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EPISODE SUMMARY:
What if the way your organization measures success is quietly setting you up to fail? What if you've been measuring the wrong things to meet a strategic outcome. This episode unpacks how avoiding failure—not just chasing wins—might be the smarter strategic move, and a smart farmework for how to do it.
We’re not just challenging metrics—we’re rethinking meaning. In this conversation with Mark L. Vincent, we explore what organizations don’t measure, why qualitative signals matter more than they seem, and how chasing only what’s easy to quantify can quietly corrode strategic progress.
You’ll hear how seasoned leaders fall into traps by overlooking process in favor of performance, and how shifting your lens to include failure-prevention and systems-level insight can transform how you lead. This isn’t another conversation about KPIs—it’s a deep dive into the hidden architecture of impact. If you’ve ever been part of a strategy that looked good on paper but broke down in practice, this episode will name what you felt but couldn’t quite explain.
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ABOUT OUR GUEST:
A Process Consulting pioneer and Systems Convener with more than 30 years of service as an Executive Advisor and Corporate Board Member, Mark's Executive Advising practice walks alongside a global Client base, including artful convening and facilitation of organizational systems facing complex scenarios. Mark established and guided Design Group International, the Society for Process Consulting, and Maestro-level leaders. A content contributor across various channels and a frequent dynamic presenter, his latest book, Listening Helping Learning, reveals the core competencies of Process Consulting and how to develop help in partnership with Clients. Dividing time between Boise, St. Louis, and frequent travel, he is committed to the hope of our grandchildren's grandchildren.
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LINKS:
www.marklvincent.com
www.maestrolevelleaders.com
www.gotowerscope.com
https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/the-hard-skills-dr-mira-brancu-m0QzwsFiBGE/
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Tune in for this empowering conversation at TalkRadio.nyc
On this episode of The Hard Skills, Dr. Mira Brancu explores how process consulting empowers leaders to navigate complex, adaptive challenges by shifting from expert-driven solutions to collaborative inquiry. Guest Dr. Mark L. Vincent emphasizes that enduring success comes not only from measuring outcomes, but also from understanding the qualitative factors that prevent failure—often overlooked in traditional strategy. Leaders working in high-stakes, fast-changing environments can benefit from process consultants who guide structured thinking, foster alignment, and build mental discipline for solving unprecedented problems.
In this segment of The Hard Skills, Dr. Mira Brancu and Dr. Mark L. Vincent explore the critical but often overlooked role of qualitative measurement in avoiding failure and sustaining high performance in leadership. While organizations tend to rely on quantitative metrics like revenue or retention rates, it's qualitative factors—such as trust, safety, and support—that often make or break team cohesion and long-term success. Process consulting helps leaders slow down and rigorously define these intangible concepts, turning abstract values into measurable, actionable behaviors that align teams and prevent costly dysfunction.
In this segment of The Hard Skills, Dr. Mark L. Vincent introduces his "Listening, Helping, Learning" framework—a distilled, actionable model that equips leaders and consultants to navigate complexity with clarity and structure. Rather than offering quick fixes, process consultants co-create solutions with clients by asking incisive questions, aligning around shared meaning, and capturing decisions as artifacts that guide learning and future steps. This approach fosters sustainable change, enables deeper ownership, and supports leaders in moving from assumptions to measurable progress within both individual and systemic contexts.
In the final segment of The Hard Skills, Dr. Mark L. Vincent explains how the structured discipline of process consulting transforms skepticism and defensiveness into energized collaboration and aligned action. Through a firm commitment to process and deep listening, organizations shift from reactive behaviors to meaningful co-creation, where individuals feel heard, supported, and excited about their contributions. Dr. Vincent emphasizes that this approach isn’t just methodical—it’s human-centered, turning emotional labor into productive momentum, and leaving behind a lasting framework for learning, trust, and scalable results.
00:00:51.230 --> 00:01:09.679 Mira Brancu: Welcome. Welcome back to the hard skills show where we take a deep dive into the most challenging soft skills required to navigate leadership, uncertainty, complexities and change today and into the future. I'm your host, Dr. Mira Branku, psychologist, leadership consultant and founder of Towerscope.
00:01:10.050 --> 00:01:18.870 Mira Brancu: So is it possible that how we've been measuring organizational outcome, success and strategy has been missing a key element.
00:01:19.230 --> 00:01:24.710 Mira Brancu: Do we even know how to measure things that help us avoid failure?
00:01:25.440 --> 00:01:28.669 Mira Brancu: It's rarely measured, but really important.
00:01:28.860 --> 00:01:36.220 Mira Brancu: And that's what we're going to be talking about today. And it's also a great fit for this season's focus on endurance and leadership
00:01:36.390 --> 00:01:40.220 Mira Brancu: right? We over time last
00:01:41.280 --> 00:01:56.769 Mira Brancu: because of the fact that we're not just looking at our successes. But we're also identifying how to avoid failure. So whether you're a leader managing a team or simply trying to support your colleagues. This conversation is for you.
00:01:57.530 --> 00:02:18.479 Mira Brancu: Let me introduce our guest today, Dr. Mark L. Vincent. He is a process consulting pioneer and a systems convener with more than 30 years of service. As an executive advisor and corporate board member, he has an executive advising practice supporting global clients, facing complex scenarios.
00:02:18.720 --> 00:02:35.609 Mira Brancu: Mark established and guided Design Group International, the Society for Process Consulting, which I'm a member of and Maestro level leaders, his latest book, listening, helping, learning, which I have been fortunate enough to learn from
00:02:35.810 --> 00:02:48.550 Mira Brancu: reveals the core competencies of process consulting to best support clients. So I'm super excited to talk with you today, to learn more from Mark welcome and great to have you on the show mark.
00:02:48.700 --> 00:02:56.719 mark l vincent: Well, this is a privilege. I always enjoy my conversations with you, and I feel like this will be a mutual exploration, and I can't wait.
00:02:57.000 --> 00:03:13.440 Mira Brancu: Thank you. Yes, yes. Okay. So the the most interesting thing on my mind, when you know, we were sort of trying to figure out like what to focus on is you have these like what I consider paradoxical ideas.
00:03:13.966 --> 00:03:20.710 Mira Brancu: One is your idea that we measure outcomes in numbers, but we avoid failure by measuring quality.
00:03:21.636 --> 00:03:30.060 Mira Brancu: And the other is qualitative. Measures are what messes up strategic initiatives far more than quantitative.
00:03:30.180 --> 00:03:31.690 Mira Brancu: So before we like
00:03:31.800 --> 00:03:47.480 Mira Brancu: dive in, because that's that's a lot to be thinking about. I want us to take a little step back because a lot of people I don't think know much even about what process consultation is. I think when they think about consulting, they automatically go to.
00:03:48.260 --> 00:03:51.199 Mira Brancu: I hire a consultant for their expertise.
00:03:51.420 --> 00:04:02.239 Mira Brancu: and that is a different kind of consultant, an expert consultant, or a content consultant is different than a process consultant. So let's start there. How would you tease that apart.
00:04:03.830 --> 00:04:09.670 mark l vincent: That's a strong and very good question, and I don't want to get on a soapbox too quick. And
00:04:10.340 --> 00:04:19.689 mark l vincent: but I've I've come to this point where, if we're gonna talk about subject matter, expertise and the delivery of it which is needed.
00:04:20.640 --> 00:04:31.070 mark l vincent: it is really more like a contractor function. It is bringing a product. In this case the product is knowledge that exists
00:04:31.740 --> 00:04:35.929 mark l vincent: or insight that someone possesses, that they're now going to share.
00:04:36.850 --> 00:04:43.200 mark l vincent: And when we're talking about process consulting. We're talking about knowledge we don't have yet.
00:04:43.320 --> 00:04:49.460 mark l vincent: We're talking about adaptations that have to be made in order to figure out solutions.
00:04:49.500 --> 00:05:01.370 mark l vincent: We're talking about what happens when an organization or a leader as an individual succeeds, and they're now in differentiated space. They've begun to make a distinctive contribution.
00:05:01.400 --> 00:05:23.729 mark l vincent: Any next step is not going to be in territory where everybody has gone before. Not in this moment, not in that way, not with the same team, not with the same amount of organizational development and operational excellence and play. So they're gonna have to figure stuff out. So the movement from here to there, even if we say what we want
00:05:24.050 --> 00:05:42.659 mark l vincent: is a process, and it's going to have complexity. And it's going to have a lot of moving parts. And so a process consultant doesn't come with the answer. They come with the questions and the mental discipline to help others get in step with the figuring it out
00:05:42.660 --> 00:06:11.180 mark l vincent: together. It is a walking alongside instead of a towering over or being consulted high up on the mountain as the Guru, and I'm getting a little tongue in cheek, as I say, those things, but that's that's the big difference. It's coming with questions and a mental discipline. It's coming with asking rather than telling. It's coming with listening first, st as opposed to speaking first, st and that is is the distinction they're both needed.
00:06:11.180 --> 00:06:24.169 mark l vincent: But when we move into adaptive space quite often process consulting is help is the tool that helps us figure out what expertise we really do need, and to feel strength to go after it.
00:06:24.680 --> 00:06:35.619 Mira Brancu: Now a natural follow up to that question for leaders who haven't had the experience of working with a process consultant especially
00:06:35.740 --> 00:06:40.560 Mira Brancu: is, doesn't a process consultant have to have experience
00:06:40.770 --> 00:06:44.360 Mira Brancu: with the challenges they're about to face
00:06:44.610 --> 00:06:49.870 Mira Brancu: in order to know and help them navigate these upcoming challenges.
00:06:50.249 --> 00:06:57.460 mark l vincent: You. You use the word paradox pretty quickly in this conversation, and it is a bit of a paradox
00:06:57.560 --> 00:07:02.999 mark l vincent: to have no answer and to also have been there in some way before.
00:07:03.600 --> 00:07:12.309 mark l vincent: So you can recognize certain aspects of the challenges, and that experience can be helpful to a degree for the process consultant.
00:07:12.550 --> 00:07:31.649 mark l vincent: you know, maybe working with a similar kind of an organization or similar kind of a moment. It can also become a block to new insight, because you go just to the well where you've always been. Do what you've always done, which in most cases starts to bring limited returns over time.
00:07:32.090 --> 00:08:00.369 mark l vincent: So the very specific skill that the process consultant brings is that mental rigor? To make sure, we ask the questions in a way that organizes data so that we can get insight and choose some next steps, even if we feel we've already been here before, so that something new might emerge that again promotes differentiation, distinctiveness.
00:08:00.370 --> 00:08:08.330 mark l vincent: a more competitive approach, an ability to solve problems. And let me put it in this, maybe even more stark way
00:08:08.380 --> 00:08:11.850 mark l vincent: we talk about best practices all the time.
00:08:12.010 --> 00:08:16.620 mark l vincent: Somebody put a best practice in place when it didn't exist.
00:08:16.850 --> 00:08:28.290 mark l vincent: And so if we're now going to say we're going to get to best practices and then stop there. We're not doing anything distinctive. We're now rising to the place of what has now become mediocrity.
00:08:28.460 --> 00:08:37.719 mark l vincent: If we're going to be the new set of best practices to innovate and move. Beyond that, we're moving into unexplored space.
00:08:38.049 --> 00:08:44.819 mark l vincent: So there's this degree of no, we haven't been here before. We may have had experienced a similar process.
00:08:45.060 --> 00:08:50.669 mark l vincent: but the answers will be distinct, because there are so many variabilities.
00:08:51.650 --> 00:08:55.450 Mira Brancu: Yeah. And I I think, E,
00:08:55.900 --> 00:09:15.469 Mira Brancu: you started also touching on this when you were talking about being in an adaptive space. So I'd love to hear more about how you think about how process consultants can help leaders be in that adaptive space when they're facing the unknown or something new.
00:09:15.670 --> 00:09:16.510 mark l vincent: Yeah.
00:09:16.980 --> 00:09:42.670 mark l vincent: Well, I think the illustration started with high fits, and it's so good there's no point in making a new one up. But the idea that a technical change and a change that comes out of a known problem and a known solution is like changing a car tire. There are a couple of approaches. Either I have the skills to do it, or I've got a phone number of triple A or tow company, whatever that will come and do it for me
00:09:43.340 --> 00:09:47.390 mark l vincent: if I have a flat tire 4 days in a row.
00:09:47.610 --> 00:10:09.240 mark l vincent: I am now in adaptive space. I don't know what caused it necessarily, and it could actually be a couple of factors working together, such as my tires are worn. The road is hot, and I'm driving a little too sloppily. And now my tire blows, and then it happens again tomorrow. So I've got to sometimes eliminate
00:10:10.770 --> 00:10:11.950 mark l vincent: approaches
00:10:12.250 --> 00:10:39.630 mark l vincent: before I discover the right solution. So we try this. It doesn't work. We try that. It doesn't work, but it reveals other possibilities. And eventually we get there. And what a process consultant is able to do is to bring those kinds of questions and structure and keep people focused. Let me try to put one other dimension here as humans. We're not particularly wired to think or walk and process things in straight lines.
00:10:39.730 --> 00:10:45.959 mark l vincent: We like rabbit trails. We like to go here and there we make connections. Sometimes we get great insight by that.
00:10:46.040 --> 00:11:15.759 mark l vincent: What process consultants are doing, if they're really good at this is, they're allowing for that, because insight can come. But they're organizing the conversation in such a way that the elements of a process steps on a map to follow start to emerge. So someone's going to think right away about who needs to be involved. Well, we record that we start organizing that. But other people aren't thinking about that. They're thinking about the why, what's the mission of this thing. Why, it's important. That's what they're going to want to talk about.
00:11:15.760 --> 00:11:20.139 mark l vincent: So the processes consult process. Consultant is listening for those elements
00:11:20.200 --> 00:11:42.990 mark l vincent: and helping to organize it, helping people see their thinking emerge in a structured way. When, as humans, we're not particularly structured when we go into problem solving, and we're not particularly aligned. So, Mira, if you and I were working at something, you would have your lenses, your experience, your location, your geography, your gender, all of these wonderful things in play.
00:11:43.170 --> 00:12:02.320 mark l vincent: I would have mine, and they might not necessarily align immediately. But as we talk about what we care about and what we see and what the evidence are is, we get a more complete picture if we have a way to structure and organize it, and then the answers are our answers, not the outside experts who told us what to do.
00:12:02.480 --> 00:12:13.630 mark l vincent: but our answers that have an alignment and a line of sight to move from where we are toward where we want to go. The process consultant is helping with that kind of structure.
00:12:14.230 --> 00:12:20.501 Mira Brancu: Got it. Yeah, so if I were to sort of pull all of this together, it it it sort of
00:12:21.050 --> 00:12:24.299 Mira Brancu: couple of elements that that come up for me. One is
00:12:24.730 --> 00:12:32.500 Mira Brancu: that it's it's especially critical in situations that are highly complex moving parts.
00:12:34.160 --> 00:12:53.160 Mira Brancu: and you need to sort of like innovate. And it does remind me a little bit about Amy Edmondson's teaming book, where she describes the difference between organizing to execute versus organizing, to learn right when you organize to execute. It might be fine for sort of
00:12:53.310 --> 00:13:15.049 Mira Brancu: highly specific routine processes that you're not trying to innovate, you know, like an assembly line, where you need to add the same exact parts every single time. You can't change too much. But if you're in an environment like healthcare, where there's lots of variables thrown at you, and it could be like in the er room especially. You know, things like that.
00:13:15.290 --> 00:13:24.819 Mira Brancu: You need to innovate on the spot. You need to know what the variables you need to pay attention to. There's a lot going on and having a process to think about that
00:13:25.080 --> 00:13:37.454 Mira Brancu: is sometimes more helpful than just like the exact manual for each thing, because you're not going to know how to face every single thing. The other thing that it's making me think about is like you mentioned.
00:13:38.600 --> 00:13:51.449 Mira Brancu: you know all about how the the it's client informed. Right? You're trying to understand and help the client understand? Like, what is it about our environment that we need to attend to?
00:13:51.560 --> 00:14:05.890 Mira Brancu: That is specific to us. And it's only gonna work. If we attend to those things that we know that the consultant might not have any idea about right, and the consultant is trying to access that information and slow down the client
00:14:06.040 --> 00:14:12.090 Mira Brancu: from jumping too fast into a conclusion, and instead, like, take a step back and think about
00:14:12.240 --> 00:14:17.209 Mira Brancu: how. How might we approach this in a way that takes in all of the variables.
00:14:17.750 --> 00:14:23.370 mark l vincent: I love it, and it moves us into executive thinking, using the executive function.
00:14:23.370 --> 00:14:23.750 Mira Brancu: True.
00:14:23.750 --> 00:14:40.779 mark l vincent: Brain, which is the problem solving function of the brain as opposed to the lizard function of our brain. You know that. Is this a dinosaur. Is it going to eat me? Should I run away? Should I hide? Should I play dead? And as soon as we're in that we're not listening to people, we're not able to process information. So we need to move
00:14:40.780 --> 00:14:56.760 mark l vincent: to that executive function. And what I want to really hold out there is that the more we do it, the more disciplined we get, the faster it becomes over time. So that even in some of the more mundane technical aspects of our life we're able to check. We're able to be a little bit more thoughtful.
00:14:56.890 --> 00:15:02.380 mark l vincent: But you're right. We can't get into this reflective space with every small decision.
00:15:02.980 --> 00:15:09.889 mark l vincent: but for the critical ones we need to be. And if we don't have good habits we will go to reactive places, and we will mess things up.
00:15:10.340 --> 00:15:31.420 Mira Brancu: Absolutely, absolutely. So we are reaching an ad break, and when we come back I want to get back to those 2 paradoxes again. Now that we have, like all the language set down for process consulting. Okay, so you're listening to the hard skills with me. Dr. Mira Branku and our guest today, Dr. Mark L. Vincent, author of listening, helping, learning.
00:15:31.420 --> 00:15:44.340 Mira Brancu: We are on Tuesdays at 5 Pm. Eastern. If you're watching us, it's right now, and at that time you can find us live streaming on Linkedin Youtube and several other locations@talkradio.nyc. And we'll be right back in just a moment.
00:17:26.020 --> 00:17:32.179 Mira Brancu: Welcome. Welcome back to the hard skills with me, Dr. Mira Branku and our guest today. Dr. Mark L. Vincent.
00:17:32.420 --> 00:17:38.020 Mira Brancu: Okay, let's go back to that paradoxical idea, and I have it written in front of me because
00:17:38.150 --> 00:17:47.279 Mira Brancu: it is deep. We measure. So the 1st statement is, we measure outcomes and numbers.
00:17:47.590 --> 00:17:50.540 Mira Brancu: but we avoid failure by measuring quality.
00:17:51.310 --> 00:17:59.209 Mira Brancu: Okay? At the same time, qualitative measures are what messes up strategic initiatives far more than quantitative.
00:17:59.810 --> 00:18:01.772 Mira Brancu: Help me make sense of this.
00:18:02.100 --> 00:18:07.260 mark l vincent: Yeah, it does tend to explode the brain, doesn't it? But let's let's try to break it down and make it simple
00:18:07.490 --> 00:18:26.730 mark l vincent: quantitative measure, which we would call like quanta or a data point is numbers, except data isn't just numbers. If data is information, we have numeric information. We also have qualitative information like, if we say something is soft
00:18:26.960 --> 00:18:39.110 mark l vincent: or something is quick, that's a quality. How do we measure that? Well, we. We measure them a little bit differently with with quantity. We count.
00:18:39.110 --> 00:18:59.750 mark l vincent: Let's say there are other ways, but we count with quality. We kind of take soundings. We put something out there and see what kind of feedback we get. So if I tell you something soft. But you tell me you don't think it is. Well, then, I you know we we kind of dicker at that to try and describe what that is, but I'd like to give some quick examples if I could.
00:18:59.750 --> 00:19:00.750 Mira Brancu: Yeah, that would be great.
00:19:00.750 --> 00:19:09.929 mark l vincent: And just from life. And then I'll put one actually kind of in organizational leadership context. But from life, let's say we're going to run a foot race, and you are the winner.
00:19:10.560 --> 00:19:13.180 mark l vincent: Well, if we call you the winner, if it's
00:19:13.550 --> 00:19:21.490 mark l vincent: quantitative, and see that even saying the words you have to think, what word do I want to say? If it's quantitative, you have the faster time.
00:19:22.050 --> 00:19:22.600 Mira Brancu: Yes.
00:19:22.600 --> 00:19:46.099 mark l vincent: If we say it's qualitative. Well, what are we talking about? Are we talking about your winning attitude? Are we talking about the fact that you have now set a track record, a world record that you have won many races over time. There has to be a little bit more definition. There has to be some conversation to know that we mean the same thing.
00:19:46.670 --> 00:19:59.130 mark l vincent: or we're not going to have communicated. Very well. We'll discover down the road that. Oh, that's what she meant. I didn't realize. That's what she meant when she said that. And this is the sort of thing that happens all the time.
00:19:59.610 --> 00:20:07.939 mark l vincent: Let's put a leadership piece in here, and let's say that you are a successful leader, Mira, and I am sure you are.
00:20:08.220 --> 00:20:13.250 mark l vincent: So if it's the way we normally do it, it's going to be quantitative.
00:20:14.230 --> 00:20:38.109 mark l vincent: That means, oh, the income for your organization is higher year over year, or your profit is higher year over year, or that you have employees that want to work there, and employee churn is down or employee. Retention is up. There's some way that you measure this year over year, and these are quantitative. But if we go qualitative
00:20:38.220 --> 00:20:40.359 mark l vincent: now, we're saying, Are you safe?
00:20:40.690 --> 00:20:42.449 mark l vincent: Are you stable?
00:20:42.620 --> 00:21:07.319 mark l vincent: Are you reliable? Are you trustworthy? Do you have integrity? Do I want to work for you or with you? Do I want others to know where I work because of how you behave. Am I staying at work because of who you are? And the evidence keeps showing that people quit because of their bosses before they quit for any other reason.
00:21:07.420 --> 00:21:30.559 mark l vincent: So these are qualitative measures that I would submit a we don't talk about, and we don't start to measure. Many organizations don't even do qualitative measures in an effective way, let alone excuse me. Quantitative measures, let alone getting to quality ones. But we don't measure them. And then we actually enforce and train people not to use them.
00:21:30.840 --> 00:21:46.430 mark l vincent: So we say we'll talk about it later. That's not important. We'll figure it out when we come to it. Let's let's postpone that. It's too hard. We say, all the time. And leaders say this to people who are learning how to behave in the workplace, and they're being trained not to give attention
00:21:46.480 --> 00:22:14.710 mark l vincent: to the qualitative. Well, when we fight, when we quit, when we sue each other, when we have a shareholder lawsuit of some kind, or someone says we didn't earn enough. How do we define? Enough? Enough is qualitative. You didn't do what I asked. Whatever we ask, that's going to largely rest in qualitative measures. We don't take the time to define them, and when we do say something about them, we use very simple language
00:22:14.730 --> 00:22:40.510 mark l vincent: that can be interpreted all sorts of ways, and we don't find out about it until we're downstream. And now to sort it through, it's painful. There are relationship wounds people don't trust because all that's been broken to reveal the fact that we're not succeeding. So that's why the qualitative part is so critical, and yet we work against it rather than for it.
00:22:40.720 --> 00:22:45.132 mark l vincent: Oh, my gosh! I'm like nodding like a bobble head right now.
00:22:45.500 --> 00:22:46.040 mark l vincent: Hard! My ear.
00:22:46.040 --> 00:22:48.972 Mira Brancu: No agreement. Yes,
00:22:50.220 --> 00:22:52.400 Mira Brancu: I can't tell you how many times
00:22:54.160 --> 00:23:00.440 Mira Brancu: You know, I've been called in to help a team that has fallen apart
00:23:00.700 --> 00:23:04.519 Mira Brancu: because of conflict. And we start talking about
00:23:04.890 --> 00:23:09.220 Mira Brancu: someone not respecting someone else. And I say, what does respect mean to you?
00:23:09.680 --> 00:23:10.500 Mira Brancu: And
00:23:11.220 --> 00:23:21.039 Mira Brancu: they haven't even talked about the fact that it means completely different things to each other. I was in this one team development engagement.
00:23:21.220 --> 00:23:28.890 Mira Brancu: where we ended up having to spend half a day on support
00:23:29.350 --> 00:23:35.620 Mira Brancu: because someone felt so unsafe with this team.
00:23:35.960 --> 00:23:44.959 Mira Brancu: And specifically, she said, I don't feel supported, and they were scratching their heads. I don't understand how you cannot feel supported, and
00:23:45.130 --> 00:23:50.519 Mira Brancu: she had a really hard time explaining what she meant. She just said, I just don't feel supported.
00:23:50.610 --> 00:24:20.079 Mira Brancu: and it took quite a while to help her learn how to just define what are the observable or personal experiences and behaviors that make you feel supported versus not supported. And then what about everybody else? And that alone was like a massive breakdown that led to where they were and helped them start moving towards better defining, better tracking and understanding what it would mean, and what it would look like
00:24:20.220 --> 00:24:26.289 Mira Brancu: to feel supported versus not for this person versus that person. So totally yeah.
00:24:26.290 --> 00:24:37.190 mark l vincent: Yeah. Well, let's say I'm I'm a CEO who you're trying to persuade about this, like, you know, you've got to give the time. It's a waste of time. It's a waste of money. We've got stuff to get done.
00:24:37.550 --> 00:24:41.870 mark l vincent: The counter argument to that. No kind of pressure
00:24:42.030 --> 00:24:45.339 mark l vincent: is that you're spending time playing cleanup.
00:24:46.420 --> 00:24:54.989 mark l vincent: You're spending time finding new hires because people who were talented left. You're spending time and money on attorneys
00:24:55.070 --> 00:25:19.959 mark l vincent: and lawsuits and workplace complaints and being called in front of some State agency, or whatever else, because somebody filed something. All of that takes time and money. And there's a major drain, and the more successful you are, the more potential actually there is for this. So you're spending a lot of time and money there as opposed to the time and investment to get the definitions
00:25:19.960 --> 00:25:32.980 mark l vincent: locked in, or even if I think there's more to the word safety than you or support than you, we've reached an agreement of what we mean for our context in this moment, in this organization
00:25:32.980 --> 00:25:55.290 mark l vincent: that gives us a reference point, and that we can measure and track which builds momentum builds alignment, it becomes one of those flywheel effects that brings good and actually makes things less expensive and less of a time consumption in the end, and people are certainly sleeping better when we work to have that kind of culture in place.
00:25:55.290 --> 00:26:07.339 Mira Brancu: Yeah, yeah. So what I'm hearing is from those original, paradoxical or seemingly paradoxical phrases. We should be number one. We should be
00:26:07.630 --> 00:26:22.910 Mira Brancu: trying to quantitatively measure the unmeasurable, the intangible. I should say and if we can find a way to do that, we're really starting to target
00:26:23.020 --> 00:26:32.430 Mira Brancu: the avoidance of failures. Not just looking at the sort of like surface level successes. Is that how you would sort of define it.
00:26:32.690 --> 00:26:46.100 mark l vincent: I think the only argument I'd have there, and it's not a like a tense one. It's just that these are more tangible than we give them credit for. So the quantitative we could think of this, like quantitative measure, exists above the waterline.
00:26:46.380 --> 00:26:52.919 mark l vincent: Qualitative is kind of below the waterline. That's why you have to take sounding. So we have to do some checking. We have to do some estimating.
00:26:52.980 --> 00:27:08.560 mark l vincent: but even then we can begin to measure so in your support, conversation, illustration, you finally got to what are some of the leading indicators? Not just the lagging ones, the leading things that can be done and those become measurable.
00:27:08.570 --> 00:27:31.890 mark l vincent: That helps someone begin to say support is happening, or someone says, I'm not being supported. You'd be able to show what we do these things. This is how many of them we do. What's missing here? Because we can't say this, therefore, is the only way it's done. That's why we take soundings. Here's what we've got. This is what's been established. What would make this better? And you can invite people who are being contentious into productive conversations
00:27:31.890 --> 00:27:42.859 mark l vincent: because you have something to show them that shows the intention as opposed to. We'll talk about it later. Nobody talks about that. We talked about that 5 years ago, and it was so painful we don't want to open the door to it again.
00:27:42.860 --> 00:27:51.639 mark l vincent: That's the stuff that shuts it down. So I just think it's a little bit more work, maybe even a lot more work. And there's a certain blindness because it's below that waterline.
00:27:51.640 --> 00:27:56.970 Mira Brancu: Yeah. So now, putting it together, how does process consultation help with this.
00:27:57.450 --> 00:28:04.200 mark l vincent: Well, we already alluded to the fact that in process consulting you're slowing it down. You're slowing it down in order to go fast.
00:28:04.540 --> 00:28:22.980 mark l vincent: and you are being firm about process so that it can be softer on people so that people aren't saying nobody listens to me, or I'm not supported, or I don't feel safe. So you're slowing it down to where you're going to take the time to ask the questions, and at least at a minimum lock in some definitions.
00:28:23.210 --> 00:28:27.590 mark l vincent: So when people say, we want a productive workplace culture. Okay, great. Let's write that down.
00:28:27.760 --> 00:28:28.890 mark l vincent: Who is we?
00:28:30.850 --> 00:28:35.529 mark l vincent: What is want, demand or wish, or whatever
00:28:36.438 --> 00:28:39.490 mark l vincent: productive. What's our definition for productive?
00:28:40.120 --> 00:29:00.819 mark l vincent: What is our workplace? Is it just this site, or is it multiple sites especially for a multi-sided organization. And what's our definition of culture and how we build it. So if we don't have agreement about those things, we're gonna have some great steps. And in 2 weeks. We're gonna be stuck stymied at odds with each other because we don't have the same working definitions.
00:29:01.280 --> 00:29:03.940 mark l vincent: So the process consultant is holding up those questions.
00:29:04.180 --> 00:29:34.009 Mira Brancu: Yeah, yeah. So with that, we are reaching an ad break when we come back, I'd really like to get into. So Mark, what do we do about this? Because I'm sure by now people are like on the edge of their seats. What do we do? And how do we do this. So you're listening to the hard skills with me, Dr. Mira Branco and our guest today, Dr. Mark L. Vincent, author of listening, helping, learning. I suspect we're going to probably learn a little bit about what's in his book and how to apply that to what we've been talking about.
00:29:34.334 --> 00:29:37.789 Mira Brancu: So stick around and we'll be back in just a moment.
00:31:09.790 --> 00:31:16.119 Mira Brancu: Welcome. Welcome back to the hard skills with me. Dr. Mira Branku and our guest today, Dr. Mark L. Vincent.
00:31:16.590 --> 00:31:19.238 Mira Brancu: So we've talked about
00:31:20.030 --> 00:31:33.459 Mira Brancu: how to start thinking at a deeper and higher level with process, consulting skill sets and strategic thinking and executive functioning. And we've talked about
00:31:33.760 --> 00:31:41.589 Mira Brancu: really helping leaders slow down to think more deeply about the things we make assumptions about
00:31:42.271 --> 00:31:45.850 Mira Brancu: and to better define and better track.
00:31:45.950 --> 00:31:54.130 Mira Brancu: so that we can retain our best people, and so that we can help everyone. Who.
00:31:54.600 --> 00:32:08.319 Mira Brancu: you know, does work for the organization, feel like they can function at their very best, because that's also how you get results and how we avoid the failures that I just described about. You know massive conflicts that cause people to.
00:32:09.065 --> 00:32:17.634 mark l vincent: Not function well together effectively as a team and which causes so many costly disruptions. Right? So
00:32:18.800 --> 00:32:36.640 Mira Brancu: Mark happens to have a framework, and I love me some frameworks, so I would love to hear about the listening, helping, learning domains in your book and share that with our audience. And you know, gosh! Like you hear it. And you're like
00:32:36.800 --> 00:32:47.969 Mira Brancu: that sounds pretty simple and obvious. You listen. You help you learn. It goes an awful lot deeper. But I would love for you to sort of describe these
00:32:48.640 --> 00:32:56.100 Mira Brancu: different lanes, and I think one feeds into the other 2, which I think is really important. As part of this, can you share more about it?
00:32:57.120 --> 00:33:02.679 mark l vincent: Yes, there's 2 streams I think we've got to identify here. One is.
00:33:02.820 --> 00:33:08.640 mark l vincent: if we're going to use frameworks, we need to be able to remember them, retain them and put them to work.
00:33:09.260 --> 00:33:16.119 mark l vincent: There are some humans that are just super super brainiacs out there, and they can remember this or 7 things or longer.
00:33:16.220 --> 00:33:17.380 mark l vincent: That's not me.
00:33:17.910 --> 00:33:26.260 mark l vincent: We have one of these 52 principles to a better meeting kind of a book or something. I immediately, when I asked the author, well, what's number 38? You know? What did you?
00:33:26.800 --> 00:33:34.480 mark l vincent: 14, or whatever else? They're great, but they don't become operable for us in the moment.
00:33:34.860 --> 00:33:46.139 mark l vincent: So what I want to make sure happens is we have that kind of a framework. Not that it's simplest, or SIM so simple that a lot of things are left out, but it's so distilled.
00:33:46.650 --> 00:33:53.969 mark l vincent: so reduced to its essence, that you can build out and expand on it. But you can retain it. You can remember it, and you can use it.
00:33:54.370 --> 00:34:03.789 mark l vincent: The other is that we want to be able to build and be in the moment to do this work rather than having to leave it, to try to remember something
00:34:03.870 --> 00:34:05.330 mark l vincent: to come back.
00:34:05.410 --> 00:34:34.440 mark l vincent: So the structure will work, even if we're not very artful with it. Yet, even if we're not leading, but it becomes something that we can become very artful with. And so we talk about listening and helping and learning. That's the 1st stream. The second stream is this field of process. Consulting is a young field. Edgar Shine really gets credit of being the godfather of the whole thing and his work as an mit professor starting in manufacturing. But then starting to do the similar kind of thing with
00:34:34.440 --> 00:34:51.939 mark l vincent: human service organizations and healthcare, and even government, and Ngos working with this idea of asking questions and digging out what people knew and what they would try, and drawing out what they would own as their next step as opposed to. Here's what the expert says you must do.
00:34:51.940 --> 00:35:10.810 mark l vincent: and it works over and over and over again, getting people aligned to actually carry out their steps that they're committed to doing well. How do you do that? That became my work. So now we had an academic approach, something we could study and look at. But if someone's going to actually carry that out as a professional.
00:35:11.100 --> 00:35:16.729 mark l vincent: what does that look like? What are the competencies. How do we know that they're actually being done?
00:35:16.730 --> 00:35:17.070 Mira Brancu: Can.
00:35:17.070 --> 00:35:33.399 mark l vincent: We go back and check our work and say, How did I do with these things? That became what these core competencies are? And when we distill the 12 competencies that are identified. Further, you end up with listening, helping, learning.
00:35:33.880 --> 00:35:45.700 mark l vincent: 4 competencies around listening. I'll touch on that just for a second. In a moment. 4 competencies around helping helping in this case is not doing something to the client. Helping is
00:35:45.700 --> 00:35:53.259 mark l vincent: co-creating with the client. Learning, then, is, what do you do with the knowledge that you gain out of doing these adaptive moves.
00:35:53.260 --> 00:36:17.499 mark l vincent: how does it get passed along? How does it get curated? And so forth? But in doing that they grow into each other? So when you move from listening to helping. You're not stopping, listening and starting, helping, listening continues. And when the helping work is happening, you're not leaving that in order to learn, because learning will point to the next stuff to learn which means to go right back into some
00:36:17.650 --> 00:36:42.019 mark l vincent: form of process. So a process consultant isn't just listening to like facing, squaring up and just listening. They're listening with the architecture of a process in mind, and holding it up in such a way that what the client is saying they want to do and are willing to do. They're they're seeing it. They're seeing it emerge to the point. They can say yes, you just listen to me better.
00:36:42.160 --> 00:36:56.100 mark l vincent: You just said it back to me better than I ever said it. Well, now they're listening to the opportunity or the challenges in front of them. So, as the process consultant, if you're my client, we've gone from being across the table
00:36:56.320 --> 00:37:02.029 mark l vincent: to actually now being side by side looking at this thing that we're now both listening to.
00:37:02.350 --> 00:37:13.489 mark l vincent: and it's out of that kind of listening that we can co-create the set of steps that we will follow to figure some things out. And as we figure those things out.
00:37:13.580 --> 00:37:27.870 mark l vincent: then we're going to learn well. And the question is, what are we going to do with this learning? And who's that for? Well, that does sound simple. But the rigor to maintain that discipline and to keep coming back to where we are is the is the work.
00:37:27.930 --> 00:37:52.170 mark l vincent: So you know it's not that I have to be knowledgeable about engineering and manufacturing or about healthcare. I need to be good with these questions, to draw out the genius of those who know something about it, and to help them organize their work so they can see some kind of a threshold to walk through to where they've never been, but must go, or things are going to break.
00:37:52.400 --> 00:37:54.569 mark l vincent: and that's adaptive space all over again.
00:37:54.720 --> 00:38:01.669 Mira Brancu: It reminds me when I 1st started as a clinical psychologist before I moved into organizational development.
00:38:02.346 --> 00:38:13.619 Mira Brancu: I started out as a suicide researcher working with suicidal patients. And the method that I learned from Dr. Dave Jobes.
00:38:13.760 --> 00:38:27.240 Mira Brancu: who has a very well known cams approach to helping people with with suicidality is you? Do you move from being across the table as the director? I mean as the diagnoser and doctor
00:38:27.320 --> 00:38:49.802 Mira Brancu: to working next to alongside the your patient so that you're trying to figure out together. What are we facing? What is it that has worked in the past? How can we help you pull out what you already know about yourself that could help you move forward. And it's less pejorative. It's more supportive. It's, you know.
00:38:50.540 --> 00:38:52.470 Mira Brancu: taking time to care and listen.
00:38:52.780 --> 00:38:53.490 mark l vincent: Yes.
00:38:53.490 --> 00:39:11.370 Mira Brancu: It's the same kind of, you know. Idea here is like, not acting like you have all the answers, but really trying to understand deeply. What is it that this person is experiencing? And can I understand it from their perspective, and all of the sort of nuance to it.
00:39:11.730 --> 00:39:20.260 mark l vincent: Yeah. And if you study these core competencies like the society, and you said, you're a member and thank you for that. The Society for process. Consulting
00:39:20.260 --> 00:39:44.619 mark l vincent: teaches courses on these core competencies. And when you get into the helping part, which is, we're talking about organizational helping, co-creating it together. You're still going to have to think a little bit about Karkov's model for helping, which was clinical. You know the therapist and the person this speak and feedback and check and get beside each other as you're looking at what they want to do. You're just not doing it at a systems level.
00:39:44.930 --> 00:40:11.880 mark l vincent: which means it's the organization or the system and the individuals. It's both together. And that's why, in process consulting, there's this encouragement to spell the word client with a capital C, as one way to be reminded that you're talking about a system as well as people, and it's the intersection of the 2 that you're doing this work as opposed to just one, to one or one to an organizational chart.
00:40:11.880 --> 00:40:18.820 Mira Brancu: Yeah. And I appreciate that also because one of the the greatest problems with both
00:40:19.800 --> 00:40:26.730 Mira Brancu: therapy for individuals and coaching for individuals is that
00:40:28.100 --> 00:40:52.770 Mira Brancu: Often. You don't learn about the massive impact on the interplay with the system, and the system will make a huge difference in whether you succeed or not, you know I can be the same exact person in this system, and not succeed in this person. Skyrocket, which personally I have experienced in my career. Both experiences right? We all can test to that. And
00:40:52.850 --> 00:41:01.540 Mira Brancu: so I like that sort of very clear visual about Big C is the interplay with the system and the individual.
00:41:02.609 --> 00:41:06.679 mark l vincent: And sometimes that system has already established what the end is
00:41:06.860 --> 00:41:20.529 mark l vincent: assuming that there's agreement oftentimes there's not so you got that quality of measure problem again. But there's often this end in mind. There's this place that someone has determined shareholders, bosses, whatever that it needs to go.
00:41:20.920 --> 00:41:29.300 mark l vincent: And that's sort of an end of the day. Kind of thing that you've got to talk about as opposed to just saying, Hmm! Where do you want to go?
00:41:29.693 --> 00:41:54.999 mark l vincent: And you can talk about how do you feel about it? What would help you want to own it more? Okay. So you don't feel like you were consulted on. This is that part of the process that we got to go back and do some, you know, retroactive work here to try and create alignment, and are those who are in charge willing to do that? And then this is where the process consultant actually has a lot of freedom. They can hold up their hands and say, You know, if you don't want to work at this.
00:41:55.020 --> 00:42:08.809 mark l vincent: nothing I can do. I'm not in control. I'm not in charge. All I can do is ask the questions and help organize your thinking for as long as you want to stay with it. Do you still want to or not, and I have found this tremendous freedom in that.
00:42:08.810 --> 00:42:11.081 Mira Brancu: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So. Now,
00:42:12.400 --> 00:42:22.449 Mira Brancu: tell us a little bit more about the movement into helping, and then the movement into helping in the learning. Yeah.
00:42:22.450 --> 00:42:39.339 mark l vincent: Yeah. So once we've agreed that we're talking about the same issue, whether it's an opportunity that we want to seize or a problem that we want to diminish. We're in agreement about that. Now, we start to Co, create the steps like and it starts to get a little bit granular like, when do you want to have this done by?
00:42:39.340 --> 00:42:53.590 mark l vincent: And where is the work going to happen? And and how do we want to proceed? And that is often helped by some reverse engineering. If we've got even an artificial deadline, we can work backwards to now start outlining our steps and start to be able to
00:42:53.590 --> 00:43:01.360 mark l vincent: to follow. And as we're doing each of those steps, we can come back and say, All right. We did those things. This is where we are now.
00:43:01.640 --> 00:43:12.409 mark l vincent: have we learned anything? Is there any adjustment we need to make? Does that adjust any of our next steps? Okay, well, then, here is our next step. Let's take that now. So we're we're constantly bringing everybody back to the same room
00:43:12.510 --> 00:43:29.910 mark l vincent: for the same conversation. And then, when we meet 2 weeks later, or whatever, whenever that is bringing them back to the same room, the same conversation getting them in the room for that. What's our next step? We take it. And as a solution emerges, then we are learning. We're recording that we're using. We're producing an artifact.
00:43:29.910 --> 00:43:45.849 mark l vincent: The process is an artifact. Our learning is an artifact. We have to keep bringing it back, and that's an excellent thing for the process consultant to keep doing that discipline of let's get the artifact out. Let's look at the artifact as opposed to what we remember about what we said
00:43:46.090 --> 00:43:49.610 mark l vincent: when we try to recall the previous meeting.
00:43:49.750 --> 00:44:15.080 mark l vincent: We usually only remember what we said, not what was decided, which means we have to have the meeting all over again. So getting the artifacts out and looking at it really helps us get alignment and keep moving, and then the learning doesn't just exist for us exists for those who come after us. If it's proprietary, we, you know, we'll have some security around that. If it's not, it becomes something that the Commons can embrace. But it's not gonna just rest with us. It is for
00:44:15.080 --> 00:44:22.749 mark l vincent: the organization. It's for all of the people who are a part of it, and I could keep going. But I think we're going to be coming up on a break. Here.
00:44:22.750 --> 00:44:28.979 Mira Brancu: Yeah, yeah, that's right. So, yeah, I mean, I hear a lot of connection to.
00:44:29.740 --> 00:44:33.540 Mira Brancu: I'm kind of thinking about this like a combination of
00:44:33.840 --> 00:44:44.440 Mira Brancu: process improvement plus project management because there is a rigor to it and a tracking and a codifying. It's not just like
00:44:44.660 --> 00:44:51.766 Mira Brancu: let's chat about the process. It's not that spoofy. It's actually pretty you know.
00:44:52.490 --> 00:45:02.259 Mira Brancu: kind of step by step, rigorous. So when we come back from the ad break. Let's talk a little bit more about what that experience is like from the client side, and.
00:45:02.260 --> 00:45:02.770 mark l vincent: What they.
00:45:02.770 --> 00:45:14.859 Mira Brancu: Sort of like. Take away from that at the end of all of this right? So you're listening to the hard skills with me. Dr. Mara Branku and our guest today, Dr. Mark L. Vincent, author of listening, helping, learning, and we'll be right back in just a moment.
00:46:59.900 --> 00:47:19.439 Mira Brancu: Welcome. Welcome back to the hard skills with me. Dr. Mira Branku and our guest today, Dr. Mark L. Vincent. So, Mark, you've described this process, and it does sound like there's, you know, some good rigor to it, and that you're going back.
00:47:19.660 --> 00:47:36.589 Mira Brancu: you know, and forth between artifacts and experience and trying new things out and updating. And it. It turns into a learning experience over time where you bring in. You know the rest of the organization. What is the experience like from the client's perspective? What are they sort of like
00:47:36.920 --> 00:47:42.789 Mira Brancu: moving from in from start to finish? And what are they experiencing? By the by, the end.
00:47:44.160 --> 00:47:46.465 mark l vincent: Well, the majority of the time.
00:47:47.100 --> 00:47:51.829 mark l vincent: it is a moment where people in the organization are
00:47:52.150 --> 00:48:01.439 mark l vincent: reactive or afraid, uncertain. Don't trust what's gonna happen ready to roll their eyes arms across. Body language is is very defensive
00:48:02.134 --> 00:48:09.000 mark l vincent: occasionally I have the privilege of working with an organization that's begun to get a good track record of experiences, and people are ready to
00:48:09.320 --> 00:48:25.370 mark l vincent: get in there. But it's you know, most most people aren't like I get to go to meetings today. I get to send 3 h of working something out when we're already mad at each other. So you're starting there and you're trying to move them to a point where this they're saying we really got stuff done.
00:48:25.750 --> 00:48:36.179 mark l vincent: I'm so excited about our next steps. They're involuntarily telling friends and spouses in the parking lots and at the cafes about the interesting work that they're doing.
00:48:36.180 --> 00:48:36.650 Mira Brancu: Yeah.
00:48:36.650 --> 00:49:01.620 mark l vincent: Moving them from that place to this place or from a I'll give it a try to this place of alignment. So along the way. This is where listening in a structured, beautiful way, helps so that it can become helping. That's co-created. People say my opinions are here. My voice was heard. I can see where these people I disagreed with. I actually have a point.
00:49:01.760 --> 00:49:22.660 mark l vincent: And and you know, then they start to move to actually learning something and being able to celebrate their work, and then they're more ready to enter into a next process more readily. That's the journey in a, you know, a real nutshell. But what I would say is, I've learned that this little maxim, being very firm with process
00:49:23.040 --> 00:49:25.269 mark l vincent: so that you can be soft on people
00:49:25.610 --> 00:49:43.670 mark l vincent: soft with people is a really important point. So even though there's rigor, even though there's some mental discipline, there's a little to it. There's a lift to it. There's a non anxiousness in it. There is a way to construct the container for conversation, so that people will give you their best
00:49:43.670 --> 00:49:59.329 mark l vincent: leaders aren't feeling threatened. There are not they. They know that they can register their opinions and and do it in a way that doesn't force other people to be quiet, and other people know that they're gonna have to take their turn, that nobody really gets to dominate the the meeting.
00:49:59.330 --> 00:50:07.669 mark l vincent: so that that firmness with process helps to set up this possibility that people can have repeated good experiences.
00:50:07.760 --> 00:50:12.089 mark l vincent: and like a Jenga tower, it takes a while to set up
00:50:12.910 --> 00:50:26.110 mark l vincent: one false move. The whole thing collapses. So again, someone who's practiced at this is practicing this, people who begin to understand what part they can play and actually join in and help to create and hold that container
00:50:26.380 --> 00:50:29.869 mark l vincent: is what builds this over time.
00:50:30.070 --> 00:50:31.190 Mira Brancu: Yeah, yeah,
00:50:32.090 --> 00:50:45.500 Mira Brancu: what I'm actually thinking about. It's we haven't talked about it. It's kind of unrelated. But like you're, you're basically turning, listening into an invigorating process that feels rewarding, and
00:50:45.690 --> 00:50:48.989 Mira Brancu: that is like moving from
00:50:49.250 --> 00:51:00.490 Mira Brancu: what many of us experience, especially women in the workplace, who are like often doing this listening work and holding work is moving from emotional labor work
00:51:00.810 --> 00:51:10.740 Mira Brancu: to an invigorating experience where it's turning it into actionable, useful, productive work.
00:51:11.160 --> 00:51:21.520 mark l vincent: Yes, I like that. I I have said repeatedly that process, consulting or being a process consulting, is consulting something. One is
00:51:21.720 --> 00:51:23.489 mark l vincent: not just what they do.
00:51:23.770 --> 00:51:38.699 mark l vincent: You can't fake this kind of listening for very long, and it comes from a place of working out. Ever you get to work out so that you're not anxious. So you're genuinely curious about a field for which you have nothing
00:51:38.700 --> 00:51:57.000 mark l vincent: interested in the people that are bringing something able to tune into their uniqueness, caring about them, even though you're only going to have these little interludes with them that takes some some internal reflective work so that you can show up and hold that space.
00:51:57.270 --> 00:52:09.050 mark l vincent: Because if you've got other processes going in your brain thinking about where you're going to go for dinner, or that ugly conversation you had when you left home. Those kinds of things. It's going to diminish your ability to really serve
00:52:09.456 --> 00:52:36.379 mark l vincent: the conversation. And so when you're doing that others can join in. And yes, instead of it being hard labor, it becomes energetic. It becomes productive. People actually start helping to reinforce the structure for listening and making sure that they're taking turns, and they say, Wait a minute. I don't think so, and so got an opportunity to speak yet as opposed to. I didn't get to speak yet. You know that to feel that shift is a sign. It's starting to flow.
00:52:36.650 --> 00:52:53.749 Mira Brancu: Yeah, yeah, fantastic. If folks want to hear more about you and your work and what you're working on, we have a few links for those of you who are watching visually. But if you can also describe, where can they go to find out more about you?
00:52:54.160 --> 00:53:19.599 mark l vincent: Yes. Well, you've got on the screen right now, really, what is a link tree that's just tied to my name? So marcovincent.com. And it's kind of a gateway to the work that we've accumulated over time. There's some videos. There's a chance to learn more about process consulting. If you keep scrolling down. There's the book listing, helping, and learning. We can learn more about it. How to get it. I really have a lot of fun writing this executive thinking Newsletter every 2 weeks. There's
00:53:19.600 --> 00:53:27.283 mark l vincent: nobody's sponsoring it. It's just a chance to really take the stuff that would keep me awake at night. Think about what it means to lead at an executive level.
00:53:27.550 --> 00:53:47.849 mark l vincent: and and just to write about it. So it's more of an artful thing that's fun to do. And then there are other resources down here where I've got some connections to some organizations like the Society for Process. Consulting that we've mentioned. I really like the path to enterprise value. I have this relationship with the sage group that works to
00:53:48.185 --> 00:54:14.729 mark l vincent: it really uses a process consulting approach toward leading to a succession event or an investment event selling a company where? It's not just how do we get the money? But the qualitative measures can a succession are also in play. I find it really helpful. And then toward the bottom, you'll see a link there for systems convening which we've not talked a lot about. But one quick definition for systems convening is multiple systems
00:54:14.780 --> 00:54:42.369 mark l vincent: convening to do some work together. So let's say, you've got a college that wants to build a new dorm next to a Neighborhood association that's pretty resistant to it. And now you have a city zoning board involved. So you've got 3 groups that don't have to work together. Each is the system. How do you convene that in order to have a productive conversation? So it's like the superpower or super power level of what process consulting can be.
00:54:42.370 --> 00:54:43.359 Mira Brancu: Super interesting.
00:54:43.360 --> 00:55:00.110 mark l vincent: Yeah. And there's been some recent work on there. That community of practice consultants at the end. And Beverly Wanger trainer have done. That's really really good. There's some literature now developing in that regard. So this is just a gateway for anybody who wants to really geek out on this stuff where they can go.
00:55:00.410 --> 00:55:01.319 Mira Brancu: Very cool.
00:55:01.320 --> 00:55:17.050 mark l vincent: And then that last one that you've got up there is the Micro North America Conference micro is an emotional intelligence development technology, a daily droplet, like 10 min of work each day that really helps to retrain the brain
00:55:17.391 --> 00:55:43.040 mark l vincent: literally rewires neurons in order to have a more positive approach to things, to have a speedier method for decision making to be more empathetic and so forth. And so we've got a so 1st ever conference set for the North American hours because they're based in South Africa, and so we've got a 2 day conference. And anybody who's listening to this that would like to fill a conference room and project this on the screen, and kind of be their own breakout.
00:55:43.040 --> 00:55:48.259 Mira Brancu: We'll let them fill a room for the price of one registration. It's just a $49 deal
00:55:48.260 --> 00:55:48.580 Mira Brancu: using.
00:55:48.842 --> 00:56:00.120 mark l vincent: And we think it's a great way with a high, a great thing with a high return for the dollar, for training. Nobody has to get on an airplane. Nobody has to pay restaurant bills. They're gonna get high quality stuff. So.
00:56:00.120 --> 00:56:08.670 Mira Brancu: Is amazing. Wow, what an amazing offer. And sounds incredible. So, audience.
00:56:08.770 --> 00:56:18.639 Mira Brancu: what did you take away? There's a lot that Mark shared with you today. What did you take away that is personally useful to you and your organization?
00:56:18.690 --> 00:56:38.989 Mira Brancu: And, more importantly, what is one small change you can implement this week, based on what you learned from Mark. Share it with us on Linkedin. So we can cheer you on and talkradio Dot, Nyc. Is also on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Twitch, apple, spotify and Amazon Podcasts. So it's all over the place. If today's episode resonated with you, share it
00:56:39.270 --> 00:56:41.670 Mira Brancu: with a colleague or leave a review.
00:56:41.950 --> 00:56:52.640 Mira Brancu: and, as you know, if you're interested in working with Mark, you know how to find him. Now, if you're interested in working with me, you can go to gotowrascope.com.
00:56:52.780 --> 00:57:14.819 Mira Brancu: Thank you to talkradio dot Nyc. For hosting today, and tomorrow we will navigate the complexities of leadership and emerge stronger on the other side. Thank you for joining me and Dr. Mark L. Vincent today on this journey. This is Dr. Mira Branku, signing off until next time. Stay, steady, stay present, and keep building those hard skills. Muscles.
00:57:15.070 --> 00:57:16.570 Mira Brancu: Take care, everybody.
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