How Great Leaders Inspire Trust and Resilience with Dr. Paul Dann

[0:00]  one of the things that I realize is I'm not that Wicked smart that in fact um I have a lot to learn from a leadership perspective and one of the things that I began to think about was leadership is really not it's not about a a formal role or an ascribed title uh it's really not about going to a training and getting a certificate or even a degree I mean I have a PhD in human and organizational systems it's not even about getting that that degree what leadership is really about is it's about practice how do you develop yourself as a leader and and realizing it's an ongoing Journey you know I'm I'm happy you're saying as a CEO now you're figuring some things out guess what that's a great postum because you want to continue to figure things out as you

[0:47]  as you move forward all right guys welcome back to a brand new episode of the heart and hustle podcast I can't wait to be able to share today's guest with you guys because I have another amazing leader sitting across this digital table with me I've got the president and CEO of the North American Family Institute Sir Paul Dan welcome to the show incredibly excited to have you here thanks Keenan thanks Keenan I appreciate your your kind words you're almost scaring me a little bit being so effusive you know you know one of the things that we talked about in our previous conversation together was

[1:35]  you know the long time Horizon if you will or the long Runway of our career and how things change but also how we stay steadfast on that journey and so one thing that I know is that you didn't just wake up one day and became the CEO of nafy but more importantly you started as a casew worker in the 80s with a smaller organization and now you're sitting here as a leader of the organization why don't you tell us a little bit about that yeah I'd be happy to do that Keenan so you know what's interesting is I when I started out in the helping profession I really wasn't sure where I was going to go or what I was going to do but I knew I wanted to help young people that was kind of my first choice and uh lo and behold I found this little organization called Northeastern Family Institute where I got a job as a caseworker working with adjudicated youth kids that were in

[2:24]  trouble with the courts and I my catchman area was East Boston all the way up to the New Hampshire board border and I used to work with these kids to try to help them sort out their challenges and work things through now I went there and I said I'll stay a year maybe get some experience go somewhere else but what's interesting is that little organization nor Eastern Family Institute grew over time to become North American Family Institute where I also continued to grow with them over the last well it'll be 45 years in April can you believe it wow 45 years I mean what an amazing journey in just seeing how the organiz ation has progressed but also you know some of the challenges I guess that you guys are kind of serving and kind of fighting against in the community you know I want to kind of double click I've been having some awesome conversations recently about the

[3:12]  the role of the family right in the American society what do you think has happened to the family if you will over the long years that you've been working kind of in this work in the helping field that's a great question ke you know what what's super interesting is what we know about uh resiliency and how kids boun back from trauma and uh there's a number of ways that that happens and one critical way that it happens is being part of a family and having a family unit that can support you one of the things that's interesting is I think our in our society families have been really pulled apart by all kinds of things you know um when I was a little guy when I was a child growing up um you know my dad worked and uh my mom was able to stay home and that that basically was a family unit they could

[4:00]  do their thing now uh socioeconomically so many of our families are challenged can they make a living wage for example uh if they can't do they have to work a couple of three jobs and just the very fabric of family starts to get pulled apart just by that alone and why do you think that's happened do you think that you know some of the macro conversations that happen in society today is you know of course our buying power because of inflation and things have gone down but also you know it there's a lot of conversations around kind of corporate greed and things like that where you see Executives of organizations making exponentially more money while the you know the income of the common employee hasn't exactly risen and this is an interesting Dynamic I was born in 1990 and I'm a part of you know me and my girlfriend now are thinking about

[4:47]  starting a family we're fortunate enough to live in a beautiful place of Honolulu Hawaii and so it's incredibly expensive to live here and we have to think about like how are we both going to be able to either make enough money to be able to raise a family and feel comfor here that's a lot of stress right that comes on the family well one one thing that I think is a travesty is really the challenges that everyone has in achieving a livable wage in this day and age you know when my wife and I were first married I was working at in that job as a case worker I was making 7,800 bucks a year that was my salary and I said boy if we could get to 10 grand I said Patty we're going to be all set it's going to be great if we can get to 10 grand now look $7,800 your eyes are wide open I can tell you you're saying how how could you even well we had an apartment we had a two-bedroom apartment we had a car we were able to

[5:36]  go on little vacations and we weren't we we weren't living I mean we weren't we weren't uh starving but we were you know and we were living able to kind of move along now of course you know that same salary is is laughable of course that's many years ago but when you look at the way people are paid right now a lot of young people getting out of school they're they're making $20 $22 an hour if they're lucky that's not not a lot enough money to really live on your own successfully so I think a livable wage is a key issue for people and and I think we've got to we've got to pay attention to that certainly in the in the health care profession in the mental health field too I mean if you don't mind me asking you know at the time of recording this this is February 12th is the current date right and we've seen or February 13th excuse me day before

[6:23]  Valentine's Day so all the guys out there if you're tuning into this make sure yeah don't forget um you know one of the things that I think is important for to recognize is we've seen Administration change right there's a lot of pressure on Health and Human Services like you said the helping field right now so as a leader I kind of want to tap into your mindset about how you're able to navigate an uncertain future when the services that you guys provide in the community are so fundamental towards bringing people together and serving those who are the most in need another great question look we're we're in a time right now that's filled with uncertainty and it's going to be critically important for all of us U to lean into what our core values are our core beliefs the missions of our organizations um that's where I think we we gain our strength in in times that

[7:11]  are uncertain when we stick with our core beliefs and our core values and work from our mission so for example our mission was is to empower people so that they can live in their own home and Community successfully and our values are ones of respect supporting people helping them to develop and can Empower themselves so we're we're going to lean hard into that and uh and work on that and not not sway from those values because I think some of what's happening right now is uh it's a moment in time and uh my mother used to say this too shall pass so you know when you're when you're into tough stuff uh I think you got to really stick to your core Valu stick to your team work at what you know is helpful and does the

[7:59]  right thing and then of course communicate with people around the importance of the work I think there's a lot of misconceptions out there you know I hear a lot of things like well is is this really worth it or or you know is that are they really helping or you know what's really happening so I think a lot of communication would help too you know my father and as you were saying that he had a saying when I was growing up is this to Shall Pass right and thinking about things on a longer time Horizon kind of as I kind of got started in today's conversation you know one of the things that I brought up in our previous conversation and today as well is Napoleon has a quote is leaders are dealers in Hope how are you kind of being a dealer in Hope right now because people are looking to you as the leader CEO president of the organization how are you kind of being steadfast in the moment of uncertainty is it

[8:47]  communication is it the way in which you continue to show up and do the things that you can control what does that look like for you well you know what's interesting about this question or this comment about being a dealer in Hope one of the one of the developmental assets that supports people and their ability to be resilient is to have hope that's one of a number of different assets and so how do you how do you have hope well one way that you have hope is you is you develop a sense uh locus of control like we have we have the ability to do some things there are things that we can do in this current environment that will continue to advance the important work of North American Family Institute and like all of our other organizations that are in the healing profession there's things that we can do in order to move things forward so Locust of control um the other part about Hope is is being

[9:36]  able to help people Envision and think about the future so one of the things that um I like to talk about with people is kind of where we are and where we're going to go and align with that at the same time Keenan is what are our values as I mentioned earlier you know are are we going to stay true to who we are from our sense of our values and our beliefs and mission that we're working from and then I think the other thing is to reflect back on um the way the organization has managed through previous times where there's been some challenges and to remind people you know there may be some uncertainty here but we've been through difficult times in the past you know 2008 up through 2012 a bottom fell out really in the economy um what's interesting is um there was there

[10:24]  was literally no funding to help the kinds of services that we had very little felt like no funding and so um we pivoted and we managed through that time very successfully so in a way we're reminding people at least on my team we're saying look we're going to be steadfast with our beliefs and our values uh we are going to work in a way that uh Keeps Us Smart able to Pivot and we're going to um you know continue to communicate and and do the things that we know are right I want to I want to ask really tactfully how how you get a generation of people who are conditioned for instant gratification and I look at my personal generation right um the Millennials and then gen Z specifically we were you know we grew up in a world I

[11:13]  was I was I was blessed if you will to grow up in a world before technology right I saw how technology exploded in my lifetime and has become an integral part of everybody's life if you're listening and watching to this podcast I guarantee what doing right now exactly there we go that's a great that's a great perspective you know but one thing that I recognize is slowly but surely right the way in which we interact with technology has kind of conditioned us and Society in general for instant gratification right the work that we're doing today we should see a result by the end of the day at the end of the week at the very least so how do you convince and get a generation of people who are used to instant gratification and everything that we do from interacting on our cell phones to ordering food and having it delivered to our house within 30 minutes to buy into a long-term vision of sustainability for what you guys are doing in the community that's a great I love that so so here

[12:02]  here's what it's about really what is what is the normative culture what is the normative community that you're working from in terms of your organization now you know that we live in a society of instant gratification we also know that particularly if we're talking about helping people advance and do better for themselves that doesn't happen by a flick of a switch you know it's a piece of work took us a while to get where we are it's going to take us a while to get where we're going so one of the things that's important is that think about what kind of organizational culture do you have that people can become a part of and that they can join now if you create something that's meaningful for people it's really like what's meaningful for you might be different than what's meaningful for me but if you create something that's meaningful for people that has a lot of opportunities for belonging like hey I

[12:50]  can plug in here I can help there or I can do that and you have those core values that I've been mentioning and you work from a a mission everything builds up from your mission what starts to happen is people start to take on the attitudes the values the beliefs and the behaviors that are connected with being part of that culture so in a way we're working I mentioned it you know in my book I mentioned eight practice perspectives and this is one of those where we're actually being anti-gravitational we're going against the flow right and we're taking the Long View which is another perspective that I have where you know it's not going to happen in a minute but you're going to join us and you're going to have a way to contribute and feel like you're really part of something that and you are part of something that's making a difference I want to double click on the anti-gravitational thinking let's kind

[13:38]  of educate right the audience at this point in time on that concept and why it's so important yeah so what's interesting is you're talking about this Society of immediacy by the way it's not just the younger Generations it's us us old cats too we you know we want to take a pill and get better we want to you know we want to click a switch and have it why doesn't this click working you know we want it all immediately right so we're all you could think of that as a cultural flow that we're all in a in a we're just kind of going along like in a line like Lemmings almost right and you know you know they say about now I've never saw lemming really but I've heard they all run together and they're mindless they just and they actually I've heard they go off a cliff you know right you heard that too I've never seen it but anyway uh you know what's

[14:25]  interesting about becoming anti-gravitational or exercise that um mindset or that uh you know emotional intelligence is the ability to say wait a minute I don't think this flow makes sense for us we should I think we should step out of this particular flow or at least consider why we're doing what we're doing and where we're going so uh some of it has to do with mindfulness you know being able to sort of be aware of your surroundings and what the processes with the group around you um some some of it is just asking the question you you've probably done that too Keenan right when you're working with people you go why wait a minute why are we have we thought about why we're doing this everyone goes oh we haven't thought about that well that's an example of being anti-gravitational I want to I want to share a story with you

[15:13]  and maybe you could share your perspective on this uh there is a a famous experiment right where scientist put four monkeys in a cage in the middle of the cage they put a ladder and at the top of the ladder they introduced a stack of bananas right the first time the monkeys crawl up they go and they eat all the bananas the second time the scientists put the bananas at the top of the ladder the monkeys start crawling up they douse them with cold water and they shock them with electricity okay the next time it happens they start crawling up they do the exact same thing by the third time they introduce the bananas none of the monkeys will go to the top because they recognize the correlation between the climbing of the ladder and getting shocked and doused with cold water now the scientists replace one of the monkeys and they put a new monkey in there the new monkey starts to climb up

[16:00]  the other monkeys grab it pull it down and beat it up exactly if you continue that experiment long enough there'll be all new monkeys right in the actual cage now when the scientists put the banana at the top of the ladder none of the monkeys crawl up and the new monkey who gets introduced asks the question why don't we grab the bananas and they say I don't know it's just something that we don't do here that's right so do you ever think about how kind of stuck in our ways we might be when it comes to how we operate businesses how we approach certain situ situations that we often go into the condition path of it's just always how we've done things and that anti-gravitational thinking is kind of going against that so Keenan here's what we're doing let's take it from monkeys because I think it's a great example take it from monkeys and move it to people and let's talk about social phenomenon let's talk about for example

[16:48]  you you probably remember from your intro to social course about Norms Norms are unspoken expectations that drive your behavior based on your group membership unspoken in the pure sense you don't even have to talk about them like those monkeys didn't even have to talk in fact when they dropped that new monkey and the new monkey probably looked at the other monkeys and said I'm doing something weird going on this I don't think I should maybe go up here because look at the way people are reacting to me so Norms take hold in order for two reasons one uh well I'm a Blues Man so in the in the words of how and wolf we're all built for Comfort right so in Social settings um we're built for Comfort we don't like to stick out so unspoken expectations that govern our Behavior take hold because we're we're built for Comfort we want to fit in the other reason that Norms take hold is to get things done so what's

[17:37]  interesting is if you can if you can create something of a goal that's meaningful for people that they're interested in and again go back to your values and your beliefs and your mission if you can do it within the context of that then these Norms they start to take hold it's very powerful phenomenon now I don't recommend throwing water and shocking people I I think that's verion therapy but the principle is the same right like so for example we have an annual event where we recognize people that we've served for their accomplishments right and um we got like 250 people together they all come and we recognize four people every year the one person who's being recognized the first one that gets up and says they make a speech and they talk about um what they did and what how it made a difference

[18:26]  for them and what how the agency an organization help them and and and you see the audience which is half of them are are people that we serving and they're all watching well what are the Norms this is a significant event what are the Norms that are being shaped well I can do it hope going back to that in terms of resiliency uh Locust of control wow here's someone that felt they were didn't have control and now they're being recognized so anyway long-winded way to say if if you're if you're well what we say up here in Northern New England if you're a wicked smart if you're can smart organizationally you're going to be able to think about how do we create Norms that are positive that are going to make a difference that people can can connect to and become part of does am I am I like Charlie Brown's teacher at this point or does it

[19:13]  make sense you I'm not Mak it makes perfect sense to me I mean this is one of the things that I think I've really started to tap into you know I'm 34 years old I'm the CEO of our company and one of the things that I recognize is a younger mindset of me as a leader was was I needed to have a whole bunch of rules that people followed within the organization I've started to Pivot that that mindset to say what values can we use as North stars that will lead us towards the outcomes that we need without having to reference this huge checklist if that makes sense and that was a big maturity for me in my kind of um maturation as a leader it's been interesting yeah so so uh often when I present I'm I'm up on the board and I might you know do a drawing so I would do a drawing that kind of looked like this you know it's kind of like a a little comb on its side

[20:02]  and then I would do another drawing that kind of looks like this you know it's like it's got more and more layers to it and I would ask the group what are these and then people would say I don't know it's a it's a comb I don't they say I say no no no this is your policy book when you work from Mission and values and sort of you have a compass a compass of where you want that's your policy book it's the thinner one if you have this big fat thick one that's when you're trying to write ulate yourself and you're not leveraging um the power of of a vision of mission of of norms that sort of thing so it's good you're you're on to that K I mean it's been it's been a process right I mean a huge process for me is just trying to figure out how I can be a great leader and this why I love hosting the podcast because I can speak to leaders like yourself um so

[20:50]  how do you think you've changed right since you were joining the organization back in the 80s right managing a small team that grew to about 400 50 based on the information you shared now you have a team of 1500 right a whole bunch of young cats like you said how are you kind of how have you how have you changed and morphed if you will as a leader like on this journey and what are the key things that you've had to change and mold into yeah that I appreciate that question too well one of the things that um you know I mentioned that word those two words Wicked smart one of the things that I realiz is I'm not that Wicked smart and then in fact um I have a lot to learn from a leadership perspective and one of the things that I began to think about was leadership is really not it's not about a um a formal role or an ascribed title uh it's really

[21:41]  not about going to a training and getting a certificate or even a degree I mean I have a PhD in human and organizational systems it's not even about getting that that degree what leadership is really about is it's about practice how do you develop yourself as a leader and and realizing it's ongoing Journey you know I'm I'm happy you're saying as a CEO now you're figuring some things out guess what that's a great posture because you want to continue to figure things out as you as you move forward so how have I changed uh I think I'm more humble uh in terms of what I don't know uh I'm more inquisitive about what I might need to know and the other thing that I've become uh begun to really Leverage is the importance of what I think about as a generative leadership how do you co-create

[22:31]  leadership among your team members because it's really not about the positional leader it's really about everyone else being willing to you know take that risk and step up co-create be generative in your leadership development I actually actually developed a theory and have an assessment tool and everything that relates to gener of leadership can you share the theory oh so well it's uh I I can I can give you some component parts to it so what I did was I researched successful leaders across four large organizations I had 27 people that I looked into who were successful leaders and I basically said to them how how do we how do we develop and create leadership and and I used a research model qualitative analysis and came up with the theory that basically says look to co-create leadership you have to you

[23:19]  have to really hit hit it on a number of cylinders one you have to create um you have to create expectations around leaders in other words if you and I are part of an organization I have to be saying to you no you're a leader too I mean we're all leaders just because I'm the CEO doesn't mean right so you have to create expectations you have to build opportunities for people to practice leadership you have to develop your ability to trust people and you know trust is an interesting thing we throw it around all the time and we probably I don't know how much time we have but I could really get get into a whole trust conversation but you have to develop the ability to have trust um you have to have have uh finally practice communication and expectations so it's not just about U excuse me Communications and feedback so you have

[24:06]  to have the ability you know to have a reciprocal conversation like hey you know you did great but here are some things that we think we can do better at right those sort of things um so there's there's component parts to this that on once they're in play what happens is you find out well I'll give you an example um this is me what am I doing I'm driving home and I'm whistling I'm so happy why am I happy because I had this incredible day because I have these great leaders around me in other words we've created a team where everybody's you know they're they're hitting on all cylinders and they're connecting and they're thinking about how can we do better and what can we do and I'm like oh my gosh we all got paid for this this amazing whistling on the way home from

[24:53]  work that's a goal I I I know that you might kind of think like maybe maybe we don't have enough time to talk about trust but this is something that I think is actually on the front of the Mind of a lot of leaders today and one of the conversations I want to kind of create a little bit of context I'm kind of at that point in time where I'm seeing a lot of my friends that I grew up with who are young 20s somethings right becoming the Future Leaders of their organization but here's one of the things that I also recognize when you're incredibly skilled at performing a task within an organization right often you are promoted exactly and so one of the things that a lot of my friends and I speak about this often struggle with is I do not know how to lead by trusting others because I have the mindset where I could probably do it better than that

[25:41]  better I might as well just do it exactly I came across a book by an author named Dan Martell who talked about paro's principle 820 right he said you know although you can get this task done 100% good what you can do is find somebody who can do it 80% as good as you that gives you 20% capacity that 880+ 20 is 100% awesome but you have to lean into trusting others to allow them to fail forward which can be scary for a lot of new leaders so how do you kind of emphasize that need to trust if you will and why is that so important yeah that's great so what I do is first of all I help people define this word trust because what happens is we throw it around all over the place I don't trust you I don't trust him do you trust me I don't know it's all this trust trust trust but we really haven't refined a construct for so I want to give a shout out to

[26:28]  Patrick lenion probably you've read some of his stuff but he talks about originally talked about the five dysfunctions of a team and he's eventually moved it into a highly functional highly effective teams the five characteristics one of the ones that he talks about is trust okay that's kind of right out of the gate and what I like about what he does is he breaks it down into a way that you and I could think about it if we're talking about trust together so he says essentially and I'm I'm giving you my version of it he says essentially that there are three component parts to trust so the metaphor for me is like a bar stool with three legs okay right he's picturing a bar St with three legs now if you're going to have trust you got to have each of these three things each of those things is a

[27:15]  leg to the bar stool okay now have you ever tried to sit on a stool that's got only one leg have you yeah you flop over over two legs forget about it it ain't going to happen you got to have all three legs so this is what's nice about this you know keep it simple right three things one do I trust your intent that's the first leg of the stool do I if Keen you say you're going to do something and you mean something do I trust that is that true or are you hustling me you know what's the deal so one trusting intent you got to be able to trust your team members intent are they all with you are they part of the team do they you know do they really share the mission are they just giving you lip service what's the intent right so that's the first leg of the school

[28:03]  the second leg of the school is do does the person or do they have the skills necessary right you're talking about the you know you get promoted and now you you're an expert I don't know widget maker and now you got to let other people make widgets and you're a little worried about it do you trust their skill level do you think they could hit the 8020 that you mentioned and is that enough so do they have the skills that are necessary and then the third thing is the follow through third leg on the stool will they follow through with what they say they're going to do so you I know you've met folks and even some of your team meetings you all talk get great ideas you all know what you oh yeah this is great oh wonderful we kick it all around next meeting oh well we don't really do anything with that we gotta you know oh let's talk about but you got to have follow through right so those are the three legs to the stool

[28:50]  what I love about it though is when my team when we say to each other um where are we with trust how do we rate ourselves with trust we talk about it in those three component parts and if someone comes to me and says I just don't I just don't trust Jimmy Joe I'll go well what is it for Jimmy do does Jimmy need training or should we have a conversation to kind of see where where he's at kind of what what his intent is uh or does he need some skills to follow through I mean sometimes we're asking people to do all kinds of things without the tools and they right so does does that make sense Keenan does does it help uh give you a friend no it definitely does it definitely does and breaking it down into kind of like those tactful measures I think is super important because a lot of leaders who tune into this podcast

[29:37]  like I said are often struggling right with the trust factor and being able to kind of break it down those three silos is really important as you were talking there I couldn't help but kind of think about you know as you've been a leader um throughout the organization you know CEO president now you've seen many different Generations right the young cats who come into the organization one of the my favorite books about leadership right now um there's a guy in New York named Gary vaynerchuk Gary ve have you heard of him on social media no okay so he's a big influencer on social media he's got a Fortune 50 marketing company works with the coca-colas and stuff like that and what he says is he's building a honey Empire he said honey because I believe in being nice being kind cander kind candas empathy compassion all of the soft skills right

[30:27]  but he said remember an Empire is also competitive the Next Generation does not want to be led like Steve Jobs led the previous generation with an iron fist they want to be seen they want to be validated they want to be trusted they want to be heard and so how have you kind of had to mold and shift or even adopt if you will those soft skills into your leadership style to meet this new generation of people who have higher expectations for being seen as a human not being seen as another person in a seat if you will yeah I appreciate that so I'm I'm going to be a little anti-gravitational for you right now so here we go uh one of the things that I I hear a lot about from my contemporaries is all this generational talk well this generation doesn't do this and that generation doesn't do that and what

[31:13]  about our generation and all that I I say you know let's put the breakes on this for a minute and let's really talk about what it is that's Universal universally meaningful for people and what you're talking about Keenan really is this question of uh being kind and being supportive and coming at a place of caring for people doesn't mean you can't have hard conversations and things like that everybody wants that that's a that's a universal desire and then in fact if someone is is in a role of authority and and has a position uh of a executive leadership type thing and they don't realize that then they don't have much in the way of emotional intelligence they they need to kind of get their acts together and realize what is it about um humankind human nature that we can leverage and build upon and

[32:02]  that that exists in across all generations now some of us may be more uh articulate or more mobile around it or you know that kind of thing but in other words I'm not going to work for you I'm out of here if you're not taking care of me you know versus in the old days they might say oh I'm going to just stay I have to stay what can I do right so um but you're going to have a win-win if you move into supporting people in a way that builds you know I I I coin a phrase I apologize for it you know it's here's what I say if we can build the we we if we can build the wi we we if we can build the wi we get to we we get to oh you I yes and so the thing is I apologize for that but anyway the thing

[32:49]  is it's true if you can get people together to feel part of something to be feel like we're in this together without regard to their age and their you know where they live and kind of what their past experience was if you can get people to feel that they're part of something then you'll get to yes you'll be amazed that what will happen I mean this is the fundamental responsibility right of a leader a CEO is to cast a vision right so big and so great that other highly skilled people can find themselves being successful in the vision that you cast so how do you consider yourself on a level 1 to 10 of a vision caster for that future that people can get behind what do you think fall well I I just finished saying I'm much more humble now so not not I'm trying to work against that desire to have put a nine in there

[33:37]  but I first of all I I see that such value in helping people in sense making to make sense of where we are and where we're going to go and I see such value in thinking about who who we want to be and how we're want how we want to be in the world that I spent a lot of time thinking about that so I um you know um well you're working from home so I can't really use this analogy right I mean but if you weren't working from home let's say you're going to go to a friend's house when I say you're going to your friend Jimmy's house now you right away think of his house and then you kind of work your way back in terms of all right how am I going to get there now you know it's the same thing with vision and it's the same thing with understanding where we want to go if you lay out a desired state where we want to

[34:25]  be for people then right away that starts to inform U what something means like any particular thing it starts to inform what it means and now if if you inform meaning for people that affects what people believe which by the way in the end affects their behavior so you start to get everybody kind of rowing in the same way there's a one of the soft skills that Gary vaynerchuk mentions in his book is curiosity right one of the things I love asking leaders like yourself about with so much experience in a space right is how are you being curious about what the future of technology looks like right we've see so many conversations around things like Automation and artificial intelligence do you think that there's a future for

[35:13]  AI in the space of you know Health and Human Services mental Behavioral Health the helping sector right what do you think that's going to be and are you curious to kind of explore what the future looks like I you know it's interesting I do believe that that technology where we are now just if you go back 20 years we wouldn't be doing any of this right and look what happened to all the nonprofits preo I mean those of us that stayed and thrived and were successful um you know we were able to Pivot and we were able to move in a way that um leveraged our curiosity in this in that case was out of NE necessity but I do think it's important to say all right well what's possible what are some of the things that we can do or that we might do um we I'll tell you we have some AI policies now we've had to right away because for example you did you

[36:01]  know that you could have a clinical note written by AI for you for a client I mean we're talking about doing mental health treatment well we can't we can't have we can't have someone saying throwing in a couple variables into a thing and writing something that could be wrong because you know AI at this point has has some I was literally thinking about this the other day Paul I see a lot of um my partners right who think about we want to use AI to streamline the clinical documentation process and I don't know why as I was lifting in the gym the other day I went to the place of are we getting to a copy and paste method of documenting an individual right through tools like this and is the appropriate way for us to move in the future like that it didn't really see well I think there's there's some real shortcomings to it right now I mean first of all AI still has hallucinations and you know client's records you know or it's called

[36:48]  hallucinations when it just spews a bunch of stuff out and a client's record is so critical that it' be accurate you know follows them even though it's confidential it's part of their their life and U so you know that that remains to be seen on the other hand I don't I don't mind AI if I say you know what's I have a policy I want to write a a policy R something out for me I think that's you know that can be wonderful I I I would I would feel sad though if the human touch got lost along the way we have to keep that keep that in line and I feel like that's where we have to be incredibly intentional I want to use that word intentionally is we have to use technology as an Accel Ator to put the human in the human seat to do the things that truly matter and create that sense of connection rather than just offloading if you will kind of

[37:36]  technology and saying hey it's going to handle everything that doesn't seem like a world we really want to live in no I I agree with you we we got to people first I think that's that's the key thing certainly in in the work that I do uh as a behavioral health and an educational and Social Service organization it's it's always you have to think about the people that's at the heart of it so you know I um was a lifelong baseball player I played in college at a school in South Carolina and I love to use the analogy and because you're a North New England guy you know uh Babe Ruth was really big for me in my career and I loved how it was a famous clip of him calling his shot to center field and then hitting that home run I want to give you an opportunity Paul to call your shot for the rest of 2025 what do you guys hoping to accomplish and what's a home run look

[38:23]  like for you guys in serving your community oh that's great well what's so interesting is we are operating in nine different states now and we have 126 services and as you mentioned earlier about 1500 employees across five corporations all sister corporations that are very connected to their localities and their communities so a home run for us really is to continue successfully to meet the needs of the people that we serve in in their locality and they're they're all different ke I mean no matter I mean for example we have this really cool service called the youth police initiative I I don't know if you've heard about it but what what we do is we get police departments together with uh youth young people from the city the same cities we get them together and we run them

[39:11]  through a process of getting to know each other talking about the people side of things and what's so powerful about this K is that the kids come out going like wow this guy this police is I could consider him a friend right and that's a that's like a complete change in their attit to from where what they had experienced before and the police come out of it going wow I I see myself in that in that child and what's been interesting and we've had some research done about it what's been interesting is crime in those communities among the juvenal adolescen goes down significantly where we're exercising so it's a it's a promising practice that does so that's one service so if I said if I was B roof pointing to one corner you know we just we just have a contract now in Missouri doing this and they've launched their their cohorts and they're

[39:59]  doing a great job the bab Ruth home run for that one would be finishing that contract with some positive outcomes but that's just that's just one of our services right uh yesterday I was at one of our services U called Ferry Road it's over in um in Massachusetts and it's a it's a program for people with acquired brain injury very specialized I mean these are these are folks you'd love to meet them they're very amazing you know a guy 29 years old gets in a motorcycle accident who now has acquired brain injury and and is paralyzed paralyzed but it's you know living his life and uh growing and making connections and learning things even though he's got this um brain injury that he's dealing with a Babe Ruth home run for that would

[40:48]  would be for him to have some extra time with his wife his loving wife that still comes and sees him and I mean you know there's so many layers to that question so well I think you called some amazing shots there you know as we kind of go through 25 so you know Paul one of the traditions we have here on the podcast is our previous guest wants to ask you a blind question our previous guest is a uh a leader um in the social services in the helping space if you will down in Alabama and her question was an interesting one and I want to get your perspective interesting so you you know interesting I know interesting so later later today Paul is given million dollars in cash he cannot spend it on anything for himself nor for his organization but he has to help others

[41:36]  what is Paul spending that money on oh well I I got one right out of the box for that right away so um when I uh I I don't know if you know but I'm a professor also at the University of New Hampshire so I had this fantastic student she was amazing student great graduated went on and did a incredible work with the homeless population at the um the conquered uh Homeless Coalition fantastic woman Ken and she she passed on precipitously you know just you know was just like out of the blue it was unbelievable and it was so hard but I'll tell you what she was the Outreach worker there in this organization conquer coalition to end homelessness and what I would do with that million

[42:24]  dollars is I would take it right over there because there's such a homeless problem all around and I would give it in honor of Julie Paul one thing that I would love for you to be able to do is why don't you plug your book and so people can learn more about you know your philosophy the amazing writing that you've done why don't you share that for a second oh thank thanks Keen I appreciate that very much uh so I what I've done is I've taken all my Decades of experience and I've written a book called managing and leading nonprofit organizations a framework for success and you can find it anywhere you know on Amazon all those kinds of things gotten great reviews uh it's it's a the idea is I I've written it in a way that's sort of like a u a home improvement book in other words you can go to any chapter that you need you know like if you get a

[43:11]  home improvement book and you got plumbing leaking you're not going to start with electricity you're going to go right to the plumbing so in this one if you have trouble with your team or if you're trying to figure out how to do strategic planning you can go right to that chapter Paul it's easy to understand why you are the definition of heart and hustle youve demonstrated that tenfold today I can't thank you enough for you know your examples on leadership talking about casting a longer vision for the future getting the young cats to buy into what the future of what the impact is that you guys are going to be doing I can't thank you enough for coming on the show man means a lot I'm happy to be here Keenan and I appreciate your time