The Authority Podcast — Expert Insights and Fresh Ideas for Education Leaders

Ross Romano: [00:00:00] Thanks everybody for joining us for today's episode of the Authority Podcast on the Be Podcast Network. So delighted to have you here with us for what promises to be another great episode. Great conversation.

My guests today are Katie P. Desiderio and Michael G. Freno. Katie is a Wiley DISC partner and a partner in learning at Proximal Development, LLC, which is our consulting company. She's also associate professor of management at Moravian University School of Business and Economics. Michael is also a Wiley DISC partner and he oversees human capital development for a Fortune 500 MedTech company.

And he also leads the E& I Program Management and Leadership Development. Their book is a Wall Street Journal bestseller. It's called The Beekeeper, Pollinating Your Organization for Transformative Growth. Katie and Michael, welcome to The Authority.

Michael Frino: Thank you.

Katie Desiderio: Thanks, Ross. Nice to be here.

Ross Romano: So, this book for for our listeners who haven't checked it out yet, it's presented a little differently. It's a leadership fable. And so I kind of wanted to start out there and have you define and tell [00:01:00] us what is a leadership fable.

Michael Frino: Yeah, you know, I think Katie and I, have been writing together for a long time in the academic research space and, one of the things we wanted to do is write a book to kind of tell some leadership stories. And instead of doing a traditional academic book or leadership book, we decided to take the Fable approach.

You know, we found storytelling to be very important in today's environment. And, you know, Katie I know we've talked about this, but it'd be great to have you illuminate the importance of storytelling as well, in business. And

Katie Desiderio: Yeah, Ross. So of course, learning a little bit about the authority podcast. I know storytelling is an integral part of just the work that you do in the podcast space, and being able to bring educators together. But we've been seeing too in Kind of the consulting space and the leadership development space that people connect around storytelling.

And so there's a powerful opportunity to bring, pretty profound learnings to life in really simple ways using storytelling. And so, might kind of use that as the [00:02:00] opportunity to really shift writing that we had been used to in the traditional academic space and really kind of dabble in the storytelling space.

Ross Romano: Yeah. And and of course the importance of storytelling, I think contributed to your decision to, to write the book in this style that you, what was the process, that you went through beforehand when you were developing, of course, the leadership lessons that you would share into the book, and then as you were, you kind of had to find those and then determine those, Did you go through a particular, you know, decision making process about the best way to write the book, about to do it in this style?

Did you have that in mind from the beginning, kind of, how did that all come together?

Katie Desiderio: Yeah, so, I'll take this and make him weigh in. We started in kind of the way that we had known to do this, and that was in a very traditional way. And so we see this quite frequently from a learning perspective that for adults, often what's harder than learning is unlearning. And so we [00:03:00] experienced that firsthand.

And so we were kind of put to the test to say, we're used to writing in traditional ways, kind of outlining the seminal works that we wanted to illuminate, right? What would be powerful leadership lessons and behaviors that would be relevant to, people in all industries. But then we identified this You know, opportunity to really think about this in a way that was uncomfortable for us and ways that kind of encouraged us to rethink the way that we were looking at writing and kind of implement that storytelling piece, which is a really unique style of writing, especially if you're not used to it.

And so it, the process evolved over time, right? Kind of starting with a traditional table of contents and really looking at the leadership. You know, opportunities that we had and then talking to publishers and seeing what their feedback was and kind of taking feedback and going back and discussing and then looking at like, well, what's the purpose of this work?

What do we want the takeaways to be? You know, we don't want to [00:04:00] write just to write, but we want readers to be able to connect with it in meaningful ways. But even more than that. to take it back to work immediately. Like, what are those immediate transfers? And, and that evolved just kind of through collaborating and envisioning what this could be over time.

Mike, did I miss anything there?

Michael Frino: I think, well said it was definitely out of our comfort zone, but once we got into it we kind of, you know, saw new ways to maybe encapsulate what we're trying to accomplish through, through storytelling. Well said, Katie.

Ross Romano: Excellent. So, you know, again, for the listeners to kind of get them really, clued into what we're going to talk about as we continue here can one of you sort of provide a plot summary for the story that you tell in the book? You know, kind of get the beats of how this story is presented. And then, of course, we'll talk about some of the specific lessons.

Michael Frino: Yeah, so I think Katie and I had an opportunity, she was just to give a little backstory, she was traveling for business, I was traveling for business, we're both in Chicago we hadn't seen each other in a while, so We grabbed dinner and we were talking about the book and what this could be.

And [00:05:00] as we were chatting we were thinking about like, how do we think about leadership and spreading growth and the importance of helping others grow, and demonstrating growth mindset. And. One of the things that jumped in our head was the kind of the bee, right? And the bee is the source of growth for everything around us and pollinates everything, you know, really around the world and is a real source of kind of, you know, what this world needs.

And we looked at like who takes care of the bees and it was the beekeeper. And so part of what we tried to do with the book was, we're coming out through the lens of a female business owner who was really growing. Her company, and it was going through what most companies go through as they're growing some cultural changes some growing pains and she went on vacation with her family and it wasn't a vacation she was really excited about, but during the process of that vacation.

She met a beekeeper and the beekeeper became kind of a growth partner for her and started giving her ideas and suggestions and ways to think about things [00:06:00] differently. And through those kind of conversations on her vacation she kind of became that source of inspiration for her team and having her team at her company think about things in different ways, really unintentionally.

And so that's really the story of a business owner. Kind of going through some growing pains but really learning from a beekeeper on, on how to be, how she wants her company to be. And Katie, I'm sure you provide some insight in that as well as some of the plot.

Katie Desiderio: I think for listeners, there's something important about the fable. Is we get right to the point, right? And so some people will connect immediately with like the way that she crafted emails, the way that she had learnings. But in a fable, it's kind of a quick story to look at action items, right?

That some things might be a little bit fabricated or expedited in a way that get the learner to like the make the connection to write the learning, right? The opportunity, which our publisher helped us with in kind of refining, right? Getting really concise, not [00:07:00] dragging out, right? But getting to that quick fable style of writing, which has been really cool for Mike and I to learn.

(ad here)

Ross Romano: I think even in the, you know, in the, what the story is about, where this founder, you know, CEO is going on this vacation at something that a lot of people go, Oh, it feels like it's at the worst possible time, right? Oh, we just had this tough. All staff meeting and we got these challenges at work and I'm scheduled for vacation and it's the worst time and I can't get away at all.

And, but even just the act of going, right? Even though, most of us may not end up on a vacation where the lessons we learn are as explicit, right? It's still like getting away, getting into a different headspace, being able to have a different view and a different perspective on things is a critical, It's a critical piece.

Sometimes you're just too in the weeds and you can't possibly see a different way to look at something, and we'll we'll get to this as we go, but [00:08:00] at the end of the book, when it kind of comes around, to looking at it from the perspective of the people who were in the office, you can see, how there were Things that were even more challenging that were going on than, this particular leader even realized at the time.

And without a different, a completely different view and putting yourself in a different headspace, it may have been impossible to kind of find a way to navigate that.

Katie Desiderio: Yeah, so well said, Ross, and I think you're calling it Headspace. We're discerning the difference of like, fixed and growth mindset, and Mike illuminated a little bit in, in the story, right? The protagonist, Catherine, is going on a family vacation that really she's not perceiving to be a vacation, right?

She's thinking more spa, something relaxing, right? But, She kind of shows up, right? Eyes, heart, mind open, and all of a sudden, right? Things start to transform, and so I think there's something there for [00:09:00] just us as human beings, that it's easy to remain fixed and closed, and to escalate commitment to like, we're not going to like something, it's going to be terrible, but if we show up with that space to connect, to learn, to look at things from a different lens, a lot of things can happen in, in pretty profound ways.

Ross Romano: Right. Yeah. And it's sort of, it almost kind of aligns to the old cliche of work smarter, not harder. But the challenge of that often is that, smarter is subjective, harder is objective, right? So they don't go together really well so a lot of times we just keep trying to dig further in, okay, we're going to work our way through this challenge, but we're just kind of doing more of the same things that aren't really working or exacerbating some of the issues versus taking the time to figure out a different way to go about it.

There are some motifs in the book that I wanted to touch on that I think are important to hear from you about why these are so central to the story and central to, of course, the way that you're presenting. leadership and organizational success. And one of them is [00:10:00] the heart of learning and growth, right?

That comes up again and again. So learning and growth being kind of at the center of effective organizations, why is that so critical?

Michael Frino: Yeah as Katie and I were writing the book we recognized that we're growth partners, Katie and I we placed ourselves at the center of each other's growth to help each other achieve goals and navigate challenges and. And then we realized that in organizations that's critical, that there has to be somebody, whether it's management, leadership placing themselves at the center of the growth strategy for the organization.

Oftentimes we get so focused on just performance outcomes that we forget about the human element. And if someone's not thinking about that then a lot gets lost. The culture gets lost. And so through the book, we are trying. Encourage people to think about who is placing themselves at the center of your growth.

How are you placing yourself at the center of others growth? And how are you modeling that at the trial level of leadership at the individual group and organizational level? And so that's important to consider. [00:11:00] You know, weave through and thread through the book because that is really one of the big underpinnings and messages we're trying to convey.

Ross Romano: And even though, I mean, the learning. And the way in which that is created as a an organizational objective or an agreement around what learning is and what it's supposed to be. I don't, I don't know if most organizations, make it clear that. exactly how learning is supposed to take place, I guess, right? Or the prioritization of continuous learning over, immediate proficiency or perfection, right? And, and the friction and organizational dynamics between trying to prove that we know what we're supposed to be doing, and we kind of are really capable and competent and a high performer versus the.

reality that in order to grow, and the the company featured in this fable is one that is kind of quickly growing and is going to the next phase, [00:12:00] right? The people within that organization need to be growing in the same ways, and It doesn't continue with continuing to learn and learning new things and becoming proficient in new ways does not mean or can know any lack of ability or lack of excellence to start with.

But, it's really important that the leadership in the organization set the culture for that, right? Or else there's a lot more of trying to prove ourselves versus going out there and maybe asking that risky question or seeking that new assignment or trying something new and, which is, there's a lot of missed opportunity in that,

Katie Desiderio: Yeah, a hundred percent. And that place of like missed opportunity we kind of illuminate, what you see depends mainly on what lens you choose. And so I think in the spirit of even placing yourself at the heart Of learning and growth Mike and [00:13:00] I, are perceived as subject matter experts, right?

We both have our doctorate in the field of organizational learning and leadership. We specifically left our, you know, credentials or academic credentials off the cover of the book because there's something for us even in writing this that. We know a lot, but there's a lot that we need to learn.

And so even as we kind of moved out of our comfort zone to write our first fable, you know, there was a space of us like enacting what we're espousing to be important that it doesn't matter how much you know, or how much experience you have. there's always a, an opportunity to learn more.

And we keep ourselves at the center of ongoing learning and growth when we're actually connecting with people. And so there's an illumination at the end of the book when you go behind the scenes with the bee that you know, it illuminates the deep level diversity differences of each employee, right?

And how they perceive work and how they interact in, right? The unlearning of the way they've always done [00:14:00] it. And then being able to see the opportunities to, like look at this a different way, right? To even look at Catherine's interactions with them in a way that can help propel growth.

Ross Romano: you know, how about this word proximal? That's another one of the of course it is fits in directly to one of the lessons, but it also, so. comes up repeatedly in the book. We can start with you with this one, Katie, because it is, also in the name of your company. So I'm sure it's, central to your thinking, but, what even does the what does proximal mean for those who maybe, are thinking about it in a different way?

And why is it so critical that thought about being proximal and what that means with to organizations?

Katie Desiderio: So great question. Proximal in medical terms means closest to the center, right? Or at the heart. And so in that space of like the proximal, right? It's how do we keep ourselves at the center, right? At the heart of learning and growth. And we try to implement that [00:15:00] in how we show up, whether it's in the teacher or learner dyad.

I think there's reciprocity in that space of the, exchange of learning. And so when we're showing up. With growth mindset it's often that we're facilitating or helping people to see the way, but we're learning along the way as well. And so I might kind of illuminate this for both of us as growth partners.

we show up with the same subject matter expertise and academic expertise, but as really different human beings. And so in that space of deep level diversity differences, we have the opportunity to learn about really how we enact the platinum role, right? And so we've been told our whole lives to enact the golden role, to treat others as you want to be treated, but that's not really where we're keeping ourselves at the heart of learning and growth.

Rather, It's in enacting the Platinum Rule, and that's to treat others as they want to be treated. And so, we have to show up, kind of listening to understand. We have [00:16:00] to be curious, right? We have to kind of seek to choose that lens to be able to see things from a different seat, from a different angle, from a different opportunity, and then look at those ways that we can connect.

Ross Romano: Yeah, absolutely. And, so that for listeners, the chapters of the book are organized around these lessons that the main character is learning as she goes to this vacation, right? So they're, be fulfilled, be transformational, be present, and so on. There's, several more, but, the one thing I wanted to comment on as we start to get into that, is that most, if not all of the lessons begin with, The things that you need to become as the leader before you are then going out and attempting to get certain results or cultivate the same competencies in the individuals in your organization but there's very, reflective and thinking about what it means to [00:17:00] be vulnerable or to be present, right?

To be curious, and these are competencies we then want to cultivate, across the organization, but it starts with The leader first, which is not always the case, right? And, I would say leadership strategy, right? A lot of times it may begin with, okay, well, here's how you get people to do things. And you can sort of skip yourself.

But when you think about that, Michael, why is that, You know, an important process here, and how do you think that came up as you were, of course, going through your process of developing what these lessons are,

Michael Frino: Yeah you know, as Katie and I were mapping out the chapters of the book and what they could be, we kind of looked at some of the behaviors and leadership competencies that are really curious, for us to understand, like, what behaviors do good leaders need to embody? To create an environment where they can create thriving organizations or learning organizations, or helping themselves place themselves at the center of the [00:18:00] organization's growth.

And these words that you mentioned, like transformational, and present, and being curious, and vulnerable and even calm, and getting messy sometimes is, are all really important for leaders to embody. So as we thought about the story, right? And as Catherine is kind of learning and understanding, like, hey I'm going to, I want to learn these lessons from the beekeeper.

The beekeeper is illuminating some of these and how he's using those kind of behaviors and leadership lessons to keep his hive or his farm intact. And then she's kind of, to Katie's point, like listening to understand and kind of pulling out and extracting themes that that Henry's talking about.

to share with her team that she felt were important. And that's really where the aha moment, I think, occurs, you know, both for the employees at the organization but also Catherine. And I think the lesson here is that we like to share is that learning can come in very unsuspecting ways and from unsuspecting people.

And so just showing up and being curious [00:19:00] to talk to people and to learn from others, you know, Gives you a leg up as you're trying to kind of grow and demonstrate growth mindset. And that's exactly what we tried to have Katherine do is say, go on with a curious mind, learn from those around you that may be sharing insights and then reflect and say how can I use this information to.

to grow personally and professionally.

(ad here)

Ross Romano: Whether intended or not, a big part of the result is that the other members of the team, are positioned to interpret the lessons in different ways and to kind of identify what's standing out to them and what's really where they see an opportunity to apply it in their own, you know, in their own, practice with their own teams, their own units, which.

Of course it was an important part of empowering them to, to all contribute to that organizational culture, right? That it, that the lessons have fundamental truths to them, but they don't mean just one thing, or they don't apply necessarily [00:20:00] in just one way. But how how is that an illustration of.

The dynamics of a good team and the ways in which we all really need to kind of actively interpret and apply these thoughts and lessons and not just follow a a checklist.

Katie Desiderio: Yeah, so well said, Ross. And you know, it kind of illuminates even in that space of interpretation the way that Mike would like be challenging is completely different than the way that I would be challenging, right? And so it's about understanding the kind of authenticity of the person to be able to do that and enact that in ways that you're able to connect with.

And so it opens up, right? While we don't want readers to be limited to you. The B mindsets that we have noted as the chapter names, right? Because there's many ways to be. We kind of leave readers with that volition to choose. You get to choose who and how you want to be right. And so we have a little play on words there [00:21:00] of, of kind of having agency over how we author our leadership story.

Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah. And, one of the, one of the ones that stood out to me personally, just because of the connotation of the word and, the fact that I don't know that it's used as frequently as be nourished. You know, we talk about supporting people in a variety of different ways and their wellbeing and, but nourished, I think, is a more powerful word and a deeper word than once.

Can you talk about that that lesson, what that means, I mean, to allow oneself to be nourished, but also then to determine what it means to nourish our teams.

Katie Desiderio: Yeah. And so you're right. There's depth associated. We were intentional about the word choice there. But really thinking about there's mind nourishment, right? There's soul nourishment, right? There's, [00:22:00] nourishment of connection with other people. And when we're really enacting the be mindset, be proximal, and we're putting ourselves.

At the core of learning and growth for ourself and others, there's an innate sense of nourishment there in that connection and in the reciprocity of fuel. But there's also an acknowledgement of like, what do you need to be nourished? And that also comes down to the difference in deep level diversity attributes of humans, because what I might need might look completely different, Ross, than what you need.

Which would look completely different than what Mike would need, but it's about opening up that dialogue, right? Listening to understand and being able to write, give people right what they need in that space of growth.

Ross Romano: Yeah. I mean, it's absolutely true. And then you can think about the flip side of it. You know, what malnourishment would look like, but you would talk about a lot of organizations, particularly in education burnout and people leaving the profession and moving around and those kinds of things.

And that's not, again, a word that's [00:23:00] typically used in that way, but you can, Clearly understand, what it would mean that that lack of nutrients, that lack of calories, sort of the energy that keeps us going and moving once it's absent and you just have nothing left. And it there's that.

That is that lack of nourishment. Another one that stood out, and this one stood out in the way that I would think a lot of readers, if they were just skimming through the table of contents, might say, what's that? I don't know about that. It's be messy, Michael. What's be messy about?

Michael Frino: Yes, this is a good one, and I think, you know, we talked about Be Messy, it's actually allowing yourself to kind of live a little unstructured and not necessarily always needing to have structure to to have a fulfilled life or to grow and learn, sometimes the best growth comes from times where we're in challenging situations or we have a lot of things going on and we're having to demonstrate really high past self [00:24:00] efficacy or we have to really kind of match, you know, some of our skills with our challenges and in those messy environments, You really take it upon yourself sometimes to expedite your learning and growth to, to, to help address kind of whatever situation, situations are there.

And when you're too structured, sometimes you can really miss out on opportunities to, to learn from others and, you know, not kind of let your guard down and kind of see things and listen and if Catherine was not being messy within her vacation, allowing herself to do things differently, which she would typically do, you know, she probably wouldn't have had the learnings that that she had as well.

So we are trying to encourage that sometimes take a deep breath get messy whiteboard, brainstorm kind of live in that world for a little bit. And, that's when the best regrowth and kind of kind of rebirth or new ideas happen.

Ross Romano: So, framing again, for listeners, as we talked about the majority of the book is told through the lens of the main character, Catherine, and she's the CEO of this company, and she's on [00:25:00] her, vacation, and learning these lessons as she goes, and kind of at the end of the day, or here and there, as she has a thought, or something, she'll send an email over to her, to her leadership team with some of these lessons.

And then, one of the things I really appreciate is that the, End of the book, right? The last, chapter or so, are... Checking in on, okay, what was happening in the office during this week or week and a half while they were gone and, and how were people receiving and responding to this? And. You know, and their response was like, kind of the way you would expect to happen in real life. Skeptical, some eye rolls, right? You know, it, it took, one or two leaders to start to, to take it seriously and see the potential in it to kind of get the ball rolling. You know, but in an environment where everybody's going through challenges and then it seemed like a shared perspective that there were some things that were not.

The way they should be. We're growing too fast. We're doing this and that. You know, it's not that [00:26:00] immediately. Okay. Well, okay. I'm just going to listen to whatever this person is emailing me. But you know, I think that highlighted a couple of things, one of which being the the vulnerability required of a leader to say, look I'm going to put this out there.

And I know that, there's a lot of things going on right now. And, but. All right. We're going to give this a shot and then I'm going to try to convey these lessons and to the importance on the other side of those other leaders within the organization to say, look, let's make something productive out of this.

Like, let's not we can continue going the way that we're going where we think things aren't going well, and we can just brush this aside, or we can look for those. those slices of inspiration here and those things that we can really try to apply. You know, can you speak to that dynamic, Katie, of kind of those two ends of it, where it, you gotta, [00:27:00] you have to start somewhere, right?

And it takes somebody on each end of that, to get it moving.

Katie Desiderio: Yeah, and so, so on the end of Catherine took the opportunity to send the notes to her team to say, like, I'm learning while I'm away, and I'm going to kind of try to inspire. But to your point, and it goes back to what you mentioned earlier, is messages are open to interpretation.

And so oftentimes Mike and I talk about intention and impact are different. And so Catherine's intentions were clear to us as readers. But the interpretation and impact of that message to each employee was different. And so there's a realization for all of us that we can intend to inspire to lift people up, to energize.

But the impact might be an eye roll, some skepticism, some and so how do we get past that? How do we get those that it's resonating with to be able to be part [00:28:00] of that guiding coalition to help kind of move change and thinking or doing or even opening a conversation. And so sometimes we just have to give that time.

But in the acknowledgement that not everyone will receive a message the same way or as intended.

Ross Romano: I mean, and it's critical to have those, those people in the organization who are going to, you know, have that positive outlook, that positive mindset and say, look, let's break out of these problems we're having it. The easy thing to do is to kind of kind of shake your head and roll your eyes and say, okay, well, this leader that we believe is making.

Mistakes is everything they say is kind of we should disregard it. The harder thing to do is to be the one person who comes into the meeting and says Why don't we try this? And also even though the rest of that team they're featured, [00:29:00] less in the story, it's as much about them as it is about Catherine, because it's about, this is your opportunity as a leader at any level, as somebody who wants to. enact the qualities of the leader. This is your opportunity to make an impact. This is your opportunity to see the potential in an idea or to do something different or to realize, yeah, sure. know, it's easy to point fingers at the top and say, well, this person up here is making a bunch of mistakes.

But when I look at what I'm doing within my part of the organization, there's some things that I could be doing a lot better too. And if I take action on this, I can create that solution and create the new way versus having somebody have to tell me what to do or continuing to do it wrong. But, You know, so there's so much about it that is a lesson for everybody in any role to say you, [00:30:00] if you are proactive about these things and you see the ideas, you see the potential, you can create the next version of what that's going to be.

Katie Desiderio: Yeah, Ross I feel compelled Mike and I are pretty, you know, focused on sharing expressions of gratitude for people and ideas and situations that have inspired. And in what you just said, you made me realize that. You know, Damon West and his work, The Coffee Bean has inspired a lot of our thinking in the space of storytelling and he's been a sounding board to us really through the Wall Street Journal marketing and you just brought up that we have choices.

Right? And you illuminated the choice of like how we become a coffee bean, which is that we transform. But when things get hard we have a choice of how we respond, right? We could become hard and annoyed and roll our eyes and become skeptical as he illuminates like the egg, right? We can become the carrot and become [00:31:00] soft and upset and take it personally.

Or we could Choose to be part of the transformation and oftentimes it takes those people that see the opportunity right and have that agency and kind of take charge of the pen of how they want to author what comes next to stand up and. Show people the way to model what could be, to be part of the solution instead of just perseverating on problems.

And so kind of shout out to to Damon West and the inspiration of the Coffee Bean, but so much of what you just said is that we, as all of us as culture builders. have the opportunity to influence change positively within our work culture. We just have to realize it and see it, and then kind of bring people into the opportunity to do it together.

Ross Romano: Yeah, I mean, and it also, to me, kind of illustrates the importance of. You know, again, organizational leaders, cultivating that culture, creating a strong vision, clarity of purpose, to [00:32:00] incentivize the rest of the team to change, to go out of their comfort zones, to do new things, to say, well, there's a reason to actually do this versus, well, I could do it.

Try new things and change the way I do things in a bunch of different ways. But for what? Because this company, what is it really for? Where is it really going? What's the purpose of what we're doing here? And so it takes everybody believing that it's worth their while to take that step and to make that effort.

And not only will it be. You know, rewarded and supportive, but that it's the outcomes will be worth the effort. And you know, that's part of that vision piece. It is, and a lot of this collaborative element, I think like when you have people at all levels looking at, and applying these.

Lessons and thinking about how they are leaders in their own right. How do you feel like that helps with those critical steps of overcoming those [00:33:00] big challenges, the problem solving finding new solutions to things that are I mean, for a company can be existential challenges,

Michael Frino: yeah, I mean, I think you mean the word collaboration is very kind of permeating a lot across a lot of organizations. I mean, I think what you going just kind of back to what you were saying is that the it's going to it takes courage for someone to stand up and identify that like, hey, we need to do things differently, or maybe we should be looking at things this way.

And so it's that first person that kind of steps up is critical, but it's really also the second person that next. follower of the first person that really creates that movement in a way, because. Sometimes you can have somebody do something and then it's more eye rolls, but like when you start getting traction, other people supporting one another and collaborating in the organization saying like, Ah, maybe this is a good idea.

I think that's where you create these kind of viral moments, for lack of a better term, where more and more people are embracing the change and kind of building on the courage of that, that one [00:34:00] person, that, that started. But it's that, that next group of people that really latch onto.

to that courageous person that, that kind of create them to create the movement. So, I mean, I think leaders need to step up and not worry about what their peers think or not worry about how the leaders think. And there's a lot of times in organizations there, there could be toxicity and a lot of conversations and people are fearful to stand up and say, Hey, maybe we need to do it this way.

Because the feedback from their peers matters. But. You know, that courage is extremely important and probably worthy of a chapter in of itself and be courageous, right? So, yeah, I mean, I think leaders just need to step up, be collaborative, by supporting one another as they try to impart new ideas and new things in the organization.

Ross Romano: Yeah, I think a lot of what you're talking about, rolls up into, this idea of being a, two words, beekeeper, bee, keeper. Katie what does that mean to be a beekeeper in an organization?

Katie Desiderio: Yeah, Bras. So, spoiler alert, right? We're giving away the end of the book. You see in the title that second E is dotted, right? And [00:35:00] by the end, we drop the second E and B. And using the lessons that Mike opened with of a beekeeper to create a thriving hive, we have an opportunity as leaders to become beekeepers, B E, right?

We get to choose who and how we want to be. We have to own our bee mindsets. We have to know. you know, what our intentions are in enacting those be mindsets. We have to know the impact on people. But we also have to have the conversations that we're allowing the people around us to get to choose who and how they want to be and have those conversations about intention and how each of us are authoring the pages of our story.

But two, that there's contributions as culture builders, right? That we're all contributing to the environment that we work in. And so if it's a toxic environment and we're just standing around socializing all of the problems, right? Then we're not part of the solution, right? So we have those opportunities to kind of take the step to say like, what could we do, right?

How do we be part of the way forward? How do we be part of the change?

Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. [00:36:00] So, as we're getting kind of to the end here, I want to just. You know, stay true to, the heart of the book around learning and growth and ask you each, we'll start with, you Katie and then Mike, what's one thing you learned while working on this book?

Katie Desiderio: It really, the, the impetus of unlearning. And so writing in this creative space with a publisher, learning how to even market a book and then hit Wall Street Journal bestseller and then what, right? It's like really an uncomfortable but exhilarating space. And so now when you know, we're talking about it in a consulting space or in a class or in a, right?

It's like you can actually speak from the experience of how difficult it could be to get out of the way that you've always done it. And so that's something I'm kind of keeping central to, like, really pushing out of our comfort zone, to just imagine new ways and to learn as we go in an ongoing way.

Michael Frino: Yeah, sure. So, I mean, I think if I'm going to pull one lesson out it's like [00:37:00] how. to get yourself in a, maybe a state of flow, right? I mean, when you're writing, you know, with publishers there's deadlines and there's things that you need to meet and just really embracing that process and getting in the zone to, to write and think and making time for that.

Sometimes that state's not always easy to achieve, but you kind of learn how to continue to challenge yourself, and think differently. So, You can kind of match those skills with the challenge that faces you to get yourself in the zone. And I did learn, you know, a lot about that myself through the process.

And Katie was a huge supporter and I helped you know, help drive some of those behaviors as my growth partner. So yeah, super, super awesome process to go through. But, I think I would say getting in the zone was a good. Good, good learning for me.

Ross Romano: Excellent. Well, listeners, the book is The Beekeeper. It's published by Wiley. You can find it on Amazon. There's also a website, leadershipfables. com. Michael and Katie, what can listeners, learn if they check out that website or is there any other resources you'd like them to look at?

Michael Frino: Yeah. So we've been, you know, really excited about the website. [00:38:00] We created a free members only section. You can just sign up and there's a lot of, growth guides and resources for members who join, you know, chapter by chapter discussion guides. And we're going to continue to populate that with information.

For people to go on their journey and take their organizations on a journey but definitely check out our website and social media. We are, like Katie mentioned we're new to this, so we're learning, trying to get content out and, you know, and we're excited to continue to do that for the readers.

Ross Romano: Super. So we're going to put all those links below, link to find a book on Amazon, to the website, social media links. Again, the book is The Beekeeper, Pollinating Your Organization for Transformative Growth. And yeah, please do check that out wherever you find your books. Also, please subscribe to The Authority for more in depth author interviews like this one, or visit beepodcast.

network to learn about all of our shows. Katie and Michael, thanks so much for being here.

Michael Frino: Thank you.

Katie Desiderio: Ross. Thanks for having us.

Ross Romano: Excellent. [00:39:00]