EP18: Destructive Heroes: Balancing Truth and Grace
Culture is an Inside Job: The podcast on building an authentic, engaging, and Inspiring culture.
Episode 18:
Can high performance come at too high a cost? Join us on "Culture is an Inside Job" as we investigate the phenomenon of the destructive hero within organizations. These individuals may excel in their roles, but their behavior often causes extensive emotional, financial, and cultural damage. Scott shares his experiences and offers insights on managing these complex characters with truth and grace, exploring their potential for redemption and recognizing when it might be necessary to part ways.
We delve into the role of hope and personal choice in ensuring our destructive tendencies don’t overcome our heroic aspirations. By being honest about our limiting beliefs and self-perceptions, we all have the potential to change.
Lastly, we highlight the importance of fostering a healthy organizational culture that rewards positive behaviors, addresses destructive actions, and emboldens brave leaders to tell hard truths.
Listen and learn strategies for navigating change, dealing with naysayers, and using chaos to strengthen unity and purpose.
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Full Transcription
Karen: 0:02
The value of the authentic voice is the place of truth. There's no fear in authenticity. So when we can have that voice, we think differently. There's nothing in our way.
Wendy: 0:17
Welcome to Culture is an Inside Job the podcast on building an authentic, engaging and inspiring culture. We believe that building a healthy work culture starts with leaders like you. If you're ready to get real and dig deep into your own self-awareness, determine how you want to show up in the world, then this podcast is for you. Now let's go inside. Welcome back everyone. Believe it or not, we are at episode 18.
Scott: 0:47
I think they've been a lot of fun.
Karen: 0:50
Yeah, what's not to believe about that?
Scott: 0:52
Yeah.
Wendy: 0:53
I just feel like, no, I just feel like it's gone so fast, you know, and and anyway, I just, I don't know so.
Scott: 1:02
Hey, the first, the first six took like a year.
Karen: 1:06
So now we're just making up ground, we're rocking and rolling. Yeah, for sure, wendy's going to sing us a song.
Wendy: 1:13
Don't even get me started, because I might. I might one of these times Put a microphone in front of me.
Scott: 1:18
Never know I've been up since five and I've had six cups of coffee.
Wendy: 1:22
I'm everyone's worst nightmare. We know your worries right.
Karen: 1:27
It's going to be fun, At least you don't have to go upstairs to get your coffee. It's just right there, right around the corner.
Scott: 1:36
I think I'm done with coffee right now.
Wendy: 1:38
I think, I'm done.
Karen: 1:39
Slow down, better slow it down. Yeah, drink some water, hydrate.
Scott: 1:44
Yes, there's water and coffee. There's water and coffee, that's true. Water, and coffee, I don't know, I don't really think of it. Those are lies we tell ourselves.
Wendy: 1:54
Yeah.
Scott: 1:54
Yeah.
Wendy: 1:55
So last time when we were together, we started jumping into your book and had some good conversation around that. Just, you know, understanding really what is it all about, who is it for? And I loved at the end that you had invited people. You know, when we say let's go inside, thinking about, you know, who do I want to be versus? Where am I today in that? And so for our listeners, whether you know, if you listened last time, we hope that you had the opportunity to really think about that a little bit and if, if you weren't, if you didn't listen, just an opportunity for you to step back and, and you know, really kind of reflect on that. But, scott, we wanted to dive back in with you and just ask you some more questions about your book, and the one thing that I thought was important to know, one of the things that you talk about in your book is a destructive hero, and so I was just curious if you could describe or define to us what is a destructive hero.
Scott: 3:11
Yeah, great question. So every organization has one, and I know because I was one. So if you read the book there's a beautiful story about Victoria who called me on the carpet. But normally a destructive hero in most organizations are normally, historically, they're probably in sales or they're a big producer inside of an organization, so they're responsible for a lot of revenue. They could be in account management, so they manage large accounts or they're in sales. In my case I was a founder's kid.
Wendy: 3:51
It could be a founder.
Scott: 3:53
The worst. But normally what you know and here's the truth of the matter at the end of the day is what you allow inside your company, inside your organization. You encourage so, even from an individual standpoint. What are you reading? What are you listening to? What are you watching? What's coming inside of your life is actually what you're encouraging. So a destructive hero is normally, in my opinion, an untouchable. Nobody wants to figure out who this person or nobody wants to address this person, and there's some really cool math to figure out how much those destructive heroes are costing you. And if you're in human resources like, you know who these people are and sometimes, unfortunately, you're sitting in the same room with them and you just have to figure out like math is figure out how much time you spend talking about this person.
Scott: 4:54
You guys ever been in the meeting and that person's in the room and then everybody goes, has and they have the meeting after the meeting.
Wendy: 5:01
Oh yeah.
Scott: 5:02
Yeah. So you know you add up all the time I mean resources, leadership, other people that spend relentless amounts of time talking about this individual. So if, if you have, if you're privy to compensation, then all you can do is just add up everybody's compensation and all the time you spent talking about this individual and you can figure out that's pretty expensive. But then you have to actually double that because you could have been doing something else. And then you have to look back and say, well, how many, how many people do we leave? So how many people left in body bags because you allow this person to stay? And, um, what's amazing is it's very, very expensive to your organization financially, Emotionally. Triple it, Because financially it's expensive, but emotionally it's very, very, very expensive.
Scott: 5:55
And most destructive heroes and this is my opinion are just really lonely, tired, broken and afraid people. Tired, broken and afraid people. And so you can, you can, they can be redeemed and they can be restored. Um, but what they need is they need the truth, and I'm a big fan of using grace and truth same time. But they need more truth and less grace, because they need to understand the consequences of their behavior and what it looks like if it doesn't, if it, if it doesn't change, and then love them through it, and if it doesn't work, greatest thing you can do for your company, get them out as fast as you can.
Wendy: 6:36
yeah, so you know it sounds like when you're talking about this destructive hero. And again it sounds like when you're talking about this destructive hero. And again the reason I love that you know you're you're talking about this is because this isn't you talking about. Yeah, these people that I worked with that were destructive heroes. You're like, I was that destructive hero and therefore I saw that and I want to. I want to help other people get out of that. But it starts with that. Self-awareness is what you're saying, right, they have to be able to be open enough to have the level of self-awareness of what's really going on inside of them.
Scott: 7:17
Oh yeah, and you need a truth teller you know, probably you know you need a truth teller inside your organization that's willing to tell you the truth. And you know, have you ever played tennis? So when you play tennis, you want to play with somebody just a little bit better than you, so you can get better. So, in a truth teller, what you need is you need someone and I'm trying to think of the right word here more emotionally competent than you are, so then you can grow inside that competence, because it's easy to go to the people that are going to tell you the nice things all the time oh, you're amazing. Oh, my gosh, If I could just be like you. Yeah, good luck.
Wendy: 8:01
Yeah, um, is those emotionally competent people that are brave enough to tell you, tell you the truth there is a quote that's in and this is, I think you know, very much attached to this, but there's a quote that you have in your book, and it is the truth began to come alive and a beacon of hope ignited that today didn't have to be the same as yesterday and tomorrow didn't have to be the same as today. And so, for people who are struggling with that belief, where would you invite them to start? Because I feel like that's attached to the destructive hero piece too.
Scott: 8:48
Yeah, great question. I think it's when you ever try to lose weight, or if you ever smoked, you try to quit smoking or you tried something new.
Wendy: 8:59
Mm, hmm.
Scott: 9:01
And then the naysayers around to tell you like, and the naysayers also, this thing, crazy thing up in her head, this little chirping sound, you know you're a liar, you're not good enough, you're not smart enough, all like that naysayer. And then so you're waiting for that permission that I, I, I, don't need to change. This is too hard. And then we surrender. But that beacon of hope allows us to say I have the opportunity to be different, Like I can change right now. I can change right now.
Scott: 9:39
Cussing is a good example. Um, you know you cannot cuss um verbally. But the issue is why do you cuss on the inside? We can stop cussing on the outside, but there's something in us that's forcing us to do that. Most people use offensive language to enunciate something. What they need to understand is it actually? It tears down what you're trying to say, it diminishes what you're trying to. Does that make sense? And that comes from the inside. So why do I use offensive language? Why do I use that Um? And and I could choose the day to say I'm not, I'm, I'm just not going to cuss. That's going to take a long time. I mean sometimes a good curse word every once in a while, fun, right, but using it all the time. I don't know that I answered your question specifically, but each of us have the ability to change every single day.
Wendy: 10:43
Damn right, yeah.
Scott: 10:44
Did you say damn right I did.
Wendy: 10:46
That's funny. Of course you did. Hey, I'm the.
Karen: 10:50
Jersey girl, what do you want?
Scott: 10:52
Perfect.
Karen: 10:55
I could have said a different four-letter word yes.
Wendy: 10:59
Yeah, well, I just, you know, that quote really stood out to me and yeah, it does go back to that, right, it just goes back to that word.
Wendy: 11:10
Hope means a lot to me and there's a very deep meaning, you know, for that and I think probably for many people.
Wendy: 11:18
But it's like just knowing that we can and in the work that I do and I know you know the work that Karen does too like one of the greatest things that I love in, you know, working with people is helping them to understand that I love in, you know, working with people is helping them to understand that they have choice. You know, and I think you know, after when we're little kids, I think we realize all the choices we have and we try all the things, but then, as we get older, we forget that, and so then we get, you know, into this our own, as I like to call it, our own operating system, and it's like being on that hamster wheel and it literally is like the definition of insanity. We start doing the same things over and over again, expecting different results, and so, yeah, that's that's just really. What that reminds me of is hope and how we do have choice, when I think sometimes we we forget that we do so and I even think it's like the reality.
Scott: 12:19
In the last episode we were talking like a t-chart, so I wrote this a long time ago. I wrote what we think about ourselves and others in this world is what we believe.
Wendy: 12:34
Say that one more time.
Scott: 12:35
What we think about ourselves and others in this world is what we believe. What we believe is what we give to the world and what the world sees in us. So if we were super honest around what we think about ourselves and others in this world like really honest, like almost like to like darkness, like this is what I think about myself. If we were super honest and then on the other side you could say this is what I want to believe about myself and others in this world.
Scott: 13:11
And what you would see is you would. There's a chasm. There should always be a chasm. Right, there's a chasm, and in my world it was a canyon, and then that just becomes like a little closer together. But we have to get honest with ourselves to be able to say that there's choices are. Are available, um, and what do they say? They say the truth will set you free. Are available, and what do they say? They say the truth will set you free. So quit lying, quit lying to yourself.
Karen: 13:41
There's an opportunity inside of hope. It's a lot of awareness, right I?
Wendy: 13:46
think that's where it starts with really.
Karen: 13:48
And then acceptance, because then there are certain things you can control and some things that you can't, and that's the ability to recognize what you can control and that's that conscious choice. Yeah.
Wendy: 14:01
Yeah, because it's also I love what you are both saying and again hearing.
Wendy: 14:07
I don't think often enough we think about what's possible, Because, going back to the way that we think about ourselves, I mean, I am the first to talk about how I just, you know, I can get on a roll in my head. I'm my own worst enemy and there's a lot of, you know, there can be a lot of negative self-talk, and so when I can step back and think about, all right, let's be really real about how I'm thinking about myself, because that's not serving anybody, it's not serving myself, it's not serving anybody else. You know, who does God say that I am? And so, therefore, I can sit here and say who am I really? Like, what is the capital T truth? I like I talk to people about the little T truth or the stories that we tell ourselves, and the capital T truth is the, the, the truth of who we really are, and so I love that exercise, because I don't think we do it enough. Yes, I beat myself up, gosh, what you know, what is the truth and what is possible? So, yeah, it's really good.
Scott: 15:22
Yeah, I was even looking at, like you know, if you think around, like even like the Beatitudes so I remember the first time I read that and one of them is like blessed are the meek. I'm like blessed are the meek, I don't want to be meek, right, I want to be brave and all that. That's not what he meant, right? Blessed are the humble, right. Blessed are those people that look for the loneliest person in the room. Blessed are those people that look for the loneliest person in the room. Blessed are those who are quiet, who can observe through their eyes and have to observe through their mind.
Scott: 15:54
I'm like well, that's attractive right Does that make sense, whereas and I talk a lot, but I always thought that like I just had to keep talking, and what I realized is, when you keep talking, everybody wants you to just stop talking so they can go do what they wanted to do.
Wendy: 16:08
So yeah, so there were some some you know, just some things that were top of mind, you know, when I was thinking about your book and us having this conversation and then, you know, we're going to have a chance to to dive deeper, you know, later in further episodes. But the next thing that was on my mind was, since this is, you know, culture is an inside job, and we just got done talking about, of course, what that means. You know, and that's internal, but how do you, how would you describe a good or healthy culture?
Scott: 16:47
Like on the surface there's there's two things a culture does. It defines specifically what gets rewarded around here through others' eyes or words. It also should define how I get in trouble. And if that's confusing, then your culture's wonky and a destructive hero in your organization makes that unbelievably complicated, because you're tolerating that behavior, which means you're encouraging that behavior.
Karen: 17:28
Rewarding it, absolutely yeah.
Scott: 17:30
So that's probably, and that's probably about as myopic as you need to think about it. But when I think of culture and like Anne Thompson at Aileron, she kind of taught me this like early on, what's the role of a culture? Number one the role of culture is to help an organization aspire to its vision.
Scott: 17:50
Now a lot of organizations build a vision and they think it's somewhere they're going to get to. That's dangerous. Your vision should always be something you aspire like, you're reaching toward. You're never going to get there, but you hope to get really, really close. Number two it should teach your organization how to adapt, to change. Change is inevitable. Misery is optional, it's going to happen. And then the third one is it should inspire others to thrive. And, if we're lucky, our workforce is going to give to others what was given to them freely, which is encouragement, love, respect and dignity. And that's what a culture operationally. Those three things.
Karen: 18:41
When there is no healthy culture, one gets created by that destructive hero. That's what I'm hearing you say.
Scott: 18:48
Yeah, and then you know, then what happens is the noble, like good people, they go create their own culture on a team and then they behave beautifully all by themselves. But then you have an event and everyone gets together, so everyone puts shoulder pads and helmets on, like this is gonna, this is gonna suck, I'm gonna get body checked and all this stuff. And then you leave the event, everyone smiles and that subculture goes away. And then the destructive hero has his or her subculture and you know the leader is probably sitting there like this is a great place and people are like leaders probably sitting there like this is a great place, and people are like no, it's not so great.
Karen: 19:30
Yeah, it's funny.
Wendy: 19:30
The leader is always the safest right. So, scott, this question just came up for me. You know, I had the opportunity to get there from the onset when your dad started the company. I just know the stories about how the culture was built from. The strong, healthy culture was built from the ground up, right. So I'm a firm believer that what? Even when we have an amazing culture, we have to be really intentional about it, because if we're not intentional about it and we start taking it for granted, that culture can slip right. So I'm just curious in all the years at McGill and Braebender, was there ever a time where you know, not just you but the people within the organization started taking that for granted at all, the culture for granted at all, and you started seeing it slip? Or has it always just been so intentional that that was never a concern?
Scott: 20:48
I think when the Affordable Care Act was passed, we had a lot of people. I'll never forget it as long as I live, because I wrote an email at this desk to our workforce the night it was passed and I was terrified because I knew people were sitting at home and maybe thinking am I going to have a job on Monday? So you know and by the grace of God I was like writing that I've never called the Affordable Care Act Obamacare, because I think it doesn't serve. I don't care if you're a Republican or a Democrat, like I, do not care. This legislation passed, it is what it is. We will boldly move through it. What I knew was it was going to be very complicated and I knew our customers would be really confused and I knew if we served them first, we would always have a job. And Wendy, you were there. This is when we tore down the entire company. Remember the retooling paper? I found it If you want to read it. I still have it.
Wendy: 21:43
But it was kind of hard and fun times and all of that yeah.
Scott: 21:49
Walking, walking through every aspect of what we were doing. But then, in the midst of that, we had this culture of people that maybe were like I'm not sure I really want to change. And we put together this brochure and we told everybody we're on a quest for the naysayers, the bystanders and the victims. Yeah, this is what a n victims? Yeah, this is what a naysayer says. This is what they look like and this is what they do. This is what a victim does.
Scott: 22:11
This is what a bystander does, Cause we can only afford people that are going to believe in this new future. We had like seven or eight people self-select out, but I think at that point what we did is we said we defined this is who, this is where we're going, this is how, and and. What was really cool is we. We still knew we had naysayers in there, Right, but we like, we, we, we drug them towards us and actually this naysayers helped us.
Karen: 22:41
You drugged them toward you. Drug Okay.
Wendy: 22:46
I know the truth.
Karen: 22:47
It's okay, it's another story.
Scott: 22:49
Mushrooms were two amazing yeah.
Karen: 22:52
I'm just waking everybody up out there.
Wendy: 22:53
Yeah, stay with us people, stay with us.
Scott: 22:56
Thanks for the clarity. So we pulled them towards us. Um and uh, you know, that was really. That was really kind of cool. That was really really so for most organizations. When there is chaos, like take advantage of that chaos. There's a massive don't hide from it Bravely like push. There's massive opportunity to shake things up to torque, torque people and the organization up to torque, torque people and the organization.
Wendy: 23:30
Yeah, so I just so what I think I heard from that. And, karen, I'm curious what comes up for you, but it's like stay in front of it right, like when you want. I don't know why my screen does for those of you that don't see us, I get I get like a thumbs up bubble on my thing and I don't know how to turn reactions it's all good and I do like a thumbs up bubble on my thing and I don't know how to turn it.
Scott: 23:47
Reactions it's all good, I do like that, though Mine doesn't do that.
Karen: 23:49
No yeah.
Wendy: 23:49
You have your reactions though. When there is, when we have a strong culture, and even when there's hard things that we're getting ready to go through or we are going through, it's like just being really intentional and staying ahead of it. Um, that's what I heard in all of that right to bring people, to drug people along, to bring people along. We didn't say that. Oh yeah, that's right, that was not the word. Okay, karen, what about you?
Karen: 24:21
yeah, we talk about this in a from a team coaching perspective that there's three different horizons, and it's the In the middle of the maybe the three months between now and the next three months the place where we've got to do those monthlies and annual ease and quarterlies, and then there's that future forward perspective where we're much more strategic, and I find coaching so many leaders right now that are only able to focus on just what the fire is that they're fighting right now, and so what you were talking about, scott, is really being able to sit down and think what's coming across the horizon for us so that we can be prepared for that impact and your ability to do that. It takes time, it takes patience, it takes intelligence, it takes strategic thinking.
Karen: 25:15
Most organizations are not doing that right now, and this is what's hurting them, because they're not preparing for impact, and then it becomes becomes costly, and then they've got a riff, and then people are traumatized, and then there's no trust, and now we just continue to cycle around with the firefighting mentality and and so, yeah, it's beautiful that you can share the story on how do you, how did you do that? Why was there an importance in that? You didn didn't have a choice first of all? But we do have a choice. We do. Everyone has this choice of being able to take the time and do the thing that is going to help us see what's coming across the horizon, that's going to prevent and mitigate some of the fires.
Scott: 25:57
Well, I think and I love what you're saying too, because even at Aileron and I think Clay wrote a book is working on the business, not in the business. So a lot of times Mike Sutman tells a story. Someone opened his door and said oh, they said I'm glad you're not busy. And Mike said what do you mean I'm not busy? He said well, you're not doing anything. He goes no, I'm thinking, and actually I was right in the middle of something. So, because he wasn't physically doing things, what Mike was doing is he was working on the business.
Scott: 26:37
Thinking about that because, as leaders, one of our greatest assets should be to be compelling storytellers. People love stories and we have to be compelling storytellers. People love stories and we have to be compelling storytellers. And I can remember my dad was in this meeting with our attorney and we were doing something and my dad said, well, they wouldn't do that. And the attorney said, pat, if they can think it, if you can think it, they're doing it. And my dad was like, whoa, I can think of a lot. And then he said well, then they're doing a lot.
Scott: 27:10
So, as a leader, what we have to understand at its core what you're thinking is what they're thinking, and what's really smart is you begin to put yourself in their shoes and begin to imagine what they are thinking about you and your organization. And your job is to stay way in front of that and just keep talking about that. Because great storytellers do this and we did this at McGowan, bravenor, all the time where we would read, read letters of appreciation and I just did this the other day with the workforce all of them, or most of them, I said who here appreciates the letters of appreciation? So every month we read those. We have a signing wall and if you get one, you get to sign this wall, cause I'm a big fan of a Sharpie and a wall.
Scott: 27:56
But I said honestly, deep down, who here, every time we read those, you wish that your letter was up next? Be brave enough to put your hand up and the whole room like it was timid. And then finally I'm like no, raise it high, raise it high. And because here's the story, here's the. I believe the beauty in storytelling is when we read those stories, people hear them and then some people say, oh, if I just do that, I'll be in the next chapter. Right, it's a reference point People want to be in the story. Does that make sense?
Scott: 28:31
Whether I get the letter or not. I'm just going to behave like that story and then I can enter in the next chapter.
Wendy: 28:37
Yeah, oh, wow. So much to talk about, so, um, so I think this is a good place to wrap up, and so I'm going to ask again, right, if we ask people to go inside and to reflect on some of the things that we shared today, what comes up for you? We talked about destructive hero. We talked about you know what is a good culture? We talked about how we have choice. What's a great challenge for our listeners?
Scott: 29:12
Well, if you can't identify a destructive hero, I've got a warning. You might be the destructive hero. If you identify a destructive hero, your job is not to take a baseball bat and take information around. How do I weaponize everything that I just learned against that person? Yeah, thank you, your job is to own your own side of the street.
Karen: 29:36
Yeah, everybody has a part in it, absolutely.
Scott: 29:38
And how do we love and inspire and encourage those, encourage those people, cause we all have our own baggage. We bring, you know we bring to the table, and so it's probably you know, identifying, you know what inside of our organization or your team and you know, to be honest with you, you can have destructive here. We have them in our families. I mean, we're talking about human beings. Yeah, so we all bring garbage to the table. But the important part is is like do I bring any destructive behavior, destructive hero behaviors, and in my own life with my kids, my wife, my husband, my family Gosh.
Scott: 30:20
there's so many things today drugs and husbands all kinds of stuff yeah, like all of that stuff, I'm your worst nightmare because I've had like five cups of coffee and like I've got this motor mouth going and wendy's like please stop talking so much but I've had a blast.
Karen: 30:41
It's been fun. It's always fun.
Scott: 30:43
I just needed to get a little word in edgewise with your yeah dogs, cats, fish, yeah, parrots, birds, turtles I don't know what that means.
Wendy: 30:56
That's scary oh well, thank you for hanging with us everybody, and we love, we love holding this space for you and let's see if my, my thing will work.
Karen: 31:08
Oh, yeah, your heart. Hey, a quick call to action. Give us some feedback out there, give us some comments and tell us how you're, how you're liking us. What would you want us? What would you want to see differently? Yes, you want to see more of. What would you want to see less of? Yes, what would you want to see more of? What would you want to see? What are you curious about?
Wendy: 31:21
Okay, and with that, we will see you next time.