s here, it’s already done. Someone will get frustrated and will look at me like, “why are you wasting my time?” “I’m so puzzled. I think you guys are a bunch of hypocrites. We all love to be social responsible, but if we get pay for it, we doubled it.”

Rich: Hello team. It’s me. Your old friend, Rich Rininsland, host of Team Building Saves The World. Have you ever wanted to be Neo in the Matrix? Well, today I’m gonna get you one step closer.

I’m talking to international speaker, Executive Coach, and the author of Communication Skills Magic, E.G. Sebastian. But first, I have to share some love with all of my supporters at TeamBonding. If your team is ready to experience teamwork for the power of play, then visit TeamBonding.com to learn more.

Now, team, it’s time to grab your DISC and jump into the matrix with my favorite Transylvanian ninja, E.G. Sebastian.

E.G. Sebastian, thank you so much for coming on the show, sir. I appreciate having you here.

E.G. Sebastian: Hey, thank you for inviting me. This is a great honor and congratulations on your amazing podcast. You’re doing an amazing work.

Rich: Thank you very much.

E.G. Sebastian: Making a difference in the world.

Rich: Thank you. I appreciate hearing that you, sir, you’re an international speaker, you’re an executive coach, you’re an author and co-author, and you’re also, as you have just said to me off camera, a Transylvania Ninja. You didn’t think I was gonna put that in.

Oh, there’s no way that was getting away from me. So can you explain to my folks out there, my team, how you got into this field and what it is that keeps bringing you back to it?

E.G. Sebastian: Most of us get into our passion field because we either fell in love with something or something was so bad or horrible in our lives that we fixed it and overcame it.

So for me it’s the second. I was raised in a, I would say dysfunctional, not as dysfunctional now that I know other families were, but there was lots of yelling and all that, and spanking. My uncle once said ” come be my son, I will spank you only three times a week.” And I’m like, “yes.” He’s like, “no, I’m just kidding. I just feel sorry that you get spanked that often.”

And so I was… I have ADHD. Probably nobody can notice.

Rich: Okay.

E.G. Sebastian: But as a gift of ADHD is also that your brain… we see everything in every second. And I DISCovered books early on and I started reading on relationship psychology. I was just mesmerized.

How come some families are so harmonious? You know? And how come my family is always yelling and all that?

Rich: Yeah. Yeah.

E.G. Sebastian: And, once I grew up and I started my coaching business in my late twenties, I started out as a business coach.

But I noticed that I gravitated over towards relationships.

Anything that I heard, I saw that the source of every problem was communication or relationship tensions. And, I went through lots of training and coaching to finding that magical niche. But the relationship was the furthest from my mind because often the gifts that we have, we take for granted.

And so finally I realized like, “wow, everything always boils down to communication and to people dynamics to interpersonal communication.” And with that epiphany I rolled, and that was 20 years ago, 2004. And from then on I served corporate teams and nonprofits, government, Marine Corps, civilian teams primarily on people dynamics, on relationships, interrelational communication…

Rich: I’d love to hear your opinion on how that has changed in the last 20 years.

E.G. Sebastian: Well, the beauty of it is that more and more organization recognize the importance of this.

Rich: Right.

E.G. Sebastian: And, for decades, we focused on, or they focused on improving communication skills, what to say, when to say, what not to say, how to write correctly in messaging and all that.

But now we are more evolved than, and we serve countless Fortune 500 organization companies as well. They focus a lot on learning about the different behavioral styles, or personality styles, but we call them behavioral styles or communication styles.

Rich: Right?

E.G. Sebastian: And based on that understanding, now you understand how to communicate better, both with your internal customers and external customers.

So I think that was a biggest shift in the past few decades, that more and more organizations invest in understanding communication styles. And based on that, you know, how to manage better your employees, how to delegate better, how to serve your customers better.

The biggest misconception is treat others the way you want to be treated.

Rich: Sure,

E.G. Sebastian: Don’t step on my toe if you don’t want me to step on your toe. That’s true. But when it comes to communication, no. I mean, just imagine like you’re very driven.

Rich: Yeah.

E.G. Sebastian: Are you familiar with the different styles, the DISC style, or personalities? Just any kind of…

Rich: I’ve certainly gone over it within the past of the podcast, but I’d love to hear you refresh it in case there’s anybody who hasn’t started listening until now.

E.G. Sebastian: Yeah. So the basics is there are four personality styles or behavioral styles. It’s not theory. This is proven, it’s scientifically researched. There are lots of like DISC, Myers-Briggs. Yeah. So Meyer-Briggs will go into like, I don’t know, nine, the Enneagram has nine. But most of them has four primary styles. And then the combination of those styles give them multiple.

But one of them is in our system: Dominance. Which is very driven, outspoken, just go for it. They think it, they do it. They are not, not very emotional, they’re just very task oriented.

And then there is the Influence style, which is very talkative friendly. You see their face light up when they talk. They are animated. They have lots of stories and humor and they can’t meet anybody who they don’t think they can make a friend. They connect right away.

And, and then the third one is the Steadiness style: very sweet, very kind. The most caring, the only style that naturally listens really well.

And then the fourth style is the Conscientiousness style. They are very analytical, very detail oriented. They come across like very serious a little bit. (What is the opposite of outspoken?)

Rich: Soft spoken

E.G. Sebastian: yeah, more like withdrawn, like, sometimes even non sociable, like anti-social. ‘Cause they’re very, they always analyze, they tend to be perfectionist also.

So by the way, the dominance and the conscientiousness, they are both task oriented. They’re on the last, yeah. So task oriented.

The influence and the steadiness, they’re people oriented.

Rich: Right?

E.G. Sebastian: The dominance and influence on the top. They’re fast paced. And then the conscientiousness. And the steadiness, they’re moderate paced.

Rich: Hmm.

E.G. Sebastian: So the opposing quadrants, they have nothing in common.

Rich: Right.

E.G. Sebastian: Because this is fast paced and task oriented. The dominance.

Rich: Mm-hmm.

E.G. Sebastian: And the steadiness is people oriented and moderate paced. So imagine a dominant style employee or manager try to give a pep talk to the s style, “Hey, I believe in you, you can do it.” You know, they are outspoken and they’re direct.

And because both the D and I, they are fast paced, it works with them. I like it. Yeah. Get in my face. Curse. Yeah. I’m motivated. But the S style, “why are you yelling at me?”

Rich: Right.

E.G. Sebastian: “What did I do to you?” They might break down and cry. Right?

Rich: Yeah.

E.G. Sebastian: Same thing. If the S style tries to motivate the D style, it’s, if you don’t understand these dynamics, there is set up for miscommunication and tension from the get-go.

So organizations that don’t invest in this type of training, there’s always conflict. There’s always tension and you can get frustrated, you can give all kind of training or pep talks. It’ll not improve. So it’s crucial to give this kind of training and the DISC training alone is a billion plus dollar industry per year.

So, luckily lots of organizations do invest in it.

Rich: I don’t want you to give away the whole story here, but how do you help people with this communication intricacy, how do you help the dominant speak to the conscientious or is the influencer always the one who’s trying to play middle ground between the two of them.

I mean, how do we make this function corporate wide?

E.G. Sebastian: Uh, recently I did a tour of Coca-Cola, one of the Coca-Cola plants. And as always, I try to speak to management and offer them my services.

Rich: Okay.

E.G. Sebastian: And it’s like, “oh, wow. We already, we already do it in house. We’ve been doing it for dec for like a decade.”

And they took me around to the offices areas because we did the plant tour, but they took me to the offices area and on every door, and they don’t have DISC, they have something else.

Rich: Okay.

E.G. Sebastian: And on every door it says. I would translate into DISC style, but like the dominance, right? When you come into my office, be direct to the point.

Don’t waste my time. Just say it as it is.

Rich: Mm.

E.G. Sebastian: The influence style. When you come to my office, smile, listen to my jokes, whatever, you know, like be a little bit like, so it gives the bullet points for every style on what to do. Some organizations, they do a little plaques on their desks, some wear buttons.

And because once you go through the training, if you just see the style, you know how to communicate with the D style, you know that you should not tell stories, jokes, speed up a little bit, get to the point. And get out.

Rich: Okay.

E.G. Sebastian: With the S style? Be a little bit kind. Slow down a little bit, smile.

Even if you fake it. And I can see when a C style… for the C style is the hardest to smile.

Rich: Okay.

E.G. Sebastian: I know a trainer, a young lady in our young lady, she’s in her sixties. She, she is a sky high sister, but she always smiles and she’s so kind. And, she told me the story that until she was, until she became familiar with DISC, she was like very rigid and, people felt uncomfortable around her, but she developed that smile so well. I didn’t even know it was fake.

But what I always tell people, smile, even if you fake it, the D and the I, yeah, we appreciate it. Both the I and the S, especially the S style. ’cause the S style, if you are like really rigid and have that determined look in your face, they’re like, “what’s wrong with you? What? What did I do to you? I’m the most supportive person in this office. Why are you yelling to me?” And the D style doesn’t even know they are yelling and often they’re not even yelling, they just talk loud because that’s how they’re wired.

The main thing to remember, people are not weird. They’re just differently wired. And when you understand that takes away about 80% of your stress from your life.

Rich: Sure. It could be culturally motivated, it could be generationally motivated. Everybody comes up in a different way.

E.G. Sebastian: Just because how you are wired and, all have gifts. No style is better than other.

Rich: Mm.

E.G. Sebastian: Different styles are better suited for different positions, but no style is better than the other.

Rich: So do you find that it’s, when people see the buttons, that it’s one style more than likely will acquiesce to another style in their techniques? Or is it just that seeing those buttons keeps it in everybody in mind that I should be making an effort to speak in the way this person is used to and they’re gonna do the same with me?

E.G. Sebastian: For this year, your theme is CSR, corporate social responsibility. Right?

Rich: Right, right.

E.G. Sebastian: So that goes both external and internally.

Rich: Yeah.

E.G. Sebastian: If you’re social responsible, your number one responsibility is to be responsible to your employees. It’s a slogan, people are number one asset, but it’s just words.

Rich: Yeah.

E.G. Sebastian: To make it action, you need to treat your people right.

Rich: Mm-hmm.

E.G. Sebastian: Companies where trust isn’t present… this tension, with mistrust comes all kind of… it fans out into all kind of problems. But to trust you, you have to treat me right, to treat me like you understand me, like you see me.

Rich: Right.

E.G. Sebastian: And if I’m an S style kind, supportive, smiling. And you treat me all the time, you know, like you, you are yelling at me.

Rich: Yeah. Yeah.

E.G. Sebastian: Outspoken, to me, you come across as insensitive, right?

Rich: Right.

E.G. Sebastian: I don’t feel at home. I don’t like being here. I don’t trust you because each time you come to me, so it is the right thing to do to understand your people, your teammates, and talk to them the way they want to be talked to.

Rich: Right.

E.G. Sebastian: Think of it from a sales perspective, and we are always selling even if, even even to your kids, right? Clean up your room. Wouldn’t it be nice if you can say that in a way that they actually do it when you try to sell something and we train salespeople on this, recognizing the four buying styles and understanding their sales style and then communicating the way the client, the prospective client wants to be communicated with.

So, if you don’t communicate with each person the way they want to be communicated with, there’s this mistrust. There’s tension.

What you need to understand, none of our training is a one hour training. The minimum is a full day workshop. The very minimum is like half day, but usually they will do it like every month for six months maybe.

So we do lots of ongoing training. So, it gets ingrained into you. Now, some people they will use it as labeling. As Dr. Rohm says, labeling is disabling, but imagine you go to the store and the cans don’t have labels. Labels are important.

Rich: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

E.G. Sebastian: Because if I know the label, then I know whether to pick you up or not.

Rich: The important difference is just not to pigeonhole somebody as that one thing.

E.G. Sebastian: Exactly. It is not about judging and labeling. It is about understanding and communicating better.

Rich: Yeah. In fact, I was gonna say, it sounds like a perfect stepping stone, like a first step towards actually teaching that unteachable empathy.

’cause we’ve been talking about empathy for six years now on the podcast, and everybody says that the hardest thing in the world to teach is to teach somebody who is naturally themselves not empathic, to learn empathy.

E.G. Sebastian: There are so many. Good sounding slogans, whatever. Like empathy.

Rich: Yeah. Yeah.

E.G. Sebastian: Like just go for it. Live fully. Don’t hold back. Say that to a D style who already is going for it. He’s already going. He doesn’t think that I, I’m a DI combination, so we don’t think and do

Rich: Mm,

E.G. Sebastian: we just do. Like, if it’s here, it’s already done. If it’s here, it’s already said.

Rich: Right.

E.G. Sebastian: So to encourage us to be more.

Open and just go for it. It’s like, whoa. It’s like TNT .

And then telling an S style, he’s already naturally empathic, is that the word?

Rich: Yeah. Or empathetic. Either way.

E.G. Sebastian: Empathetic.

That’s, you know, they’re already very empathetic, but it’s good to teach it, but to be truly empathetic is to understand each style and talk to them the way they want to be talked to.

Rich: Right. Right.

E.G. Sebastian: And of course it’s not that easy when you, let’s say, speak to a team. A team of 20, 50, a hundred.

Rich: Yep.

E.G. Sebastian: But when we do that, we do it in four stars. Some of it, we just say it out, we’ll yell it out if we have to, but then we also give a little story with a smile. And we also give data for the C style.

Because the C style, if there’s no data, no numbers, no graphs and all that, they think you made it up.

Rich: Hmm.

E.G. Sebastian: So they, they, they tend to be a little more suspicious, both the D and C, they tend to be a little more suspicious, so we often hear that we are diverse. Human behavior is diverse, correct. We are infinitely diverse, but predictably, so.

Rich: Okay.

E.G. Sebastian: When you understand the four styles, you can safely assume lots of things that will consistently happen. When you understand that, then you know how to talk to them, how to motivate your team, how to avoid conflict. I mean, all kind of things that make all the difference in your company.

Who to delegate certain tasks to, which is crucial, cause if you give customer support to the C style, they will be like, “yes. How can I help you? Name, date of birth?” No. We like, you know, like when I go in somewhere like, “Hey, how are you?” You know, you put the I style in customer support.

Rich: Yeah, yeah.

E.G. Sebastian: To do the reports, the detailed, if you put the, I style they will consistently make mistakes.

Rich: Mm-hmm.

E.G. Sebastian: We can learn, but it’s very hard.

Rich: Yeah. Yeah.

E.G. Sebastian: Give it to the one who does it naturally. That’s their strength. So all kind of benefits to understanding this.

Rich: So we were talking briefly, we started talking about CSR, corporate social responsibility.

How does this factor into that? What is it about… ’cause you’ve been quoted as saying that CSR must start internally within the company. How does that look from an outside view?

E.G. Sebastian: There’s a continuum when it comes to corporate social responsibility. On one end, some companies do it because they truly care.

I used to work for a company called Teleman more than 20 years ago.

Amazing internal CSR. I felt like I was part of a family.

It was amazing. We had like 3, 4, 3 day conferences a year, and it was always like a family coming together. It was warm, friendly. Actually, if you look them up, you will see that they put social responsibility both internally and externally over profit. And over KPI driven tensions.

So that, that’s very cool. So on one end, there’s another one my daughter used to work for it. Graham personnel. They are the best example. Every month employees get eight hours volunteer paid time off so they can volunteer in the community, paid time off.

They also have, I believe once a month, four hours when the team, like multiple people can go and volunteer as a team to a cause.

Rich: Very cool.

E.G. Sebastian: And my daughter says every month they would get together. 5, 6, 7, 8 of them, they would go from their office. They have many offices.

And it was so much fun.

She loved working there and she loved volunteering. It was amazing. Now if you look them up and you type in “are they socially responsible?”, which I did this morning. There’s zero in there. They’re not doing it for visibility for marketing. They’re doing it because they truly care.

Rich: Okay.

E.G. Sebastian: So that’s one extreme.

The other extreme is where they do it because it’s a great marketing tool.

Rich: Sure,

E.G. Sebastian: ’cause you attract more customers and all that. But many of these actually internally, and I worked with, uh, I’m right now working also with, with one internally, there’s lots of tension and internal social responsibility is low or almost nonexistent.

Rich: We’re hearing a lot nowadays about how new hires, that newest generation coming onto the marketplace, they’re looking for things like this. They want to know that the company that they’re going to work for is not only good for them, but good for their community.

E.G. Sebastian: That’s right.

Rich: So, why is it that we had people who were looking for it, they’re going into the job markets or they’re going into the corporations that they believe earning, give them that best experience, but still winding up, leaving within five years.

E.G. Sebastian: Yeah. Because for some companies, again, it is just the ploy is because it looks good. And they’re not living it, or they’re living it. They’re making a difference in the community because it’s good for, for market the looks.

Rich: Yeah, yeah. It’s a good look.

E.G. Sebastian: I just think about it, if there are two companies who are similarly great,

Rich: right?

E.G. Sebastian: Similar products or services, but one of them is socially responsible. We know that they renewed the Blue Ridge Parkway, they invest in the mountain biking trails and we will do business with them.

Rich: Okay?

E.G. Sebastian: But some of these companies internally. There’s tension and mistrust and all kind of turmoil.

And those employees, they’re kind of forced to invest some time in the social responsible things.

Rich: Gotcha.

E.G. Sebastian: And they’re not doing it with dedication, with joy. It’s a forced thing. People don’t leave jobs, they leave bad management. Bad cultures. Toxic cultures.

Rich: Yep.

E.G. Sebastian: So that’s the most important thing again, that in internal social responsibility, because when you have that, like in my daughter’s company. They loved the social responsibility part. They love to volunteer. And it’s paid. So, you know, we all love to be social responsible, but if we get paid for it, we doubled.

Rich: It does make it a lot easier to do.

Yeah, it makes it a lot easier knowing that the time is still something that I’m putting towards me as well as something else.

E.G. Sebastian: We live in a world where our time and attention is so pulled in so many directions. Hulu, Disney, Netflix, children, self-care all. So if my company is investing in me to be social responsible, I do something that, anyway, I would love to do, but I don’t get to do.

I’m so happy. I just know that many people are very happy to be part of those organizations.

Rich: Okay. You have also been quoted as talking about something called The Matrix Moment for your leaders. What is that and how do we get them there?

E.G. Sebastian: Yes. So up till I was, I think 30. 31. I was so frustrated with some people around me, like I’m one of those people who I believe I was put on this planet to put a smile on people’s faces.

Rich: Nice. Nothing wrong with that.

E.G. Sebastian: I talked to a cashier or anybody who I see like a little somber, I would say something to. They will smile or laugh and they say, “thank you, I needed that”.

Rich: Yeah.

E.G. Sebastian: Someone will get frustrated and will look at me like, “why are you wasting my time?” And those people always puzzled me, especially coworkers, or I had a boss once, almost 34 years ago. I could not make him smile. And I was so frustrated. And, so my son, he used to, you know, like play with little things and build things.

He was like four years old.

All the other kids were outside climbing trees, jumping on the t, trampoline, wrestling. But my son enjoyed being inside and I thought there was something wrong with him.

Rich: Hmm.

E.G. Sebastian: And I would ask him a question and he would be like, “uh.” I’m like, “Hey, boy, I asked you a question.”

I would get so frustrated. I thought he was a little slow. So I had lots of frustration with different kind of people, including my son.

Rich: Sure.

E.G. Sebastian: So the biggest gift in my life was ending up in Dr. Rohm’s Robert Rohm, four hour training on DISC, and when I, oh my God, my wife. I thought I walked into a, I felt like a lion walking into a cage like an eagle allowing to snip their wings off.

She was OCD. She was driving me nuts.

You go in the house, you have to put your coat on a hanger inside of the, I’m like, what? I just want to throw it on the armchair. Before shower, you have to put your clothes in a hamper. I didn’t even own a hamper in my life before.

Rich: Right.

E.G. Sebastian: Very frustrating.

So once I went through this training. Oh my God. First of all, and this is the biggest, the coolest feedback I get from participants. “Thank you for helping me understand me.”

Rich: Hmm.

E.G. Sebastian: “Now I understand that I’m normal” ’cause we go to lab with these insecurities and that was when, when Dr. Rohm was talking about my.

Style. Like, wow, I’m a style. I’m not crazy.

I’m not literally, this is what I thought. You know, it’s not right because if I hit a squirrel, I will cry for a week. You know? I will. I will feel devastated. You know What’s wrong with me? Yeah. Why do I cry at sad movies, you know? But no, I styles. And S styles, we are emotional.

We cry, we care. So when I came home from that training, I hugged my wife, I hugged my son and ” I’m sorry I misunderstood you. I love you.” So I just knew that they were perfect as Yeah. They think before they talk.

Rich: Yeah.

E.G. Sebastian: The C style, they are organized for them. It’s important to have order in their environment.

Rich: It’s, it’s funny ’cause you. I have had many times had conversations with my daughter where she’s also suffering with ADHD. She’s in college now. Very happy being there. Loves the daily grind of it, but still occasionally will call me or text me and just say, “why am I so crazy?”

And I will literally respond to her. “Everybody is, they’re just crazy in a different way than you are.”

E.G. Sebastian: Exactly. It’s a continuum. Exactly.

Rich: Yeah. But also, the way you’re putting it just makes me go, you might be a little crazy, but that means you are mostly sane. Just like everybody else.

E.G. Sebastian: Exactly. But again, so thank you brain. Now I remember the question. So once you go through a DISC training, right?

Rich: Yeah.

E.G. Sebastian: Let, lemme say another way before you go through a DISC training you perceive being surrounded by some nice people and some objective a——-. All kind of all kind of labels and I just chose the nicer ones.

And every day you are frustrated. “Why can’t they just be,”. Yes, that’s one of my openings in my speech is like, “how many of you believe that it’s great to live in a world where everybody thinks and behaves differently?” and all the hands go up “how many of you would like to be to live in a world where everybody thinks and behaves the same way?”

No hands go up and I put my hand on my hips and I’m like “I’m so puzzled. I think you guys are a bunch of hypocrites. On one hand you say behavioral diversity and different thinking is great. But when somebody behaves and thinks differently, you get frustrated. What’s going on here?”

Rich: Right.

E.G. Sebastian: So before this training. There’s lots of frustration. Why is that person so anal? Why is that person who is talking and smiling, what is he smiling about all the time? Is he on crack or what?

Rich: Yeah.

E.G. Sebastian: Why is she so soft? Why is she is a, you know, sissy, woosie, whatever.

Rich: Right.

E.G. Sebastian: Once you go through this training, just like in the Matrix movie when Neo, the agents try to shoot Neo. Neo doesn’t have to dodge bullets anymore.

Rich: Mm.

E.G. Sebastian: He sees the matrix and he can just slow down time. He can just pick off the bullets and that’s how it’s happening in this. So after you go through this training, yesterday, this person was annoying you, was intimidating you. Perhaps it’s a D style, let’s say.

Rich: Mm-hmm.

E.G. Sebastian: Today when you meet this person, you’re like, “oh, it’s a D style. Their normal wiring is to be outspoken and direct. They don’t have any problem with me. That’s how they are wired. That’s their normal communication style”, and now I understand and I can respond instead of reacting to their wholeness.

Because up to yesterday, that’s how I saw this coworker or boss. But after DISC, I see them as a dominant person who is a gift because I always know how I stand with them. The C style, I know that I can count on them, that everything will be organized and to the point, researched and accurate. The S style, I know that they’re caring and supportive and all that, so I understand. I see the matrix now. I don’t have to dodge.

I don’t have to get frustrated. Now I know.

Rich: Okay. How does this help with save retention though? Like how specifically does DISC help you as a leader out there keep your people engaged and working?

E.G. Sebastian: Most powerful question. Thank you for asking that.

I need to jot that down so I bring it up if somebody doesn’t ask. Most important question, because, I was in management for most of my life.

I started my first company at 24. If you don’t have harmony in your team

if your team is not communicating properly, there’s no trust, then we don’t want to engage. We don’t work well with people who we don’t like. Who we don’t feel. They see us and understand us, who talk down to us. Society tends to reward behaviors of outspokenness, smile, but S and the C style… the S style will smile.

If there’s a dominance and I style in the team, they will not get a chance. And the C style either they won’t have a chance to talk because these two, they just keep on talking.

But when you understand DISC, when you master the matrix, you’ll shut up and consciously slow down and listen to the S style, encourage them, encourage the C style to share. And even though you don’t understand half of the things the C style says, because they know all these terms and they will go in detail.

Rich: Right.

E.G. Sebastian: Yeah, you can say sometimes. Yeah. “John, thank you for those details. Those are amazing. But please just gimme the bottom line ’cause I have to go,” so that’s fine.

But listen. So yeah, people, once they understand that they consciously slow down the C and the S style, they will consciously speed up a little bit with the D style they will keep to the bottom line. With the I style they will laugh at their stupid jokes. ’cause sometimes they’re stupid, but hey, I laugh because it makes them happy and keeps the team harmonious.

So engagement happens naturally when, when they understand the matrix, the DISC.

And of course people don’t leave companies, they leave. Again, as we said earlier, toxic cultures a toxic manager.

If they don’t feel seen, understood, don’t feel like they matter, then we leave companies.

Rich: And how do you think that affects CSRs? Even if it’s a company that is making sure that everybody internally has their own chance to go out there and affect their community positively, how does the DISC help with that?

E.G. Sebastian: It helps in countless ways.

It depends, of course, what is that initiative about?

Rich: Sure.

E.G. Sebastian: But once DISC is present, of course we can all. Collab, collaborate better on implementing that CSR. . And then also, if that is a social activity, like Teleman and Graham, they go and work with poverty stricken population also.

And if you don’t understand, or some of them goes to healthcare, or cancer facilities, if you don’t understand the different styles, then you feel like some of the people you’re talking to, they’re a little bit off.

But when you understand the different styles, then you are like, “oh, okay, so this is a C style, so I need to slow down a little bit. Now I understand why they go into all those details.” So it is way more, way easier both as a team to deliver that activity and to serve the people outside within that activity if it’s with people.

‘Cause I know here there’s a brewery, I forgot the name, but they invest in restoring trails, so they’re well known for that. We have lots of mountain biking trails and hiking trails around here. So they restored complete areas and because of that, we love that brewery and we keep going there.

But that doesn’t involve people. But it involves the teamwork. So the teamworks, when of course they get along better.

Rich: Do you find that the different, whether it’s the dominance or the influence or the steadiness, that they are drawn to different types of CSR, like they might go for?

E.G. Sebastian: Absolutely. Great question.

Rich: So you should give everybody the possibility of going to what they want.

E.G. Sebastian: Absolutely. I love that question. I love that question. Yes. Wow. So lemme start with the influence style, because that’s the easiest.

They love anything social.

Rich: Yeah.

E.G. Sebastian: Put them with people, they love it. Right.

The C style, the conscientiousness style. They will love CSR that are more related to something analytical where they can use their mind. You know, research and analyze and two charts and graphics and all that kind of stuff.

The D style, wherever they can shine, they love to lead, they love to make a true difference.

The S style. Cancer or homeless, because they care. They truly care.

Rich: Right.

E.G. Sebastian: By the way. If you recognize, if you’re listening and you recognize a family member or coworker being S style, they have the hardest time saying no to requests.

Rich: Mm.

E.G. Sebastian: They’re the kindest, most supportive.

“Can you please do?” “Yes, of course.” Okay. 50 coworkers will, and they will say yes. Yes. And then they end up in the bathroom crying. So be mindful of that. So thank them. First of all, thank them for being so kind and don’t dump too much of your requests on them. So be a little more mindful that they tend to say yes to lots of things.

I have a whole chapter in my book, just 10 ways on how to say no without offending others.

Rich: Excellent.

Communication Skills Magic. I love it. Where can they find it? If my team was to look for it out there?

E.G. Sebastian: On Amazon, and that’s even if you just recognize the four graphs, the fast pace, the moderator pace, the people oriented, the test oriented, just based on that, you already can understand certain tendencies that will happen consistently.

Rich: Very nice. And of course everybody can look it up under E.G. Sebastian.

E.G. I just want to ask you one last question before we get to some fun stuff. Can you, for any company or any, you know, possibly mid-manager out there who sees they’re going through that same problems we’ve already talked about, can you give me the first step into helping their team to recognize each other’s different techniques and other styles or to even allowing their company to realize this is something they need to focus on?

E.G. Sebastian: The first step is, so some companies try to invite me to do training for their employees.

And I said, in 20 years, I said, zero time “yes” to that.

I say “first I need to do the management team because if the employees understand the different styles, but the management doesn’t.”

So I said yes, as long as the managers join too.

But separately, just to start with employees. No, I start with the management team. So step one is train your managers.

At least the three, four hours training.

Rich: Okay.

E.G. Sebastian: Especially companies who never done a full day training. They think full day, oh my god. Full day passes like that with the right trainer. It’s, I don’t know how much time we have, but I have a, like a one minute story that can show that go.

Rich: Yeah, please do.

E.G. Sebastian: When the Marine Corps invited me to do the first training for them.

By the way, I applied to, to deliver their training for like two years. They always said no, their budgets got cut. On the proposal, they always had the budget. And it was before it was like up to 15,000, now it was 2,400. And I was desperate.

So I just said 2,400. Anyway, they won’t pick me. I got it. So the HR manager said, “Hey, please give them every hour their break, because if not, they walk hard on you. They come to my office and they just yap in my head the whole day.” So I set the timer and one hour in the training, I say, “okay, 10 minute break”.

And I’m very sensitive to people’s face, facial expressions. And everybody was like, “what?” So I’m like, “you don’t want the break?” No. Okay. So 10 o’clock again, my beeper beeps. I’m like, “who wants a bathroom break?” One hand go, goes up and quickly down.

We had one lunch break only.

On the feedback form, everybody or lots of people said “finally a trainer who doesn’t keep us for seven hours reading from PowerPoint.

Rich: Nice.

E.G. Sebastian: So these people were paying 10 to $15,000 to people to come in from New York and San Francisco and they were reading from PowerPoint. And I live seven minutes away from there. I trained them. I trained them for years after that.

Rich: Good, good, good.

E.G. Sebastian: Every RFP, they sent out, I got every RFP except when it was about business writing, and I am like, “I cannot talk for six, seven hours about business writing,” but anything behavior related, I delivered for them.

Rich: Very cool, E.G. Sebastian, thank you very much. My friends out there, please team, give a big round of applause for Mr. E.G Sebastian.

E.G. Sebastian: Thank you. Thank you.

Rich: They were a little slow on that one. I could talk to you about this for hours, man. This is, this is great stuff.

E.G. Sebastian: It’s a topic that you cannot shut me up. You have to correct me. Yes.

Rich: Well, we’re gonna have to switch gears now though, because I told you about this in the beginning. It’s time for a speed round.

So I started explaining this to you a little bit in the beginning before we came on the air. Basically all this is a 60 seconds, E.G, where I’m gonna ask you a bunch of just silly questions, just innocuous stuff right off the top of your head answers. The objective here is try to get as many questions answered within 60 seconds. If you wanna make this an actual challenge for yourself, if you wanna actually make this like a competitive game.

We last season got up to 16 questions asked and answered. So I’m not saying you have to, by all means, you don’t have to. If you start going off on a story, I’m still gonna listen to it, but it only counts as one answer. Sound good?

E.G. Sebastian: Sounds good.

Rich: All right, my friend, as soon as you hear music, I’m gonna start asking the questions.

Let’s have some fun. What’s your name?

E.G. Sebastian: E.G. Sebastian.

Rich: How many kids do you have?

E.G. Sebastian: Three.

Rich: Which one’s your favorite?

E.G. Sebastian: Huh? All three.

Rich: Nice. Favorite family vacation spot, please?

E.G. Sebastian: The mountains of North Carolina.

Rich: What is the favorite job you’ve had of your whole life?

E.G. Sebastian: The one I have now.

Rich: Best career advice you’ve ever received?

E.G. Sebastian: To do what you love and then you never have to work in your life.

Rich: Nice. What would you want to be for your last meal?

E.G. Sebastian: Uh, good steak with veggies.

Rich: Pancakes or waffles?

E.G. Sebastian: Waffles.

Rich: Apples or oranges?

E.G. Sebastian: Apples.

Rich: Biggest inspiration.

E.G. Sebastian: I’ll go with Tony Robbins.

Rich: Okay. What’s your most embarrassing thing in your music library?

E.G. Sebastian: Whoa.

Don’t know.

Rich: Okay. It’s okay not to be embarrassed about anything in your music library. I accept it. 12, my friend. You got 12.

E.G. Sebastian: I love all kind of music, so I’m not embarrassed by anything in my library.

Rich: That’s great. That is great. That’s the way everybody should be.

E.G. Sebastian: I mean, pretty close to 16.

Rich: Uh, yeah, yeah.

No, that was good.

E.G. Sebastian: One was in there, about your favorite kid, dangerous one.

Rich: Yes. That’s why I do that. I actually got one guest in seven years who actually had an answer.

E.G. Sebastian: And, and radical honesty. And probably the kids know it too, right? I don’t believe in radical honesty.

Rich: I believe they were like, oh, the third one. I they just named one off the top of their head.

E.G. Sebastian: Yeah.

Rich: E.G. Thank you so very much. If anybody out there wants to learn more about you or where they can find you, where can they go?

E.G. Sebastian: They can go to peopledynamicsedge.com or egsebastian.com and connect with me on LinkedIn.

I live on LinkedIn.

Rich: Fantastic. E.G. Sebastian, everybody.