hello melanie how are you today welcome to all ears english hello i am so excited to be
here with you thank you for having me well i'm excited to have you here too guys today
on the show we have a guest we have melanie parrish who is the author of the experimental
leader she is a leader a coach a speaker and a podcast host and interestingly she's also a farmer
that's so funny when you said that melanie how did you get into farming do you live on a farm or
why no so it's it's a family farm like it's been in my farm um since my great grandparents um and
and we actually have tenants who do the day-to-day okay mostly i sign a lot of farm paperwork
but i i've really loved sort of claiming it as an identity um i think about you know like
i think about crops differently we have an organic peanut farm and an organic cot like
it's organic peanuts and organic cotton and so i think about peanuts and cotton differently
much more than the average person would right yeah and i think about like what's the rain doing
you know sometimes it's like we get hailed out and it's like oh that's sad like i don't know i feel
connection to the earth in a different way because i'm cool i love that where is your farm base like
where in the world are we talking midwest south we actually have two farms so we have one um in west
texas okay in loop texas lube texas which is which is kind of funny because i live in canada most of
the time okay and then we have one in house new mexico which is really the middle of nowhere and
that one we actually do wind okay i love it well it's good to be kind of a multi-dimensional person
right you are an expert in the business leadership world which is what we're talking about today
but you also do farming or somehow involved in farming on the side i love that i love that so
melanie what caught my eye about what you do and why i want to have you on the show is this concept
of the experimental leader right experimental leadership can you start by telling our listeners
what exactly that is and why we should think about using this tactic or this strategy
at work absolutely uh i love talking about this um so i have done all sorts of things and learned
all sorts of things from a couple of really cool people one is mike rother who wrote um something
a book called toyota kata okay you talked about iteration and coaching and it's kind
of a continuous improvement model yes i also studied um ellie yahoo goldratt who's an israeli
physicist and he talked a lot about bottlenecks and constraints okay and i realized that when you
talk about iteration you talk about experimenting there's actually a role for the leader to play
and what should that role be what did you get the sense of yeah so um in some ways it's holding
space for experimentation in some ways it's introducing the idea of experimentation okay
um it's it's so so let me tell you why experimentation is important as a leader
so when you think of a boardroom and you think of somebody coming into a meeting and
you're talking about what you're going to do in your organization mm-hmm and you're going to apply
budget to it and you're going to do something we all know people who live and die by their ideas
in a leadership capacity if your idea is bad then you own that idea and your idea dies and maybe you
die too sure sure but actually every single one of these things we decide to do in the boardroom
is an experiment yes we don't know how it's going to come out we don't know what's going to happen
and um and so it's an experiment and if we co we see it as a collective experiment so
we own it collaboratively as a team and we decide how we're going to experiment
as opposed to doing bill's idea or mary's idea okay got it so you're opening up that space
interesting and then you don't have to die then you don't have to die with your idea right yes and
that leads to more ideas because you're not they don't have to be right before you've tested them
we test them to find out if they're right yeah why do you think people get so attached to their ideas
it's it's that other it's it's okay if people are attached their ideas but it's when other
people attach ideas to us but we're vulnerable as leaders because then we have to make plays smaller
because every idea we put forward has to be safe got it got it okay i love this i mean
i may have a question for you a little bit later on about culture too about how
these tax tactics work because we know for our listeners they are all over the world
doing business many of them are in a leader leadership position indeed but leading across
cultures right which is adds that additional challenge so let's go into a little bit of the how
right the tactics kind of three tips three strategies melanie about how we could bring
on a bit more of this experimental leadership and then i want to ask you about the cross-cultural
piece yeah so um i think the first thing is that if one understands that we're experimenting
then you can adopt the language of experimentation okay language you're not it's so the first piece
is start talking about experimentation so how this might play out is is if you're talking to a direct
report or something and they're coming to you with a problem a really good question to ask them is
what's the next thing you're going to try perfect perfect and so what is it in that phrase and i
love that we're talking about language because in all areas english we are all about how language
creates connection and language is everything so what's the next thing you're gonna try what about
that phrase is powerful in your mind well one thing is you give it back to them yes i love that
you're handing it right back to them you're not telling them what to do you're not telling them
that they have to come up with the best solution which is almost impossible without iterating yes
you're asking them what's the next step to try and also because you're looking for the next
step you're not looking for the overall solution where you have to map it out on a gantt chart and
it has to all be right but the landscape changes in the middle yeah that always happens i hate that
you're asking that for the next step they don't have to get the big picture right either they
they can figure out what's the next piece of data we want to collect we want to try a little
thing and that makes it safer to fail i love it so you're empowering your your team your team
member or the person you're managing your direct report so guys again we're talking about if you're
in a leadership position and your direct report comes to you and says hey i'm not sure you know
i'm i'm stuck here this is what you're going to try to say back to your direct report you know
and what is that phrase again melanie here that we could say what are you going to try next i love it
it's so good it gives them the power empowers them and kind of crunches down the project a
little bit it takes it out from the abstract and makes it concrete and it's only that next step
so good so i love that language is the first piece go ahead and i literally believe that people can
transform their leadership with that one question that is so good i'm gonna write that on my wall
because we we pick up work from our the people that work for us all the time and if and handing
it back to them allows them to hold all they know you don't because leaders all the time
go off on a tangent and do something and they don't have all the information but if you ask
them what they're going to do next number one you ask them to do something next and number two
they decide what's most important from their place where they're more front line
so you're you're giving them the power to make that decision right okay so language is the first
tip then melanie what would be a second tip or a second strategy to put experimental leadership
into action um so the the next piece um would be data collection okay tell us about that a little
bit so what are you going to try next the next question could be um how will you measure it yes
how what works why does this matter well i mean it's good scientific method so if we start to
make decisions scientifically we want to actually collect as much data as we can some topics are
better than others marketing super easy how many views do we get do we get sales although you know
i notice all the time that we can get lots of views and not have any impact on the bottom line
like everybody knows that that's a challenge marketing so um but if we look at what's the
data we're gonna collect to know whether or not it worked or how it worked that's the that's step two
sorry about my phone here keeps ringing oh my gosh okay uh that's great so taking data and asking
your direct report how are you going to measure it is that that next question then yeah and it's
true for any experiment that you do yourself too so whatever you're saying to the other person
there'll be things experiments you want to try in your own work as a leader too i want to try having
shorter meetings that's your next step yes how will i know if it works well i notice if people
don't get enough time and they're like wait we're not done right they don't have what they need to
move forward okay and then from that point we're pivoting we're doing something different but i
love it it's so good okay so how are you going to measure it and then what would be the third piece
when will we know when will we look to see like what's the time frame how long are we going to
do this and i always recommend experiments that are short quick experiments if your experiments
30 days or longer it's too long yes you want an experiment that you can prototype that you can
um go work on it this afternoon and you've got an experiment up and running tomorrow and you
collect data for 24 hours 48 hours seven days that's plenty anything longer than that you're
doing more than one experiment right because we talked again about how the landscape can change
if we're mapping things out so broadly if you go and do a 30-day experiment the goal could have
changed by that time within 30 days of the project i know in smaller companies for us our goals are
changing a lot not so much our goals but our tactics and how we're going to get to our goals
could change within 30 days very easily so if i send someone off to go do an experiment they come
back after 30 days everything has changed and how frustrating is that for your direct reports guys
for the people who work for you that is that's demoralizing for them right it's demoralizing
and also you've lost focus as a leader and if you so the focus if i get got to give a fourth point
it's figure out how you're going to hold focus to this idea of experimentation over time will you
check in weekly i love a weekly 15-minute meeting with direct reports to ask how their experiments
are going i love it yes remove their bottlenecks for them you know what's in your way what are you
going to try next it's a short meeting but it has astronomical impact on you as a your leadership
absolutely putting the power in the hands of your employees but then those check-ins they still
feel like they have they have some guidance they have someone there checking and and kind
of guiding them in a way but they're in charge and they're empowered to get it done so good now one
next level question for you melanie how do you you cited some studies from abroad i think you said
someone in israel um how do you see this playing out cross-culturally around the world does this
kind of framework work well in asia business and asia for example or south america how do you see
this cross-culturally working well i mean in in many ways it's there's there's some parts that are
universal and some parts that might be difficult if the um the culture supports kind of a top-down
directive leadership style mm-hmm then this might rock the boat a bit yes and that's your expression
threads it threads the thinking through the organization but if an organization is
resistant to that and has sort of unspoken social norms that one doesn't get information going up
it's kind of how feedback loops work if you're in um sort of an autocratic leadership model
um this this model um may be incredibly necessary and it will help lead to better innovation in your
organization yeah but you may get pushback so you want to do it really gently if you're doing that
for sure and i'm sure that within certain cultures uh there could be companies that would take this
on much more easily because maybe they have been they're a younger company or they haven't been
around as long and they're just more willing to adopt new ways of thinking that kind of thing
so guys when you hear about this experimental leadership just reflect for a minute is this
something that you could try in your own company because we are always looking to improve ourselves
as leaders right we always want to get better out in the world yeah i'd love to see one more thing
yeah please do people who have some sort of i'll call it marginalization just for conversation's
sake but like women who are leaders um people who are of a race that might have struggles
in leadership it's a very gentle approach to ask someone how they're going to handle it so in that
sort of culture piece this is a really nice model because you're not sometimes um sometimes those
groups struggle with a autocratic leadership style because people rebel against them
because for whatever reason and this style works really well for women leaders for people who um
who struggle with how power works in their leadership yeah it feels like a much more human
you know 21st century form of leadership to me so i like it i'm looking forward to seeing how this
uh spreads around the business world and new forms of leadership kind of crop up so good well melanie
thanks for coming on the show today and letting us know about this different style i'm excited
for our listeners to go out into their leadership positions in business and try this out and talk
to their companies about it so where can our listeners find you i know you have a podcast and
you know especially if they're looking to improve themselves in the business world they'll be
looking for some resources where can they find your podcast where can they find you online
yeah so my podcast is called the experimental leader super simple and um they can find it
anywhere podcasts i think it's everywhere um and i would love to give your listeners a digital copy
of the experimental leader book great you can get that at digitalbook.experimentaliter.com
um and if you sign up for that you'll also get um our notifications about podcasts and
episodes as they're coming out and um so it's a really good way to connect with us as a company
and learn about who we are all right wonderful well thank you so much for coming on the show
melanie it's been great chatting with you and always loved talking about business so this is
so fun thank you so much for having me thank you melanie and we appreciate the
link for the book thank you so much for that too and we'll
maybe see you on the show another time thanks again good time yeah really fun thanks bye