Building Winning Teams, with Maureen Electa Monte

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To the Athletics of Business, a podcast about how the traits and behaviors of elite athletes and remarkable business leaders frequently intersect. The real stories and hard lessons to help you level up your leadership and performance. Now, your host, Ed Molitor.

Welcome back to another episode of the Athletics of Business podcast. I am your host and CEO of the Molotor Group, Ed. And today I am so excited. I am ecstatic to welcome one of my favorite people, someone I respect and admire so much, somebody that I consider a mentor, Maureen Electimonte. She first joined us. This is her encore episode. And she first joined us on episode number 10. Just absolutely blows my mind that it's been so long since we've had her on the podcast. But again, very excited to have her. On episode number 10, we talked about her book, destination on Unstoppable. Maureen poses a very interesting question when you really stop to think about it, and is this. If the world runs on teams, why do so few reach their full potential? Now think about that. I mean, building a winning team, okay?

And this comes from Maureen. Building a winning team, a team that unites to overcome obstacles and achieve big goals, requires a shift in thinking. That's something that we talk about all the time on this podcast. This critical culture shift is poorly understood in the real world, and it's something we should be teaching from elementary school to business school to medical school. So much great stuff on that podcast. Again, episode number 10. If you have not listened to it, once you get done listening to this incredible conversation, go back and listen to that one. On today's episode, we're going to talk about why building a winning team requires a shift in thinking. And how do you do that? How do you accomplish that? We're going to talk about why every team needs a human glue guy or gal.

Maureen will talk about the work she does and how she helps people in teams accomplish what they were put on earth to achieve. And then we're going to jump into some really cool stuff on her new project she's working on. And it's called Win Like a Girl Project. And obviously being a girl dad, I absolutely love that. And some great conversation wrapped around that. And we take it a step further and we talk about the benefits of hiring female athletes. And inside of this conversation, she shares with us the Molly Little story. And I don't want to go into it too much here, but listen and wait for it because it's very powerful. So powerful. In fact, I put a link to the article she refers to in the show notes. The Molly Little Story. He's not the son you are.

And definitely take a listen to that and read that article as well. Now, let me tell you a little bit more about Maureen again. This is the first time you've heard her on the podcast. Maureen has a BS and Ms. In Mechanical Engineering, an Ms. In Leadership and Business Ethics, and is a Gallup Certified Strengths Finder Expert. You can see why she is, I consider such a valued mentor of mine. She has 30 years of corporate experience and was Engineer of the year for IBM. She has launched two companies and provided consulting services to 20,000 professionals on global teams in high tech, healthcare, food science, banking, and education. And what's also really cool is she's also worked with over 1400 athletes and coaches, including an Olympic team headed tokyo in 2021, which we'll talk a little bit about that.

Again, go back and listen to episode number 10 because it really talks about her career journey, which is not only fascinating, but it's very powerful. So enough from me. I'm going to get out of the way and let you enjoy my conversation with Maureen Electa Monte. Maureen, thank you so much for joining us again on the Athletics of Business podcast. And like I said, mentioned to you before we started recording, I cannot believe it has been since episode 10. And here we are dropping episode 114. So forgive my delinquency, but it's so good to have you back.

I would say there's no such thing as bad timing. I think this is probably the perfect timing to have this conversation.

Yeah, I would agree. I would agree. And you have been doing some amazing work. And when we first jumped on episode 10, we talked about your book Destination Unstoppable. And it was a powerful story for me because of how you tied the strengths and what you did in the corporate world to the athletic world. Can you. For the folks that didn't have an opportunity to listen to episode 10 yet, they will go back and listen to it. Could you talk a little bit about what that book was about?

Yeah. So I was introduced to the Strength Finder, which is an assessment that measures talent. It's my preferred assessment, but any assessment that measures talent is useful if you use it to help the team win. Right. The team succeed. But I was exposed to strength finder in 2006 and a master's in leadership and Business ethics. And I've been using it in the corporate world all over the world. So I learned that this process of focusing on what's great about people and then helping them change whatever needs to be changed to help the team be more successful is a better way to start than just, we have to change, right? We have to change. Well, what value does each person bring to help them change, right? And to help the team be successful? So it measures talent.

And the great news about the global experience was I learned that it works india, it works in Australia, it works in Brazil, it works all over the world. And it's one of the reasons I've been asked to teach leadership courses for Cornell, technology and engineering leadership courses. And it's all things begin with a Strength finder. That's actually how they found me. The step that happened with Destination stoppable was in 2015. So 10 years later, I got asked if I could work with a boys hockey team, a local varsity high school hockey team. And they were talented, but dysfunctional. And I didn't know how talented they were, but it turns out that they were.

But bottom line is the story of Destination Stoppable, which, by the way, if I could just say up front, one of the benefits that the Strength Finder brings, and then someone like me that's been using it to help teams solve problems is the guided dialogue. So the work I do with teams, yes, I use Strength Finder, but then there's all this conversation around it. And one of the benefits about the book is that it gives you a guided dialogue to have with a team. And it doesn't matter if it's a sports team or a nonprofit team or a corporate team. The dialogue is where the value comes in, right? So I explained to the coach that I focus on from a position of abundance, what's great about the kids, right?

But I want to get to the root of what some of the troubles are and what does success look like? So we met. I met with the boys two days later, and I asked, what does success look like for this team? And they said, win a state championship. And I said, great. I said, just the how we behave in pursuit of the championship matter. And, yes, they thought it did. So I said, well, tell me about championship behaviors. And so they list them. You know, full effort, brotherhood, focus, discipline. Things that coach have been preaching, but now it's coming from the boys, right? And then I instituted something that to this day, all these years later, now is instrumental in my success in helping teams achieve success. And that is a team trust bank.

And I explained it to the boys that every action, every word, every choice, if you choose to drink, if you choose to not do your homework, if you choose to yell at the ref, that's the withdrawal from the team trust bank, because you're hurting the team. It's very clear you're either helping the team or hurting the team. Every single thing we do is either helping the team or hurting the team. So I.

There is no middle ground.

There's no middle ground. There's none. If you think you're neutral. And that was a real. I've worked since worked with an Olympic team and I give this Olympic athlete a lot of credit to tell me afterwards that some of the things the behaviors that were engaged in were thought to be neutral. They're not neutral. Right? So, for example, withholding praise is not neutral. Withholding information is not neutral. So if someone gives you a neutral feedback on somebody, if you're a scout and you get asked about a kid, boy, girl, and they give you the neutral sign, are you going to take that person or are you going to want to move the next one?

Right.

Going to want to know the next one. Right. So there is no neutral in life either. This is true in business. There's no neutral encounter between a client and an associate at a company. It's either a plus up or it's a plus or a minus. There's no neutral.

Well, because what they're listening to is what you're not saying.

Sure. And you can assume that by that, how you say it is neutral. Okay? So an easy one is the. For example, you go out to dinner and I realize you're getting off in the weeds, but this is normal. And the food's great, but the waiter stinks. Is that neutral? What are you giving now? Are you giving that place a thumbs up or a thumbs down?

Oh, down, right? Yeah.

But the food was great, Right. So that human interaction is so important to success of a corporation, of a team, et cetera. So you can imagine explaining these to high school boys, hockey that just want to win the state championship, right? They don't even. They don't want to know about a team. Trust me. So. But I explained it and I'm like, you got six weeks, guys. Between now and the playoffs, are you willing to make deposits only on team Trust Bank, Only help the team. And we talked about what withdrawals are, what deposits are, and then they committed to it. And I had them turn to one another and say, I refuse to let you fail. You've made a commitment. Nobody's failing here. I will not let you fail. And I just did this exact same exercise last night with my Olympic team.

I refuse to let you fail. We're going to hold one another Accountable between now and the Tokyo Olympics, which is hard to do because sometimes you have to have a direct conversation and say, you committed to something and we're doing this. I'm not going to let you fail. So then we did the strength finder. Turns out those boys had lots of competition. It was a profile I'd never seen before, even in the best sales teams that I'd worked with around the globe. But they then realized that some of their challenge was they were trying to do too much. And the we of winning was missing. The I of winning was there, but the we of winning was missing. So long story short, 2 hours and 45 minutes, I leave. I'm still in the corporate world. I go on a business trip to Vegas.

They play hockey. And they lost the very first game, 2 to 1 to the best team in Wisconsin. In theory, eight good team in Wisconsin. And then they ran the gamut. And they won the next 10 of 11 games and won the state championship. Right? So eight to nothing in the semis, four nothing. And they just dominated. And they outscored the competition 67 goals to 16. So if you do that, you're going to win. And they did. And I was thrilled for them. But when I interviewed them afterwards, they spoke about the team trust bank. The I refuse to let you fail. Holding one another accountable, learning their strengths, feeling valued for being valuable. And they spoke about a kid on the team that never played a game. And this is why it's so important that we measure talent on the team.

Because you have untapped talent unless you've measured it by default. And it was a third string goalie who never played, but he had harmony. And when there was conflict, which is going to be in pursuit of victory, Right? Pursuit of victory is by definition energy laden. People are going to say and do things that perhaps they shouldn't even with a team trust bank. So you need some people, the human glue guys, to hold it together. And we can measure human glue. So they mentioned Nolan and the fact that Nolan had harmony. And when he was asked to play that role, so not sit on the bench like the third string goalie with no voice in the locker room, but to be the team captain of team chemistry, the team captain of human glue. He owned that role.

And everyone raved about how the impact he had on the team to help the team reach their full potential. So that was my journey into the sports world and I've never looked back. I've worked with some 20,000 people in their strengths in global teams, but 14, 100 of those are athletes and coaches, which are my favorite people to work with. They're motivated. So that's how I got into the sports arena. And it's been really joyful to help highly motivated, mission driven teams reach your full potential. Some win championships. I have been to the Pan Am Games with my Olympic team. They won. Yay. I'm thrilled for them. I could care less if they win or lose. I want them to understand what's inside of them, how to harness that to help them achieve their full potential as individuals.

And then the overall success of the.

Team and the real magic where that happens, as you mentioned, is the dialogue. Now I'm curious. High school boys hockey team and Olympic team, similar problems, mentally, emotionally, strength wise, what do you see? What do you see is the difference there?

Yeah, I've worked with high school, well, middle school actually. 10, 10 year old with the little kids version of strength finder. Right. 10 year old hockey team, all the way up to an Olympic team. Same pressures through. So college teams, multiple college teams, same pressures, same problems, different pressures. Right, right. So you're at a higher, you're just in higher pressure situations. And so therefore the behaviors become more challenging because, you know, when we squeeze people, it's just harder to perform unless we've worked on that ahead of time.

Right.

Which we do.

In the conversation you and I have had several times is the fact that athletics are microcosm in life and how athletics prepare you for the real world. And we talk about same problems, different pressure. So what have you seen as people have grown and moved on to the corporate world or to the business world, to whatever it may be, how they've leveraged, how they've learned to leverage their strengths, whether it's through good times, through challenges. As you and I both know, all teams struggle. All people struggle. How have you seen that happen?

That's a great question. And what's been wonderful is when some of those people on that very first destination Stoppable team reach out to me and say, can I talk to you right now? They don't always give me a lot of warning. And I was in the middle of a workshop with an automotive supplier and I get a text. I'm about to go into a job interview. Do you have my text strengths report? Like, dude, a little warning, right?

I might rely on you.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And he had strengths like woo and communication. He was very charming, outgoing, very positive. And because I was in a situation where at that moment I was not presenting to them, I had my computer hooked up to the screen. But bottom line was I was able to send the report to him without a problem. And then he nailed the interview, right? He just needed a little. And then I've got other people that are struggling as to where to go to college or they're in college and they think it's not the right place, whether it's sports or just more of their career. So I am happy to help people with dialogue around who they are. What does success look like? What do you need right now? The values in the dialogue.

And if I can say one more thing, and this isn't something I learned in the Destination Stoppable story per se, but last year I worked with the same Cranbrook hockey team. That's the school that I worked with Destination Unstoppable. And they underperformed on the road. So when we met, we meet like three or four times now. When I meet with that, when I work with that team, I said, what's the deal with the road? Trouble, right? So they weren't sure. And I said, well, let's break up into small groups of four people each. You guys each come up with a reason you think we've got problems when we play on the road. I don't know what's wrong. Right? I don't even know what's. I don't even know anything other than that. I know what their strengths are and how to help them win.

And out of that, oh, our prep's different. The way we unload the bus is taking too long. There's too much chatter in the locker room that they don't allow when it's at home. So all we're looking for are changes between situation A and B, and they come up with them. And that goes right down to the individual level. I meet with athletes one one frequently, and I'm happy to do it. In fact, I enjoy that very much. And there's a young man who has a tendency to retaliate the moment infraction. Somebody looks at him wrong on the ice, basically, right? And so let alone they check him or they hit him and he's, you know, he strikes back, and then he's in the penalty box. And I'm like, when is the last time you ever scored a goal from the penalty box?

Is that helping the team or is that hurting the team? So there's all this dialogue. And then I said, tell me about a time, because I don't know what's going on in his head. I said, tell me about a time when you were able to not retaliate. And he was currently in algebra, and we talked about it again this year. He's a senior. He was currently in algebra, and he said, if I turn my skates 45 degrees when it happens, I'm able to skate away. I'm like, well, then for heaven's sake, turn your skates 45 degrees. So I don't believe that all coaches or all leaders or all people need to know the answer for every single problem that ever comes up. You have to ask good questions and be curious about it. Right.

So out of that, there are way less penalties and way more goals.

Right.

So that's kind of the deal.

And I love that, though, because you don't have to have all the answers, but you figure out a way for them to pull the answer out of themselves.

Right? Yeah. And I am good at that. And I don't know if it's that I just simply ask good questions or I've got this engineering background where I look at trying to get to the root of a problem. Right. That may obviously be the only time my engineering background helps me in this situation. And in general, I wasn't a very good engineer, but I think I ask a question.

Yeah, well, I digress because I have to start. I mean, you were a very successful engineer, obviously. But when you're able to get someone to come up with the answer themselves, right? Through the strengths, through the dialogue, through the conversation, and all of a sudden you have different individuals on the team start uncovering these things. How powerful does that become for the group?

It's essential. It gives them. That helps them understand how empowered they are. Right. But it also helps them appreciate that there are different views of a problem because it almost always ends up other than when it's one one. We do small group problem solving all the time.

Right.

Then it's theirs. They've created the answer, and the answer was there all the time. And I don't know why it's such an important journey. When I met this year with Cranbrook, and this is the power of this journey, they had just lost to a team they hadn't lost to in like 5,000 years. So they're so demoralized, you know.

You know how this goes.

Yes. And they outshot them like 66 shots to 12. And they lost by a goal. Right. This happens sometimes. So they're down. You know, we meet, we have our workshop. It goes really well. We've got 14 new kids, so this is important. We've got new people that we're bringing into this. This fold. Right. They then go on to be the number one team in the state. They blanked them four to nothing and they haven't lost since 10 days ago. Right. So I don't have any. Anything to say other than this guided journey is a good journey for. Particularly for teams that are struggling. And if your team isn't struggling, they will at some point. Right. There's no such thing as a free easy ride.

No. And let me ask you a question that you pose to everybody because I'm so curious and interested in your answer. If the world runs on teams, why do so few reach their potential? I mean, there is so much to that question.

To me, that is the question of the universe. Because the world does run on teams.

It does, it does.

Family teams, I don't care where you look, church teams. There are teams. And I think we, and I'm speaking, I would say it's certainly true in United States, but it's also true around the world. We have a tendency to focus on subject matter knowledge. And that gets you so far. So that's your formal system of success. If you write code for an app that runs on Apple, that is what your formal system is. That's what you're supposed to do. That's your subject matter expertise. You've trained in it. But it completely ignores the value of the human side of it. So the reason I think team struggle is that they don't focus on the human side of it. They assume that teams will come together, people will come together like Pixar, Disney movie with special magic, team dust, and it'll all be great.

And it never is. Even if it starts that way. And it can. But the second there's troubles and obstacles are the story of life, then you're not fully engaging all the potential on the team that could help you overcome those things. So I think it's a 50 equation. You gotta. If you're gonna play hockey, somebody's gotta play hockey, right? If you're gonna do brain surgery, you better know how to do brain surgery. And then there's how does the team behave in the operating room?

Well, and that's. It's so funny you say that because I use that analogy with clients sometimes when they say, you know, I'm just not in the mood, or I just can't get myself. I can't get my energy level to where it needs to be. Or I wasn't as prepared. I said, okay, let's flip that and let's think about you're laying on the table in the operating room, the surgeon comes in and all those things that you just described are what's going on in his world. How are you now you want to figure out a way to compete and win now, you know, because that flips it. So why do you think it is though that folks don't leverage all the resources they have to help their team reach potential? Is it, I mean, is it ego?

I think they think it's. Well, sometimes, you know, and I'll be honest with you, and this is true about coaches and teachers, they already know everything. Okay? Now that is there is the no at all Olympics that comes that you come into from time to time. And are coaches coachable? Not always. Now my belief is the universe will teach you. So you'll either become more open to ideas or a two by four from the universe or you won't. But if you're not, that's a different problem. Right? But if you are open to an idea, a different way of looking at this, I think it's the overlooked nobody ever talks about it should be taught from kindergarten to business school that there's this portion of it and all things go back to Shakespeare. To thine own self be true.

And if you have no clue what your self is or that other self sitting across from you or next to you or the selves on the team, you can't harness it.

Right. Well, I think this is a great spot to ask you. How significant is it for you to be able to define success and what it means to you before you can really help the team reach their potential?

So first of all, it isn't for me, it's for them. Right? So in other words, when I say what does success look like for this team, I have one goal that they accomplish what they're put on this earth to achieve. Now I'm talking long game, but in short game by season. What do you want to achieve now? It's not up to me. I don't really care. You could say I want to have the most fun season ever in my whole life. And I really don't care if we win or lose. Okay, what are the obstacles to that? Right? So they have to own it. It isn't for me to define, it's for them to define so that I can support them as they pursue that.

I'm sorry, what I meant by define success, I meant by the group. I meant by the group, by the leader of that group. That's what I meant by how important it is for them.

And it's true whether it's business or not. You know, I work with businesses and if the people at the top don't know what success looks like for this team, and that's not your mission statement, that's not your vision statement, that is, it's not the same. So I see it more as, here's what we want to achieve, and maybe it's short term, maybe it's longer term, and there can be both, but it's also got to include how we behave to get there. And that's not often part of a vision, mission, purpose statement. Right. It's important for them to know that so that we can hit that mark. Otherwise, what are we aiming for? Right? There's a reason there's a bullseye. When we have archery or whatever, there's a reason there's gotta be a bullseye.

So, you know when you and I talk a lot about winning, right? And you're very good at helping teams do what they need to do to win. And we talk a lot to Malta group, we talk about defining victory and what does winning mean to us because we get caught up in these world of metrics and we get caught up in all these different measurements, as you and I said, dad and stuff. But victory, there's this whole holistic side to victory and what it means to us. How important is that for you really to know? I mean, there's success, but there's winning every single day. Because winning might not be the final score at the end of the game, winning might not be your final sales numbers at the end of the quarter, but how would you talk into defining victory?

So for me, in my role, winning is the unified team that overcomes obstacles and achieves their goals. So that's true whether it's in girls lacrosse or that's true whether it's a corporation that I'm working with that's a startup. So winning, I use the term, I build winning teams. But you can't control the score. You can only controllables. And if you're not fully controlling the controllables, then you've got a missed opportunity. So there's a competitive advantage to be found in defining what success looks like, what winning looks like, but not just the what, but how you behave, and then what are the obstacles that you're going to overcome. So the point for me is whatever you can do, team trust, bank, learn your talents, problem solve as a group are all competitive advantages that will get you closer to that score.

You can't control the score. But you can do everything you can to maximize your score.

And when we talk about competitive advantages, every single thing, I mean self awareness, competitive advantage. Right. Knowledge of your strengths, competitive advantage. During this time of crisis that we've been through during the COVID during the pandemic, how have you seen folks successfully leverage their strengths to help increase the resilience, to help allow themselves to be a little bit more vulnerable, to open up? How have you seen that happen in your world?

It's definitely happened because this is something they can control. Meaning we can invest in the human system of success. We can talk about what success looks like. Those are things you can do even during a shutdown. Because there are teams I worked with. Michigan's been shut down. Had been shut down. Which I'll just leave it at. That is with sarcasm dripping from my mind.

Yes.

Yes. So what could we do? We could focus on bonding. We could focus on things that other teams aren't doing right now that will give you a competitive advantage down the line. The conversation I had last night with my Olympic team, we're the only one having that conversation. Now. I don't know what's going to happen because nobody's been able to compete for 5,000 years since the shutdown. I don't know what's going to happen when they go to the Olympics. But they will have done things that other teams will not have done in addition to the physical prep. And I think if you can present it as these things are progress towards the day when we are competing or fully engaged with clients or whatever it might be, that, particularly for athletes, is a winning message. And coaches as well.

And so here's the trick. Not so much for the Olympics, because that's a whole different dynamic. Let's take the athletes right now that are playing, okay? They've done everything that's asked of them. They have done everything that's asked them. They paid their dues. And we're going to have interruptions during the season. There's going to be. Let's specifically look at these folks who might be set up for a very special year, a championship year. You have seniors, okay, last year. And in the middle of the season, things are going well and all of a sudden something unexpected happens due to something that is out of their control. Now we talk about controlling the controllables. So I'd love to hear how you and this pertains to the business world as well.

I would love to hear how you tap into the things that you work on them with to get Them refocused to unifying as a team, to tapping into their trust bank to continue building that resilience as they keep growing through this whole thing.

I do have a list of things that I focus on, but I think for the purpose of this conversation, I would ask the team in small groups, and this is with coaches, or not with coaches, but with athletes in small groups, to define three things they can control. And then you bring them back and now we've got 12, 15, 20 people that have come up with three things they can control. So that in other words, you've got maybe three times four times five, you've got 15 things and then you prioritize them. So this is again back on the wisdom of the team. So what it does is take the focus off the score. And I began to do this, of all things with the 10 year old hockey team that I worked with.

And it was so helpful to give them something else to focus on besides the score. Right. And they're young and this is the. My point is if you can do this, if this works with 10 year olds and 14 year olds and 15 and 16 and up to 30 in terms of the athletes that I'm working with, imagine how it'll work in the workplace.

You're teaching them to focus on the process. You're teaching them how to lock in and be present and work on the things that they absolutely can control, which.

They have picked, right?

Which they have picked.

So they own, which they have picked. So that's a different story. Then Here are your 10 things that you can control that is very different to then being preached to. And I only get preachy when somebody's stupid and breaks the trust.

I love that. I mean, and you really think about it, at the end of the day, if we all want the same thing, we've all articulated and verbalized what it is we want and what it is we're after. Why would you jeopardize that? Why would you, why would you challenge that? Why would you compromise it? I mean, what would, what are some of the things that, some of the reasons that you've seen that kind of show up, why people do that both in the athletic world and the business world?

Well, certainly in the athletic world, particularly with young men, it's the competition, right? In other words, it's the, in the name of winning, the emotion of in the name of winning takes over their brain and they do something stupid. Right? And stupid can be yelling at the ref, stupid can be, you know, inappropriate behavior on social media. That's A big common with young women athletes, frankly. And then I speak openly about working with a team of 14 women in a professional environment. And listen, I'm female and I was often the only female on the team as an engineer. I started my career as the only female on the team, and I ended my career as the only female on the team. And so there's. With a lot of time in between. You know, I'm not a spring chicken. And this in.

Sometimes what I don't like about women is they present themselves as rather angelic in the workplace.

Right.

The men are the problem. And I really don't buy that at all. To me, that's already, we're in Hooi land, and I don't buy that at all. So. But when I worked with these 14 women in an accounting organization and I said, what does success look like for this team? There's utter silence, right? And I knew they were dysfunctional. I just didn't know how bad it was because I was a little bit misled by the chief financial officer. And eventually the newest person on team raised her hand and said, I would like it if someone said hello to me in the hallway. I'm like, are you kidding me? You guys are not seventh graders. You are not saying hello to one another in the hallway. You've got to be kidding me.

And that's where I get real direct about what is completely unacceptable behavior at that point. Now we've got to deal with the setback of that's the badness. That's the reality of the situation. But then I'm like, I want small groups. I want answers on what you guys can do to make this place more inviting and fun and inclusive. Think about it, right?

And then how do they respond?

Well, it varied, I think. And I gave kudos to the woman who spoke up, Right. I'm like, thank you. I didn't realize that's where were.

I was going to say, could you have ever guessed that's what she was?

No, not in a million years. I knew someone came in really early, like 4am and left at 2. Right. So I had a little bit of history, right? So, but. But they were kind of. The individual level, I didn't understand was just, you know, glaring at people as you walk by in the hallway or whatever was going on. The stink guys.

I can't even fathom that.

I can't imagine that.

No, no. What did they do? What was their reaction? When you get.

When he, like, lit him up, I had my death stare on. Let me tell you. And I've got a mean one. I turn into John Wayne and worser when it, when I get unhappy with this sort of behavior in the workplace. And there was dead silence, right. And I'm letting it lie. I could care less how long we sit there silently, right, while you guys think about this behavior. It was like a little corporate timeout.

I love that.

But we got through it. But it took more meetings than the normal.

So that leads me to my next question which I've always been curious about. When you look at the strength profiles, men versus women, what is the difference? Is there a significant difference?

It varies by I'm going to say industry for lack of a better term. For example, let's just, I'm just going to pick social work. The very first woman I speak about in Destination Unstoppable as part of the introducing the concept to the readers was a social worker. And so her strengths were entirely focused on what I call the love strengths, the kindness, talent, empathy, some things that are. She'd be the person you want and she worked with children. She's a social worker working with children. She'd be the person you want to talk to if you've been abused, if things are tough, you would want this woman. Her name is Moira and I speak about her in the book. So while I could see Moira being well suited for that role, you'd be hard pressed to find men in that field that weren't also kind.

So for the most part people are drawn to things they do well. So conversely, let's say software engineering, which is more male dominated and tends to be more what's inside your head is your value proposition. In other words, you are a good coder, you think than you do. But warmth is not a big deal for most of those people. Now listen, I'm an engineer so I can say that without any.

But you exude warmth.

Okay, so under the right circumstances.

Well, not if you're a female accountant.

That doesn't look at acknowledge her coworkers.

Say hello walking down the hall.

Yeah, no kidding. No, I don't rightfully so. I'm very direct though but that's part of my value add. I don't, you know, I'm going to not going to come in and give you hooey to help you with your team. I'm going to be very direct about what I see. But when it's wonderful, I'm all for sharing the wonderful and I do believe people in general do want to do well. But when you work with some like in the engineering field or coding, they are less human related. And so then the women are less. That too. It's just that we're not used to women being someone that goes into a cave and does coding and then comes out. There's always these gender expectations, but overall the women have more of the. What I would call the love, kindness, empathy. Nice.

How they connect with people is very important. Having those strong connections is very important. And the men have. Both genders work really hard. Like there's a lot of the executing talent and the men generally have a little bit more of the thinking talent. So in other words, ideation, strategic, analytical, some of those sort of things is generally higher in the male population. But the challenge with life is you have to deal with the individual. So in the end it comes down to what is the individual wired? Like, how do you help them shape their role to take full advantage of what they do? Well, what do you. Whether that's a soccer player or whether that is a software engineer. But there are gender differences. And as you know, I'm working on my second book called the Win Like a Girl Project.

Love it.

Thank you. I'm so thrilled about it. And oh my God, though it's been like giving birth in terms of. I have never had a more painful pregnancy in terms of a book. I have struggled and struggled to get it right. And this is part of my own strengths. Challenge with maximizer and never being happy with something that it's not good enough.

I was just going to ask that question. Yes. Yeah.

Because I read Destination Unstoppable. Now I'm like, oh my God, if I'd only waited three months before I publish that thing. Right. But it is.

That's part. That's part of the journey though, right?

That's part of the journey, yeah. And so I'm just really now super. It's gotta be super clear, very succinct. And that's where I'm in with it. But it's my shift or it's my understanding gained from 505 male athletes and 505 female athletes that I've worked with. And what do they need? That's different. Right. And they do have different needs. And if you've ever coached both, and there are many people who have, if you've ever been a manager, both male and female in general, they have differences. It's a matter of though getting down to that individual level. But the women, I've had to, not had to. But I've learned that while they both sides want to win, the path to victory is very different. And so getting that straightened out for both of them.

And can you talk about this? I have very good friends, very close friends of mine who are very successful coaches at the high school or college level that went from coaching a men's team to women's team, and they swear they absolutely will never go back to coaching a men's team because the women are more coachable. Now, there's obviously things you have to deal with, like you mentioned earlier that with the women's team, you don't deal with the men's team, but they're more coachable, they're closer, just different things. Can you talk about that? What you see, what differences you see show up.

Yeah. And again, I hesitate to be too general. First of all, I would say the answer to that, though, is the strengths of the coach, because I've worked with interesting female coaches that would rather coach boys.

Boys.

And they were. They were more about the, you know, get them by the throat and never let them go win, right?

Yes.

So it's really more about the. The strengths makeup of the person that we're describing in terms of the coaching thing. Yeah, right.

That's really. That's fascinating because I never thought of it that way. Now, as soon as we're done with this podcast episode, you know, I'm going to go start thinking about those guys and how they fit with their teams, because it does make total sense.

And this is where it can be so helpful is because somebody, you might look at, a male coach, that said, man, don't put me near a male team again. I really love working with young women and think, wow, that's odd. Until you see the strengths makeup of the team, of both the coach and the players, and you're like, oh, well, look at the overlap here. They actually do view the world relatively similarly and vice versa. And I'm not saying that you can't be a great coach for men. In fact, Coach Weidenbach from Destination Unstoppable is retired and down in Tampa Bay. But the new coach is, I would call the polar opposite of Coach Weidenbach. So he's not command and control. He's not. My way is the way. Right. He's got. There's just more warmth to him. And I'm not saying coach isn't warm.

It's just a different set of strengths. But yet, you know, this gets back to accountability. You set your standards and we meet the standards. The team still has to play well. And, you know, he just maybe gets to the path to victory slightly differently than Coach Weidenbach did. So I'm not at all saying that there are men out there that can't be nice.

Right.

So. And be coaching male athletes. But yeah, overall it's the, for the guys it's about the winning and for the girls it's about the. The we.

Right, right, exactly. So back. So speaking of girls, back to the Win Like a Girl project, Tell us more about that.

It's actually not just my experience with the girls, but what I, what scares me to death is watching female athletes be unable to stand up to the people to stand up to things. So it's not just their strengths, makeup, it is the fact that society is making it almost impossible for people to face any adversity whatsoever. Every roadblock is removed out of fear of you that we're going to hurt their feelings. There might be safety things as a result, particularly young women do everything in a group. Tell me a 16 year old riding around in their car by themselves these days and are they even learning to drive if you project that forward. And I was on another podcast recently where I said if you never teach your kids to say no, they never learn to say no.

And part of saying no is I know that this is not right. And if they can only learn what's right by experiencing the ups and downs of life. Right. And make some of those decisions. There was a wonderful. I think her name's Molly Little, but I wish I'd written it down. US Lacrosse published an article yesterday and she is a lacrosse player and she has written about being raped at 14. She didn't know what to do. She'd been with him a long time, Maybe she was 15, but she didn't know what to do. And I'm like, this is why I'm writing when like a girl project, because you need to learn where your backbone is. And so I'm working on the backbone situation.

Thank you for doing that. I mean, and I mean, and you know me, I'm a girl dad.

Yeah.

It's funny because I say to my daughter, and it's odd, I get choked up when I say this, but I say to my daughter, she's like, I'm so sick of hearing you say no. I'm like, one day you will figure it out. And my wife and I are talking about, I said, here's the thing, we need to equip them because we're not always going to be around them 24 7. We're not going to be there when they're 15, when they're 14 when they're 21. But our voice can be there.

Exactly. And they can know why through the dialogue. And then making mistakes. And listen, I made a lot of mistakes when I was younger. My dad died when I was 11 there. I did not have a lot of supervision. I made some really bad choices. And that continued through college, by the way. And I wish I'd had somebody to say, here's how we develop courage, here's how we develop self confidence and this is what we're going to do so that you learn how to say no when you need to say no. And that can be as simple as a guy acting up in the workplace. I am so against this whole notion of cancel culture or someone needs to be fired because they said, made fun of somebody. Right.

I am so against that because when are they ever going to learn how to stand in the face of that and say not again. You have to say that sometime. My very last year at IBM, which was 2015, 2016, I wrote a blistering email. I'm like, if you ever treat like me like that again, I will take action. And I didn't. You don't tell him what. You don't tell bad guys what you're going to do. You just make it really clear you're not messing around. And don't treat me like that again. Because he had done it like 10 times publicly. Now, he still did some things behind my back, but he never did it publicly again. And I just finally said, I'm out of here anyhow. So I'm not even going to fight the battle.

But I was ready to fight the battle, and I know how to fight the battle. Now. You can learn the hard way through the universe teaching you like this young woman from US Lacrosse, like my life. Or you can learn what tools you have and can have to say no when you saying no is the right thing to do.

God, it's so powerful. So how does the book kind of lay out? Is there a story into it?

There is, you know, my real strength, and the one reason Destination is not but so easy, is that I'm a good storyteller. I like to write and I've always been a good writer. And it's just the reality, and I like it very much and I write all the time. But it's an introduction to why this matters, why win like a girl is important so that we help build these stronger women that can then go on to be champions with the long game of life, basically, because what they learn in sports and it's not for all girls. And I am not saying that it can't be for all girls. But I'm focusing on the unique characteristics and the journey of the athlete journey and why that is so essential to helping them succeed longer term beyond high school, college and in the workplace.

And there are studies out there that I've pulled all kinds of data from that show the benefit of hiring female athletes. Not just the athletes I want to win, but they're good at including other people. They work their tails off, they do want to win. And if we define what winning is, they're all in with it. But that's where these they do have. And there's a competitive edge that men have as well. They're just different. But nobody's talking about this leadership competency of moving from athletics, which is athletics is leadership development, is life development. And I'm connecting those dots. And then there's a story. I call it my butterfly team because they had their issues, terrible start to a season and how do we turn that all around? And then the guided exercise that I provide for about 10.

Okay, so it's not going to be very long. It's going to be impactful and easy for a coach, a parent and even like a captain to pick up and read through and say, I can do this and I want to do this right.

That's awesome. And to make it something that's so applicable for like, you know, it's something that you can pick up and you can solve right now. Right? Like we can sit there, we can figure this part out. Like, let's just do this together. And that's one of the many things I love about you, Maureen. And when you talk about things, you don't talk about them for the sake of talking about them. Like you have a sincerity, your passion and a purpose behind everything you do. It was in your first book, I can't wait to read Win Like a Girl project and see it show up in this book. And that's the way you present everything.

And I've got to believe when you work with, let's take the accounting team, the 14 women accounting team that didn't even look at each other, alright, let's take them. But I have to believe by the end of the day or the end of the weekend or the end of the week, however long that work time is together, you see that level of connection, that level of energy, that level of responsibility to their teammates, you see that go up a notch, don't you?

You do, yeah. And it's really important that we have that now in this environment. We have. We've been separated by Covid. We've been separated by politics. We're separated by cancel you cancel me. The idea that we're not unified. I did blog about building Team America before the election because I really don't care who's president. I want America to do well. Right? I might vote, but I don't care. And I got crucified. People I know. Well said. I was tone deaf. And everybody's got their agenda, whether it's this cause or that cause or it shouldn't be this president should be that. And I'm like, none of that matters. How we treat one another at the local level, how your teams interact at the local level. All that is where this takes place.

We can talk about being unified, but if we sit there and throw rocks at one another down the neighborhood, there's no unification. I don't care what any president says or any CEO says. So this kind of gets back to the culture thing a little bit. So anything I can do to help with the connecting side. And I, you know, I'm not all love. Right. You know, where my empathy is really low. Harmony's really low. Include is really low. So I am not this really, like, kind person I write about in my book the Tamora, but I do believe this is the journey.

And I can speak to that, too, because you got after me when I said, no, absolutely. Positivity is one of my top five. You're like, no, it's number 13. I'm like, no, it's not. And no, I learned that the hard way years ago. But in here's. So here's. You know, this leads me in. And I hadn't even brought this up to you, but diversity and inclusion, how exactly how powerful are the strengths to sit and have conversations around? You know, let's. Let's really talk about what we're. We're addressing here. We're not addressing just to meet, just to do it. To do it. And I feel like there's so many corporations out there that are having these conversations because they're supposed to, and they're checking the box.

And then what?

And there's some amazing. I had Scott o', Neill, CEO of the Harris Blitzer Sports Entertainment, on the podcast, an incredible leader in his industry, and their commitment to diversity and inclusion is so powerful, so refreshing, so empowering. And that's what I got to believe, that there's so many conversations that can be built around the foundation of each person's. Strength. Obviously that speaks to my number five strength, individualization. But that's it right there, isn't it?

You couldn't be more correct. And here's how I know this works because I play this game when I'm with corporations. I will take the strengths of a African American soccer coach, an HR leader from India, a Jamaican engineering leader, and Mark Zuckerberg and I'll put them up there.

I love this.

And I take their names off. I'm like, which one's the girl? Which one's the black soccer coach? Which one's the Muslim leader from India?

Wow.

And which one? Zuckerberg. Now they always make it. They. And I set them up right. There's the soccer coach who coaches women, which I don't tell them has all relationship building strengths. They assume that's the woman. There's only one woman, so that must be her, right? She doesn't wear it like that at all. In fact, she's a, you know, a heat seeking missile coming through the universe at you. So, but then we'd show the names, right? And, but we, I don't just put up there. I'm like, well, let's discuss it. Right? And you can't tell skin color, you can't tell gender, you can't tell sexual orientation. You can't. So when we get beneath the stuff that we are so focused on and we start looking at diversity of thought, problem solving, connections and value, all that's a competitive edge. Yeah, we need both, right?

I'm not going to say that the other stuff isn't important. I'm just saying that there's more to that diversity equation than that.

Oh, there is. There is absolutely is. And you take the strengths, right? And you take what you show. And obviously their stories and their circumstances are going to shape them and are going to be points of reference in their life. But the very like just getting it down to the bare bones to absolutely the whole skeleton of it. I think that's just. So what is usually the reaction when you do that?

Well, they're surprised by, you know, the assumptions because we all making assumptions. We're making assumptions based on gender, skin color, whatever the heck. We're all making assumptions and that's part of us processing people. I don't, I don't have any problem with that whatsoever. Somebody that says they're colorblind, that's baloney. Unless they're blind. Okay. I notice if somebody's Asian, but I don't go, oh, they must like Math or whatever the stereotypes are, it's a good lesson for them. And it's not even a bad or mean thing I'm trying to do. It's just like, listen, people, there's talent on your team that's either misunderstood or undervalued. And the diversity of bringing people in is really important. There's a guy that was the Chief Scientist for PepsiCo, and I'm not sure he still is, but he was from India, second generation, so his parents were first generation.

He has grandkids, and he said, my grandkids, they look like me, but they grow up in Minnesota. They think like everybody else from Minnesota. So his point is we need to look for diversity of thought based on other things than just the skin color thing. I just think there's such a lesson that where you grow up, if you're from the south, you may have a perspective on food that's different from Northern California. So it's just to say it's so. People are so complicated. And at the individual level, success is hard, and at the team level, it's really hard. So how do we embrace all those different variables? And I think this is one way.

And you know, honestly, that's another thing that you and I are so aligned on is that's the role athletics plays in our lives. You know, I remember my freshman year of college. I. I graduated on a Sunday, I've got to be in Omaha on a Thursday, and I meet some guys besides my recruiting visit, I meet guys that I'm going to spend every day of my life with, every minute of my. Every minute of every day of my life with. And they're from la, from Odess, from Tulsa, from Gary, from Fort Wayne, from Naperville, Illinois, from Rockford. I mean, every single walk of life and story and backdrop that you can imagine. And that's why I think that's another thing. Athletics does so much for life. So how. But how do you.

In corporate America, then, when folks weren't fortunate enough, and I do consider fortunate, to have the experience I had when they weren't fortunate enough in the way they see things, in the lens that they look at through things, it really isn't their fault because they don't know what they don't know. How do you use these strengths to get them to kind of change? You know, it all goes back to things I looked at, beginning to change when I changed the way I looked at them. How do you use your work to do that?

Well, I think again, when you do nothing but show Talent on the screen. I mean, there's a reason that orchestras will have the person playing behind a curtain. They don't want any of that. They want to know can they play the violin, can they play the cello? Can they do right? So there is that advantage of being inclusive about all points of view of talent. And I have to tread very carefully, to be honest with you, because I am direct, I am female. And I don't know if you remember the Google guy that got fired a couple years ago for saying that women can only succeed in groups. First of all, it was way too direct and he got fired for saying that. I'm like, do not fire people for saying that. Who cares? You can counsel them.

That's it. Help him get better.

Yeah, everyone's fired now the moment there's an offense and along that line, I don't know if you saw, but the guy from the head of the Olympics in Japan, 85 years old, doesn't want to meet with any women in his meetings because they talk too much and it takes too long. So he says this, he's fired. They bring in a woman and I'm all for women being successful, but they've got video from her from the Sochi Olympics and she's drunk and kissing some poor athlete that doesn't want anything to do with her. They kept her in that role. So we got to stop the double standards about bad behavior. Bad behavior is bad behavior. I am for helping people improve. And maybe that means firing. And I'm not defending that at all. If they should be fired, fire em.

But we got to stop this kind of back and forth and that only a woman should be in that role or that sort of thing. I think if people are really talented, let's help them all work together to achieve success and don't put anybody down for whatever their outside is and don't also don't put them in a situation where maybe that isn't the right role if we know that it isn't. Right.

Right. Don't do something just to do it.

Don't do it. Just it's a checking the box and she's still in her job. This is this past week, this is the past week. And I'm like, why is she in the room? That's to me, that's more offensive than it got video of it. Than saying women talk too much in meeting. They may and that's their way of getting things done. So how do we help them do that? And everybody value it. Right.

I know plenty of men that talk Too much in meetings as well, but that's another conversation. So how do we get back to, as a society, helping push young people outside their comfort zone and saying no to them and allowing them to deal with adversity? You know, obviously we've had this thing, and God bless all these kids for what they've been through. They were not prepared for this, and it completely changed the world. But how do we get back to that? Leveraging the work that you do to show them that it's okay for them to struggle because here's what they're good at.

Well, I talk about the fact that there is nobody that doesn't have a struggle. And I'm not even saying that's the most basic human level. There is nobody that doesn't have a struggle. I don't care what your background. You can be born on two inches from home plate if we're going to measure it that way, and you're still going to have troubles in life. I think the notion that everything should always be perfect. There should be no adversity, there should be no challenge. There should be no bad words ever said to you. No one should ever tease you. There's a reason that when giraffes are born, then mom knocks them around, okay, till they can get up and they can move. Because if they can't get up, move, they get eaten.

Right?

Right. So, and I'm. I realize I'm making it very simple, but I think at the root of it is the dialogue. You know, what are you most afraid of? What are you most afraid of? Let's talk about that. Because it's never talked about. They. It becomes this big. Then fear becomes really big to them because they don't get many steps towards overcoming it. But that's where the athletic journey. And that's why I'm thrilled. Whenever I work with athletes, they have had to, at some point move outside their comfort zone. Now they still sometimes need a little push, like the draft, given the, you know, the mom draft, giving somebody a little push. But once they start that and they realize they can, that's where real empowerment comes from. Not something bestowed upon you by somebody else.

Well, we're doing them by not allowing them to struggle, we're doing them a disservice.

Huge. They're going to face it at some point. They're going to have a jerk of a boss, a bad co worker who.

Doesn't talk to him in the hallway.

Who doesn't talk to him in the hallway. You say, whoa, dude, you know, woman what is what? We don't say hello around here. Tell me about that rule.

You know, I love the work you do. Maureen, before I ask you the last question, where can folks find more out about the work you do, your resources? They can find your book Destination Unstoppable. Keep an eye out for the book Work Like a Girl project. Where can they find out more about you?

I have a website, MaureenMonte.com, m A U R E E N M O n t e dot com. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm happy to connect in any way, shape or form. Destination Stoppable is available and I've got 29 pages in the back that offer roadmap and information to help people make the journey.

Unbelievable.

I want that for them. And the Win Like a Girl project will be the same. So Win Like a Girl. As I said, I'm having trouble with giving birth is coming.

Stay with it though.

I'm staying with it. It is coming. So my goal is to have and I'm going to look for a publisher this time rather than self publish. But either way it's going to be out, I hope by September so that it can be ready for fall. Perfect timing, right?

I know it'll be in the stockings of a few people I know at Christmas.

Oh, that's very kind of you.

Absolutely.

It gives me a goal.

That's right. There you go. I can't thank you enough. I mean, this was phenomenal. As always, our conversations going somewhere more than we thought they're going to. And with just a ton of rich thoughts and things to draw upon. I appreciate it so much.

Well, that's why I say yes to you because I know it's going to be a good conversation. I know you ask great questions and you know, I don't care if we go off path. This is the perfect path.

Well, thank you and I do appreciate it. I think one thing that's intriguing to me is when people struggle, okay. And they look at their top five strengths. I have right in front of me. I have the learner, belief, focus, individualization and achiever. And there are times when one of those strains just isn't showing up in your world. It just isn't happening. It just isn't working. What is your advice? I mean, what if there's a conflict between belief and achiever and I'm not achieving and I'm all of a sudden starting to lose a little bit of self confidence, a little self belief? How do you really leverage your strengths to bring that back to You.

It's a great question. And I do think this is the value of the strength journey is those are your tools. Now, you can leave your. If you're building a house, you can leave your saw in the back woods for a little while and go get it and bring it back. But in the end, whatever the obstacle is, those are your superpowers for overcoming that obstacle. Now, if one is in tension with the other, that's what I call strength tension. So in other words, maybe, you know, you should be achieving, but you don't believe in the mission. Well, all strengths, one of them is going to trump the other one. So this is where you say, I need to. I'm going to set the timer. I must do this. I have to do things sometimes that I don't like doing. You must do them.

There is no such thing in life where you don't do things you don't like. It is part of the deal. Find some things that are your tool set to help you overcome that. I set the timer because I can do anything for 20 minutes, and then I can go do what I want to do and then come back and do another 20 minutes. But it's on you to manage your strengths. They don't own you, even though they do. Right. That. That is your strength owning you. You own it. So you dial down the belief temporarily and you up the achiever temporarily, like little gas stove thingies. And that's the same journey we have. If I'm scared to shoot from the blue line or I'm scared my teammates will hate me, you have to dial those things back. And that's where the dialogue comes in.

Yeah. You know something that I don't. Ever since I was introduced to this, that I found success in, when we're struggling and we have tough decisions to make or we're putting challenging circumstances, we lean into. And I work with my clients, and this all the time is leaning into your values. What's your unshakable foundation in terms of the raising your level of authenticity? But what I have found is sometimes. Okay, how am I operating? Sure, individualization is one of my top five strengths, but am I really listening to what the person's saying that I'm working with? Am I missing something? Right. And I go back and I get real honest with myself. Okay. Am I operating from a place of focus? Am I really dialed in? Am I paying at lip service?

And I never realized that your strengths could play that role in your success. But they absolutely have.

They absolutely have. But it doesn't happen without intent. That's a little bit like saying, you know what? I haven't taken a shot from the blue line in a long time. I'm going to take a shot. If you're developing your talents in the physical sense, you must put the same effort in to develop your talents in the internal sense. Right? Your strength fighter talents, it's the same journey, but it doesn't happen by magic. You know, if you want to be an Olympic swimmer, you better be swimming. So the same is true with your strengths.

Right? I love it. Maureen, thank you so much. I cannot, I cannot say thank you enough times. It's so great to have you back and I really appreciate your time.

It's my pleasure. I had a great time and you did a great job. Thanks, Ed.

Thank you for listening to the athletics of business. Be sure to give us a rating and review so we know how we're doing. For more information about the show, Visit TheAthletics of Business.com now get out there. Think, act and execute at the highest level to unleash your greatness.