Discover the power of optimizing mindset to unlock your team’s full potential and create a thriving workplace. Leadership coach Nadia Menov dives deep into this concept and explains how it can completely transform your workplace culture. She shares her unique RISE framework for understanding your team, identifying positive behaviors, and building a shared vision. Packed with practical strategies for open communication and psychological safety, this episode empowers you to create a culture where every team member feels valued and driven to achieve amazing results.

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Listen to the podcast here

 

Nadia Menov – Building High-Performing Teams By Optimizing Mindset

First, I’d like to introduce you to our panel of hosts. We have a full house. First is Howard Nizewitz, and he’s a seasoned compensation advisor and strategic HR consultant with over 30 years of experience. Also, we have with us is Sumit Singla. Smit is an experienced HR consultant global dedicated to helping small and medium enterprises scale up across the globe with cutting-edge practices and solutions.

Also with us is Char Miller. She’s a strategy skills consultant from the Strategic Thinking Institute. She’s a talent management strategist and career and entrepreneurial transformation coach. I’m pleased to introduce a very special guest. We’re going to be diving into the dynamics of building a high-performing team by optimizing skill sets, optimizing mindset specifically. Joining us is Nadia Menov. She’s the visionary behind Mindset Works Coaching. With a robust background and transforming workplace cultures, Nadia specializes in elevating leadership capabilities and team performance through innovative coaching and strategic wellness initiatives.

She is passionately committed to molding work environments that not only achieve and surpass the business objectives but also create nurturing spaces where employees can generally thrive overall. Nadia is going to be sharing her insights on crafting a vibrant company culture that attracts, engages, and retains top talent, ensuring that your workforce becomes a pivotal cornerstone in organizational success. Let’s get ready for this conversation and read to the great advice that Nadia has for us in empowering your leadership today.

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Nadia, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Introducing Nadia And Her Expertise In Workplace Culture

The first thing that we typically do is to kick off the conversation here is just to learn a little bit about you and your background. How did you get into the work that you do today and helping your clients?

I have been coaching for about seven-plus years or so, and I initially started in the health and wellness space. I was working as a health coach for an organization here in Toronto. I grew through that role and eventually transitioned into a middle management role. My coaching background kind of comes from there but when I transitioned into middleman coaching, there wasn’t a lot of support that I had becoming a manager. I really didn’t know that to be completely honest, it was my first corporate job ever.

I spent a lot of time listening to podcasts like yours, reading a lot of books, and just trying to become a better leader. Through that experience, I really realized that at the end of the day, it’s the people that are the most pivotal aspect of the performance, of engagement. Through that, I’ve decided that I’m going to start working with organizations to help their mental management also do the same, because it’s a theme that I see quite often that people are promoted from within, which is great but they don’t necessarily always get the training that they need or the skillset to be able to lead people.

It’s one thing to be hired for a specific role where you have the training and the skills and the education to be able to do that role, but stepping into leadership is a totally different skill set. I also just really love people. I think that the happiest employees are the most productive and the most engaged. I want to make sure that I’m helping the corporate space create workplaces that everyone feels like they genuinely love.

Connection Between Wellness And Positive Mindset

You were mentioning as far as our topic is around really having that positive mindset or that mindset that’s really driving business. How have the wellness background that you have driven that initiative?

I try to look at culture and the people that I’m working with through a holistic lens. I think it’s really important to be mindful of the fact that people are not just who they are inside of their workplace, but how they show up in their workplace is likely how they’re also showing up in their personal lives. Not talking about the person as a whole and looking at the kinds of things that they’re doing behind the scenes to fill their cups like they can show up as the best version of themselves is amiss. I try to incorporate wellness into my one-on-one coaching sessions with individuals on a regular basis and even actually use that to give them a maybe safer space to be able to change some behaviors that they can then bring into the workplace as well.

How much do you find that a person’s practices outside of work impact what they’re doing at work? Is that strongly connected?

Definitely, I think there’s a big positive correlation there between how much effort they’re putting into themselves and developing themselves and how they’re going to show up at work. I’ll give you an example that kind of comes to mind as well. We were chatting about this before we started. I remember I was talking to somebody who was struggling with being a little bit of a people pleaser.

There is a big positive correlation between how much effort people are putting into developing themselves and how they are showing up at work. Share on X

People would ask her for help with things and even if she didn’t have the bandwidth, she would still say yes and then feel stressed out or burnt out afterward. I asked her, “Are you one of those people that when you go to the grocery store and you’re in the checkout line and they ask you to donate $2 to something, do you feel this immense guilt and have this need to explain as to why you are not going to donate or do you almost always donate?”

She said, “You absolutely hit the nail on the head. How did you know?” I was like, “If it’s showing up here that you’re not able to say no, it’s showing up in all the other ways in your life outside of work.” A really small example, but that’s what we use to get her to start practicing that a little bit more can be scary to maybe say no to your boss, but saying no to somebody at the checkout line is a little bit of a safer space, a little bit easier. Maybe you’ll never see that person again. You get to kind of practice that outside of the workplace and then take that and maybe translate it eventually into the workplace as well.

How Culture Has Transformed Over The Years

Char, I’d love to hear a woman’s perspective on how culture over the years has transformed and allowing a person to be able to be more vocal and speak up for themselves without fear of risking their career or career progression overall.

I have to say I’m really impressed to see this kind of a movement, if you want to call it that, not that we’ve not always had a movement as far as being more empowered to be stronger and not have to act like a man in the boardroom. We don’t have to act like men. All of us are not the same. I’m not saying we’re all exactly the same, but have a bit of more feminine energy, if I could maybe portray a different type of mindset, a different way of communicating.

I think that that’s becoming more welcome and also maybe lending just as much as a diversity inclusion with everybody, but listening to others and not over-talking one another. That’s oftentimes what happens is getting interrupted constantly, unable to get a point across, not having time to speak your mind. I’m curious what the rest of the team thinks. Sumit, how do you see that because you and I talk a lot about cultural matters and differences in culture as well as women.

That’s an interesting question, especially in today’s context. I think one of the biggest pieces of news is around the hustle culture in Indian corporates that’s come out today, where a young person just four months into their career at a Big Four consulting firm lost their life due to overwork. It’s kind of put things into perspective about how our workplaces are actually killing people. I just discovered that the Japanese have a term for it. It’s called karoshi. It means death by overwork.

There are estimates that 10,000 plus people in Japan lose their lives to overwork every year. That’s quite horrifying. They’re trying to solve for it. They’re trying to create a positive culture, and I could be generalizing a bit in the Asian context. I think hierarchy is to be respected and people often shy away from it, I use Nadia’s example, so you turn into a people pleaser. You find it difficult to say no to the $2 donation and end up taking way more on your plate than you can do justice to.

How do you coach your leaders, Nadia, to really address that to understand how to keep a balanced work-life by saying no and creating barriers?

When it comes to adjusting some of these things with their team, I encourage them to actually have a more coaching perspective and ask questions. Check in with your people and actually see how they’re doing and read beyond the answer. Somebody can say, “I’m fine.” They could say, “I’m fine.” Those are two completely different answers. As leaders, if we miss those little human moments when somebody’s communicating something to us without using words, but it’s what we have to read between the lines. If we don’t notice that and if we don’t speak to that, then we’re really missing the mark to be able to have an impact on somebody’s wellbeing.

If you can tell that in a conversation, one of your people is somebody who usually says yes to things, and you can tell that there’s some hesitation there, speak to that and create safe spaces for them to be able to advocate for themselves, especially if you know that there is someone that’s uncomfortable with saying no and give them that opportunity to practice that. That’s one of the things that I really try to drive home is that you need to be a safe space for your people so that they can be completely honest with you about how they’re feeling. If they have the bandwidth to let’s say take something new on, if that’s what you’re needing them to do. Just making sure that you’re doing your best to support them in that.

Understanding RISE Framework For Improving Culture

Let’s talk a little bit about your framework and how you address these issues with your clients. Now, as we go into this, show a bit of your framework here as far as review, inspire, strengthen, and elevate. Can you tell us a little bit about this framework and how it helps your clients?

It’s actually RISE, if you look at all the first letters. I did it on purpose because I like abbreviations. RISE is a four-step process through which I usually take my clients through. The first place I want to start is to really understand where the team is at. I think one of the most important things is defining a problem before we actually go into solutions. I spent quite a lot of time in this specific step to make sure that I’m really getting down to the root cause of why there might be some challenges with culture or if there are things that are kind of going on within the organization.

 

That first step consists of me doing a survey, the OCAI survey, which breaks down into four different types of culture profiles. It gives me an idea of where the team currently is at and what they would want the culture to look like. Current and preferred. What I do know with culture, oftentimes if there are already challenges, things like surveys have been a common practice within the organization and often I feel people roll their eyes at things like that. I try to take it one step further.

I take the surveys and then with every single one of the individuals that’s involved in the process I have a one-on-one session so I can get to know the individual behind the assessment. I ask them questions like what makes you proud to work here? What do you think are potential challenges? What makes your role a challenge sometimes? What do you think are some solutions for the challenges that you brought up? I really take the time to get to know the individual. Once I’ve done that entire process with the team that I’m working with at the time, we move on to workshops.

One of the first workshops that I usually focus on is taking all of that data, and breaking it down into a graph so they can visually see what that looks like. I pull out specific themes. Typically what I find is, that there are certain themes that I can pull out from the conversations where people kind of feel the same way about a certain topic. I can say, without calling any specific names, “90% of you said that this is a challenge. Some of you said that you also would want to see this change.” We go into more of an open forum conversation where they have a chance to really be heard.

We start to break down, “What are the actual behaviors that contribute to the current culture because I think it’s really easy to think about things kind of up here and say, “We should be more positive,” for example, but what are the behaviors that are actually showing up? Sometimes that’s difficult for people. I really have to prompt them to say like, “What’s the actual behavior?”

Once we get there, we can understand how they act and through that process, I can also understand how they think and how they feel, which then gives me insight of what the collective mindset is, and then what the mindset is for each individual as well. We start to go into that. I usually kind of personalize depending on each client, because everyone’s going to be in a different place and every team is going to be in a different place.

We’ll start to talk about things like, for example, above and below the line, thinking, feeling, and behaving. What does it look like when you are thinking above the line, for example? Focused on solutions as opposed to being focused on problems. I get them to really start to think about how are they currently contributing to the culture themselves, so that we can start to eliminate some of that finger-pointing of, “It’s because of leadership that it’s like that, or leaders point to the employees, or it’s because of them that it’s like that.” Having everybody come together and say, “I play a part in this, and the change has to come not only from everyone else, but it has to come from me first.”

I just want to say, I don’t know, this is a pretty detailed process. I definitely want to go back and talk about some of the specifics, but go ahead and continue.

From there, we start to focus on where are they wanting to go and how do we actually get there. The workshops are a big part of that. With certain teams, I will take focus groups if I find that there are specific people that maybe are having some friction and it’s starting to trickle down or if there are certain people that are maybe bottlenecks for information I might give them a little bit of extra support and focus on that. From there, we start to actually talk about some of the operational things that are also contributing to the culture right now.

Are there certain KPIs that might not make sense or maybe are they perpetuating that old way of being, that old culture profile? We talk about maybe changing certain processes if that also makes sense. Throughout this entire process, I try to hold their hand and walk them through step by step. I think is a really important thing to speak to here is that we all know what we need to do. When you think about weight loss, everybody knows that they should be eating more vegetables, or they should be moving their body on a regular basis but the how is often missed in this space.

As I take them through this four-step process, they’re constantly having check-ins with me. They’re having one-on-ones where they’re having conversations about how things are going, which gives me an opportunity to also catch them in the moments when the team starts to slide back to their original way of being, which is normal. Human behavior is not linear, we know that.

We know that people are going to revert back to the old ways of doing things but I want to be able to catch them in that moment and say, “Remember we talked about this. We’re not doing things that way anymore. How can we do them in this preferred culture that you want to see? How can you contribute to that?” From there, I kind of just hand off to the managers and hopefully, the ideal goal, which probably kind of sounds funny, but I want my clients to fire me. I want them to say, “You’ve done a great job here. You’ve implemented this and it’s stuck. Now we can do it on our own.”

The Four Cultural Types

Let’s go back to that first step that you mentioned, the initial one or the initial assessment, you mentioned that you usually put out a survey, and then based on that, you get results back that show that they belong in one of four different cultural types. Can you go into that in specific? What are those four cultural types?

The four different culture types are clan, hierarchy, adhocracy, and market. You can kind of imagine it almost like a diamond shape. Typically organizations will fall leaning towards 1 or 2 of them. For example, the clan culture would be like when you have a group of people that almost kind of feel like a family, they’re really close, and they support one another but because of that positive side, there’s also kind of a shadow side to each one of these culture profiles as well. For example, in a clan culture, they might also shy away from having difficult conversations with one another.

They might not want to give each other negative feedback because they’re afraid of rocking the boat and having friction in those relationships. They might kind of hold back a little bit, which also is a disservice. On the adhocracy side, if we think of the word ad hoc, when you see it like on a task list for a resume, for example, or for a job description rather, it’s things that are on the fly. When we think about cultures that are very innovative, an example of this would be Uber. They took something.

They made it better. They typically would fall into. In a hierarchical culture, typically organizations like government, and banks, they tend to fall under that one because it’s a hierarchy. This means that it’s more of a triangle and there’s somebody at the top that makes most of the decisions and that kind of trickles down. With this culture profile, as much as there tends to be a lot of stability, there also is kind of this way of doing things that tends to be very stuck in their ways. It’s difficult to change.

For the adhocracy one, that typically means that there’s a lot of innovation. Like the Uber that we talked about, they’re innovative, but at the same time, things are happening very quickly, which also can result in a lot of burnout in a culture like that. Lastly, on the market side, this is the culture that is very focused on outcomes and goals. Their people are usually very driven and they know exactly kind of where they’re going and what’s expected of them but they’re also very fast-paced and can contribute to burnout and sometimes people might have difficulty kind of catching up to that standard.

There’s not a lot of focus on the person in that. When I do this survey with organizations, usually I get to see where they currently are right now. There’s also a part of it that the second half is where they would want to be. When I look at the graph, I can see if there’s between a certain culture profile, if there’s about a 10-point difference between where they want to be and where they are right now, that shows me that there’s some work to do in that specific area.

You’re doing a couple of things in this first initial assessment you’re identifying what their current state is, their cultural elements, and then where they want to move in the future. Now, who is the main determinant of where the future state of the organization should be? Is that kind of influenced by the employees overall, or is this a leadership initiative?

This definitely has to be a collaborative effort from both sides. I think in both a leadership position and as an employee, there’s information that you’re not going to have access to because of your position. Employees might not have access to really big changes, let’s say that are happening within an organization that leaders might have access to, but leaders are not doing the same job as the employees are doing.

They’re not on the front lines and there’s certain information that they’re going to be missing. The answer really to that is they have to come together and to be able to understand how they both contribute to the vision of the organization and then work towards helping each other get there. That’s, I think, a really common thing also, just if you think about our culture. Our culture is very focused and I get people to almost zoom out from that and focus on the collective a little bit more.

The Core Purpose Of Having One-On-Ones

You mentioned the next step after you provide the overall assessment and looking at the culture overall, you’re having one-on-ones with each individual that was involved in the survey. What is the core purpose of having these one-on-ones and what is the information that you get from those sessions?

I really want to try to take that information from the survey and bring it to life. I want to understand what makes this person tick, what kinds of things bring them joy, and what kinds of things bring them stress, and that way I can understand what that data actually means when it comes to the specific organization and to each individual.

One of the things I also ask at the very end of that interview is what is your employee satisfaction out of ten, which gives me a measure to be able to also work off of. I’ve had situations before with teams that maybe are a little bit more resistant to doing surveys, you get the survey back from them. Between the preferred and the current, there’s no difference but then you look at their employee satisfaction on an average across the entire team and it’s at a 6 out of 10.

That’s where that conversation then in a workshop can come up and say, “Guys, you’re saying that you don’t really want to see a change, but your employee satisfaction is only a 6 out of 10, what’s really going on here?” It gives me that opportunity to really get a little bit deeper and get to the root cause of what’s underlying all of that because I do find that culture, in general, is it’s more unspoken. It’s not just having a ping-pong table in the hallway. It’s the way that your people feel on Sunday night before they’re getting ready to go to work the next day.

 

Is the initial assessment that you’re giving out is that’s more on the overall company culture? Do you also look at the individual and understanding what their drives and motives are?

Actually, when I’m doing that survey, I can then isolate each person’s survey separately and I can separate the leaders from the workers and see if there’s a disconnect there, which is something that I sometimes see that the workers can have a very specific type of profile and the manager has a completely different profile. That shows to me right there that there is work to be done because there’s a misalignment that’s happening there. That means that there’s also information that’s being missed and opportunities that are being missed. It gives me a little bit more insight into kind of the entire picture.

It has to be challenging because everyone’s personality, of course, is different. You’re trying to work with those personality differences that people sort of innately bring to work. The corporate culture, which could be sometimes very different from their own beliefs and trying to get people to see above and beyond and have purpose and meaning and how they fit in and can contribute. It must be, I would think, very challenging at times with different groups of folks that you work with.

It can be, definitely. Especially when I’m working with maybe a little bit more blue-collar type workers. They’re the kind of people that just want to show up to work and do their job and kind of leave it there but what I also find is people come around pretty quickly. Within a couple of conversations, they have moments when they’ll say, “I wasn’t sure about you at the beginning, but I can see why this is effective.” I live for the moments when people say, “I never really thought about it like that before.” That to me shows that we had a breakthrough. Yes, it’s challenging, but it’s also very fulfilling. I genuinely love what I do. When I can have an impact on somebody’s life. I know that I’ve not only impacted the time that they spend at work but also outside of work. It just warms my heart.

I’m very impressed that you can have that conversation and that breakthrough with maybe the typecasted blue-collar environment. Usually when I’ve been standing in the back of semi trucks having to have that conversation for 9 months or 8 months and I’m standing there with the truck driver and trying to get the attention. All he’d reply with is, “Talk to my wife.” I was like, “This is for you, not your wife, but anyway.”

It can be very challenging to have the credibility and the buy-in. Maybe at the executive level, but it’s really challenging at that frontline level. Also, I have something else to say. You talked about the ping pong table. I had a friend who worked in a major industry related to, let’s say, satellites. I’ll say it that way. She was an executive assistant sitting outside the vice president’s office with the ping-pong tables. Imagine the work environment with hearing ping pong all day long.

Ping-pong balls probably flying into your office.

Talk about a dissatisfier. That was culturally kind of an interesting thing. I think oftentimes employers try to do these fun things and really don’t think about culturally how it’s impacting the environment.

Maybe it’s coming from a great place, but often I think those decisions are also made without asking anybody, “What do you actually want to see.” I think we make a lot of assumptions about what we think, our employees want and need, but a lot of the time we’re not actually directly asking them. When I have those conversations with them across every single industry, people just want to be appreciated, seen, and heard.

We make a lot of assumptions about what we think our employees want and need. But a lot of the time, we are not actually directly asking them. They just want to be appreciated, seen, and heard. Share on X

Exploring Workshop Dynamics And Outcomes

Nadia, in your next step you have, I mean, you’ve gone through the overall company-wide assessment. You’ve done your one-on-ones. The next thing you do is bring people together in a workshop. What are the core things that you typically see out of that workshop? How does that go?

Typically, at the beginning, people can be quite reserved. I usually like to start with some kind of simple team-building activity to just get them moving. One of the things that I really like to do is get them out of their heads and into their bodies. I’ll get them to do something that gets them to move a little bit and breaks the ice and gets them to laugh. We start to actually have the conversation about, “Here’s what your profile comes to your culture. Things that I heard across the board from you all in your one-on-ones.”

I open up the floor and I get them to start having a conversation about, “What are the specific behaviors that are now contributing to the culture that we’ve identified? What are some of the behaviors that you want to start doing that we’re not doing now that you think would bring us a little closer towards the culture that you want to see? What are the behaviors that you want to stop doing that are maybe getting in the way of achieving that culture now? What are the behaviors that are working right now that we want to continue doing?”

Usually that goes for at least an hour, an hour and a half, sometimes two hours. Again, like hesitant people at the beginning, and then over time as the ball starts to get rolling, it’s like the floodgates open and everybody starts to contribute. You have this moment of people that might have not ever talked to each other or maybe even avoided one another now having this open dialogue and open conversation and maybe having these moments of realization of, “I’m not the only one that thinks that way.”

It gives them a chance to really troubleshoot some of those challenges right then and there as well as opposed to having those conversations behind closed doors. Typically it’s a great outcome from that workshop and I always collect feedback after I do my workshops as well. When I ask, what is your favorite part of the workshop? Almost everybody says that getting people to talk and hearing everybody contribute is their favorite part.

The Common Roadblocks To Progress

As you are getting into these getting people to talk and so forth, are there any common roadblocks or common things that happen that kind of get in the way of progress?

Some people might be kind of hesitant to share, but I also have no problem with silence. When I ask a question, I will try not to fill the space. If there’s silence, I will stand there and wait until somebody speaks up. Sometimes I might call on people as well and kind of show them that they’re part of this process that their engagement matters and that their voice matters. That’s a typical one.

Usually, people are quite quiet at the beginning. When it comes to other roadblocks, I think in general, having those conversations out in the open is something that maybe teams are not always used to. I think when there are challenges that come up, we tend to kind of lean into having those conversations with people that we’re comfortable with. Let’s say, made friends at work, you tend to kind of vent and have those conversations in private, but it doesn’t change anything.

I try to get things to come to the surface, but also then work towards a solution with them so that they can actually not just vent about it and then leave it there and probably it makes them even feel worse to have gone through that. Instead, I get them to actually think one step ahead, “Now what can we do about that? What can you do about that?” Think about it in practical terms. How can you start changing this from tomorrow, for example?

How Leaders Bring Culture To Life

That’s an important piece you mentioned really thinking about what the next steps are. Upon exiting this workshop, what is the to-do list that a lot of your leaders have and how do they really bring the culture to life?

Through that workshop, every single person contributes to the behaviors that they’re identifying that they want to stop doing start doing, and do more of. I usually have leadership be involved in that conversation. There’s actually homework for both sides. The employees are expected to contribute in some way in terms of the behaviors that need to stop and start happening. On the leadership side, they also have specific behaviors. For example, on the leadership side, maybe the employees want to see a little bit more recognition from them.

They want them to notice the little things that happen. They may want to hear thank you a little bit more frequently or maybe have activities that help recognize a job well done, especially when people are going above and beyond. Let’s say on the employee side, the feedback that I might hear from leadership is not all the information is available when we’re making a decision.

Yes, we want to hear our employees and we want to gather their feedback and there are certain things that maybe we can action on. Not everything is going to be able to be actioned on because there’s certain information that they cannot share. They might say to the employees, “We would really appreciate it if when we make a decision, that the way that is going to be best for you. Just because we didn’t action on something doesn’t mean that we don’t care. 

That doesn’t mean that we’re not hearing you but we’re making the decision because that’s what’s best for both the team and for the business and we would appreciate it if that was respected.” It really depends. Every single team is a little bit different, but I try to make sure that everyone has a little bit of a part there where they can start to implement the plan of action from that workshop.

One thing is, when you have these, after these workshops, you have this to-do list, you have this initiative, and everybody’s excited and wants to move things forward. How do you prevent your leaders and employees from falling into old trends, those old behaviors that they once did before instead of moving forward?

First of all, I’m around a lot. I think that’s another big difference between the way that I do my business as opposed to maybe people that just come in and do workshops one and done, which is not to knock that by any means. I think that there’s definitely value in that, but with my clients, I try to be more involved. I’m in the office at least three days a week, typically when I’m working with somebody, and I get to really overhear their conversations outside of my one-on-ones.

I get to watch the way that they communicate with one another just in passing on a day-to-day basis and I can take those moments to give them feedback right then and there even if it’s in a joking way and it’s kind of light-hearted. It gives me an opportunity to get them to kind of think about things in a different way just by me being there. I also make sure that through the entire process, so doesn’t matter where they are in that RISE framework, they are continuously having one-on-ones with me.

I’m following up on the things that we talked about from our previous conversation and saying like, “I know we talked about you wanted to do this. How is that going? It hasn’t actually happened? Tell me a little bit about why.” We troubleshoot and we talk about it openly. I think that’s a big part of it, that the continuous one-on-ones where I can kind of gently call them out and say, “Remember we talked about doing things this way? Tell me a little bit about why that didn’t work and what can we do to make sure that it happens next time.”

Having an ongoing coaching framework is a helpful way to keep them engaged and moving forward. Typically, how long does it take for a new culture to kind of set in when you’re after this process, to really take hold and move forward?

With every team, it’s a little different, but I find somewhere between 3 and 6 months is kind of the sweet spot. I’ve had teams that have kind of grabbed the bull by the horns and really wanted to see a change, and we started to see it almost happen right away. With other teams, it takes a little bit longer. It really just depends. Typically, I’d say between 3 and 6 months is kind of that sweet spot.

A lot of good information you have here on your process. We’ve gone through the initial assessment in your one-on-one process, and the workshop overall. What else do leaders need to know about this framework?

The elevate piece is really important because that’s where the handoff happens and leaders need to continue to have those conversations way beyond. I think even just when I teach them, for example, the above and below-the-line thinking, that needs to be something that is infused in every single conversation and every single moment of problem-solving. They need to be continuously talking about these themes and these kinds of new ways of doing things.

Could you elaborate on that? What is above-the-line or below-the-line thinking?

The line is essentially choice and above the line is when we’re, let’s say, thinking above the line, we might think things like, I have a growth mindset so mistakes are an opportunity to learn. Whereas somebody who is maybe a little bit more below the line is looking at mistakes as failure, as I’m not good enough, which actually hinders their ability to grow. If we’re thinking about feeling above the line, maybe they feel like they are part of a team and they have this contribution to a greater whole.

Mistakes are an opportunity to learn. Thinking you are not good enough hinders our ability to grow. Share on X

Whereas below the line they might feel a little bit more kind of isolated just focused on their own thing where you see a lot of people kind of working in silos where they’re just focused on what’s in front of them and not really thinking about the bigger picture. Just having that way of talking about having a positive attitude with being above the line and maybe having a little bit more pessimistic attitude, being below the line, makes it easier for them to have these conversations without needing to feel like they’re talking about their feelings.

It gives them a chance to call each other out and kind of in certain situations, maybe say like, “You’re below the line right now. What can we do to bring us up above the line?” It’s just an easier framework to be able to have these conversations on a regular basis without needing to feel like you’re really jumping into the deep end.

It’s a framework and really kind of framing a dialogue with people and ensuring that they know what we’re trying to accomplish, what are the goals, and then when the mindset is not to a par of what we’re trying to accomplish, I guess you could say.

I have to just say also, I’m sorry to interrupt, I’ve seen it in a lot of cultures. I call it the 5% in my HR career, and I call them antagonistic. In many departments, there might be just one individual, doesn’t matter what leadership says, doesn’t matter what other high potential employees say, it has to be cut with confrontation because that’s their identity. That’s why they get a reward or dopamine hit just by causing controversy and going below the line, as you say in those kinds of conversations.

Nadia, have you really dealt with that because I can imagine that a lot of companies and leaders say, “We have a particular department or a particular individual that is constantly stirring the pot, not feeling psychologically safe around this person intimidates other employees.” I mean, do you see that kind of pattern happening, they want you to fix that 1 or 2 people in that department.

I love this question because yes, I see it all the time where somebody is kind of labeled as like the problem child within a specific group. What I’ve seen through my work is that typically the people who are labeled as these bad apples are also the people who have the lowest employee satisfaction. It kind of brings me back to that saying of hurt people, hurt people. Oftentimes nobody’s really asked them why are they behaving this way?

What are the kinds of thoughts, feelings, and mindsets that is underneath those behaviors? The focus on leadership a lot of the time is just to change the behavior itself. The behavior, if we think like a tree, for example, the behavior is the fruit, but we need to get down to what the root cause is. That is where mindset really comes in. Sometimes it could have just been a five-minute conversation that happened like three years ago about somebody parking a spot that could have solved everything but because that conversation never happened, and from there maybe things started to kind of snowball.

 

Now we’ve gotten to this place where they’re labeled as somebody that’s kind of the bad apple. I really just take the time to really understand that person and understand why is it that maybe they’re unhappy at work that it’s coming out kind of in this way. Just really try to listen to understand so that from there I can speak to some of those pain points. Typically the solution is actually very simple.

I agree with you. I can imagine several of my prior employers that would definitely need your support. I’ve seen manager files literally on one person who was with the organization for over 30 years. The manager file is essentially the unofficial documentation of the behavior. You go to the HR file, I was like, “Where’s the corrective actions? Where are the write-ups? What’s going on?”

There was something festering in this particular example with this gentleman or person. I don’t know what you call him today but I learned after talking to him that he was actually very bitter about something that happened like twenty years ago or something. Something that an executive said or something that really impacted his work environment, he was just pissed off.

Sadly, he’s already had all these new managers come into place and new administrators that return over every five years. It’s like, “Why are you still mad today?” You’re absolutely right. I agree with you. I think I was one of the first HR ladies who literally sat down and tried to figure out what was going on with you, George, whatever his name was. Those are great tools and I’m sure very helpful.

You’re really speaking to an important point there as well like leaders who are all over existing teams. You need to really take the time to get to know your people because whatever you’re being passed over from a past manager, that’s still the perspective. Whether it’s right or wrong, it’s still a lens like that person is going to be seeing things through their own specific mindset. It’s like that quote, we don’t see the world as it is, we see it as we are.

On some level, we always bring a little piece of ourselves into everything. When you’re getting a file that’s being passed down from another manager about a specific person or about a specific team, take the time to really get to know them for yourself and understand them so that you can make your own decisions. You can take that and kind of combine the two and try to understand maybe some of those things, but I think it’s really important not to take it at face value.

Balancing Curative, Preventive, And Ampliative Approaches

Nadia, one of the founders of TMA, which is the Talent Management Assessment tool, a really powerful tool we’ve used a lot here at CompTeam. His question is, how do you balance your approach between the in curative and preventive, and ampliative during your interventions? I guess in just working with your clients.

I don’t know if I understand the question. Can you repeat it?

How do you balance your approach between, I guess, making sure that you’re preventing or you’re taking a preventive standpoint of other behaviors? Trying to, I believe, move the conversation to a positive mindset or a positive intervention in your discussions with clients. When they are going to the negative side, how do you keep it positive?

With every single person, it’s going to be a little bit different. The one thing I really want them to understand is that I’m a safe space where they can be honest and I’m there to help more than anything and to be the bridge between the employee, the leadership team, and the entire organization. I always want to push everyone towards making a decision that is going to be best, not only for the employees but also for the organization.

Now with that being said, I also think that it’s really important to not only focus on the behaviors because that’s only going to go so far. Instead, I want them to actually focus on shifting their mindset. First of all, having more of a growth mindset where they’re focused on, “If I make mistakes, that’s okay, it’s a boring opportunity.” I also want them to shift into a more kind of collective mindset. I want them to think about, “How is my role and what I do hindering somebody else’s ability to do their job and how is it helping?”

To get everybody to start thinking from kind of that more communal perspective, which naturally I find starts to change the behavior. As a result of that, people are making decisions in a different way because they start thinking in a different way. They start feeling in a different way. They’re going to show up in different situations now with a completely new way of doing things. You won’t need to micromanage every little behavior if you get to the root cause of the problem because now they are just showing up as a different individual in these situations.

The Most Important Points For Leaders To Apply

As we come to a close on our discussion here, what are the key things that you want people leaders on the call to walk away with?

Welcome the challenging people is number one. When I was working in the corporate space for somebody else myself, I was always the leader who would be getting people who were considered to be difficult because I was known for turning them around. That’s not to toot my own horn, it’s to say that I think every single challenge is an opportunity. If you have somebody that is maybe labeled as being a difficult employee, think about the fact that they’re probably also struggling to be happy at work and can you approach them from a perspective of can I help this person in some way?

Again, that goes back to that same kind of communal perspective. How can I be of service to somebody else? Anytime that we’re in service, we are always going to be happier, more productive, and more engaged. That’s one thing that I want leaders to kind of take away from this conversation. The other aspect I think is you have to remember that it starts with you. As the leader, you are leading by example. People are watching you and they’re watching the interactions that you’re having. It’s the little things that people really notice.

If you show them that you genuinely care about them, I think that will go a really far way to give a good foundation to culture so that when there are challenges that come up, you have this strong foundation like the way you would have for a house. It’s not going to get blown over to one side or the other where the team feels happy when things are going well and unhappy when there are challenges.

Instead, create that foundation so that it’s strong and no matter what kind of comes your way, they’re able to build resiliency through that. Lastly and probably the most important thing here is when you’re talking to your employees, listen to understand. If you are having a difficult conversation with someone, go into that with curiosity. Take the time to understand the human being that is standing in front of you and listen to understand instead of listening to respond.

Take the time to understand the human being standing in front of you. Learn how to listen to understand instead of listening to respond. Share on X

I think this is the really important piece here because oftentimes, especially in difficult conversations, we might be coming up with a rebuttal in our head, which means we’re not actually listening. We have a lot of things in our minds that we need to get done. We tend to kind of rush people through the conversation. Those are all missed opportunities. I really want to kind of drive that point home to leaders is whenever you’re having regular check-ins with your team, take the time to really listen and listen beyond the words. Take the time to really understand the human being that’s in front of you.

Wise words for sure, Nadia. Thank you. For our readers out there that want to get to know you a little bit better, understand how you can help them. What is the way that they can reach out to you?

I am on Instagram, under the handle @MindsetWorksInc. All one word. I also have a website MindsetWorksCoaching.com and they can reach out to me there and book a free coffee time session with me so that we can get to know each other a little better. Those are probably the best two ways, Instagram and my website.

Great. Thank you so much, Nadia, for sharing your wisdom with us. This has been great.

Thank you so much for having me. It’s been a pleasure.

Thank you very much.

For all those that are reading, we will look forward to seeing you. Everyone take care and have a wonderful week ahead.

 

Important Links

• Nadia Menov on LinkedIn
• Mindset Works Coaching
• Howard Nizewitz on LinkedIn
• Sumit Singla LinkedIn
• Char Miller LinkedIn
• Comp Team
• Mindset Works Inc. on Instagram

 

About Nadia Menov

Nadia Menov is a passionate advocate for personal growth and transformational leadership, serving as a key member of the team at Mindset Works. With a deep commitment to fostering a culture of growth mindset in individuals and organizations, Nadia helps people unlock their potential by cultivating resilience, adaptability, and a lifelong love of learning.

Through her work, Nadia empowers students, educators, and professionals to embrace challenges, learn from setbacks, and achieve meaningful success. Her expertise lies in integrating research-based strategies into practical tools that inspire individuals to shift their perspectives and realize their goals.

Whether collaborating on innovative programs or leading workshops, Nadia is dedicated to building environments where curiosity and perseverance drive success. Her mission is to help others see challenges as opportunities and develop the skills to thrive in an ever-changing world.