Sales Leadership Style and Coaching to Build an Elite Team with Dr. Jim Kanichirayil

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:06

Hello, and welcome to another episode of

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:08

the transform sales Podcast. Today I am in great company, I

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:13

have Dr. Jim can eat Reaugh. How are you, Dr. Jim?

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:00:18

I'm fantastic. He nailed my pronunciation of

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:00:20

the last name. So very few people get that right. So I'm

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:00:23

happy to be here. And we're starting off the show on a

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:00:26

really strong footing there.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:27

Yay, it is because my name is so hard to

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:30

say. And so when somebody asks me, how do you pronounce it, I

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:34

really try to lean into it. So I try to save people's names right

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:37

when I can. So let me tell you guys a little bit more about Dr.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:40

Jim. He's a researcher, writer, and podcaster. If you have not

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:44

listened to his podcast yet, you should definitely do it. But he

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:48

helps leaders, people and organizations drive

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:51

transformations by helping them build elite diverse teams, he

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:56

also makes sure that talent and your talent strategy doesn't get

Wesleyne Greer: 00:01:00

left behind. I love that talent in your talent strategy not

Wesleyne Greer: 00:01:04

getting left behind. That's awesome. So tell us how did Dr.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:01:09

Jim start his career to become this amazing person who is so

Wesleyne Greer: 00:01:15

focused on diversity in teams in sales in everything, tell us

Wesleyne Greer: 00:01:19

about that journey.

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:01:21

I don't know about how amazing all that is.

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:01:23

It's kind of like the ultimate nerd story. So I mean, I think

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:01:26

in broad strokes, if we're talking about how I got to where

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:01:29

I'm at right now and where I'm heading, I'm a generation zero

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:01:33

immigrant. And I've referenced this in sort of the earliest

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:01:36

episodes of my podcast that I host with myself and Lawrence

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:01:40

Brown is that we were so poor, I'm originally from India, we

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:01:43

were so poor, that the trigger that flipped us coming to the US

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:01:47

was me basically melting down in the middle of a grocery store,

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:01:50

because we couldn't afford an apple. So I had seen an apple

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:01:53

for the first time wanted it, couldn't afford it, and my mom,

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:01:57

you know, decided at that point, I gotta get a better life for my

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:01:59

kids. And that started the process of coming to the US. So

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:02:03

how that ties into kind of where I'm at, I've always had this

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:02:07

sort of grinder hungry personality or aspect about

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:02:12

myself, because of where I came from. And you know, in terms of

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:02:16

how I got to where I'm at right now, I've always been a super

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:02:21

nerd, like, there are so many different things that interests

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:02:23

me. And I'd like to go deep in those areas. But in general, the

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:02:27

world is just interesting to me. So I like to have at least a

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:02:30

baseline level of knowledge across any number of things. And

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:02:34

one of the things that I noticed as I was early in my career and

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:02:37

then progressing through is that organizations and companies are

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:02:41

always looking at, we got to get more people, we got to keep the

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:02:45

funnel going in terms of pipeline, but the area that

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:02:48

always gets forgotten is internally, you're always

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:02:51

obsessed about bringing people in, but what are you doing to

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:02:53

keep the people that you have and oftentimes, the culture

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:02:57

within organizations isn't set up in a way where you can have

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:03:00

those sorts of conversations and talk about what's your vision

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:03:03

for yourself, Where do you want to go that sort of stuff. And

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:03:06

that actually informed a lot of my my research in areas of

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:03:09

interest. And that really is where I became passionate about

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:03:14

retention, turnover, development, di issues, all of

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:03:18

these sorts of things. It took time, as I got further and

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:03:21

further involved. And that's kind of how I got here. I've

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:03:23

been fortunate in that I've always been able to tie these

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:03:27

nerd areas into what I do. I mean, I have that long as title

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:03:32

that you just read. But you know, essentially, I'm in sales.

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:03:35

So I've worked very deliberately, in integrating my

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:03:40

talent, strategy passions into the roles that I've had, I've

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:03:44

had talent, adjacent roles and technology, talent, adjacent

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:03:47

roles and staffing. You know, I'm in a SAS technology

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:03:50

organization right now that is focused on driving diversity in

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:03:55

the workplace. So it's kind of like a process that led to kind

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:04:00

of where I'm at, and who knows where it's going to go, because

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:04:02

I'm going to keep grinding in these areas. And who knows where

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:04:05

that will take me in the long run. So hopefully, that helps

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:04:08

give you a little bit of a little bit of background

Wesleyne Greer: 00:04:11

that gave me a whole lot. So you talked about

Wesleyne Greer: 00:04:14

being a generation zero immigrant help enlighten us on

Wesleyne Greer: 00:04:18

what it means to be a generation zero immigrant and what those

Wesleyne Greer: 00:04:22

early years were like for you acclimating into the US,

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:04:26

I think what's interesting about fitting in, in

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:04:29

that immigrant journey, is that I had the benefit when I was in

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:04:33

India, that English is the national language along with

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:04:37

Hindi and a couple of other things that is going to be based

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:04:40

on what region you came up in. So I already knew English and I

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:04:44

was speaking English fluently when I came over here, but you

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:04:47

know, the adjustment period was pretty interesting. I had an

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:04:49

advantage where I could communicate with an English

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:04:53

accent. So like a British speakers accent at the time, so

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:04:56

I came over when I was seven, but I'd never seen like one of

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:04:59

the interesting stories about my first experiences here. When we

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:05:03

came over one of the stops that we had, before we switch to a

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:05:07

different plane to come to Chicago was in New York, and it

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:05:11

was in LaGuardia. And at the time, they didn't have the

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:05:13

terminal, they had those little trucks with stairs. And here I

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:05:16

am, as a seven year old kid, never seen snow before we came

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:05:19

over in December. So I'm thinking that when these stair

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:05:23

things came up to the door, I was racing to the front to be

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:05:26

the first off, and I look. And the first thing that I see is a

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:05:30

layer of white stuff that's this high. And I'm thinking America

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:05:34

is freaking great, because there's sugar everywhere. So I

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:05:37

grabbed a handful of it. Before my dad could, like grabbed my

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:05:41

hand and stuck it in my mouth. And I was disappointed in terms

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:05:44

of, well, this isn't sugar, it's cold. But that was one of my

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:05:46

first memories in coming over to the states, the adjustment

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:05:50

period as an immigrant was made easier because of my ability to

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:05:56

communicate. But there are a lot of cultural differences and

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:05:58

things like that. And this was, you know, in an era where

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:06:01

immigrants were probably even more, I don't want to say

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:06:06

frowned upon, but there was more animosity to an immigrant

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:06:09

community at that time there there is now but I think beyond

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:06:13

that, you know, where I lived, it was the Chicago suburbs. So

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:06:16

we lived in Oak Park, and then we lived in Evanston. So all of

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:06:19

these areas were fairly cosmopolitan. So it was an

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:06:22

easier transition, I think it would have been a lot more

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:06:24

difficult. If I was in middle of nowhere, I don't know, Idaho, or

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:06:28

something, no offense to anybody that lives in Idaho, but I think

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:06:30

that would have been a little bit tougher to make that

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:06:32

transition. So as

Wesleyne Greer: 00:06:33

a child, as a person new to this country, I

Wesleyne Greer: 00:06:38

really love what you said you'd like to sugar, and I can

Wesleyne Greer: 00:06:40

absolutely see how as a child never seen snow, how you would

Wesleyne Greer: 00:06:44

think about that. One thing that I know is so true is that the

Wesleyne Greer: 00:06:49

experiences that we have in our childhood, they impact the way

Wesleyne Greer: 00:06:51

that we lead. So which of those early experiences do you see

Wesleyne Greer: 00:06:55

helping you become and have developed your leadership style,

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:07:00

so I can't really point to anything from my

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:07:03

childhood, that informed how I lead, I think there's a couple

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:07:07

of things that later on in life in high school and in college

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:07:11

that, you know, provided sort of the baseline, I always have this

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:07:15

entrepreneurial component to my DNA, like I've been working

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:07:18

since I was 13. So I was bussing tables at 13. And doing that

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:07:21

sort of stuff. So I've been in foodservice and all that sort of

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:07:24

stuff. And just generally being understanding or at least trying

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:07:28

to be understanding has always been part of my effort. I mean,

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:07:33

you learn a lot in terms of how crappy people can be when you're

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:07:35

bussing tables or waiting on him, because that has a wide

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:07:38

range of behaviors that you can encounter. So that informs you

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:07:43

to a certain level of well, you know, this happened, I don't

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:07:46

want to be feeling this way. So I'm going to be very deliberate

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:07:49

in making sure that I try not to make others feel that way. So

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:07:52

those are all like little experiences. But I've always had

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:07:56

this entrepreneurial bent, I ran a painting business. When I was

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:07:59

in college, my parents, my dad bought a gas station. That's

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:08:02

like a rite of passage for every Indian immigrant family, even

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:08:05

though he was a social worker, my mom was a nurse, apparently,

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:08:08

they had time on their hands. And he decided buying a gas

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:08:12

station was a good idea. It wasn't. So I ran that for a

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:08:15

while. So all of those things built that need to build things

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:08:20

and like iterate and continuously improve within a

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:08:22

framework. But I think the big thing that shaped a lot of my

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:08:26

leadership philosophy, it actually happened when I worked

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:08:29

for Lawrence, lb my co host, Lawrence Brown at enterprise,

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:08:33

the company that picks you up. And when I was interviewing for

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:08:37

a management trainee role. This was years ago, one of the first

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:08:41

things that he said at the time, we were there was the reason why

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:08:45

I like enterprise. And for those that aren't going to see the

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:08:48

video, I'm pointing at my hand, and I'm a brown person. And lb

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:08:51

says What I like most about working at enterprise is that

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:08:54

this stuff doesn't wash off. So you're evaluated based on the

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:08:58

merits of your production and your results versus any other

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:09:02

factor. And that was an interesting sort of mindset that

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:09:07

I adopted throughout my life. And when I've built teams

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:09:11

throughout my career, I've always been intentional about

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:09:14

building teams around me that are representative of the

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:09:17

communities that we serve. And oh, by the way, I've been really

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:09:21

lucky in having some phenomenal teams who were just ridiculously

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:09:25

elite in any number of different industries. Is there a causal

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:09:30

relationship? I don't know. But you know, I've had great people

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:09:32

on my team, and I was intentional and making sure that

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:09:35

they look the part of the communities I serve. So there's

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:09:39

a lot of research that backs that up, in fact that your

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:09:42

actual production and your performance as an organization

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:09:45

is going to be related to the diversity within the

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:09:48

organization. So more diverse organizations have better

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:09:50

business outcomes than non diverse organizations. But you

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:09:53

know, it's funny how a little comment like this stuff doesn't

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:09:56

wash off kind of plays into sort of a bigger role. Overall

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:10:00

employees strategy over the course of a, you know, half a

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:10:03

lifetime or whatever the the actual number of years are,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:05

you mentioned that, hey, I don't know what in

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:08

my childhood impacted the way I lead, but just so everyone

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:11

knows, since I have children, I believe that you are my child

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:15

until you graduate from college. So anything up to 21 ounces

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:19

childhood for me. And so when you talk about really helping

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:22

your parents run a gas station and saying, Yeah, that was not a

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:25

good investment, and really understanding at an early age,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:30

how to think about business and how to think about investments

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:34

and how to serve people. And then going into this enterprise

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:37

sales trainee role, probably about 25% of the people I

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:40

interviewed on this podcast have gone through that program. And

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:42

so I do think that what they give you in that program,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:47

although a lot of people don't stay with enterprise, they

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:49

really give you a lot of bones and teach you how to sell teach

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:53

you how to lead and those that want to take that and move to

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:57

another level with it. They've gone on to do really amazing

Wesleyne Greer: 00:11:01

things.

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:11:01

Yeah. And you know what, that's a phenomenal

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:11:03

point that you bring out Wesleyan is the foundation that

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:11:07

it gives you because when we're thinking about decisioning

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:11:10

processes, you know, here I am never having worked in a

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:11:14

corporate environment. I mean, I've run small businesses and

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:11:17

all that sort of stuff. And I asked the question at some point

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:11:19

in training, like, how are we supposed to figure out what we

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:11:22

do. And I think this is a comment that lb gave me you have

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:11:25

three rules that you need to abide by, when you're making

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:11:28

decisions, if it's good for the customer, if it's good for the

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:11:31

company, and it's ethical, you have free rein to do and make

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:11:36

whatever decision you need to make in the moment. And if you

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:11:39

can answer yes to all three of those, you're not going to get a

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:11:43

fight from me in terms of, you know, why did you do that? Now

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:11:47

we might explore like, what other options would have been

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:11:49

available, but like that is the mindset that I've carried from

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:11:53

that point forward is I want my people or people that are on the

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:11:57

team to always operate in that framework, because I think it's

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:12:02

hugely empowering. And then from a leadership perspective, it

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:12:06

takes a lot of the granular, like the granular decision

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:12:11

making off of your plate, like you're focused more on the

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:12:14

important things, which is helping your people become more

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:12:16

productive and effective, versus answering every little situation

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:12:20

that comes up, you're giving them a decision making process

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:12:23

or framework that anybody can operate with. And I think that's

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:12:26

hugely empowering from a team effectiveness perspective. So

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:12:30

you're right enterprise does leave a great foundation, I

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:12:34

would be remiss if I didn't say there are some things about that

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:12:37

culture, or their training that didn't serve me well. And here's

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:12:40

what I mean. I mean, this is not going to be like super

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:12:42

controversial or anything like that. But it's an organization

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:12:45

that has an upper out mentality, meaning you need to either be

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:12:49

moving up in the organization, or you're moving out. And I

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:12:52

think I really connected with that, because I'm naturally

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:12:56

impatient. So of course, I'm going to want to progress my

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:12:59

career as fast as possible. But there's an element that you

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:13:02

learn later on in life, about building the discipline for

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:13:07

methodical, precise execution in detail orientation that you

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:13:12

don't get in that upper out. World. So I think one of the

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:13:16

things that probably didn't serve me well is that earlier in

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:13:20

my career, I probably made decisions too fast on moving out

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:13:24

of an organization where I probably would have been better

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:13:27

served and having those open conversations with my leadership

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:13:31

team and saying, Hey, this is what I liked. This is what I

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:13:33

don't like, how do we make this work where I'm playing in my

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:13:36

wheelhouse within the organization versus let me go

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:13:38

find what else is out there. And then just repeating the cycle

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:13:42

over and over again, where instead of being disciplined,

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:13:46

and introspective and having the courage to have those

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:13:48

conversations, you just keep introducing yourself into the

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:13:52

same culture and you don't really like get the staying

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:13:54

power and the benefits of staying power. So there's that

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:13:57

aspect of it too. Sorry for the monologue.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:13:59

That's absolutely. Okay. So going back

Wesleyne Greer: 00:14:02

to one of the first things that you said, I just wanted to make

Wesleyne Greer: 00:14:04

sure I heard it right. You said that what's most important in

Wesleyne Greer: 00:14:08

decision making is what's right for the customer. What's right

Wesleyne Greer: 00:14:11

for the company and your ethics. You didn't say anything about

Wesleyne Greer: 00:14:14

making money about being what is good for you, as a salesperson

Wesleyne Greer: 00:14:18

make the boss look good, right? Talk to us about that a little

Wesleyne Greer: 00:14:22

bit more.

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:14:23

I think if you do those first three things,

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:14:25

right. And I would argue two out of the three are critical. One

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:14:29

is do what's right for the customer. That doesn't mean the

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:14:32

customer is always right. So I want to be clear there, do

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:14:35

what's right for the customer and be ethical. If you do both

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:14:39

of those things. Everything else will fall in line. I think where

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:14:42

sales professionals get this stuff backwards is that in

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:14:46

everything that the broader world of sales does, and this is

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:14:50

why people recoil whenever they have a salesperson interact with

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:14:54

them is it's all focused about me. It's all focused about our

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:14:57

product. It's all focused about what we want and what's in

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:15:00

According to me, nobody really cares. Nobody cares about you.

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:15:02

Nobody cares about your company. Nobody cares about what's

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:15:05

important to you. People are operating in the world from a

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:15:08

position of, I need to advance my own initiatives. So if you as

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:15:12

a seller, and a modern seller as a problem solver, if you really

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:15:16

orient yourself outward to how can you help your broader

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:15:20

customer base, solve the problems that they have, and be

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:15:23

obsessed about the problem that's actually going to advance

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:15:27

everything that you want without you actually overtly advocating

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:15:30

for those things? So there's a reason why I mentioned those

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:15:33

three things. Because if you do those three things, do what's

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:15:36

right for the customer, do what's right for the company, do

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:15:38

what's right, from an ethics perspective, everything else

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:15:41

falls in line. And you know, the fourth thing that I would add,

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:15:44

and this is not something that came from enterprise, if you're

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:15:46

a seller, you need to be oriented in a way where you're

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:15:50

giving two or three times more to the world around you than

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:15:54

what you ask. And that informs how we do follow ups that

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:15:57

informs how how we engage in conversation that informs us on

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:16:02

every interaction that we have, and people are going to get

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:16:05

that, oh, this person is different. Andy, Paul always

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:16:09

talks about how do you rise above the sea of sameness. And

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:16:12

that's how you rise above the sea of sameness. And if you

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:16:15

think about it, how low of a bar has sales set, when being

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:16:20

generous in a general sense, is like the aspirational goal,

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:16:25

right. But that's the thing. It's amazing to me,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:16:28

I think the really amazing part about how we

Wesleyne Greer: 00:16:32

both met is we were just following each other enjoying

Wesleyne Greer: 00:16:35

each other's posts. Because we hold a lot of the same

Wesleyne Greer: 00:16:37

philosophies. We're not trying to tell each other anything,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:16:40

right? We're trying to learn from each other. Because another

Wesleyne Greer: 00:16:43

key thing that you didn't mention about top salespeople

Wesleyne Greer: 00:16:47

leaders that want to develop is that they always are trying to

Wesleyne Greer: 00:16:50

figure out how can I get a little bit better? What can I

Wesleyne Greer: 00:16:52

learn today? What's the one thing that I can tweak? And how

Wesleyne Greer: 00:16:55

can I really take this to the next level? So you talked about

Wesleyne Greer: 00:16:59

all of this amazing things that you did in your early life and

Wesleyne Greer: 00:17:02

early career. I'm curious about these two letters that you have

Wesleyne Greer: 00:17:05

in front of Jim, tell us about that. How did that come to be?

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:17:08

So this is going to circle back to the

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:17:10

generation zero immigrant story. So, you know, I'm not saying

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:17:15

this to be offensive to anybody, but just about every Indian

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:17:18

mother dreams of their children becoming doctors, I can't stand

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:17:22

the sight of blood. So there was no way that I was going to be a

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:17:25

doctor. But I wanted to make sure that my mom would have

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:17:28

something to brag about. So eventually, I decided, well, I

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:17:31

got to do something to get this doctor title in front of my

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:17:34

name. So I went and completed my doctoral research. It was

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:17:37

probably like, six, seven years ago at this point, but it was in

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:17:40

talent strategy. And actually, the research is essentially on

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:17:44

why people join and leave organizations. So again, it was

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:17:47

part of you know, it was employee retention and turnover

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:17:50

within the staffing industry context. And even at that time,

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:17:54

this was several years ago, when when I started that process, I

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:17:57

was always thinking about how can I add value to my hiring

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:18:02

managers that I'm trying to build relationships with? And

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:18:05

while everybody else in staffing is basically smiling and

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:18:09

dialing, trying to pick up the phone and saying, Hey, what

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:18:11

roles do you have open that we can help you fill? My approach

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:18:14

is how do I build this was even before brand identity or any of

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:18:18

that branding stuff was even on my radar? My thought process

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:18:21

was? How do I approach these conversations from a peer

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:18:25

position at a minimum? But ideally, how do I approach these

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:18:30

conversations with hiring managers from a position of

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:18:32

authority from the perspective of helping them solve their

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:18:35

talent strategy, and that was just one piece of it. And it was

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:18:38

an intentional piece, it was an expensive, intentional piece,

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:18:41

but you got to invest in yourself to build that sort of

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:18:44

credibility. And this was just one piece of that exercise. I

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:18:48

want to help organizations. This was 10 years ago that I'm

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:18:51

thinking about this stuff, maybe 15. I want to help organizations

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:18:54

solve their talent challenges. So how do I do that and approach

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:18:58

it from both a tactical and strategic perspective, which has

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:19:00

massive value implications for the person that I'm dealing

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:19:03

with. And that's how I ended up you know, finishing out the

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:19:06

degree

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:08

with a good son, I am actually a first generation

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:12

American. My parents are originally from Jamaica, and in

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:15

our culture, it's like, you're gonna be a doctor, you're gonna

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:17

be a lawyer, you're gonna be an engineer, you got to get some

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:19

kind of advanced degree. And so I majored in chemistry. I'm a

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:22

chemist, and I was like, Yeah, but this is this is going to be

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:25

it. I did Dibble and dabble in graduate school bits and pieces

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:28

here and there. But I was like, Yeah, this is not it. And then

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:31

when I was like, Oh, I'm wanting to sales. They're like you're

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:33

doing what? Sales? No, no, no, no, no, you can't you can't do

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:36

that. That is not an honorable, that's not what you do. You're

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:39

gonna set your own business. But what Okay, what do you actually

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:42

selling? I was like, What do you mean, this is a service like it

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:45

was a foreign concept to them. So I do understand the different

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:49

ways that parents like immigrant parents, they think and it's

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:52

because of the hard upbringing there they always had to work so

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:56

hard for everything, and so they want their children to be safe.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:20:00

it up in the best path. And the second part of what you said is,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:20:03

it really gave me goosebumps and listening to Yes, I wanted to

Wesleyne Greer: 00:20:07

satisfy what my parents wanted for me. But I also was very

Wesleyne Greer: 00:20:12

intentional about what I wanted this degree to do for me. And

Wesleyne Greer: 00:20:15

the fact that you are currently working in a place where you can

Wesleyne Greer: 00:20:19

use all of that, and you bring all of that to work, I think is

Wesleyne Greer: 00:20:23

the full circle of really connecting, hey, this is what my

Wesleyne Greer: 00:20:26

parents wanted. For me, this is what I desired to do. This is

Wesleyne Greer: 00:20:29

what I enjoyed doing, because I can listen to you talk about

Wesleyne Greer: 00:20:33

things in terms of talent, strategy and diversity all day

Wesleyne Greer: 00:20:35

long, because you have so much depth behind you,

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:20:39

me. So I have to be honest about all of that.

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:20:42

And I think that depth has developed from all of these

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:20:46

conversations that I have with people all over the place. Like

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:20:49

I'm not really like, this is not all stuff that I've thought up.

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:20:53

This is me constantly asking questions to the point of being

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:20:56

annoying to a lot of people about how do you do this? How do

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:20:59

you do that? Why is that important? And that's actually

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:21:02

going back to something that you mentioned earlier, like my side

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:21:05

of the story of how you and I connected comes routed from one

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:21:09

question, what do I need to be doing to connect with more

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:21:13

people and have more real conversations? So I asked that

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:21:18

question to a whole bunch of people. And Leslie Vaness was

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:21:21

one of the people that we connected with. And we know

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:21:24

Leslie, and she gave me like a list of people that I need to

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:21:27

talk to. So you were on that list. And I think you were like

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:21:29

the second person that I mentioned, it was in no

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:21:32

particular order. But I was like, Okay, well, I gotta get

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:21:34

around these people and find out what they're doing. And that was

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:21:37

like, I'm constantly looking at how can I get, you know, there's

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:21:41

somebody in my network, named Adi. And his tagline is, my goal

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:21:46

is to be 1% Better than I was yesterday. And that's really my

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:21:51

mindset forever. And when we're thinking about the

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:21:54

intentionality, and all these different areas that I can talk

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:21:57

about, it's a function of just having these conversations with

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:22:01

everybody in my network, I'm always looking for different

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:22:03

ways to kind of understand, you know, there's a great big world

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:22:07

that we're in, and all the interesting things that happen,

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:22:09

and some of that stuff just gets stuck in your head and like

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:22:12

rewires sort of your perspective. And I think the

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:22:14

longer that you can stay in that mode, where you're acting like a

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:22:18

three year old and asking questions about everything, the

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:22:21

more agile you become, regardless of age, in how you

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:22:26

can pick up all sorts of different things. And that for

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:22:29

me, it's pretty selfish, because I don't ever want to be in a

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:22:32

spot where the world is an interesting or people aren't

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:22:36

interesting, because I think it's infinitely interesting. And

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:22:39

people are infinitely interesting. And there's nothing

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:22:41

better than finding out their story like, how did you get from

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:22:44

where you are, to where you where you are now? Or how did

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:22:47

you come from where you were to where you are? Now, that's a

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:22:50

great story. And there's so much you can learn from like those

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:22:53

sorts of conversations.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:22:55

And so even though I tried to give you some

Wesleyne Greer: 00:22:58

accolades and praise, you put them down, and you said, yeah,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:23:01

yeah, but it's really not about me, it's about all these amazing

Wesleyne Greer: 00:23:04

people I've surrounding myself with and how they're helping me

Wesleyne Greer: 00:23:07

grow and develop. And I do think as a leader, that is one of the

Wesleyne Greer: 00:23:11

best things that we can do is really not talk about how

Wesleyne Greer: 00:23:15

amazing we are or how great we are all the amazing accolades

Wesleyne Greer: 00:23:20

and things that we have. But when we talk about the journey,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:23:22

we talk about the people who help them get to where we are.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:23:24

And we talk about how we want to pour back and pull those who are

Wesleyne Greer: 00:23:28

coming behind us up. So in your current position, you have a

Wesleyne Greer: 00:23:34

team of dynamic people share with us one of the challenges

Wesleyne Greer: 00:23:39

that you have had with leading your team in current days.

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:23:43

So I'll kind of frame it in this respect. So

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:23:46

I want to latch on to something that you just mentioned about,

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:23:49

you know, hey, pushing off some of the things that you were

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:23:52

trying to say. And here are the influences behind it. You know,

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:23:55

the reason why I'm like that, I'll blame Lawrence brown again,

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:23:59

because one of the things that he said from a hiring philosophy

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:24:01

perspective was when I'm hiring and developing people, my

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:24:05

mindset is I want to hire and develop my replacement. And that

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:24:09

was a formative thought process as a professional. That's the

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:24:12

mindset that I have when it comes to hiring and development.

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:24:15

And I think, generally speaking, if you're Brown of any variety,

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:24:19

you have some level of impostor syndrome that exists where

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:24:22

you're like, I'm not sure if I'm good enough at this, that or the

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:24:25

other thing. So there's a bit of that that plays in it. But to

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:24:28

answer your question about my team, are the team that we have

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:24:31

at circa these are phenomenal people. And it's like

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:24:35

supercharged, based off of the mission that we have as an

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:24:39

organization, like how many tech companies are out there that are

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:24:41

high growth that are leading with a diversity first mission

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:24:46

and go to market with like a ridiculous manifesto. Like you

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:24:50

should read that thing. It's crazy. I'd like did a video on

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:24:52

it. So if you have high caliber people that are aligned with a

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:24:57

mission and purpose versus As just high caliber people that

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:25:01

are in pursuit of money, there's a different element to it. I

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:25:05

think when you're asking the question about what is the

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:25:07

challenge in tapping into that, I think one of the areas that

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:25:11

gets me heartburn is that I have this team of people that are

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:25:17

around me who I think are supremely talented, but getting

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:25:21

them to see themselves through my eyes is the challenge.

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:25:26

Because the stuff that I do, like I think anybody can do it.

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:25:30

I think anybody can launch a podcast or do a LinkedIn live

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:25:33

show or write, like, you have so much information that's out

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:25:37

there that you could spin this up over a weekend, like I

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:25:39

launched talent strategy 60, over a weekend, because I saw an

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:25:43

opportunity to help the talent strategy community level up

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:25:48

using community intelligence when we're in the middle of or

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:25:52

approaching an economic downturn. So what happens in

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:25:55

that community, when budgets get slashed, you lose people, you

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:25:58

lose resources, you're told to do more with less. And now we

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:26:01

actually have the capability of leveraging all of these great

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:26:03

practitioners around the country to share their best practices

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:26:07

and help actual talent leaders actually do more with less. So I

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:26:11

think all of this stuff anybody can do, but it's getting people

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:26:15

to believe in themselves, that they can do it. That's really

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:26:19

like where my you know, revs are focused, like I spend a lot of

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:26:24

reps and trying to get people to see themselves the way that I

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:26:27

see them. Because I think once you unlock that, it's limitless

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:26:32

on where you can go to the point, like my first

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:26:34

conversations were about, what's your view for yourself? What's

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:26:37

your vision for yourself, what's the better life that you're

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:26:40

seeking in this job and in all of your future jobs, because if

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:26:44

you lock into that, you're going to have that perpetual

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:26:49

accelerator that you can always push, and you don't need

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:26:52

external factors to do it. So it's tapping into that. That's

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:26:55

tricky. And especially as the new person that comes into an

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:26:57

organization and, and I'm a lot, my manager says I like to boil

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:27:01

the ocean at ease. He's freaking right, I think you can take 100

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:27:05

things all at once. And you and I have talked offline about that

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:27:08

sort of stuff, I don't have the wiring in my head that says,

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:27:13

this thing is impossible. I think anything is possible, you

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:27:17

just have to figure out how to make it possible. So rant over,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:21

over. It's really a skill to be able to

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:27

look at someone and really see in them what they can't see in

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:32

themselves, and helping them to tap into it. Right? Because it's

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:35

it's one thing to say I see that you're going to be this top

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:38

salesperson or I see that you're one day going to replace me, but

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:41

it's more so the challenge that a lot of leaders have or don't

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:46

even know where to start is giving them that roadmap, like

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:49

how do I get from just being ordinary to extraordinary,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:54

that's my new phrase, I think that's what I'm going to be

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:55

going into 2023 into how do we move from being ordinary to

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:59

extraordinary? What are the things that I need to do? What's

Wesleyne Greer: 00:28:02

the roadmap that I need to get there and really, as leader,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:28:05

that is our responsibility. I talk about sales malpractice, I

Wesleyne Greer: 00:28:09

talk about leadership malpractice, and it is

Wesleyne Greer: 00:28:11

leadership malpractice to see a person struggling or to see

Wesleyne Greer: 00:28:15

somebody with untapped potential and do nothing about it. So as

Wesleyne Greer: 00:28:19

leaders, that is our responsibility, it is our

Wesleyne Greer: 00:28:22

responsibility to have our team shine brighter than we do.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:28:25

Because it's not about us, we must minimize ourselves, and we

Wesleyne Greer: 00:28:30

must elevate the team. Because once your team succeeds, then

Wesleyne Greer: 00:28:32

you succeed. And as a leader, if you don't have that as the

Wesleyne Greer: 00:28:35

forefront in your mind of your strategy, then at some point,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:28:40

you're gonna stumble and you're gonna fall

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:28:42

No, I have no argument with that. And I think

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:28:45

that's probably one of the gaps that I have as a leader is that

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:28:49

I've always been a lead from the front person. And I think in the

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:28:53

in the role that I'm in right now, one of the biggest things

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:28:56

that I've had to adjust or at least get better at is building

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:29:00

the operational discipline, and being more in the background,

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:29:05

and the jury's still out on whether I'll ever build that

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:29:09

operational metrics focus to the level that I needed to be. I

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:29:13

think I'm competent. But you know, you have to look at what

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:29:16

are the things that give you energy? And what are the things

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:29:18

that take energy away from you. And when I think about what

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:29:21

gives me energy, it's being client facing and really in a

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:29:24

team selling environment being client facing where I can

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:29:27

actually influence the sale by instant messaging, instant

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:29:31

messaging off the side, while a rep is actually going through

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:29:34

the selling process where I can influence is auditing phone

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:29:38

calls and emails to make sure that they're buyer centric and

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:29:40

stuff like that. That's where I have fun. I have a ton of fun

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:29:43

prospecting. I don't know if I'll ever fall in love with the

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:29:47

operation side of it, but I don't need to like my leadership

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:29:50

style is rooted firmly in identify what you're strongest

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:29:55

at and play to that strength versus focusing on building up

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:29:58

your weaknesses be on the level that gets you to competence, I

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:30:02

think you just need to be competent in the areas that

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:30:05

you're weak. I think the expectation that you'd be

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:30:07

excellent at all things is kind of backwards.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:30:09

Absolutely. As a business owner, as a division

Wesleyne Greer: 00:30:12

leader, as a business unit leader, whatever you are, I do

Wesleyne Greer: 00:30:16

think, and I agree with this 100% wholeheartedly, you should

Wesleyne Greer: 00:30:20

know how to do everything within your organization. But you don't

Wesleyne Greer: 00:30:24

have to know how to do it well, but you need to understand it at

Wesleyne Greer: 00:30:27

a baseline level so that you can see if the ship is going off

Wesleyne Greer: 00:30:30

track. So if we are running, who knows reports in our CRM, you

Wesleyne Greer: 00:30:35

should know how to run a report, you don't need to know how to

Wesleyne Greer: 00:30:37

build the report, but you need to know if the data that you're

Wesleyne Greer: 00:30:39

getting doesn't make sense. So you can go back to the person

Wesleyne Greer: 00:30:41

building the report to say, hey, can we make some tweaks here?

Wesleyne Greer: 00:30:44

What inputs did you use, because I'm not getting the right

Wesleyne Greer: 00:30:46

output. And as a leader, so many times we think we got to touch

Wesleyne Greer: 00:30:50

everything, we got to do everything. But that is not your

Wesleyne Greer: 00:30:52

job. Your job is to be the visionary, your job is to be the

Wesleyne Greer: 00:30:55

coach, your job is to be the strategic thinker to lead the

Wesleyne Greer: 00:30:59

organization to lead your team and you let them execute.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:31:04

Because if you touch everything, then what you're doing is you're

Wesleyne Greer: 00:31:06

not developing a bench. There's no bench, all the knowledge is

Wesleyne Greer: 00:31:09

in your brain. And no one else knows how to do anything else.

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:31:13

Yeah, again, no argument there. I think when

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:31:16

I look at myself, the gap that I have, in terms of leadership

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:31:20

style is that there's a lot of stuff that I do instinctively

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:31:24

that it's difficult for me to break it down into step by step

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:31:27

process. So I've inserted myself alongside my team generally, to

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:31:32

show them like, here's what I do, ask me questions about it.

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:31:36

And then we can map it out together for me to like, there's

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:31:39

so many things that I don't even pay attention to that just run

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:31:42

on autopilot or instinct, it's hard for me to break it down

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:31:46

into a process. So that's been the other area where I've been

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:31:50

aware of it. And I'm trying to work that back. But honestly,

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:31:53

like, I love being in the game man. The same man, but I love

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:31:58

being in the game, dude. So it's like, it's tough to just like

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:32:03

back out and not be client facing I swear, I think if I was

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:32:07

just pushing metrics, or doing that sort of stuff for all day

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:32:11

long, I would drive myself insane. That is not fun for me.

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:32:15

No, so but that's a different story.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:32:18

That's all different podcast a little

Wesleyne Greer: 00:32:20

different episode. One tip that I can give you and I give this

Wesleyne Greer: 00:32:24

to my clients often is that in order to build this bench, or to

Wesleyne Greer: 00:32:29

extract the things from your brain, like you have to become

Wesleyne Greer: 00:32:32

evergreen, I've literally been recording every single meeting

Wesleyne Greer: 00:32:36

that I've had for two years. Why? I don't know, I'm just

Wesleyne Greer: 00:32:38

recording it. And now I have a library of like, I don't know,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:32:42

way too many things like probably 500 videos, and they're

Wesleyne Greer: 00:32:44

all named right in the description, I say what we've

Wesleyne Greer: 00:32:47

talked about, so I can share that with someone, right? When

Wesleyne Greer: 00:32:50

they come onto the team. I'm like, okay, so you need to do

Wesleyne Greer: 00:32:52

this kind of coaching, you need to work with this, or with a

Wesleyne Greer: 00:32:54

team, it's there. Because one of the challenges that I have is

Wesleyne Greer: 00:32:58

you asked me what I do. And I'm like, I don't know, like, give

Wesleyne Greer: 00:33:01

me a scenario, right? Tell me what's happening. And then I'll

Wesleyne Greer: 00:33:04

respond. And so it's hard for us, because we've been doing

Wesleyne Greer: 00:33:07

this for so long. And there's so many things in our brain, that

Wesleyne Greer: 00:33:10

it's hard to dump that information out. And even like

Wesleyne Greer: 00:33:14

sales leaders, I had one that I was working with recently, and

Wesleyne Greer: 00:33:16

they're like, Well, we're gonna have an in person, and

Wesleyne Greer: 00:33:18

everybody's not gonna be there. I was like, throw on teams, and

Wesleyne Greer: 00:33:21

record yourself, literally just do it. It doesn't matter if

Wesleyne Greer: 00:33:24

you're in the room, they have the little owl thing that hears

Wesleyne Greer: 00:33:26

everybody when they talk, so just do it. And that's how you

Wesleyne Greer: 00:33:29

start developing all your knowledge, your database, this

Wesleyne Greer: 00:33:33

encyclopedia of Dr. Jim. So Dr. Jim, you have had a very, very

Wesleyne Greer: 00:33:39

fulfilling life, el very amazing career, can you share one thing

Wesleyne Greer: 00:33:44

that has impacted the way that you lead?

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:33:47

I mean, aside from the things that Lawrence

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:33:50

has mentioned, that I referenced earlier in the show, like this

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:33:53

stuff doesn't wash it off, you should be hiring with the

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:33:56

mindset of hiring or replacement. Because if you want

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:33:59

to actually grow in your career, that's the mentality that you

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:34:02

should have. Never be afraid of people that are better than you

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:34:04

because that's the only way that you're actually going to get

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:34:06

better. So there's like stuff that we recapped earlier in the

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:34:09

show. But I think the one thing that I don't know where it came

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:34:13

from, but I think the longer that you can operate in the

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:34:16

world with the mindset of a three year old. Why is this the

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:34:20

way it is? Why does it have to be the way it is? What could be

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:34:24

done differently? All of these questions, if you can walk into

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:34:29

just about every interaction with that mindset of

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:34:33

asymmetrical thinking, the better off you're going to be.

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:34:35

And here's why that's important. We spend all of our younger life

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:34:41

in school in secondary education, higher education, and

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:34:45

we're being drilled into us that the object of the exercise is to

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:34:49

find the right answer. And that teaches us to be timid. And I

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:34:52

think that is a fundamental failure of the education system.

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:34:56

So instead of thinking about an obsession Thinking about getting

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:35:00

the right answer we should be thinking about and obsessing

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:35:03

about how can we break stuff, because if we break stuff we

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:35:06

actually learned the most from that experience. And we can

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:35:09

actually be more mentally agile in how we go about the world. So

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:35:13

always be curious. Don't be afraid to break stuff. Don't be

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:35:15

afraid of being wrong, because that's actually where your leaps

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:35:19

of innovation happen versus just getting the right answer.

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:35:21

Getting the right answer teaches you to play it safe. And there's

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:35:24

nothing more boring in life than having played it safe. Don't

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:35:30

play it safe. Thank you for attending my TED talk.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:35:34

I love. So be curious, right? Ask questions

Wesleyne Greer: 00:35:39

when I am mentoring, usually young sellers. And typically

Wesleyne Greer: 00:35:43

it's women, because women as salespeople tend to have, you

Wesleyne Greer: 00:35:47

know, apprehensions if you will. And I tell them, that thing that

Wesleyne Greer: 00:35:52

people told you was so annoying, when you were growing up when

Wesleyne Greer: 00:35:55

you were in school, and all your other jobs is what's going to

Wesleyne Greer: 00:35:58

make you really amazing in sales. And for me, it's the

Wesleyne Greer: 00:36:01

curiosity, I would ask why all the time. Like, that's why I

Wesleyne Greer: 00:36:04

couldn't work in the lab anymore. Because I was like, why

Wesleyne Greer: 00:36:07

am I doing this test? Why do you need this new material? We're

Wesleyne Greer: 00:36:09

like, what, sweetie, can you just be quiet and do the things.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:36:12

So that curiosity is what helps us continue to grow and develop

Wesleyne Greer: 00:36:17

as individual contributors, as leaders as business owners

Wesleyne Greer: 00:36:20

having curiosity and knowing that it is absolutely okay to

Wesleyne Greer: 00:36:25

fail, right? Failure is not bad. It teaches you something and

Wesleyne Greer: 00:36:29

teaches you had to tweak and change, and then move forward.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:36:33

So Dr. Jim, I know that you have an amazing podcast, and there

Wesleyne Greer: 00:36:37

are many things that you're doing out there in the world,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:36:39

tell us what is the one best way for people to get in contact

Wesleyne Greer: 00:36:44

with

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:36:44

you, if you're looking for one best way,

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:36:46

LinkedIn is the way to go. So obviously, if you're connected

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:36:49

with West lien and not connected with me ask for an intro. But

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:36:52

you can find me all over LinkedIn, I post daily, there's

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:36:56

a bunch of content that I push out. So that's the easiest way

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:36:58

to connect with me. And the fastest way to connect, it's my

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:37:01

most active channel.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:37:02

Awesome. And tell us a little bit about your

Wesleyne Greer: 00:37:04

podcast and what it's called. Sure.

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:37:06

So Lawrence, and I, Lawrence Brown, and I run

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:37:09

the cascading leadership podcast, that particular podcast

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:37:12

is in season two. So we're not when we grow up, we want to be

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:37:16

like Wesleyne. So we're not quite there yet. But the podcast

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:37:19

features senior leaders, women, immigrants, people of color, who

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:37:23

have risen to senior leadership, and the intent of the show is to

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:37:27

share all of their learnings so that you can leverage it as a

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:37:31

cliff notes if you're an emerging professional to advance

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:37:34

your career further, faster. So that's cascading leadership. And

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:37:37

then I also recently launched talent strategy 60, which I

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:37:41

referenced earlier in the show. So it's a LinkedIn live show

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:37:44

focused on any and all areas of talent strategy, and helping the

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:37:48

talent strategy community gather best practices, so that they can

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:37:52

advance their internal initiatives faster than what

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:37:54

might be available due to resource constraints.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:37:56

Amazing. So you, you don't just have one job or

Wesleyne Greer: 00:37:59

two jobs, like a typical immigrant, you have many, many

Wesleyne Greer: 00:38:02

jobs. And this is just candy. Still,

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:38:05

you laugh about the typical immigrant

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:38:07

comment. I hear it all the time. I mean, like, I have a pretty

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:38:10

diverse network with a lot of immigrants. And I don't know, a

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:38:13

single one that has less than, like five jobs. I know,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:38:17

I know. And I'm first generation American, and

Wesleyne Greer: 00:38:20

it's still ingrained in my brain. And even my kids are

Wesleyne Greer: 00:38:22

like, yeah, when I grew up, I'm gonna have this business and

Wesleyne Greer: 00:38:25

that business and do this and that. So there's nothing wrong

Wesleyne Greer: 00:38:28

with being ambitious. Dr. Jim, this has been an amazing,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:38:31

amazing conversation you have thoroughly enriched our lives

Wesleyne Greer: 00:38:36

and help us to transform our sales. So I thank you for your

Wesleyne Greer: 00:38:39

time, your talent, your energy, and most of all the knowledge

Wesleyne Greer: 00:38:44

that you gave us today.

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:38:45

No, it was, it was a great fun conversation,

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:38:47

but it's not the first time that you and I have chatted, so I'm

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:38:50

not surprised that it was fun. But thanks for having me on, and

Jim Kanichirayil: 00:38:53

I appreciate the opportunity. Wesleyne

Wesleyne Greer: 00:38:55

Thanks so much again, and that was another

Wesleyne Greer: 00:38:57

episode of the transform sales podcast. Remember each and every

Wesleyne Greer: 00:39:02

day strive to be one person better and transform your sales.