Building Transformative Relationships

Anita Brick: Hi, this is Anita Brick and welcome to CareerCast at Chicago Booth. To help you advance in your career. Today we're delighted–and, Shawn, I'm a little apprehensive too–to be speaking with Shawn Nason, and he is the founder and CEO of MOFI, the Nason Group ecosystem, author of Kiss Your Dragons–which we're going to talk about today–Radical Relationships, Bold Heartsets, & Changing the World, and host of The Combustion Chronicles podcast.

He believes you need to look at the relationships that might even scare you and go for them anyway. Shawn, does that about sum it up?

Shawn Nason: That about sums it up.

Anita Brick: We have a lot of questions that came in. Let's start with, I think, a big one for a lot of people. This is actually an MBA student who said: “Shawn, I have more than a few professional relationships. They're not all that supportive. What can I do to make them more transformative in a positive way?”

Shawn Nason: I love that question and thank you. So what I want to start with, Anita, and for all of this, is to actually set up our definition of what we've talked about in the book around radical relationships. Radical relationships are about depth and authenticity, boldness and heart. And I also want to say this is about taking the time to sit with people you don't usually sit with. This is also about sitting in the mess, even when every ounce of your being wants to run and hide. And done well, radical relationships give us confidence and energy in the face of ambiguity, confusion, difficulty, danger, and even despair.

When I hear that question around these professional relationships that sometimes are not always that supportive, I 100% agree. I faced it in my life, and I'll share a story that hopefully will help this MBA student. I was new into healthcare, new into a role, and I had been forewarned of this particular senior executive in our organization that I was going to be meeting with on my third day in this new role, in this new company even. And on that third day, I walk into that meeting. Needless to say, I'll spare all the details, but the story played out just like I had been told. I started the meeting and we got into the meeting. This person acted completely unprofessional, slammed their hands down on the table, stormed out of the meeting. And what had happened previously in this world is that people would run after this person to calm him down and get him back in the meeting and do all of that. And I chose to take a different approach.

I just kept going on in the meeting, finished the hour-long meeting. After the meeting was done, I had several people pulled me aside and said, what are you going to do? You didn't go after this person. I said, no, it wasn't the right time. I'm going to go speak to them now. And I went and spoke to that person. And because I didn't support their behavior, support their actions and support their attitude to this day, I am friends with that person. When you're in a professional situation, I know it's really hard and it's hard telling them to. And that's the whole premise of our book in Kiss Your Dragons is to lean into those things that are uncomfortable, intoo those relationships and address them head on.

Has it always worked out for me? No, but I would say 80% of the time addressing those uncomfortable, non-supportive relationships, finding that place to build a heart-centered relationship with the person works. It's hard, it's painful, but it has been successful for me in my career, so I hope that helps.

Anita Brick: Well you know, I think it's a good start. But here's what often goes on. You know, you talk about heart centered and someone said: “Look (this is an alum). I am an analytical person. The idea of heartset and heart center is way out of my comfort zone. Where can I start without looking foolish?”

Shawn Nason: So here's what I would say to them. First off, I had two coauthors–amazing coauthors in this book, Robin Glasco and Michael Harper. And they need to go read Michael Harper's portion of the book. Michael is a very analytical person, very process-driven person. Risk, heart-centered, was really uncomfortable for him to lean into. And I get it.

The first thing I say to people that are analytical, that struggle with heart centered is just admit it. Lean in. Kiss the dragon, as we call it. Say, okay, I am uncomfortable. I'm going to take some deep breath. I'm going to need to find someone to help support me that's more heart-centered, and I don't want to make it sound like it's gooey and gushy. And, you know, we hug and we kiss. No, but there is a big difference between heart set, which to me is the core of who you are as a person, versus mindsets. Mindsets you grow, you change, you move through those in life. Your heartsets are pretty much who you are as a person, and that's what's powerful about it. And so my suggestion is to find someone to move along this journey with slowly. It doesn't have to be fast and overnight.

Anita Brick: And Michael is a really good example because he talks about his own evolution in the book. He talks about how you wanted him to come work for you, and he thought it was kind of insane to do that. I don't think it was because of you, but he was used to having a very traditional job, and it was a big leap for him. But he took the risk. He did. I mean, ultimately he did.

Shawn Nason: And I don't remember if he said exactly how it took two years for him.

Anita Brick: Yeah, he did say that. Yeah. So along with that, there's a question about risk. This is another MBA student who said: “No offense, but you talk about risk like it's easy. It is not. How bold do I need to be to make your approach work?”

Shawn Nason: What a great question. Yeah. And you know what I realized in my life? I am a risk-driven person. Risk doesn't scare me. Risk doesn't cause me to be afraid. But yet, let's go back to Michael. Michael was not a risk-driven person. I think you can move along the spectrum of risk. And so when you first walk into it and lean into it, and again, this is what is so powerful about our concept of what we talked about: swarms and dragons. Traveling in swarms. There's a saying around your vibe attracts your tribe. That very much means that you surround yourself with people that think like you, a lot of times look like you, that process like you. The swarm is a concept where you surround yourself with diversity. You surround yourself with people that think different, look different, feel different, do business different.

That's where if you're a low-risk person, put people in your swarm that are risk driven and are risk takers. That's how Michael and I have worked so powerfully together. And then, you know, Robin in the book, she leans more to risk in business like I do. But in her personal life, maybe a little less risk. We're a perfect swarm. There are moments when they say to me, Shawn, we are not taking that risk right now. And, you know, I kind of pout and I'm like, fine. Eventually I'll keep pushing them and getting them to move there. It's going to take time. What I would say to you is you don't necessarily have to be a risk-driven person, but surround yourself with the people that take risks and they will help push you there.

Anita Brick: So kind of in line with that. Switching a little bit, there is a question about and you talk about this and I think this is a really important concept. You talk about risk-based solutions, which clearly are suboptimal. Clearly not a great idea, but many people do it. Here was another Boothie who said: “I see a lot of people creating fear-based solutions, especially now. What can I, as a manager of a team but not an executive leader, do to help my team fall in love with the problem or challenge and ultimately create a better solution?”

Shawn Nason: Well, that goes back to the mindsets and I love it. And that's the hardest mindset, is falling in love with the problem and not the solution. I can tell you along my journey in many corporations, you know, I was very fortunate to work for the Walt Disney Company. Then I worked for one of the major payers and the health insurance space. I worked in higher ed. I worked as a chief innovation officer at the university. Not the easiest job in the world because higher ed has built theirself around the solution of if we need to make more money, we continue to raise tuition prices. I walked into higher ed and said, you can't do that. The day of that, it's got to stop.

So falling in love with the problem is just simply this. And it's not even to me a risk-based solution or fear-based solution. It's you know who you're solving the problem for. What I was able to do in higher ed and shift a mindset was build empathy that students and that people and parents that were paying for people's education were actually customers. And what did our customers want? Same principle at Disney. What do guests want? When you would spend time with guests, when you would spend time with customers, you can really easily find what the problem is and not just the solution. And I know that sounds really simple, but I really do believe it's that simple. Get with people that you're solving for and it becomes really easy to solve.

Anita Brick: How do you do that? This is a related question. They said: “I would like some advice around this. What would you advise someone to do if they work with a number of “no” mindset people? By the way, quitting my job is not currently an option.” So what if the people around you are saying yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what the guests, know the customer, etc. etc. once, but we can't do it. We've tried. It doesn't work. How do you shift people from that no, it's impossible to broadening out their solution set in place of what is possible.

Shawn Nason: Wow. Another great question. You're throwing some good ones at me here today. I will go to another mindset which is to go where the love is. When I work for one of the major health payers, Humana, that is the risk-averse industry, a lot of risk-averse executives in health care. And what I did is I found one senior leader in all of the organization who was willing to give it a try. I wouldn't even say that they were a yes person, but they weren't a no person. They were at least willing to listen to me and say, let us go solve this big hairy problem you want to solve using our techniques. And if it fails, you can blame it all on me, and I'll leave you alone. And there was a little bit of stress to that, I'm not going to lie.

But she was willing to show me grace and love when no one else was in the organization. We took this problem. We solved it for her and her organization. And guess what? I don't care where you're at and what any company you're in. We are all driven to compete a little bit, and particularly in executive ranks. Once she started showing success, solving her problems and doing amazing things in our organization, those no's started to at least listen and turn into maybes and eventually turned into yeses. You've got to find that senior leader. You've got to find that leader within your organization and executive. There's one somewhere to go where the love is and go surround yourself with them and get your wins there before you try to push it out to a whole organization.

Anita Brick: Two things related to that. First, what are a couple of things that you did to even identify who that person might be? How do you do that? If you're hearing this, this can be really discouraging. How do you hunt around and find that treasure in that person that might listen to you?

Shawn Nason: And this goes back to risking gut. I just watched and I looked for senior leaders, and I admit that one of my gifts in my life is that gift of discernment and gut. I can be around people and feel out if they're open to it. I placed myself in situations where I surrounded myself with leaders and I listened to them talk. I would go to town hall meetings and I would listen to the words they were using and the things they were doing. And that's how I identified this amazing, amazing, powerful executive female leader within our organization. I listened to her talk and how she approached things, and then I just got brave enough, and I went to her executive assistant and I said, hey, can I meet with her? I just need 30 minutes. I used it as a coaching session and through that it opened up the door. It may take some time, but they're there. You just have to sniff them out.

Anita Brick: What was it that you heard in her language or in her approach that made you think that she was the one who might be open to the experiment that you suggested?

Shawn Nason: She was our clinical operations executive. She ran all the clinical operations for the whole organization. And when I heard her talk or I would see an email come out for her, she was always talking about the member. We need to do to make it better for the member. Humana was in the shift of trying to go from being an insurance company to a wellness company as well, but she was always talking about the member. And I thought if she is talking about it, she at least is willing to approach it. And the approach we used and taught was human-centered design or design [inaudible 00:13:42] which starts in empathy. So if she's at least talking about it, I thought I can hook her on empathy. Then we can walk through this process.

Anita Brick: Smart. That was a very smart way to go. One of the things you talk a lot about and it is mean, it's even in the title of the book, you talk about dragons. So an alum asked the question: “How do I identify my dragons? And what are a few things that I can do once I name them?”

Shawn Nason: Another great question. You identify your dragons, and this is what I tell people by the things that you're the most scared of, that you fear the most, that you want to run away from the most. And I'll be really honest with you, the thing that I was most scared about was starting my own business. I had worked in corporate. I thought, I'm going to stay in corporate. And I remember my mentor. He's an amazing gentleman, has done powerful, innovative things. He called me after I left the university and he said to me, Shawn, you can no longer work in corporate America. You need to start your own business. And I was like, what are you talking about? He said, you're too disruptive for corporate America.

And I actually remember sitting there with sweat and it's actually kind of funny as we're recording this podcast, you know, I am in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and I was actually in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. That's so weird to me. It just hit me. When he called me and we had that conversation and I said, you're crazy. I can't do this. Literally like my heart started beating and I started sweating and he's like, you've got to or you're going to be miserable. That is when I identified a dragon, not knowing at the time that it was a dragon, but I said, okay, I'm going to do this and you're going to have to show me how to do it. Six years later, I have this amazing business. We have done amazing things across the globe, but I had to identify it. So when I tell people it's that thing that when you hear it talked about, your gut kind of knots up, you know, you sweat or your heart rate goes up. That's how you kiss that dragon, because that's a dragon.

Anita Brick: Okay, good. So here's a related question. MBA student said, Boothie said: “I have big things to tackle. Goals, dreams, and challenges. How would you advise a future business leader to find people who can give me courage and encouragement to tackle this really giant stuff?”

Shawn Nason: We live in a day and age where diversity, inclusivity is all around us. As you're tackling those big things in life, I'm going to go back to the concept I talked about earlier, and it's that swarm. Who do you put in your swarm? And you may have different swarms. I've learned this in my life. I have a swarm of friends. I have a swarm of professionals, a swarm of advisers. You look at our advisory board for MOFI. It's surrounded with a different group of people. I think this is why our world is in the place it is today, is because we don't respect and listen. And I've actually started to say, I no longer agree to disagree with people. I'm taking that out of my vocabulary. What I will do is agree to respect to you. And if you totally knew Robin and Michael and you know myself and you put our three lives up against each other, we are vastly different. We could disagree on many things, but we have agreed to respect each other and live in that respect.

Anita Brick: Having read the book and read about Robin and Michael and you, you’re right, you're very different. You bring different things, different perspectives, different backgrounds. It's wonderful. That said, how do you find people for your swarm and get them to join you?

Shawn Nason: Yeah, I know Michael talks about this in the book too. And he shared the story about the day we got on the elevator, and he turned his head and looked at me and he said, Shawn, no new best friends today. I know no strangers.

Anita Brick: Right? Right. I get it.

Shawn Nason: So, it's easy for me to seek different people out. Michael. Extrovert. But Michael likes really deep relationships, so swarms are even a little bit more difficult for him. But he has learned to lean into that. Again, go into a situation, you know, when all of the stuff happened in 2020 around Black Lives Matter, he purposely and I purposely went into very different situations of different groups of people that didn't believe what we believed, but we had to do it on purpose and we had to bring them into our swarm. We also chose as an organization to take those things head on. It's not easy, not going to lie. Not going to tell you it's going to be easy, but you're going to have to step out of your comfort zone a little bit and go find people that believe and think different than you do.

Anita Brick: Okay, give us a baby step. This sounds really overwhelming to me.

Shawn Nason: You know, if you work in a corporation, a lot of corporations today have network resource groups–NRGS. They have diversity and inclusion, different groups and different weeks. Those are great places within any business to go find those people. Go join one and something that's not right in your wheelhouse. Go join organizations outside in the personal world.

You know, I'm a faith-believing person, so I belong to a church. You know, we don't always see eye to eye on what Shawn believes. It's really hard for the church to have a person that chooses to curse a lot in my church. Go seek an organization out.

Anita Brick: Okay, I agree. That's actually, that's a very accessible step because it doesn't mean you have to join the group forever. It means that you can take one tiny step and make one small commitment to go once.

Shawn Nason: Yeah, I'll give you a prime example in my life how I'm doing it, because I still do it. There's a new social media app out there called Clubhouse.

Anita Brick: Oh yeah.

Shawn Nason: Right. Okay, so on Tuesday nights I co-moderate a room on women empowerment.

Anita Brick: That's great.

Shawn Nason: Last time I checked, I'm a male. I identify as a male, but I come on with three incredibly powerful women who also don't believe like I do. So there can be some tensions happening when we're co-moderating. But we again have agreed to respect each other. And I go into that space with a listening mindset and a learning mindset because I want to hear that. So, you know, a couple weeks ago there were 80 women in the room and four men. I sat and co-moderated and listened in that space. For me, clubhouse has become that space. Today, I go sit in different rooms and I've joined different clubs that are completely different to just surround myself with that diversity in thought and to bring them into my swarm.

Anita Brick: I like it, I like it, you know, it's funny when I moderate a panel, I talk to the panelists ahead of time and I said, you know, if you agree with each other, that's great. Even better if you disagree with each other, speak up, because that will create new thought, that will create entertainment. And as long as it's genuine, it's going to create something of value. So I totally agree with that.

Do you have time for one more question, Shawn?

Shawn Nason: I do.

Anita Brick: Okay. Good. All right. So you've given us a lot to think about. And I would say that you're approach is kind of radical to put yourself in situations that are uncomfortable, to put people in your swarm who are very different and might completely disagree with you, and to lean into the dragons, the fears that you have, the worries that you have related to taking a big step in a direction.

What are three things that you would advise someone who wants to build these transformative relationships? Who wants to advance? Maybe they're more like you. Maybe they're more like Robin. Maybe they're more like Michael. But what are three things you would advise someone to do so that they can build these transformative relationships, which ultimately lead to a successful and enduring career?

Shawn Nason: I love that question. I want to start with this quote that we use in the book, and it's actually an old Native American Sioux legend that states the longest journey you will make in your life is from your head to your heart. Be transparent. We live in a world today where we need authenticity and transparency. I think that's the only thing that's going to crack the great divide. Is be transparent. The second one is love people. We need to go back to just simply loving people. And again, we're not talking about ooey gooey, you know, hug, kiss. Love people means genuinely respect people for who they are, for what they are. And I have been very fortunate in my life to be surrounded by that. And even more, I have a five year old son who is autistic and a 12 year old daughter who is neurodiverse, and so I've had to learn to love in some very different ways in that space. Be transparent, love people, and just build relationships, not even talking radical relationships, but build relationships. And build those relationships in honesty, integrity, again, transparency and be loyal to people. And I think if you do those three things, that simple sermon, that will lead you into building radical relationships.

Anita Brick: It's brilliant, it's simple and it's wonderful. And I'm glad that you clearly are authentic. You can see it in the book. I can hear it in your voice today. And I'm really honored to know you and to have had an opportunity to have a dialogue with you.

Shawn Nason: Well, thank you and thank you for the amazing questions and for pushing me to even think and to lean in and to kiss more dragons.

Anita Brick: Well, thanks again. I know you're a busy guy, and I really appreciate your making time for us.

Shawn Nason: You're welcome and thank you.

Anita Brick: Well, thank you. And thank you all for listening. This is Anita Brick with CareerCast at Chicago Booth. Keep advancing.