Bernie Borges [00:00:00]:
Scott Monti, welcome to the Midlife Fulfilled Podcast Day Maximum episode.
Scott Monty [00:00:07]:
Bernie, thank you for having me here. I already feel fulfilled simply by virtue of being with you.
Bernie Borges [00:00:13]:
Fantastic. Okay. We’re done. Episode over. Well, Scott, I have known you for a number of years through the the marketing community. Let me, give my listener a little introduction. I’ll keep it brief because, I know we’re gonna have a really invigorating conversation around a great topic. But you are an executive coach.
Bernie Borges [00:00:35]:
You’re an adviser. You’re a public speaker and a fantastic public speaker. I’ve seen you speak many times. And you currently use a value based approach to helping leaders and their teams identify their character, their strengths, building culture, and telling better stories. I love that that aspect to it. So I invited you here to have a conversation around timeless leadership. That’s your brand, Scott. Timeless leadership through character strength, culture, and storytelling.
Bernie Borges [00:01:07]:
But before we dive into that, if you don’t mind, I would like to ask you how you made the transition. Because, again, as I mentioned, we’ve known each other from the marketing industry circles, and now you’re doing this. And I know you didn’t just get started last week, but how did you make the transition?
Scott Monty [00:01:24]:
Well, you know, Bernie, it’s it’s interesting because every time I find myself at a, critical juncture in my career where something changes direction or something is foisted upon me, For some reason or another, it always feels like, I’ve prepared myself for that very moment. And the the fact of the matter is we don’t know what the future is going to bring. Nobody knows exactly the twists and turns that the world is going to take, let alone your own life circumstances. So for me, it’s always been about being a lifelong learner. Right? Keeping myself open to consuming new information, new ideas, meeting new people, hearing, you know, where they get inspiration from, and in turn, being inspired. And part of what I’ve been able to do over the course of my career is get a sense for where the trends are going. So for example, when I got the job at Ford heading up, social media globally for the company, there was no career preparation for that college and say, I’m gonna lead social media for a fortune 10 brand someday. I happen to be doing marketing.
Scott Monty [00:02:39]:
I happen to be conversant in communications. I was becoming more of an expert in social media. I had opinions about it. I I engaged well with the community. These things set me up for eventual success at Ford. And, similarly, when I was at Ford, I felt like I had kind of run my course there. In the process, I witnessed all kinds of wonderful leaders around this company, all around the world, who were doing their part to execute on the vision, and it was all done through the leadership of Alan Mulally as CEO. And as I went off and started consulting, I initially consulted on corporate social media, content creation, etcetera.
Scott Monty [00:03:22]:
But I followed what was happening with each of the clients I worked with in the in the world at large, and I noticed that there were just some leadership gaps that I noticed, and there were the the same mistakes or similar mistakes being made over and over again. And I actually went back to my own roots. I was a classics major as an undergrad. I never thought classics would come in handy. I thought it was just a way to bide my time until I get to grad school or got out and got a job. But lo and behold, I realized that it prepared me for a study of human nature and of points in history and, you know, things of beauty and art and architecture that could inform me. And what I realized is that we’ve been the same as we’ve always been for 1000 of years. And when you look at some of the classic character traits or virtues, as, Socrates would call them, you know, things like wisdom and courage and temperance and justice, and you can break them down into 24 different subsegments, that this is what makes humans who they are.
Scott Monty [00:04:32]:
And for me, being able to talk to people about their values and how to match their values, who they are with what they do, and work better with their colleagues in the meantime, well, it just seemed to be kind of a natural progression. And while I probably was coaching for many years, I didn’t start calling myself a coach until just this past year.
Bernie Borges [00:04:57]:
Right. Right. So a lot of what you’re pointing out, Scott, has to do with humanity. And, of course, in society, whether it’s the workplace or outside the workplace, we’re always dealing with humanity. We’re always interacting with people, and we have to understand how to interact to get the results we’re looking for, either from other people, if we’re in a leadership role, or from our kids, or, you know, whatever the scenario may be. So talk to me about the role of culture, because I know you’re big on that. Right? That’s part of your theme. What is the role of culture as it relates to integrating all of this humanity stuff?
Scott Monty [00:05:36]:
Well, when when you get right down to it, culture is the stories you tell yourself about yourself. Right? The stories you tell each other about yourselves. That’s how you define who you are. And to me, culture is about how you and your team not only consistently do what it is that you say you do. Right? Your actions match your words. But at the same time, it’s about how you treat other people around you, how you treat others with dignity and respect, seeing them for who they are and helping them become better versions of themselves. Not a better version of you as the leader, you know, molding them in your likeness. It’s really tapping into each individual there.
Scott Monty [00:06:28]:
And the leaders I’ve seen do this, build such a strong culture that could be defined around loyalty or trust or empathy and compassion. And I think these are the 21st century leadership traits that we need to see rather than that old command and control, which was a top down, this is our culture. We will tell you what our culture is. Mhmm. Right? So the difference there is we’re building something together. We’re working together to accomplish our goals and to build our culture, and you all are part of it rather than here’s the culture. You’re a cog that fits in. Now go and do your work and report back later.
Bernie Borges [00:07:12]:
I’m I’m sure you’re familiar with the concept of a conscious competent. Right? The opposite of an unconscious competent. An unconscious competent, they can get things done, but they couldn’t tell you how necessarily because they’re not conscious about it. They just somehow inherently do it. Maybe they just develop skills, but they really can’t articulate it. A conscious competent will tell you from a to z the why, the what, the how. So in in that context, Scott, what have you seen out there in in terms of leaders who are good leaders? Are Are they conscious competence more so than unconscious competence or the other way around?
Scott Monty [00:07:51]:
Yeah. It it really comes down to, I think the first step in good leadership, Bernie, which is having a healthy sense of self awareness.
Bernie Borges [00:08:02]:
Mhmm.
Scott Monty [00:08:02]:
Right? The I’ve seen leaders who who go about and are like bulls in the China shop, and they don’t even realize it. They they are just who they are. Right. And they don’t realize how their actions, how their words, how their styles impact other people. They’re just concerned about getting a job done. But those leaders who are self aware and who take the time to be reflective on what they do. And I think that’s something that everybody, no matter where you are in the organization, right, we’re we’re all leaders of one sort or another in whether it’s at work or at home or in our communities, etcetera. We need to take more time.
Scott Monty [00:08:40]:
We need to slow down, put down the phones, get away from the screen, and spend some time reflecting. And it doesn’t matter if it’s just 5 minutes at the end of the day, maybe a short 15 minute walk around the block. It it’s about taking the time to think through, well, what did I say? How did people respond? Am I doing the things I said I was going to do? Right? And and being self critical as well as self laudatory when necessary to reflect on who you are as a human being. With that self awareness, I think becomes an awareness of others. Right? I talked about dignity before. Dignity is about treating each person with respect. And the, the leaders I’ve seen that really get the ear and the hearts of their people are those leaders who see each individual for who they are. They take time to talk with people, and the people on the other end are usually, they end up feeling like they’re the only person in the world at that moment to their boss.
Scott Monty [00:09:52]:
And that’s a gift. When you can give someone that kind of gift, that’s incredible. And there’s there’s a story I use that that kind of illustrates this. Years ago, at the Apple headquarters, a, an employee got in the elevator, and and the headquarters was only about 4 stories tall. So it was a very short elevator ride to get in the elevator, and who’s in the elevator? Steve Jobs. The doors close, and he turns to the person. He goes, what do you do for me? Well, I mean, he was already an intimidating individual, but for him to ask a question like that, what do you do for me?
Bernie Borges [00:10:27]:
For me. Right.
Scott Monty [00:10:28]:
That that really speaks about his his personality versus what I witnessed when I was at Ford with Alan, who to me is one of the most compassionate and best examples of a 21st century leader there is. We’d be coming from, the the the auditorium at the world headquarters where he had just given a a big town hall. And he’d be walking down the hallway, and he he didn’t hop on a private elevator and just get back up to his office. He was out there just walking the hallways. And every person who he stopped to greet, he he treated them like they were the only person in that huge cavernous hallway, and he greeted them with this. Hi. I’m Alan. And we’re we’re, like, yeah, you are.
Scott Monty [00:11:18]:
But he was that kind of a person that he would treat them as a peer and treat them as a unique human being. And he was genuinely interested in them, and he wanted to hear their story.
Bernie Borges [00:11:30]:
Yeah. That that’s a great story. And and, actually, speaking of story, that’s exactly where I wanted to go next in our conversation, Scott, because, you know, storytelling is also a part of your theme, your approach to how you help leaders and organizations. So elaborate on that. What is the meaning? What is the value of storytelling in culture and in leadership?
Scott Monty [00:11:51]:
Well, you know, I mean, I just gave you that that diatribe about the way you treat people. But Yep. I’ll bet it didn’t hit home until I told you those stories about Steve Jobs and Alan Mulally. Right? It took something that was theoretical or that was possible, but it actually brought it to life in a situation that you could picture yourself in. And that’s what stories do. They touch us on an emotional level. They help us connect some facts and figures. And and even if it’s allegorical, even if it’s not a true story, they help you really fundamentally embrace what it is that the other person is trying to say.
Scott Monty [00:12:31]:
And look, you can go back tens of 1000 of years to cave paintings. You know, there there were warnings out there. You know, don’t go in the high brush because there’s a a saber toothed tiger in there, you know, effectively. That you know, that’s what the the the drawing on the cave would tell you. And what it is is it’s it’s one group of people trying to convey information to another group of people. And everyone knows that if you, particularly if you wanna get kids to do something, you have to make it fun. And stories are fun. They’re fun to tell, and they’re fun to hear.
Scott Monty [00:13:07]:
And when we can experience them together, there’s a sense of community about it.
Bernie Borges [00:13:13]:
What about leaders who maybe don’t find storytelling to be something that comes natural to them? How do you guide? How do you coach you’re an executive coach. How do you coach leaders who might say to you, well, Scott, I I don’t really I’ve never really been a storyteller. How do I do that?
Scott Monty [00:13:31]:
Well, look, we’ve all been we we’ve all been exposed to stories. Right? Whether it it was, a parent reading, nursery rhymes or fables to us at bedtime or a teacher that we loved who was, you know, had us in circle time on the floor of the classroom or maybe a college professor who was telling us about something in history and was bringing it to life in a way that went beyond just facts and figures. And to me, that’s I I look for what leaders get excited about. I look for the types of things that excite them. And there are lots of different kinds of storytellers out there too. There are some leaders who do really well in Vidyo, and there there are long form and there are short form. Right? There’s all kinds of different ways to convey this information. And it’s really a matter of kind of matching their personality with their content and with what it is they typically take an interest in.
Scott Monty [00:14:31]:
Because that’s the thing. Once you can tap into somebody’s passion, and doesn’t matter whether it’s race cars or collecting vintage golf balls or, you know, Beanie Babies or whatever, once you light a fire under them, they will get going and just race down that ramp and tell you a story about that very thing that they’re interested in. Right? So you need to take that passion and turn it onto exactly what they need to do with their with their people.
Bernie Borges [00:15:00]:
Yeah. You know the old adage, people don’t always remember what you say, what you told them, but they always remember how you made them feel.
Scott Monty [00:15:09]:
That’s right.
Bernie Borges [00:15:10]:
And, I think the storytelling approach can certainly contribute to that. And so, you also talk about leading in crisis. And, you know, the word crisis has I mean, it has a meaning, but it can also I guess, there could be different levels of crisis. There can be, like, really big, big crisis, and then there can be maybe some smaller crisis crises. And so speak to that a little bit, Scott. What why do leaders need to be prepared to lead in crisis, and what’s your approach to that?
Scott Monty [00:15:40]:
Well, look, the thing is when a crisis hits, and it doesn’t matter how big or small it is, what a crisis requires you to do is to act at a moment’s notice. You don’t have much time for standing back and assessing and putting a plan together. It it’s really ready, aim, fire. That’s it. And a lot of times, you can tell a lot about a person by how they handle a crisis. You know, it it’s it’s awfully easy for anyone to just kind of run the day to day. As a matter of fact, now I I use a lot of quotes in my, newsletter, timeless and timely. I had a number of them made into postcards, and I’m I’m exchanging postcards with, my son who just went away to college.
Scott Monty [00:16:28]:
And, I I use these Michigan State. Right? Michigan State. That’s right. He’s a Spartan. And I just I just filled this one out today, and it is anyone can steer the ship when the sea is calm
Bernie Borges [00:16:42]:
is calm. Yep.
Scott Monty [00:16:43]:
Like Publiliosiris from 40 BC. And the point there is it’s easy to just manage the day to day. Right? But when your instincts kick in and when you have to do what needs to be done and treat people in a certain way and still accomplish your goals, a crisis really tests someone’s character. And you can create scenarios and practice and all the rest. But really, when it comes down to it, you’re you’re kind of on your own. In the old days, we used to take a an actual binder, a playbook off the shelf and go through, okay, are we doing all the steps? Are we contacting all the B, we have now it’s just you have to know this. You have to internalize it and to be able to act in a way that is consistent with your culture, consistent with your character, and consistent with how you convey information to people, because that’s what they expect. If you show up as somebody else in a crisis, they’re not gonna recognize you.
Bernie Borges [00:17:43]:
And, Scott, in your experience, both in your corporate setting, meaning, you know, your work experience as well as in your current life as an executive coach, are you encountering leaders who are good at leading in a crisis or not so good or somewhere in the middle?
Scott Monty [00:18:01]:
I think most of them are. They know their business. They know their business better than I ever will. That’s not my position as an executive coach. My position is to work with the individual and work with them and their team so that they are a well oiled machine together. So no matter what the industry is, that they have each other’s back. They understand what the vision is. They understand what each of their responsibilities are, and then they go and execute.
Scott Monty [00:18:33]:
And then the next day or the next week or whatever the time frame is, we have an honest conversation about how these things went. Right? I I lead a process called the the BPR, the business plan review, and we do that in a crisis as well. You you assess, okay, how is the plan going? Are we on plan? Are we off plan? And we’re honest about it. And if we’re off, we tell each other, and we help each other out to achieve more the next time around. We don’t leave our colleagues hanging out to dry, twisting in the wind because we are all on the same team, and we all want to succeed.
Bernie Borges [00:19:11]:
So, Scott, I’m gonna tell you a story. All the way back in episode 3, I did a dedicated episode on the Pareto Principle, the 8020 principle. I did some research on it, and I was just fascinated by how the 8020 principle just affects so much of life and society. You can just find it pretty much everywhere. And not long after that, I developed my platform, which is based on the 5 pillars of midlife. Health, fitness, career, relationships, and legacy. So five pillars. So at the end of each of my episodes, what my listener hears from me is, if you’re 80% fulfilled, you’re doing great.
Bernie Borges [00:19:50]:
Because that that would mean you’re fulfilled in 4 out of the 5 pillars. So if you’re 80% fulfilled, you’re doing great. Now, you, at the end of each episode and in your newsletter, you close it with, there’s so much to learn. So tell us your story behind that.
Scott Monty [00:20:09]:
This is a fairly recent change in my newsletter, Bernie. And for anybody who knows me from the last decade or so, there’s there’s been another change. If you’re if you’re listening, you’re not getting in on on the secret. I’m not wearing a bow tie right now. People used to know me for only having a bow tie.
Bernie Borges [00:20:26]:
That’s right.
Scott Monty [00:20:28]:
And I used to sign off on my newsletter with the phrase, thanks, and I’ll see you on the Internet. And that was inspired by Charles Osgood, whom you may know from CBS Sunday Morning, an infederate bow tie wearer, and he had a radio program called the Osgood File. And he would sign off on his radio program, thanks, and I’ll see you on the radio. And when he died, in January of this year, I I wrote a tribute to him because he was a fantastic writer. Right? He wrote for the ear really well. But he also knew people. Right? And he knew he knew the human spirit. And I I it took me a little while to reflect on that inspiration in my life and the bow tie.
Scott Monty [00:21:21]:
Right? I felt like the bow tie had been limiting me, not only in terms of people’s minds, but also just sartorially what I could actually pair it with. And so I decided to chuck the bow tie. It’ll make occasional appearances as it always did when I was at Ford. The problem is you wear a bow tie once, and you’re the bow tie guy. So I wanted to get back to standard neckwear. And I tend to be more business formal, which may make me seem a little stuffy, but it you know, the the the classics and the executive, you know, it kinda goes share it. Anyway Yeah. But I realized I wanted a different catchphrase, and I wanted something that reflected fundamentally what timeless leadership is all about.
Scott Monty [00:22:07]:
Whether you’re reading or you’re listening or you’re engaging with other people, to me, there is so much to learn, and we will never learn everything. That’s one of the great vexing things about, you know, just self awareness and human awareness is we know that there’s so much we don’t know. At least I hope we realize that. And to me, life is forever a quest for knowledge. Yeah. My good friend, Sherlock Holmes, once said that, life is a series of lessons with the greatest for the last. And to me, I think we’re always on a journey of forever learning about our
Bernie Borges [00:22:46]:
I love the story, Scott. And I and I it it just fits you. It’s when you close out an episode and in your newsletter, it just flows. Like like, yeah, that’s the question not the question, but the statement to leave me with because there is so much to learn. So you just mentioned timeless leadership. Again, that is your brand when you go to your website. It is called Timeless Leadership. So why is leadership timeless?
Scott Monty [00:23:21]:
Well, we’ve had humans have had leaders throughout our entire history. We are we are followers and leaders. And there are some people who, naturally step up. You know, I I think it was, it was in Twelfth Night where Shakespeare said, some are born great. Some achieve greatness. Some have greatness thrust upon them. And I think we are all somewhere in that mix. And there are so many examples of leaders who have been inspirational, leaders who have been perhaps, not so nice, perhaps negative examples of, of who leaders can be.
Scott Monty [00:24:02]:
And we we are all looking for a path forward, and no one has the answers. But if we look back and we look at the examples that stand out to us, learn from their successes, more importantly, learn from their mistakes. I think it’s always great when you learn from your own mistakes. But if you can learn from somebody else’s mistake, well, that’ll save you a whole lot of time and trouble and pain.
Bernie Borges [00:24:28]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Scott Monty [00:24:29]:
Right? And so often we forget or are not even aware of some of these things that come along. And the, I’m gonna throw another quote down here. I think it was Cicero who said, not to know what happened before one was born is to always be a child. Right? Because we talk about lifelong learning. There’s always found learn. You you should be studying the past. Why? Because it’ll help guide you into the future that much more smoothly and hopefully that much more quickly.
Bernie Borges [00:25:02]:
Mhmm. I think the way I internalize your explanation of timeless leadership, Scott, is, as a leader, I should not restrict my learning, my maturity, my effectiveness as a leader to the principles that I can read and or watch on video from modern leaders, from a video produced last week, or a book that was just published a month ago. But instead, I should certainly consider those resources, but also go out of my way to proactively seek and learn from leaders from years past, decades past, centuries past, where the the attributes and the things that I can learn from those leaders can be, in fact, timeless and, in fact, extremely helpful to me as a leader. That’s how I internalize it.
Scott Monty [00:26:02]:
I think you’re spot on. And, 200 years ago, Goethe said that for a person to live, hand to mouth with 3000 years of history at our disposal, well, you you know, you’re short changing yourself. And there there there really is so much for us to look. None of us is here because the world started when we were born. You know, everything has been building on previous generations, people that have built great things, invented great things, made amazing things. And at the same time, we’ve also hopefully advanced as humanity, learning things that maybe we shouldn’t have done in the past. And maybe there’s a piece of history that isn’t so pleasant to look at, but how far we’ve advanced since then. But I think it’s so important to remember that anything you’re seeing today most likely has a basis in something that already occurred decades, 100, or even 1000 of years ago.
Bernie Borges [00:27:08]:
Couldn’t agree more. Couldn’t agree more, Scott. And I think that’s a good place for us to wrap. But before we wrap, please, I invite you to share with my listener how can they connect with you and just, get into your world.
Scott Monty [00:27:21]:
Well, you can go to scottmonty.com. I am at scottmonty on most of the socials, you know, the one at least where I’m active. And, of course, the, you can sign up for the podcast or the newsletter directly through my site there. So check it out at scottmonty.com.
Bernie Borges [00:27:38]:
Fantastic. Well, Scott, thank you so much for joining me on this episode, a maximum episode of the Midlife Fulfilled podcast. This is a topic that is in fact, in itself, timeless. And I couldn’t have asked a a more qualified and enjoyable human being to, to have this conversation with me on timeless leadership.
Scott Monty [00:27:59]:
Thank you, Bernie.
