Punk Rock HR Episode 129:
My guest this week is Brant Menswar. Brant is a top 10 motivational speaker, critically acclaimed author, award-winning musician, podcast host, and the CEO and founder of Rock Star Impact, a boutique agency that teaches people and organizations how to cultivate value-based leadership.
Brant is also the author of a new book called Black Sheep: Unleash the Extraordinary Awe-Inspiring, Undiscovered You. And I’m so excited that he came by to talk about self-leadership, individual accountability values, and really finding your core values and purpose in your life. So if you like your motivational speakers to be former rock stars, which I do, sit tight and enjoy this conversation with Brant Menswar.
In this episode you’ll hear:
- How a sports injury led Brant to his career as a musician.
- Why farmers don’t value black sheep as the rest of the flock.
- How living through his son’s life-threatening cancer diagnosis helped him realize his own black sheep values.
- How you know when you’ve made a good decision.
- Why it’s vital we stop looking solely at results when it comes to promoting people in the workplace.
- How to get in touch with your core values in the quiet moments before the storm.
- What you should do to figure out what matters most to you so you can stop trying to be someone you’re not.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
WHY DON’T FARMERS VALUE BLACK SHEEP AS THEY DO THE REST OF THE FLOCK?
The reason farmers don’t value black sheep the same as the rest of the flock is because a black sheep’s wool cannot be dyed. And so every black sheep is in effect,100% authentically original. We have demonized black sheep for hundreds of years and positioned them as outcasts. And so the idea came into my head that we all possess these black sheep values; these deeply held personal core values that no matter how much someone wants to try to twist, or turn or change them, they simply cannot be changed just like a black sheep’s wool.
HOW DO YOU KNOW WHEN YOU’VE MADE A GOOD DECISION?
I have asked this question over the last two years to roughly 50,000 people and I always get the same answer. Their answer is always centered around some sort of outcome or result which is how they know they’ve made a good decision. And what science tells us is that, that’s not true. That’s what we call outcome bias. You can’t use an outcome or result to justify whether a decision was good or bad. And so what I suggest in the book is that a good decision is born from these black sheep values.
WHY DO WE NEED TO STOP LOOKING SOLELY AT RESULTS WHEN IT COMES TO PROMOTING PEOPLE IN THE WORKPLACE?
From an HR perspective, this is the biggest point of contention that a lot of people within a particular company culture witness. What they see happening right before their eyes are people who make horrible decisions getting promoted. They are being promoted based on a result that was achieved, not on the deliberate intention that went into making the decisions. I’ve made horrible decisions in my life that have ended in really good results by sheer luck. And if that is what I’m being promoted on, it’s going to destroy the culture of the organization. We have to stop focusing solely on results and start thinking through what it looks like to make good decisions in the first place. And when you reward that, I always believe you’re going to have the company’s best interests at heart.
WHY SHOULD I GET IN TOUCH WITH MY CORE VALUES IN THE QUIET MOMENTS BEFORE THE STORM?
You never want to be in the middle of a crisis when you’re trying to figure what your core values are. So as much as a global pandemic has slowed the world down, this may be the best time for you to start figuring out what matters most whether you are at work, or you are trying to figure out who you’re going to vote for, or whatever it looks like for you. These are things that you need to know to make good decisions that are in alignment with your values.