Todd Davis
speaker
423 appearances
6 recordings
3 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard May 2025
Todd Davis’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
We're filtering everything through my past experiences or the way that I see that. And we think it's helpful, and it is helpful at a certain time, but not when we need to understand each other. Dr. Covey said, the deepest need of the human heart is to feel understood. And I have seen that prove itself out over and over again.
And you think about it, whether it's two friends or whether it's two colleagues or two leaders or a leader and employee, when they truly take the time to understand each other, not agree or disagree, but really understand each other, they can solve problems that much quicker. You asked for a specific example that I'm remembering now.
A person who came to me, they didn't feel like their boss recognized their talent. And I said, tell me a little bit more about that. Why is it that you don't think that your boss, it was a man? And why do you not think that he recognizes your talent? I just never hear anything. I don't hear anything negative, but I never hear anything positive. I never hear anything, you know, about that.
And I said, have you talked to him about that? And they said, no. No, I haven't talked to him. I would think that they should realize that on their own. I said, I don't disagree with you. Let's think about what do you think would be important to him? And I did a little T chart. And I said, okay, so here's what's important to you from what I'm understanding.
You'd like to be recognized a little bit more. You'd like to be given some more challenging work. We went through the list of the things and they said, yeah, that's it. What do you think would be important to him? And this person said, I don't know, I'm not him. And I said, I understand that, but put yourself in his place. What do you think would be important to him?
And this was a really seasoned, talented person, but they just, it didn't come natural to them like it might to you and me to think about empathy through the lens of the other person. So they said they probably want to make sure that they're recognized. And I said, okay, let's put that down. They probably want to make sure that the project we're working on is done on time.
Okay, let's put that down. They probably care that they're seen as a good leader. So we came up with this list. And I coached this person and I said, what do you think about, what if you took this list to your manager, your leader? And you said, hey, and I'll call him Joe. Hey, Joe, I had some things I want to talk to you about.
But I also, in my thinking, I wanted to make sure I'm thinking about what's important to you. And here's a list I've created. Can you tell me, am I off? Am I on? Are there things I'm missing? And that discussion opened up this wonderful relationship between this leader and this employee. And in that discussion, the employee then said, I work really hard.
And the leader said, oh, I know you do a great job. And they said, I never know that. You've never told me that. And so this person helped the leader develop. Anyway, long story short, this all stems from Habit 5 and really taking time to understand each other.
I couldn't agree with you more. In fact, we just, I was just trying to find it here. We just used, ran and used a study. It was done here in the US of 290 organizations that use AI at least once a week. So they're high users of AI and their leaders were given a survey of what skills are most important for their success of the organization.
And there were, they have 25, I wish I could find, they have 25 skills laid out there, but the top three skills were creativity, interpersonal skills that you're just talking about and creativity, interpersonal skills. And I think it had empathy. So which is one of the interpersonal skills. But their point was these leaders were saying, AI is wonderful.
It's doing a lot of things for us, but it cannot replace these interpersonal skills. This very basic, like you said, this very basic thing that I learned growing up from my parents as far as just respect and thank you and would you have a few minutes and the way that we not just nice things, but things to really connect with other human beings.
And maybe I'll be wrong, but I don't see AI ever replacing that. Even now, I've used AI to put together, I had to do a keynote for a couple of hours with an organization on generational leadership. And I worked in that field and I've done that, but I still, I use ChatGPT and I said, hey, here's the elements I'd like to include. And it put a straw model together for me.
I had to apply my piece to that, but I think AI can be a very useful tool. But I think that human connection It's a principle. It's always going to be needed. Even if I ask ChatDBT to write me a letter or something, I'm going to want to go over it and make sure it has my tone and saying the things in the way that I want it to come across to the other person.
And so how do we learn to prioritize and determine what are the most important things? I can't do it all. Nobody can do it all. So how do effective people decide what am I going to accomplish this day, this week, and what am I going to be okay with not getting to? In this age of technology, that's one of the most important questions I think we can figure out for ourselves.
Well, thanks for the invitation. And maybe we could just read that over again. That felt really good. I love being introduced.
Well, you're very gracious. Thank you very much. And thanks for inviting me.
Yeah, thanks for asking. So as you mentioned, I've been with FranklinCovey. I've been with them for 29 years now. And I first read Seven Habits about 31 years ago. It was first published in 1989, so about 35 years old. And if I were new listening about this and never heard of seven habits, I might think, OK, well, that's great. But 35 years old, what am I going to learn from that?
But to your question, Heather, it is the seven habits are based on principles of effectiveness. Dr. Covey, Stephen R. Covey, who made the point who wrote the book and made the point always that he didn't invent the habits. What he did was.
watch individuals like heather and other people who were so effective in their roles and teams and organizations how effective they were and watched what do they do on a consistent basis to get not just get any results but get the results they're really seeking and then he put those principles into a context that we could discuss them and talk about them and so all of that is to say because these are based on principles of effectiveness they are as relevant today if not more so than they were when dr covey first wrote about them
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