Jan 5, 2021
Hello, this is Jane Gardner of finding your purpose, and todaywe're on a mission to create awareness that being self-aware ofyour personality and your purpose in life, can you make you moreintentional in your actions and bring you more success in yourbusiness, your relationships and your life? So let's go. Welcome,everybody. This is Jane Gardner finding your purpose TV and todayon finding your purpose Spotlight, we're talking to Jann Freed,PhD. Sorry, my apologies to Dr. Jan Freed, Ph.D. She was a collegeprofessor of business management and leadership. And after 30 yearsas a tenured professor and endowment chair, she started an encorecareer as a leadership development and change managementconsultant. And she is the author of several books and co-author ofa list of five books. And her last book is Leading with Wisdom SageAdvice from One Hundred Experts, which we'll be talking about. Andwe'll also be talking about her new book. So, Jann, welcome.Welcome. Please just say hello and say hello.
I'm pleased to be here. And it was nice to make a connectionwith Jane. And thank you very much for inviting me to your show.Oh, thank you.
Thank you. Jan, one of the things that I love to talk about withpeople is finding their purpose. And obviously, you've been doingyour purpose for a long time. So but I'd like to talk about yournew purpose, which is the Leadership Development and changemanagement consultant and how you got to that journey, because, ofcourse, you previously were in academics. So thank you. How didthat happen?
Yeah, well, it's interesting. So I fell into higher educationteaching and absolutely loved it, had a lot of different courses.And but I had to drive two hours a day, an hour each way to get tomy work and. When my kids graduate from college, my husband said,you know, we can afford to take a risk, you're tired of driving.And I wanted to I was at the stage of my life where I want to giveback to the community. And I couldn't give back to the communitywhere I live because I worked out of town and I couldn't give backto where I worked because I lived out of town. So I had to make achange and I have not looked back. Fortunately, I was able to teacha graduate leadership course for a different university for thepast 10 years. So I kept my foot into teaching. And as a leadershipdevelopment person, you know, I do workshops, I do speaking, I dosome coaching. And it's really the same skill set that I enjoyed somuch when I was teaching full time. So I eliminated grading papers,which is always kind of the hardest part about teaching. So I don'thave to do that. And I can still use some of the same skills and Ihave just loved it. And so that's kind of been my journey takingreally kind of taking the same skills that I like to use, but to adifferent audience.
Oh, wow. Yeah, that's great. And I guess you probably startedwriting books when you were in academics because that's probablyone of the requirements. But you're now doing maybe you could tellus when you started your leadership book, Leading with Wisdom andthat you're writing a new one. And what what we can claim fromthat.
I know that's that's good, Jane. I really started the leadershipbook. I was on sabbatical in two thousand or two thousand five, andmy oldest son was graduating from high school and I wanted to behome more with since that was his last year home. But in order toget a sabbatical, I had a research project. So I started thisproject. And it's kind of interesting. I met Jim Collins, author ofGood to Great, and he was speaking at a big presentation, giving abig presentation where I live. And I was able to kind of chat withhim afterwards. And in talking with him, he said, give me a call.We'll talk about this, because I asked if I could be an apprentice,if I could come study under him. I said I was going to be onsabbatical and I wanted to learn from him. Would that be possible?And he said, well, I've never had anybody asked me that before. Sohe said, why don't you give me a call? So I called him and we had aconversation and he said, you know, you don't need to come learnfrom me. He said, let's just talk about what it is you want to do.So he asked me several questions and I said, well, I love tointerview people. I love to you know, leadership is my focus. I hadI held an endowed chair in leadership and character development.And so I said, that's my focus. I love to interview people. And hesaid, well, everybody's he said there are a lot of people writingleadership books and everybody's got the seven habits of this orthe ten principles of that. And he said no one's really tying ittogether. So he said, why don't you be that person? So why don'tyou reach out, interview some of the top people and analyze thedata and tie it together. So I set off on this journey and it saysSage advice from one hundred experts. But I really interviewed morethan one hundred people. And I continue to interview people. It'sjust kind of a hobby. And I have a blog and I have a podcast seriescalled Becoming a Sage. And you can learn more about that on mywebsite. But so I started interviewing these people and that wasabout in twenty five and about 2010, I was now maybe nine twentynine. I was done interviewing people basically for the book and Istarted analyzing the data and then I started contactingpublishers. And the book was published by ATT Association forTraining and Development. And each chapter is a theme that emergedout of the research. And so I'm really proud of the book because Ithink it's timeless, it's not it's not really what I think it'swhat I learned from interviewing what I think some of the topthought leaders in the field, some of these people have now are nowdeceased, such as Warren Benis and William Bridges, a real experton transitions. Angelas, Arean, I integrate a lot of differentareas of which I looked for experts, but I think it's timeless whatI learned and we can talk more about that. So anyway, that's aboutsage advice from one hundred. Oh, well, yeah. So it's actually it'sactually quite an older book in the in that year, you know, beforewhat the Internet is now.
So that's awesome because some good is great. I've got thatupstairs and I haven't read it yet, so I'm going to have to read itnow that, you know, you have met him at this point. The phrase goodto go you here. You're talking about that. Yeah, right.
Oh, yeah. It was published in 2013. But I really do think themethodology that I used and the analysis that I did, I really thinkit's timeless. And what's interesting, Jane, is my drivingquestion. I had I really only had five questions and then I wouldprobe. But my driving question was, how can I best prepare peopleto be the kinds of leaders needed in these uncertain times? Sincethe book was published, the times have only become more uncertain.So I think the time the book is even more relevant now than when itwas published.
Oh, yeah, I've got the book and I haven't read it yet, so we'llbe talking at another time again about the book and leadership. Butbut for now, maybe we could just have a quick summary of maybewell, it's some of the top tips from the leaders that you also usein your practice. Obviously, when you're doing your changemanagement, leadership development that you've incorporated intoyour own training, that would be great.
Yeah, well, again, I know this is on your website, but if iflisteners go to my website. Yeah, you can download my top ten tipsfor leading during crises and they really come out of my book. Butwhat I would share right now is the fact that leaders during thispandemic, the critical skills or what we call the soft skills, andthese are the skills that are often not taught in business schools,in business courses, you know, maybe in organizational behavior orleadership. But the soft skills are those that are hard to they'requalitative. They're not quantitative. They're I say the answersare not in the back of the book. So the soft skills are thoseinterpersonal dynamic relationships skills. And when I'm doingworkshops and courses and teaching and coaching, I emphasize thatleadership is not about a position, it's not about a title, it'sabout a relationship. And so there is not a time when relationshipsand creating and cultivating and sustaining and nurturingrelationships are there's not a time that's better than right nowbecause anxiety is high emotional. Everybody's on edge, emotionsare very fragile. Leaders need to pay attention to theserelationships and leaders don't have to have answers. They need tojust listen to what people need and reach out and check in. One ofthe things that I emphasize in my coaching is for leaders to justcheck in. You don't have to have an agenda. It doesn't have to be ameeting. Just check in and find out how are people doing, what arethey willing to share? And based on what they're willing to share,then you as a leader can determine what they need. I think that'scritical during during these times.
So, yeah, that's for sure. That's that's very exciting. I'm soglad that you're in a certain place that I am in terms ofleadership. I think it's very important to have those those softskills. And you're right, they don't teach it in school. I'm notsure why, but maybe you know why.
But there are forces. I mean, I when I go full time, I taughtorganizational behavior, which is a you know, a soft skill forleaders. But what I think is interesting and for your listeners,they can Google this. But at Stanford, there's a course called it'sknown as the touchy feely course, and it's in the Stanford MBAprogram. And it's it's like the most popular course on campusbecause of the reputation it has received over the years. And ifyour listeners Google this, if they just Google Stanford, touchyfeely course, Stanford has just now their faculty are taking it onthe road to corporations because those skills are so desperatelyneeded. Right. And it's it's interesting to me that these are theskills that are lacking in the workplace right now. And when peopleare stressed and they're under when leaders are stressed and underanxiety and, you know, it's easy to forget that these are theskills that are needed. And if you don't feel comfortablepracticing these skills, leaders are likely not to use them whenthey're needed most. So Stanford's taking this course on the road,and I find that very interesting. There was a recent article in TheWall Street Journal that talks about this saying,
wow, I have to check that one out for sure. I had had adiscussion with people. Hopefully this isn't too I mean, you know,about culture and how there's a problem with cultural differenceswhen you're a leader. And obviously to do leadership, you need tobe able to coach them on understanding different cultures for sure.Just wondering if you could just speak briefly on that, becauseit's something people don't really talk about, because it's sortof.
In a way, for some right now, it's kind of interesting because,again, as you mentioned in the introduction, I taught for 30 yearsat an undergraduate, it was a liberal arts, small liberal artscollege. And we only had undergraduate courses there. And I createda course. Now, I've been gone for 10 years. So but when I was therefor twenty five years, I taught a diversity course and I called itmanaging and valuing cultural diversity. And then I created thiswhole course. And really every year when I would teach it, I wouldsay to the students, I hope there's a year when this course is nolonger needed because people just value diversity. They get it,they appreciate it. And of course, we've seen with the Black LivesMatter and women me too movement, we see where these skills arestill lacking big time. Yeah. So it's kind of interesting that Itaught this course for twenty five years now. What's ironic aboutit is these kinds of courses, people who tend to take these kindsof courses tend to already appreciate diversity. So you're kind sosometimes you're preaching to the choir for the majority ofstudents. They love this. They love it. But in that cause, I talkedabout every aspect of diversity that we had, a very broad umbrella.Diversity was a broad umbrella that under this umbrella we wouldtalk about age, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity for sure,social status. We got into look ism. Yeah, that's great. I'mforgetting that we really talked about a wide variety of disabilityor very important. And then I would say they had to do a lot ofreading. They had to do a lot of writing, they had to journal. Andon every topic, I would bring in a guest speaker because I said tothe students in the syllabus, I said, I'm a white woman. I'm astraight heterosexual white woman. I cannot speak from personalexperience, from all these different aspects, so I would bring in aguest speaker and sometimes two, depending on the topic for everytopic. I mean, I would bring in a former student who was blindbecause of an accident but had a corporate job. I would bring inpeople using a wheelchair. I would bring in a lesbian woman and Iwould bring in a lesbian couple who had kids. I would bring insomeone from the Jewish perspective because the college that Itaught at was faith based would from a Christian tradition. So Iwould bring in someone from the Jewish faith, bring in a blackcolleague of mine from Ethiopia, bring just a whole lot of people.And students would get their eyes open because it's so easy to justlook at life and look at work from their own perspective. So to me,it was a very valuable, very moving course. And I always learnedsomething. I would bring in at least one, if not two people livingwith AIDS. Oh, you know, early on when I first started teaching thecourse, Jane, you know, the time when people thought it was a gay,,and is how our culture has evolved since then. So it was verymoving. So you're right. I mean, diversity matters. And today thewhole idea is get over fears, you know, and say to the students,you don't have to understand these various aspects of diversity.You may never understand it, but you have to be respectful becauseyou're going to be working with and for people who are differentthan you. And the goal is how can you be fair? And I would say tothe students, we all have prejudice and figure out what they are,because if you don't acknowledge them, you can't overcome them. AndI say to the students, OK, I'll share mine. I said, it's beenreally it's been really hard for me with tattoos because I grew upwhen I was younger. Tattoos were not politically correct. Theyweren't acceptable. And and it's become like now a fashionstatement or and so I said, I've had to really overcome that. Iwant to be fair. And I want to be I have to realize that tattoosdon't matter. And so I really had to work on that. So I think whenwhen people like myself admit to others, I mean, we're allprejudice in some way. And but we can't overcome that if we don'tacknowledge it and address it and be aware of it. That's anacknowledgement. Please be aware, because the whole goal is we needto be fair. We need to be fair. So it's amazing to me that intwenty 20, in some ways we've gone backwards. Yeah. Or some peoplesay the conversation has started again, which, which is good.
But I do have to say my husband would probably divorce me if Igot myself a tattoo because he has the same prejudice on tattoos.Yeah. Yeah. But anyway so what's so exciting is that you're writingyour new book and I do not know what death through a difference is,so I'd love to speak to you to speak on that chapter because thatis that is so intriguing.
I would say that answer a few questions here with that question.First of all, my book I've created this concept called BreadcrumbLegacy and Bread Crumb Legacy. I often say in workshops or coursesor when I'm speaking, when do we leave our legacy? And people say,well, when we leave, OK, well, what do you mean by leave? Well,when we die, when we retire, when we leave a job. And I say that'strue. All of that's very true. But we're leaving it all the time.What about when we leave this meeting? What about when I leave thisinterview with Jane right now? I'm leaving some breadcrumbs behindfor all of your listeners, for all of your everyone in youraudience. I'm leaving some bread crumbs right now. And sometimesbread crumbs are positive. Sometimes they're not so positive. Andso when we're aware of this, I think we live our life moreintentional and more thoughtful and respectful if we care about thetrail we're leaving behind. And so my book is all about BreadcrumbLegacy. I don't really have an official title yet. I'm working onthe chapters, but one of the chapters is called Death Through aDifferent Lens. And what this is about is and really this book isan outgrowth of my last book, Leading with Wisdom, because one ofmy conclusions in that book is it's hard to be a good leader ifyou're not a good person. So I'm kind of picking up where I leftoff. And so this Breadcrumb Legacy book, it's really about how tobe a good leader and how to be a good person. And one of the fears,big fears in life is this whole idea of death. And so I developed aleadership course based on what I was learning during my researchwith leading with wisdom. And one of the things that I was learningis the sages said, you know, leaders need to learn about death,dying and grief because industries are dying, companies are dying,positions are evaporating and people are dealing with a lot ofgrief. And what I find fascinating is during the pandemic, deathhas become up close and personal. I mean, we're getting death bycounty, by state by country, by its death is up close and personal.And we're reading about it, hearing about it. In fact, in my localstate my local newspaper there featuring every Sunday, they'refeaturing people who have died within the state, died from copingwell. So it's kind of a take on 9/11 here, remembering thesepeople, because they're not just numbers. It's easy to just thinkof them as statistics and they're not statistics or people and theyhave families. And so this whole concept of very this whole idea ofdeath is very personal. And so when I really did kind of a deepdive, when the sages said you need to be teaching leaders aboutdeath, dying and grief, because these are again, these are skillsnot taught in business courses. And they were not skills that Itaught in my qualitative soft skill courses. So I startedintegrating them and I found out that sharing what I was learningand really teaching people about grief. And I've got exercises andassignments and activities that they had to do. But teaching themabout this, I found that students twenty to twenty two year old, itreally resonated with them that when I would present papers aboutthis at conferences, academic conferences, my colleagues, my peerswould say, does this really go how does this go over with twenty totwenty two year olds? Aren't they too young to get this? And Iwould say no, it really resonates with them. And my theory is theearlier they have. These girls are younger, they are the better offthey are, they live their life differently because so and we can gointo more of that for sure. Yeah. Next time you've got so manytopics to talk about. This is so narrow. And that's one thing Inever thought about until I turned 50. Oh, are you going to be theyounger people are when they understand this, I think the betteroff they are. Yeah, for sure. They do things differently.
That's so great. So this is actually going to be a leadershipbook in that it'll be about still about your leadership and changemanagement and everything.
Yeah, it really it's going to kind of cross over into a couplegenres in terms of leadership and human development and. Your lifeand you had another chapter, which, of course, is intriguing,become a nobody. I'm not sure why I would want to become a nobody.So, yeah, well, it's kind of interesting that it goes along withlegacy work in terms in terms of we spend basically the first halfof our life becoming somebody, whether it's in school or college inour career. We really want to become a somebody who are we become?And the last half of our life is more about becoming a nobody. It'sreally about, you know, one of my peers in this area, she talksabout the shift from goal to role or goal to soul. So like thefirst half of your life, it's all about goals in the second half ofyour life. It's all about what role do you want to play in life oror soul? What's your soul telling you to do? And so that's reallyabout, you know, kind of what I have become a nobody is the secondhalf of life. It's really about what can you know, what kind ofimpact do you have on others or are you happy now or what do youwant to have one? And that's more the soul and role versus the goalanyway. Why become a nobody is really letting go of the ego. It'snot all about you anymore. It's what difference are you making?Yeah. Yeah I know, I know.
A lot of time now I'm thinking about legacy and can I make adifference. And even in a small way with other, with other people.And that's why I'm doing this as well myself, because I don't haveto do this but I want to I want to leave a legacy. I want to beable to change at least some people's other lives. So. Yeah, yeah.So so I'm going to we're going to probably wrap up for today. I amdefinitely going to have you again because we have so much to talkabout. Yeah. I think next time we'll talk about your your old book.But today I just wanted to find out from you on your website, Iforgot to ask you. I didn't realize you had a podcast. So whatwhat's that about.
And yeah, I do have a podcast called Becoming a Sage. Andactually I just created a private Facebook group that people wantto search. It's called Becoming a Sage, and that's about creatingmore of a conversation with people who want to talk about positiveaging, conscious aging, leading with wisdom. That's what that'sabout. But I have a monthly podcast where I interview some of thetop thought leaders in the field of positive aging. And if theyfind if they subscribe to my website, they would get it. So that'sonce a month. And if they Googled, if they just went to jann freedwith two N's and two E's , if they went to jann freed podcast, theyjust Googled that my previous podcast would pop up. I had a leader,actually, I had a leadership summit last summer in June, and thoseare posted on my YouTube site. And I was asking really some reallyinfluencers, leaders at all ages, how they think leadership isgoing to change based on the pandemic. Go to my YouTube channel.They just Google jann freed YouTube or go to search search for jannfreed, YouTube. Each one of those interviews is listed. Iinterviewed Bill George, the former CEO of Medtronic inMinneapolis. I interviewed I interviewed a variety of people, someanswers who write about leadership at the University of Michigan. Iinterviewed a whole variety of people, some of the top executivecoaches, I interviewed Sally Helgason, who writes a lot aboutwomen's leadership. She has many books out. I interviewed a lot ofpeople and I would encourage people to go to my YouTube channelthen. And that really focused on leadership. How that might changeduring because of the. So I'm I'm staying busy just like I don'thave to do this. My mission is to continue to learn and share whatI'm learning with others. And I do that writing, blogging,podcasts, and, of course, consulting for sure. So if so, if anyonewants to talk to you about leadership consulting and and changemanagement, do they just go to your website or I would go to mywebsite. I've got a contact page. They can just send me an emailand they'd be wonderful. I'd love some. Wow. Yeah. Well, I do wantto say I met Jane through Givitas.com. Yeah, that's for sure. Thatwas started by Daniel Pink and it's all about giving and helpingothers. And so I want to thank Jane for helping me. And I offeredto help Jane in any way possible. So, yeah, we're all we've gotgood good vibrations. I like yeah.
I loved Daniel Pink I've got all his books, but yeah, thatgiving gravitas has been really good for me and getting a lot ofpeople to volunteer for interviewing which is great. So I'd like tothank you again for coming on today and spending some time with meand we'll be spending more time for sure. So thank you very much.OK, yeah. Thank you. H
olidays. Yes. Happy holidays. Yeah.
For a copy of Dr. Jann's book, Leading with Wisdom, go to Amazonand for free copy of the top 10 Tips for leading during crisis's,go to www.jannfreed.com and you can search for her podcast becominga sage as well. On Facebook. She has a private Facebook group. Forthose who would like to talk further about becoming a sage, thankyou for listening. For more on finding your purpose, go to https://finding your purpose TV.Com and you can find us on Roku and findingyour purpose as well. You can find us on YouTube. Look for findingyour purpose. See you there.
