Gavin McMahon: The Cost of Being Right in Leadership and Business

Welcome to The Behavioral Profit. I'm Debbie

Longo, executive behavioral coach. This podcast

explores the connection between behavior, leadership,

mindset, communication, and business performance.

Every result in business starts with human behavior.

The way people think, lead, respond, communicate,

and make decisions directly impacts culture,

productivity, growth, and profit. Through real

conversations with business owners, executives,

entrepreneurs, and professionals, we explore

the behavioral patterns that move business forward

and the ones that hold them back. Thank you for

being here. Welcome to the Behavioral Profit.

And we have a very special guest today, Gavin

McMahon. Good afternoon, Gavin. Welcome to the

show. Hi, Gavin. Nice to be here. Good. And thank

you for being here. I'm going to ask you today

to give an example of a situation or scenario

that you personally experienced in a business

environment where you had an issue or you went

through a major change. What your process was

and what the end result was. And the end result

should always be be positive. I do the show for

a few different reasons. And one main reason

is because everybody has issues in business.

No business is ever perfect. Believe it or not,

a lot of changes that happen in people's businesses

repeat. There's a pretty good chance that somebody

out there is going to have almost the same exact

situation as you. We want to be able to ask the

listener if they could identify with any part

of this show of your story or your example. It

doesn't have to be what that situation is. It

could be something that you're talking about,

a part of the process. That's really the main

goal of this. If you could do that for me, I

would appreciate it. Thank you. Sure. The story

goes back 26 years. I was working for a company

called Gartner. It's a technology advisory firm.

So they work with big companies, all sorts of

sizes, and they're basically giving people advice

about what technologies to buy. I was running

what was called Gartner .com. So Gartner gave

all its advisory services through paper and CD

-ROM, and it was just moving to the internet.

That's why this story starts 26 years ago. I

was basically responsible for both the strategy

and the execution of how we would do this. A

new CMO came into Gartner. I won't name his name,

we'll just call him Bob. Bob and I had a lot

of different conversations because I essentially

ran the website and also ran how we would deliver

it. The project I was running today would be

called Digital Transformation. And it was as

hot then as AI is now. There was a lot of moving

parts in the team that I ran. And the way I was

thinking about doing this digital transformation

is we've got to take out all the old stuff, all

the old plumbing, and we've got to rewire everything

and put all the new plumbing in. And the website

was the way it looked was the last thing I cared

about. And it was the first thing Bob cared about.

So to cut this story a little shorter, we had

a series of conversations. They went like this,

Bob saying, we've got a dusty brand and we've

got to figure all this stuff out. And me saying,

that's just putting lipstick on a pig. We've

got to change all this stuff. around. So I'll

get to your stuff later. Now what I didn't think

about, and this is where I didn't, Debbie, have

a process to deal with the kind of power dynamics

in the organization. The fact that Bob was a

lot more senior than I was, I just happened to

be in a kind of hot place doing something which

I thought was pretty interesting. And I was also

relatively new to leadership, to the U .S. I'm

an engineer originally, so I was just generally

blunt about things. And so the mistake I made

was basically telling him that his idea was a

terrible idea and we should do it my way. And

because what I controlled, I could do it. We

fast forward six months later, Gartner went through

a reduction in force and I was first on the list

because I didn't have a tool or a way of having

these conversations. So that's the beginning

of the story. It's not the end. I appreciate

that. When you felt that you wanted to control

the situation and he didn't agree, what was your

thought process? Why did you think? that your

way was the best way. Did that come from past

experience? Everything to me is like a mutual

agreement. If somebody doesn't agree, then what

do we do in a situation like that? The first

thing that we had to do was build the house before

we put paint on it. I had no problem telling

people. If I was right, I get in retrospect and

I'd probably spent 25 years since then founded

fast forward and our firm all about helping people

lead and helping organizations stride through

change. This is my origin story, at least for

what I do today. I realized that what you say

is exactly right. If you need people to work

together, they first of all have to come together

and see things at least roughly on the same page.

And me just saying I'm right, you're wrong is

not a really good way of starting it, but I think

it's a really easy thing. to do if you are the

technical expert on something, because you have

to build the house before you paint the house.

So why don't you just wait and then we'll build

the house and then you can paint it. That was

my argument, but that kind of thing doesn't land

well. There's also different roles in companies.

It's important to respect each other. Everybody's

different. We might not think it's going to work

out, but then it does. I always want to go into

this person presented this. I don't know what

the outcome is going to be. And when I do that,

I go into it with a blank slate. That's really

going to help me because whatever the outcome

is, I'm not disappointed. And then that sometimes

affects the employees. It affects morale. It

lowers my self -esteem. So what was the rest

of the process? Continue the story if you can.

It's all a big system. You're completely right.

It's all connected and it's all connected through

people. Back then I used to think about I used

to put people in two categories, idiot and okay.

And okay was the good box and idiot was not a

good box. Not really a great way to deal with

people, but if I had to justify it or maybe alibi

it, it's more the right word. It was really an

engineering mindset. And I generally think business

works because of people. And I genuinely think

that pretty much everyone comes to work trying

to do the right thing and a good thing. Everything

that goes on is information asymmetry. Some people

have it. different way of looking at the world.

Some people have different sets of information

and you're all coming together with different

pieces of information. If you do what you said,

give people the benefit of the doubt, respect

where they're coming from. It's a lot easier

to rub along, but it's also difficult to do that

under the pressure of whenever it is that your

boss tells you have to get done, especially if

you know how to do that and know it's right.

That's where the rub comes along. This is why

I talk about storytelling a lot. Basically people

live in their own stories. We're all a of our

own story. And when somebody else comes along

and that threatens that story, we can get very

reactive about how we are. And I think it's much

easier if you can understand, A, that everyone's

trying to do the right thing, mostly. By and

large, there's always some exceptions to that

rule. B, everyone's the hero of their own story.

So they're always trying to do the right thing,

but their world revolves around them. And C,

you just got to figure out how do you begin to

connect with people. And I do think the way is

through stories. The person I am now now versus

the person I am then would have had a very different

conversation about. how to navigate this and

how to get through it. But I didn't because I

wasn't that experienced. I just thought about

being technically right and letting somebody

know that he was very technically wrong. That's

fair. That's your story, your process. I'm hoping

there is a listener or somebody that has a similar

situation. It depends on how you view it and

how the business owner or executive is going

to react to these types of situations. Is there

an ending to it? The ending is what I do now.

It's almost like karma for that situation for

the last 25 years. I helped found a firm. We

help lead through change and we help them tell

better stories to drive change in the organization.

That kind of understanding of where people are

coming from. People are just trying to do the

right thing and they're making decisions that

somehow roll up against each other. That's essentially

what we do. There isn't really an ending. It's

more like a fade to black at some point. rather

a definitive end, but it's more about what I

do now, how I think about the world. That would

be the end. You're just describing a simple situation

where you had something happen and the result

is what you do now. I think that what I got from

you and from your ending is any business owner

or executive. We always want to be trusting and

as kind as we can be and as open -minded as we

can be to our peers. owner, executive, who do

I affect? Everybody else, my employees, even

the janitor. And by getting through things in

a positive way and learning lessons, then hopefully

we're not going to repeat them. Cause if we do,

then we have to go through the whole thing again.

When we learn these lessons, when we tell these

stories, that's going to help whoever's listening.

And they see that I had this situation happen

and this worked out good for this person. This

is the result. So therefore it could work out

good for me. Now that's. going to save the company

money. It might even save the actual company

from going bankrupt. What happened to people,

other people don't have to repeat that. They

could learn their lesson just from hearing somebody

talk about what happened to them. Some people

have to learn trial and error, but not everybody's

like that. I mostly agree with you. You talk

about trusting and being kind. I do think being

kind. I agree with you on that trust. I'm not

sure about, and I'll tell you why. I think we

tend to use the word trust as this. big blanket

statement. You either trust somebody or you don't.

So it's unequivocal. If you think about trust

is really a faith in some future outcome or event.

If you go back 25 years, you would trust me to

run this digital transformation project. Your

faith in the future event is the successful outcome

of this digital transformation project. If you

buy new lawnmower from somebody who's a local

person down the road, you trust that you're going

to get a reasonable deal and the lawnmower will

work. So it's a faith in a future event. When

people say trust, they are looking for a blanket

trust and a blanket gets out of jail free card.

And I don't think that's necessarily deserved.

In work and in life, you can only control yourself

and what you do, how you react. You have to earn,

I think, credibility, no matter what level you

are. Then you have a right to demand trust in

that specific thing that you have credibility

in. We're all different people and we all have

different personalities and behaviors. And one

of the biggest things I could do for myself is

learn how to deal with that and learn how to

care and love the other person as much as I possibly

can. I want to constantly be feeding positive

energy. I don't want to be feeding any negative

energy because that's going to give me a negative

outcome. Is there anything you would like to

say in closing? Negative energy comes from the

story you tell yourself about who that other

person is and what they're doing. You can equally

tell yourself a positive story. It just depends

what you choose to do. Everyone's choosing all

the time. I can only control what I control.

And a lot of business owners don't understand

that because they want to control their employees.

They want to control their peers. And we are

not robots. We can't control other people. We

can't make somebody do something. You can pay

them and expect them to do something. This was

a great conversation. And I hope. that it benefits

a listener. Thank you for listening to Behavioral

Profit. Remember business problems are often

behavioral problems first. The way people think,

communicate, lead, and respond under pressure

directly impacts performance, culture, and profit.

If something from today's conversation connected

with you, take a moment to reflect on how behavior

is influencing your business leadership and decision

making. Thank you for being here. I'll see you

on the next episode of Behavioral Profit. Thank

you, Gavin, for being on the show. I appreciate

it. Thanks, Debbie.