00:00:10 Intro The relentless pursuit of whatever works in the life of a child. 00:00:18 Athena Cordero Welcome to Fostering Futures with CAHELP, a podcast dedicated to our relentless pursuit of whatever works in the life of a child. 00:00:26 Athena Cordero I'm your host, Athena Cordero, inviting you to join me and countless others as we share our unique perspectives and expertise in the world of special education, behavioral health, social emotional well-being, and community. 00:00:39 Athena Cordero Follow us on Buzzsprout, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. 00:00:45 Athena Cordero Welcome everyone to Fostering Futures. 00:00:47 Athena Cordero I'm your host, Athena Cordero, and today we have Molly Grisham, expert in leadership development. 00:00:54 Athena Cordero Molly, I'm excited you just sat with our leadership team this morning. 00:00:57 Athena Cordero did some really cool exercises. 00:00:59 Athena Cordero I'm not going to spoil that though, because we still get to do some with our larger group. 00:01:03 Athena Cordero You're going to sit with them this afternoon and we're going to talk about honoring our work and celebrating the impact as CAHELP employees. 00:01:11 Athena Cordero And we do have a lot of employees and a lot of good work that happens here. 00:01:15 Athena Cordero So thank you so much for coming and sitting with me. 00:01:17 Molly Grisham Thanks for having me. 00:01:18 Athena Cordero Okay, so for folks who may not know the work that you do and have had the pleasure of hearing you speak, can you tell us a little bit about your company and what you get to help teams or organizations do? 00:01:30 Molly Grisham Absolutely. 00:01:30 Molly Grisham So my background was in higher ed, spent a lot of time as a college soccer coach and as a communication instructor. 00:01:38 Molly Grisham And what I loved the most about coaching and certainly teaching as well, but was simply developing my players as people. 00:01:45 Molly Grisham And then I kind of hit a wall of recognizing that wasn't the most important thing to the people that I reported to. 00:01:51 Molly Grisham And so about 10 years ago, I said enough of this and quit and started a business from scratch, really with the hope that I could work with leaders and teams all over the country in a wide variety of industries. 00:02:04 Molly Grisham to help them with things like leadership and conflict resolution and communication skills and team building, just all that stuff of being human together. 00:02:12 Molly Grisham And it's been unbelievable for the last 10 years, I've had a chance to work in all different industries and really meet people where they are. 00:02:21 Molly Grisham And a lot of times I'll say, I think my job is to help you move from where you are to where you want to be. 00:02:25 Molly Grisham And sometimes you just need an outside perspective and someone who can be neutral and can maybe ask hard questions or provide, as you experienced today's 00:02:34 Molly Grisham some different tools and processes that really just kind of unlock people and help them to figure out how can we be better together. 00:02:42 Molly Grisham I often talk about if we are healthier, we're happier. 00:02:45 Molly Grisham And if we're happier, we're more high performing. 00:02:47 Molly Grisham And I think too often we skip that. 00:02:49 Molly Grisham We just say, be high performing. 00:02:51 Molly Grisham Yeah. 00:02:51 Molly Grisham Well, let's rewind. 00:02:52 Molly Grisham What creates a high performing environment? 00:02:54 Molly Grisham Can we get our people healthy? 00:02:56 Molly Grisham And then they kind of relax and say like, oh, this is kind of fun what we're doing. 00:02:59 Molly Grisham And then suddenly we're doing really, really high quality work. 00:03:02 Athena Cordero So 00:03:03 Athena Cordero And again, I got to sit through some time with you this morning and I definitely had a moment to pause. 00:03:10 Athena Cordero The activity you had us do really did make me think for a second. 00:03:14 Athena Cordero It was enlightening how I responded. 00:03:18 Athena Cordero I'm not going to give it away. 00:03:19 Athena Cordero How I responded. 00:03:20 Athena Cordero I didn't know that about myself in that moment, but it was good. 00:03:23 Athena Cordero It was good for me to realize it. 00:03:25 Athena Cordero Can you, said you've worked with all different types of industries, right? 00:03:29 Athena Cordero Give me some examples of the teams you've got. 00:03:31 Athena Cordero You've had a chance to work with like education or marketing. 00:03:34 Athena Cordero How does that look? 00:03:35 Molly Grisham Yeah, I work a lot in K through 12 education, which is wonderful. 00:03:40 Molly Grisham Always love working with educators because for me, my experience has been 00:03:45 Molly Grisham If I told them, you will learn more if you stand on your head for the next two hours, most of them would try to do it. 00:03:51 Molly Grisham They're like, I have a growth mindset. 00:03:53 Molly Grisham I'm open. 00:03:53 Molly Grisham I'm ready. 00:03:54 Molly Grisham Help me be better. 00:03:55 Molly Grisham And so I love that about educators. 00:03:57 Molly Grisham I certainly still work a lot in higher ed and still work a lot in college athletics. 00:04:02 Molly Grisham And then every once in a while, it'll be a marketing team or it'll be a group of real estate agents or a group of dentists that somehow hear about my work and say, I think that would apply to us as well. 00:04:12 Molly Grisham So I always find the industry doesn't really matter to me because the common thread is how do we be human together? 00:04:19 Athena Cordero That was just what I was going to ask you to be so diverse and have such diverse teams in front of you. 00:04:24 Athena Cordero It must be that the things that you are helping them see, it doesn't matter. 00:04:28 Athena Cordero Education, marketing, CEO, 00:04:31 Athena Cordero whatever it is, I feel like you've figured it out what's helpful and you're sticking to it. 00:04:37 Athena Cordero It's like that restaurant that serves the best food. 00:04:39 Athena Cordero They serve 5, six things and it's the best 5, six things you've ever eaten, right? 00:04:43 Molly Grisham Yeah. 00:04:44 Molly Grisham And I think the reality is when I walk into a room, maybe what I'm an expert at is facilitating. 00:04:50 Molly Grisham So I may not know the ins and outs of being a real estate agent or the ins and outs of being a kindergarten teacher or an assistant principal, but I can look at what are those common themes and patterns and the challenges that we have in leading people regardless of the industry. 00:05:03 Molly Grisham And when I stay in my lane and I just facilitate, I'm learning about the issues. 00:05:09 Molly Grisham People are telling me this is what's going on, which helps me be better. 00:05:12 Molly Grisham But if I walked into a room and said, I'm an expert on what you do, 00:05:16 Molly Grisham And I don't really have anything to learn. 00:05:17 Molly Grisham But if I can say my training is as a facilitator, my training is as a coach or as a teacher, that I'm open to what I'm going to learn. 00:05:24 Molly Grisham And we always say in facilitation, what needs to show up in the room will show up in the room. 00:05:28 Athena Cordero That's very true whether we like it or not sometimes. 00:05:31 Athena Cordero I wrote down, and I know I'm not going to say this exactly the way you said it, but you talked about asking ourselves a question where if we're seeing some things that we don't like, 00:05:44 Athena Cordero or some things that we know need to go another way, is to ask ourselves, how much of that did we co-create? 00:05:52 Athena Cordero I wrote that down. 00:05:53 Athena Cordero Because there is a difference in blaming yourself for something, blaming others for something, or seeing how we got to this point together. 00:06:01 Athena Cordero And then to me, it's easier to pivot when you think about it like that. 00:06:07 Molly Grisham I think a lot of leaders do one of two things. 00:06:11 Molly Grisham The unhealthy leaders say, it's everybody else's fault. 00:06:14 Molly Grisham Who do I blame? 00:06:15 Molly Grisham Who do I fire with this, right? 00:06:17 Molly Grisham Healthy leaders or maybe the folks that aren't quite there yet, they want to be, they've put all this pressure on themselves. 00:06:24 Molly Grisham They're saying, it must be my fault. 00:06:25 Molly Grisham I'm the leader. 00:06:26 Molly Grisham But the really healthy leader, the one that's done the work is able to say, 00:06:30 Molly Grisham we're all a part of a team. 00:06:31 Molly Grisham We're co-creating something. 00:06:33 Molly Grisham And I love that language of co-creation because if I can understand what I did to contribute an outcome I don't want, well, then I can do something different to create an outcome that I do want. 00:06:43 Molly Grisham And so I think we have to check ourselves as leaders. 00:06:45 Molly Grisham Am I blaming everyone else or am I taking all the blame? 00:06:48 Molly Grisham Let's just take blame out of the equation and let's just own how we contributed to a situation. 00:06:53 Molly Grisham And then we can own how we create something new and different. 00:06:55 Athena Cordero It seems, it sounds easy, right? 00:06:58 Athena Cordero But it probably should sound easy. 00:07:00 Athena Cordero I took that away this morning too. 00:07:02 Athena Cordero It should, and it seems so much more constructive to think about it like that. 00:07:07 Athena Cordero Especially you said you work with a lot of K through 12. 00:07:09 Athena Cordero In education, things move. 00:07:12 Athena Cordero so differently depending on legislation, a policy, just the type of students that are in front of us at the time. 00:07:20 Athena Cordero Good grief when COVID happened, that was a whole new world for education. 00:07:25 Athena Cordero I've never seen anything like that before. 00:07:27 Athena Cordero And I've been working in education for 20 plus years, right? 00:07:31 Athena Cordero Or around it, in some capacity. 00:07:33 Athena Cordero That was huge. 00:07:34 Athena Cordero What are some, or I don't, I hate to ask you about just one, but if you could name one moment, in the last 10 years that really stuck with you and maybe not a particular team, but an example or an experience where you're like, yeah, this is why we need to have these conversations. 00:07:51 Athena Cordero What would it be? 00:07:52 Molly Grisham Yeah, obviously my brain just exploded and went 1000 different times, but I will tell you a story that I tell A lot. 00:08:00 Molly Grisham Because I think this was just one of those moments that I said, 00:08:03 Molly Grisham This work is worth it. 00:08:05 Molly Grisham So I was working with a new group and on paper they looked like the best fit. 00:08:10 Molly Grisham Like this could be long term work. 00:08:12 Molly Grisham I think their values align with mine. 00:08:14 Molly Grisham And so they had hired me to do a full day workshop. 00:08:16 Molly Grisham And the space that they selected was just. 00:08:20 Molly Grisham Just the kind of space you walk in and think, okay, magical things could happen in this room, right? 00:08:25 Molly Grisham So I get there early. 00:08:26 Molly Grisham I'm getting set up. 00:08:27 Molly Grisham There's a few employees there. 00:08:28 Molly Grisham They're all like, Molly, can we help? 00:08:30 Molly Grisham Do you need water? 00:08:31 Molly Grisham How can we set up? 00:08:32 Molly Grisham Do you need tech help? 00:08:33 Molly Grisham And again, I'm thinking, what lovely people. 00:08:35 Molly Grisham And I'm noticing as the rest of their colleagues are coming in, people are high-fiving and hugging and how was your weekend and how's your daughter and how's your mom? 00:08:43 Molly Grisham And just, I'm thinking, these are delightful people. 00:08:45 Molly Grisham This is gonna be a great day. 00:08:47 Molly Grisham And then I suddenly felt 00:08:49 Molly Grisham the energy kind of shift in the room. 00:08:51 Molly Grisham And I'm just setting up. 00:08:53 Molly Grisham I wasn't paying that much attention. 00:08:54 Molly Grisham And a woman is like marching down the middle of the room and gets right up in my face. 00:09:00 Molly Grisham And she says, you will not make me do a trust fall. 00:09:05 Molly Grisham Oh. 00:09:06 Molly Grisham And in a moment of weakness, I made some joke. 00:09:10 Molly Grisham I was like, oh, I'm not doing a trust fall either. 00:09:12 Molly Grisham It didn't go over very well. 00:09:14 Molly Grisham And she said, you will not make me do a trust fall. 00:09:18 Molly Grisham And I said, ma'am, I'm not going to make you do anything today. 00:09:21 Molly Grisham You can just be here today. 00:09:23 Molly Grisham You're not going to be forced to do anything. 00:09:25 Molly Grisham And of course, I had noticed the room had fallen silent. 00:09:27 Molly Grisham Everyone was watching this encounter. 00:09:29 Molly Grisham And then she turned and marched away. 00:09:32 Molly Grisham So then a few minutes later, the person that had hired me came over and said, Molly, can we talk in the hallway? 00:09:37 Molly Grisham And I thought, well, what could this be about? 00:09:38 Molly Grisham Of course possibly. 00:09:40 Molly Grisham So he said, I am so sorry about what just happened. 00:09:44 Molly Grisham He said, that was Jean. 00:09:46 Molly Grisham And I was like, well, good to know. 00:09:47 Molly Grisham Jean didn't give me her name, but okay. 00:09:49 Molly Grisham And he said, she's new to our organization, but she had a really negative team building experience with her last company. 00:09:56 Molly Grisham And we had to beg her to be here today. 00:09:58 Molly Grisham And I'm really sorry about her behavior. 00:10:00 Molly Grisham And I said to the leader in that moment, honestly, it's gone. 00:10:03 Molly Grisham It doesn't matter. 00:10:04 Molly Grisham It has not affected me one bit. 00:10:06 Molly Grisham And I often share that with people because for me in that moment, my empathy for her is what allowed me to say, oh, that wasn't about me. 00:10:15 Molly Grisham And it allowed me to remember that behind every behavior is a story. 00:10:20 Molly Grisham And a lot of people are walking into rooms with stories they're not yet ready to tell. 00:10:25 Molly Grisham Like what I wish would have happened is Jean would have sauntered down the aisle and introduced herself and said, 00:10:31 Molly Grisham I'm feeling a little anxiety today and my walls are up and I'm a little defensive and I just want you to know it's not about you, but I had this negative team building experience and I hope that we can co-create something. 00:10:44 Molly Grisham Well, that would have been perfect. 00:10:45 Molly Grisham Jean couldn't do that. 00:10:46 Molly Grisham All Jean could say is like, here's my boundary and you will not cross this boundary. 00:10:51 Molly Grisham So as our day unfolds, I'm watching her. 00:10:55 Molly Grisham She starts off very defensive. 00:10:56 Molly Grisham and then her body gets a little more relaxed. 00:10:59 Molly Grisham And then she's leaning in and then she's asking questions and then she's sharing her experiences and then she's laughing. 00:11:05 Molly Grisham And by the end of the day, she walks up and puts her hand on my forearm in like this real grandmotherly kind of way. 00:11:11 Molly Grisham And she's like, Molly, that was wonderful. 00:11:14 Molly Grisham I'm so glad I was here. 00:11:15 Molly Grisham Thank you. 00:11:16 Molly Grisham And it was such a reminder to me that we sometimes have wounds that happen in one community, but we need a new community to help us heal those. 00:11:25 Molly Grisham And so when I think about in education, we're all coming in with our own baggage and our own stories and our old job and our old leader and our old this. 00:11:34 Molly Grisham And yet we have an opportunity to help each other heal and help each other be better. 00:11:38 Molly Grisham And so those moments where I'm like, Jean, you, Jean has no idea, right? 00:11:44 Molly Grisham You or what was that? 00:11:46 Molly Grisham And then by the end, 00:11:48 Molly Grisham to know that she rewrote a story about what team building looks like and what it looks like with that team. 00:11:53 Athena Cordero That's awesome. 00:11:53 Molly Grisham Those are the moments that it's like, it's all worth it. 00:11:56 Athena Cordero And I'm glad for her. 00:11:57 Athena Cordero I'm glad that she came in, not glad that she came in that way, but I'm glad that by the end of it, turned around and she got something out of it. 00:12:05 Athena Cordero I do say that has everything to do with the way you facilitate now that I've had a chance to sit down and kind of watch and participate in that. 00:12:12 Athena Cordero And 00:12:14 Athena Cordero Another thing I thought about, this morning was some leaders have imposter syndrome, especially when you're new. 00:12:22 Athena Cordero If there's new leaders, or someone who's maybe not feeling like the leader they could be just yet listening, they don't see themselves with that person yet. 00:12:32 Athena Cordero What would you want them to know? 00:12:34 Molly Grisham Yeah, a couple of thoughts. 00:12:35 Molly Grisham One, imposter syndrome in and of itself is not always a bad thing, especially for new leaders. 00:12:39 Molly Grisham If you're finding yourself feeling a sense of imposter syndrome, 00:12:44 Molly Grisham Maybe it's because you just understand this matters and I need to be ready and I need to do my best because people's lives are on the line and I want to do a good job. 00:12:53 Molly Grisham And so sometimes we have to reframe imposter syndrome in and of itself because I've had leaders say I feel imposter syndrome, what's wrong with me? 00:13:00 Molly Grisham Well, what if there's nothing wrong with you? 00:13:02 Molly Grisham What if you just 00:13:03 Molly Grisham Care. 00:13:04 Molly Grisham Care. 00:13:05 Molly Grisham What if that, okay, so maybe we can kind of relax on the imposter syndrome. 00:13:09 Molly Grisham But for people who feel like, I'm not a leader yet, I don't have the title, I'm not there yet. 00:13:16 Molly Grisham I always tell folks at a bare minimum, you're responsible for leading your own life. 00:13:20 Molly Grisham And we need more people who will lead their own life. 00:13:23 Molly Grisham Because if you've ever worked with a coworker who can't lead their own life, it's exhausting. 00:13:29 Molly Grisham We're just like dragging an anchor on the sand across the beach. 00:13:33 Molly Grisham Please get on board with what we're doing. 00:13:35 Molly Grisham And so for people that don't have the title yet or don't have the power or the authority, can you just start to think every day like, oh, I am the author and the owner of my own life and I need to lead my life today. 00:13:46 Molly Grisham So that when I do start to get the title, I'm in the habit of really leading myself, which prepares me to lead others. 00:13:52 Athena Cordero And it matters in the room. 00:13:54 Athena Cordero You see people take that kind of accountability. 00:13:57 Athena Cordero They're ready to see what it is before they shut it down. 00:14:00 Athena Cordero You can feel that in the room. 00:14:02 Athena Cordero So I appreciate that. 00:14:04 Athena Cordero I had a great time this morning. 00:14:05 Athena Cordero I can't wait for this afternoon. 00:14:07 Molly Grisham Me too. 00:14:07 Athena Cordero And if anyone listening wants more information or wants to try to get a hold of you, have some, tell me about the classes on your website. 00:14:15 Molly Grisham Yes, there's some great stuff. 00:14:17 Molly Grisham So my website is mollygrisham.com. 00:14:19 Athena Cordero Yes. 00:14:20 Molly Grisham Instagram is molly.grisham. 00:14:22 Molly Grisham Instagram is where I post all the ridiculousness of my life. 00:14:24 Molly Grisham Okay. 00:14:25 Molly Grisham Travel woes and that kind of stuff. 00:14:27 Molly Grisham So the fun behind the scenes stuff is there. 00:14:29 Athena Cordero Okay. 00:14:29 Molly Grisham But I run these cohorts called masterminds where we take people from all over the country 00:14:34 Molly Grisham country and all different industries will meet 12 times on Zoom throughout the year. 00:14:38 Molly Grisham And it's pretty magical that you have a support system of 12 other people who can say, in my industry, we do it a little bit different. 00:14:45 Molly Grisham Have you thought about this? 00:14:46 Molly Grisham Or in the nonprofit world, we do it this way or in education, try this. 00:14:49 Molly Grisham But it becomes this very cohesive and supportive group that's really for human-centered leaders who are interested in that. 00:14:57 Molly Grisham I do an event every summer called the Reset Retreat where we take two days 00:15:01 Molly Grisham get a group of people together who just want to shut it down and start to think, what about me? 00:15:06 Molly Grisham What do I want? 00:15:07 Molly Grisham How am I doing? 00:15:08 Molly Grisham Because so often we give everything to our work and we forget about ourselves. 00:15:12 Molly Grisham And then I have all kinds of events throughout the year and things on Zoom. 00:15:15 Molly Grisham My book was just released called Meet the Moment, A Human Centered Approach to Leadership. 00:15:19 Molly Grisham So always looking for ways to connect with people and people can just hit the contact Molly button on the website and send an e-mail or request a phone call and we'll make that happen. 00:15:28 Athena Cordero And it is that easy. 00:15:29 Athena Cordero I mean, Jenny and I worked with you these last couple of weeks. 00:15:32 Athena Cordero You're very easy to get a hold of. 00:15:34 Athena Cordero Real, real sweet in nature. 00:15:37 Athena Cordero I think people just love listening to you, to be honest. 00:15:40 Athena Cordero That's the tone we got from you this morning. 00:15:42 Athena Cordero So I appreciate that. 00:15:43 Molly Grisham Thank you. 00:15:44 Athena Cordero We're gonna head into this afternoon. 00:15:45 Athena Cordero It's a much bigger group, just so you know. 00:15:47 Athena Cordero There's a few 100 people in the room. 00:15:50 Athena Cordero but they're a fun group as well, so I hope you enjoy them too. 00:15:52 Molly Grisham I think I will. 00:15:53 Molly Grisham Thanks for having me. 00:15:54 Athena Cordero Thank you so much. 00:15:56 Outro Before we wrap up, we want to remind you that if you or someone you know is facing a crisis, help is available. 00:16:04 Outro You are not alone. 00:16:07 Outro If it's an emergency, please call 911. 00:16:10 Outro For immediate support, you can reach out to the crisis and suicide hotline by dialing 988. 00:16:17 Outro Remember, 00:16:19 Outro Taking the first step to ask for help is a sign of strength. 00:16:22 Outro Stay safe, take care of yourself, and take care of each other. 00:16:27 Outro Until next time, be well. 00:16:30 Outro See you next time.
