The Change Your Mindset Podcast

Welcome to the Change Your Mindset podcast, hosted by Peter Margaritis, CPA, AKA The Accidental Accountant. Peter is a speaker, expert in applied improvisation and author of the book 'Improv Is No Joke, Using Improvization to Create Positive Results in Leadership and Life'. Peter's new book, Taking the Numb Our of Numbers: Explaining & Presenting Financial Information with Confidence and Clarity will be published in June 2018.

S5E22: Laughter is the Best Medicine for Your Organization

From the desk of Peter Margaritis

“By injecting humor and levity into our work lives, we give ourselves an opportunity for human connection.” Peter Margaritis

According to some recent research, adding more laughter to the workplace helps improve the organization’s culture. Humor allows people to cope with stress and build relationships and is associated with intelligence and creativity.

Workplace humor is about a positive, light-hearted, open attitude and a playful mindset. One of the best ways to create a competitive advantage is to create a culture that embraces laughter. By injecting humor and levity into our work lives, we give ourselves an opportunity for human connection —something so easily lost in today’s pandemic weary and technology-driven world.

Humor has not been seen as a top leadership characteristic but rather a secondary leadership behavior. However, there is more research evidence that humor should be one of the top leadership behaviors. Incorporating humor into your company culture isn’t that easy, but well worth it. It is essential to understand your own company culture when it comes to humor in the workplace and bring it in a way that fits and enhances the culture and the people.

There is a delicate balance between creating a culture that embraces humor and developing leadership that learns how to use humor to strengthen the organization, and it’s well worth the effort.

S5E21: Burn Ladders Build Bridges with Dr. Alan Patterson

From the desk of Peter Margaritis

“The idea of burning the ladder is a shifting mindset, and building bridges is the action that creates opportunities to build relationships.’ Dr. Alan Patterson

My guests today are Dr. Alan Patterson and Jenny Knuth. Alan has more than three decades of international business experience. In 2006, he formed Mentore, a consulting practice specializing in leadership and organizational development. Many global and national businesses and organizations have tapped his expertise, including Anheuser Busch, Biogen, Federal Reserve Bank, Johnson and Johnson, Hewlett Packard, Major League Baseball, and the United States Navy. He’s the author of ‘Leader evolution: From Technical Expertise to Strategic Leadership.’ In addition, Alan has been a college lecturer and frequent presenter at several state and national conferences. He released his new book ‘Burn ladders, Build Bridges: Pursuing Work with Meaning and Purpose,’ on May 6 of this year, and can be found on Amazon. Jenny, Dr. Alan’s marketing person, also joins us in our conversation.

While working with my clients, I realized that there is blind faith in career progression and that people were on this treadmill that inherently held that someone else would decide for them the next step. Despite the need for such judgments, it is evident that devastation has taken place because people have become very limited, thus the need for a better concept and a better mindset.

Many people feel like the moves they need to make are out of their control, and I beg to differ. There’s a lot within your control, but the approach has to be different. If you’re looking for meaning and purpose, you’re not going to find it on the ladder. That meaning and purpose comes through meeting and working with people.

It’s not a one-size-fits-all when it comes to who is a ladder burner. However, the people you find on the edge of the organizations have created these multiple relationships across the organization. So people that speak up have this broader view of their job and are looking to make a difference would be characterized as ladder burners.

A ladder climber puts themselves in the middle of their universe, but it is about how they can help ladder burners and is never about themselves. The idea of burning the ladder is a shifting mindset, and building bridges is the action that creates opportunities to build relationships.

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S5E20: Perception is Reality and Turn Your Cameras On

From the desk of Peter Margaritis

“People’s perceptions of you are their reality, so pay attention to what you want their reality to be.” Peter Margaritis

The way we show up does make a big difference, whether in person or virtually. Perception is reality, and the perceptions we create with others, especially with decision-making executives, really matter. People want to interact with humans they can see, hear and experience in person, whether remotely or in person. When we can see and hear each other, we see and feel the energy, engagement, body language, and attitude.

 According to the Vytopia press release dated April 12, 2022, executives view the lack of employee engagement as a subpar performance. 92% of the executives say employees who turn their cameras off are generally less engaged in the work overall. Having your camera turned off during any virtual event is disengaging, disrespectful, and simply impolite.

The world has changed in so many ways since the pandemic began. One of those ways is the increase in hybrid work as a preferred work method. Virtual meetings and learning are becoming part of the lexicon in evolving and growing our businesses. Ask yourself how you will change your unseen presence to one that sends a message and perception to senior leadership that you are engaged and ready.

S5E19: The Spirit of Emotional Intelligence with Ruben Minor

From the desk of Peter Margaritis

“The beauty of good leadership has a wonderful platform to impact someone you may never know-how.“ Ruben Minor

Our guest today is Ruben Minor, who is the president of RAM Consulting Group, an organization that focuses on speaking, training, and coaching individuals and groups regarding leadership, team dynamics, relationship building, diversity, equity and inclusion, fundamental business philosophies, and business and personal branding. Reuben is a leader with a rich and resourceful network of professionals across the business spectrum, ranging from influential political figures to educational leaders and entrepreneurs. 

Ruben leverages his network to make more meaningful connections for clients and business partners, evolving into lasting, mutually beneficial relationships. Ruben served this country for 15 years in the US Navy as a Supply Corps officer is a John Maxwell certified professional speaker, trainer, and coach, and is intimately engaged in the community, serving as president of the Council for the village of Galena. Reuben enjoys spending time with family, history movies, and hiking, and as a side note, he is a professional speaker. 

Emotional intelligence is the ability to process information that has been received. The information goes through a filter system in your mind, which helps you dissect what’s being said and the intention behind it so that your response to what you are processing will be emotionally appropriate. Emotional intelligence, like sales, is either you naturally have it, and you’re good at it, or you don’t have it, and therefore becomes a difficult process for you to gain that. 

It takes a particularly savvy person to be sensitive and to know how to respond and not hurt someone. Psychological safety entails asking how one can create an environment where a person feels safe enough to say and express what is on their mind. Naturally, everybody wants to be heard, and when you can exercise psychological safety, that’s the foundation of building great relationships.

Corporations have learned a lot post-COVID, as employees have realized that they do not have to put up with toxic work environments. Unfriendly cultures have been in place for decades and are not expected to change overnight. It’s going to be a constant, intentional effort by those in leadership and making sure that they’re keeping in step with the culture in the corporate community. 

The beauty of good leadership has a wonderful platform to impact someone that you may never know how to. 

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S5EP18: Optimizing Emotional Intelligence

From the desk of Peter Margaritis

“Emotional Intelligence helps you connect with your feelings, turning that into action, and making informed decisions about what matters most to you.” Peter Margaritis

To succeed in the highly competitive world of financial consulting, accounting professionals must possess the right mix of technical experience and soft skills, or think of them as power skills, or better yet, emotional intelligence — EI. EI plays an increasingly significant role in today’s business environment. Therefore, you must optimize your EI to improve your bottom line and increase your organization’s job satisfaction, engagement, and retention rates.

EI is the ability to understand, use and manage your own emotion in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges and defuse conflict. EI helps build stronger relationships, succeed at work, and achieve your career and personal goals. It can also help you connect with your feelings, turn that into action, and make informed decisions about what matters most to you.

The four components of EI are defined as self-awareness, social awareness, self-management, and relationship management. Self-awareness entails how you understand your emotions and how they affect your thoughts and behavior. Self-management refers to controlling and managing yourself and your feelings, resources, and abilities.

 In social awareness, you assess whether or not you recognize the emotions in others. It is about reading the emotional landscape and responding with empathy. Social awareness skills will help us understand professionalism in the workplace and make it easier to share information, communicate, and collaborate with others. Social awareness is a fundamental part of creating relationships with the people we work with and the customers and clients we need to build our businesses.

When we understand the top three elements of EI and apply them correctly, CPAs can begin to develop and maintain good relationships, communicate clearly, inspire and influence others, work well on a team and manage conflict. Improving your EI requires that managers first understand how people feel about their jobs and help them to improve morale.

Three main elements, empowerment, meaningful work, and recognition, can drive and engage workers to stick around even when they’re unhappy with their pay or leadership. However, disengaged employees are three times more likely than engaged ones who quit within six months, resulting in a loss of productivity and cost amounting up to $3 million per year.

Improvisation plays a critical role in EI. In business, life, and sports, EI separates high performers from mediocre and average performers. Improvisation is the ability to adapt to change. It is the yes and philosophy of improv and EI leadership. This skill is also crucial for career development. Improvisation allows people who may not have a natural knack for talking themselves out of trouble to get creative by thinking on their feet.

Think about how you build an EI culture in your organization from start to finish. The first thing is to hire people skilled at managing their emotions and reading those of others and then develop a culture that promotes the skills, so employees see the value in developing EI.