Rethinking Success with Clarity and Intention

Alex Cullimore: Know the why behind the goal, instead of just, we want to be the best. What does that mean and what are you really trying to get out of that? You want to have the best revenue numbers. What really drives that? Then, there's the thousand questions that come up after that, which should naturally come up.

Alex Cullimore: Welcome to Uncover the Human, where every conversation revolves around enhancing all the connections in our lives.

Cristina Amigoni: Whether that’s with our families, co-workers, or even ourselves.

Alex Cullimore: When we can be our authentic selves, magic happens.

Cristina Amigoni: This is Cristina Amigoni.

Alex Cullimore: And this is Alex Cullimore.

BOTH: Let's dive in.

Authenticity means freedom.

Authenticity means going with your gut.

Authenticity is bringing a 100% of yourself. Not just the parts you think people want to see, but all of you.

Being authentic means that you have integrity to yourself.

It's the way our intuition is whispering something deep-rooted and true.

Authenticity is when you truly know yourself. You remember and connect to who you were before others told you who you should be.

It's transparency, relatability, no frills, no makeup, just being.

[EPISODE]

Alex Cullimore: Welcome back to this episode of Uncover the Human. Today, it's just a Cristina and I episode. We're here just to talk about the things we like to talk about.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. There's lots of them. But we are trying to be condensed. We're succeeding. Let's see if we can succeed in this one, and do short 15, 20-minute episodes.

Alex Cullimore: This one has the potential to be very succinct, I think. There's only so much to the topic. At the same time, we have a lot of energy behind it. So, we're going to find out how this one goes.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Yeah. This is definitely not one that we outlined. Not that we ever outlined episodes, but this is even less than that. Whatever the opposite of outline.

Alex Cullimore: It's less than an outline. It’s if you came up with a headline and built in the story on the way.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. We have no idea where we're going and what we're going to say. It'll be interesting.

Alex Cullimore: We have two potential competing headlines for this episode. The first one is a group of fancy words is not a goal, or jumbled jargon is not a vision. This is one that’s just near and dear to our hearts, because we always talk about things like clarity. We always talk about things like communication and we talk about how important it is to have an alignment on a purpose. Knowing the corporate tendency, we've seen it everywhere, everyone saw that happen when core values became a thing and everybody was like, “We love to have core values.” Then everybody said, honesty and professionalism and –

Cristina Amigoni: Integrity.

Alex Cullimore: Good. Very good. You guys are now on it. That helps. I hope you're professional, I guess. Yeah, I hope you're honest. But you having that word on your website doesn't feel like comfort. It's those things that really help. If we don't define those, if we don't get clearer on this, then we just end up with a group of fancy words and we do not have a goal. We do not have a vision and we don’t have clarity.

Cristina Amigoni: We definitely don’t have a direction and people have no idea how to get to this fictitious goal that's just a group of fancy words.

Alex Cullimore: We see this all the time with like, we need to be more efficient. We need to be more transparent. We need to be more empowered, whatever is going to come down the pipeline. All those words, it's not that it's bad to be efficient. Obviously, you need to be efficient. It’s not that it's bad to be transparent. You need to be transparent. But what does that really mean? What are the things that are lacking? Why are people trying to say it in the first place? Why are you as a leader out there saying, “We need more transparency”? There's a lot more detail you can give on that about what's the context of why you think transparency is important. What do you think transparency looks like that is not being done right now? There's 50 different behaviors, so you can go put on transparency. Which ones aren't there? Which ones do we really want to see? When people are faced with a dilemma at work, what choice do you want them to make?

Cristina Amigoni: Exactly. Yeah, that's really where it comes down to, stories and dilemma. Define. If we're going to use a word that becomes a mandate that's supposed to be a goal of somebody's behavior changing, or results changing, or outcomes changing, or all of the above, because you don't get outcomes and results without changing our behavior, it needs to be defined. Nobody's in our head. We clearly have some idea in our head, or we wouldn't say the words. If we don't know, if you actually can't define it, that's a whole other problem. As in, stop reading HBR articles and picking up whatever tagline comes up and using it as the goal of the moment, or the vision of the moment, if you don't even know what that means.

While we really highlight communication and transparency and all these big things about sharing what's going on in our heads and not behaving like CIA organizations within a corporation, there's also the extreme of that. If we haven't defined what's something that we're now calling a goal is, don't say anything. Just keep it to yourself. That is not a good place for transparency and communication if you're not going to define it when you actually start saying it. Because it is guaranteed to send people running in 50 million different directions and then frustrate everybody in the process, including you, because that's not the direction you wanted them to go, but you didn't tell them what it meant.

You didn't tell them what it meant to live with integrity and to show up with integrity in the workplace. Believe me, there are very many definitions of integrity. Start asking people what integrity means to them.

Alex Cullimore: I just had this vision in my head up like, walking into a room full of kittens. I do a lot of fostering, so this is the very pressing degree of my life. We're walking into room full of kittens and deciding there's a goal. You just pull out a starter pistol and fire it. Everybody's gone. Everybody's in different directions. Good luck wrangling all this back in. Everybody's freaked out. You shared the other day, there’s things that people tend to worry about in change, and one of them, well, the different types of loss. Are you going to lose turf? Are you going to lose identity? Are you going to lose your team, whatever it is?

If you have a goal and it isn't defined, we can tell our self stories about what we're losing in that. That can be really unhelpful. If we have many goals all at the same time, especially if they're not well defined, you might have that case of people running in 50 directions, or you might start to find people don't move at all. We're going to just keep launching goals out there and we have no idea where we're marching towards. We have no idea whether we're doing this in the right path and we know that odds are there's going to be a new one in three weeks, why would I take any action?

It's not even like, they're trying to resist. It's just, I have my workflows going right now. Why would I interrupt myself for something that probably isn't going to last and I have no idea where we march anyway? I could either go spend my time trying to ask a thousand questions that don't have answers, because they haven't defined the goal, or I can just not move on that goal and try and keep the things that I already have going going and make progress on those.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. I definitely think about – it's attributed to Einstein. I'm assuming it's Einstein who said it, but the quote that says like, if you do not understand it well enough to explain it to a seven-year-old, you don't actually understand it. That's what this is. Stop using fancy words, calling them a goal and then when somebody asks you what does that mean, you're like, “Well, I don't know. We haven't defined what it means yet.” I'm like, then why are you announcing it? Because all it's doing, it's causing confusion. Don't announce anything. First, do the job to figure out what it means and then announce it, with explaining what it means.

Alex Cullimore: Yes. If you don't know what it means, if you can't define it, you haven't defined the why you're even saying it in the first place like, what are you aiming to accomplish? This is one that I think we've talked about, probably at some point on this podcast. One of the pet peeves we go into is people who use the word best on things, “We're going to be the best company at X. We're going to be the best this. We're going to do the –” Throwing superlatives out there is a great example of fancy words that mean nothing. “We're the best law firm, period.” What does that mean? On rates? On cases won? On a number, the diversity of clients represented?

Cristina Amigoni: Size of number of –

Alex Cullimore: What are you best at? All of those things?

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. The superlatives make me want to jump out on my own skin, because they mean absolutely nothing. It's not what draws people in. That's the other piece. It's like, it sounds fancy, maybe. It sounds like you haven't done your work. It sounds like, the work to actually define who you want to be hasn't really been done, because as consumer and as a client, I don't go to places because they have some tagline that says like, “We are the best chicken fried chain in the world.” First of all, there's no way to measure that, so stop say things like that. Unless, you've gone around and figure out how you're rating chicken fry – fried chicken around the entire world and actually tasted it and figured out how it's made everywhere in the world. You can't say you're the best. It doesn't mean anything.

Also, that's not why I would choose to come and eat your chicken, so why does it matter that you have to tell me we’re the best fried chicken place in the world. It goes back to, it doesn't mean anything. Also, do your employees understand what that means? You have to make the best fried chicken. Go, make it. According to what, and to who? Saltier? Crispier? Smaller? Bigger? What? What does it actually mean? What is the behavior that the company is supposed to adapt, and adopt to actually get to be the best?

Alex Cullimore: I love it, because you can only be accurate if you qualify the ever-loving hell out of it. You and I were, are the best Denver-based consultancy, where two people work within 90-mile radius of the Denver Metro Center, working in human centric leadership that both have a podcast called Uncover the Human and have shared initials. We're the best at that. Does that mean anything to you? Do you care?

Cristina Amigoni: I still wonder like, what does best mean?

Alex Cullimore: Exactly. We're the best if you can slice it.

Cristina Amigoni: What’s your definition of best? With somebody else –

Alex Cullimore: If we're down to the only one that is in that category, we’re the best.

Cristina Amigoni: I know. I know. I think about it like, if I were to say, I would say like, I want to start a vineyard and start making wine. The vision for that is to make the most beloved wine in the world. Can somebody tell me what they're supposed to do when they work in that vineyard? Because what I'm imagining is, I've got one person who's planting all sorts of crappy wine, so that they can make it as fast as possible, so that it can be out and we can sell as many as possible. Then I have somebody else, another team that's focusing on quality and looking to find the vines that will create quality wine, and again, what's quality? Quality high-end wine, quality wine of a certain kind? They are off doing that.

Then, I'm perhaps have a marketing team that has no idea what they're doing, so they're just going around, creating labels and banners that say, “We're going to be the most lovable wine in the planet.”

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. If you want an example of this, now we have generative AI, just type that in. We should try that. We can leave that in the show notes. Just type in and like, show me a picture of an ad for the most beloved wine in the world, and just see what it comes back with, like five times. I'm guessing at one point, there'll be somebody curled in a bed with a bottle of champagne. At some point, there'll be just people walking hand in hand with a bottle of wine. I mean, there's a thousand different interpretations of this. This is why fancy words do not make a goal. Definition and clarity help make a goal. Alignment makes a goal.

Cristina Amigoni: Define it. If you can't define it, then don't say it out loud. Keep it for yourself. Or, find a three or four people that you want to brainstorm on the definition of is. Define it. Create scenarios. You've mentioned the dilemmas in scenarios. This is what it means. This is what the behavior means if we live with integrity in this company.

For us, one of our core values is we talk it out. The scenario is we have something that's uncomfortable to say, we talk it out. We don't make any decisions without actually sharing how we feel, and listening to the other person and providing that empathy and clarity and curiosity, not walking in with judgment and then making a decision as a unit. That's what it means. But there's a definition to that core value.

Alex Cullimore: Yes, yes. It's important to define that, because otherwise, we could say, we talk it out, which just means, everything that we say, we have to have a five-minute monologue on before we – whatever that. That could be in talking it out, but we have to find it very clearly on what are those scenarios? What are the definitions? What are the actions you would take if you're going to live by these values? If you want to have a goal, know the why behind the goal, instead of just, we want to be the best. What does that mean and what are you really trying to get out of that? You want to have the best revenue numbers, and what really drives that?

Then there's the thousand questions that come up after that, which should naturally come up about, okay, we want to go chase a higher revenue target. Great. Do you want to do that in the short-term or the long-term? Because you can try and pump up a bunch of stuff and have a very short-term win on a revenue number that may absolutely have eroded your chance of having a good revenue two years later, whatever it is. Or, you can you can build up to the point where you have the highest revenue for 10 years running. You can do that. Put the scaffolding in place to get that done. How are you going to pursue these things and continuing to define, refine and align on all of those parts of the goal are incredibly important to actually achieving anything, close to what you're hoping to do.

Cristina Amigoni: Definitions, scenarios, experience. What does life look like when we become the most lovable winemakers in the world? What are people drinking? What are people producing? If you can't define that, you don't know what it means. They're just fancy words. They're not a vision. They're not a goal. And they cause way more confusion than if you just didn't say them.

Alex Cullimore: Yes. You can create this engagement. You can create confusion and you can definitely create a rife environment for silos and lack of buy-in and the running into 50 different directions and getting entrenched in a camp that wasn't helpful in the first place.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Indeed.

Alex Cullimore: But I think that was even faster. The most succinct yet.

Cristina Amigoni: I know. Create scenarios, create dilemmas, create experiences, talk about what's the behavior I want to see in this future state.

Alex Cullimore: Think about what the future looks like.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Put yourself in it. This is the behavior I see.

Alex Cullimore: The most beloved wine company. What does that mean? What does that feel like? What’s our day-to-day like?

Cristina Amigoni: I see people helping each other, regardless of their role. I see problems being solved before they become giant issues. What's the behavior? I see people picking up the phone and not waiting for a meeting to have a conversation. I see people stopping, not feeling they have to stay in their own box and reaching out. What's the behavior? The behavior is going to get you your outcome. Whatever best, most, whatever it is, you're going to get there without having to say it if you focus on the behavior. Definition.

Alex Cullimore: If you know what that means, you have a place to go. I just hope that things will get better if I say things should get better.

Cristina Amigoni: Exactly.

Alex Cullimore: Without defining what better is.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. We are the most human-centric company in the world.

Alex Cullimore: Yes. Yeah, this is from your friends at Siamo, the best human-centric company located in the south of –

Cristina Amigoni: In the universe. Why stop at the world? Let’s make it the universe.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. We are universally the best.

Cristina Amigoni: We've actually met with aliens who have given us that certificate.

Alex Cullimore: In the fourth dimension. We've looked into past, present, future. We are the ultimate.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Definitely are.

Alex Cullimore: -- any better. I'm sure that everybody believes us now. We definitely know what that means.

Cristina Amigoni: I know exactly what I'm going to be working on in five minutes when we're done podcasting, to get us there.

Alex Cullimore: Yes, yes. Even with just two of us, we've just created three different interpretations. In my head, I have nine more lined up that I could march on, if that was really a “goal.”

Cristina Amigoni: I'm ignoring all of them, and I’m just going to look at my calendar and see what I'm supposed to be doing right now.

Alex Cullimore: Oh, no. My calendar just says, go be the best.

Cristina Amigoni: There you go.

Alex Cullimore: That's what I'll be working on in five minutes. I'm sure to make progress. I'll probably be done in by lunch.

Cristina Amigoni: Let me know how it goes. I imagine, I will not have the same reaction as you do.

Alex Cullimore: I don't think you'll have to – I don't think I'll have to tell you. I think you'll just hear about it.

Cristina Amigoni: I’ll just feel it.

Alex Cullimore: Just presumably. I think the media will catch this immediately.

Cristina Amigoni: We’re like, “Wow. Yeah, I know. We definitely are the ultimate best in the universe.” I feel it now.

Alex Cullimore: Okay. If you don't feel that, I can't help you. I feel the power in my fingers.

Cristina Amigoni: All right. Well, that's how we feel about that.

Alex Cullimore: Oh, go forth, enjoy, define.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Thanks for listening.

Alex Cullimore: Thank you.

[OUTRO]

Cristina Amigoni: Thank you for listening to Uncover the Human, a Siamo Podcast.

Alex Cullimore: Special thanks to our podcast operations wizard, Jake Laura, and our score creator, Rachel Sherwood.

Cristina Amigoni: If you have enjoyed this episode, please share, review and subscribe. You can find our episodes wherever you listen to podcasts.

Alex Cullimore: We would love to hear from you with feedback, topic ideas, or questions. You can reach us at podcast@wearesiamo.com, or on our website, wearesiamo.com, LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook. WeAreSiamo is spelled W-E-A-R-E-S-I-A-M-O.

Cristina Amigoni: Until next time, listen to yourself, listen to others and always uncover the human.

[END]