Podcast Guest Jeff Balesh: Change and Transformation
 |
 |
Jeff Balesh is an Executive Coach and Organization Development leader with over 18 years’ experience in the healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, technology, government, and non-profit sectors. He holds the Professional Certified Coach (PCC) credential from the International Coach Federation and has extensive leadership coaching experience at Kaiser Permanente, T. Rowe Price, and as an Independent Consultant with experienced executives, emerging leaders, and high potential talent. He is the Founder and Principal of Balesh Advisory Services, a high impact, high touch coaching and consultancy firm, and has an impressive record of consulting in areas of leadership development, complex change, organizational effectiveness, and team performance.
Certified in a number of assessment methodologies, including Hogan, Birkman, and HBDI, Jeff specializes in working with leaders who are preparing for or are currently going through meaningful transition, whether it be to a higher level of responsibility or in managing increasingly complex business challenges. He assists his clients achieve clarity about the leader they want to become so they can identify where to stretch themselves in order to expand their leadership influence and effectiveness. As a result of their being able to more fully embrace their unique strengths and expand their leadership edge, his clients are able to confidently step into their power in order to deliver meaningful impact in their organizations.
Jeff’s coaching philosophy is based on a belief in the inherent wisdom and significant potential in people. They are the masters of their solutions; as such, he has learned to guide them safely through their zones of discomfort and toward shifts in thinking and behavior that lead to greater congruence between their overarching purpose and near-term priorities, ultimately leading to enhanced levels of engagement, learning, and performance.
Listen to the Podcast
Read the Transcript
[ Introduction ]
Welcome to the Strategic Play Podcast. Unlock your creativity, expand your mind, and have good clean fun with Strategic Play founder and LEGO® Serious Play® Master Trainer, Jacquie Lloyd Smith, and creative force and curious mind, Mark Millhone.
Mark:
Hello, Jacquie.
Jacquie:
Hey, Mark. How are you?
Mark:
I'm really excited today. We have an excellent opportunity to really look at how we face the challenge that so many organizations are being faced with, which is change.
Let's say that you are the leader of an organization or you work with leaders who are stuck managing this kind of change. I think that the guest we have today will really create some great insights for you.
Jacquie:
Yes. I've known Jeff for quite a few years, so I'm excited to chat with him.
Mark:
Jeff Balesh is an executive coach. He's an organizational development leader, and of course a Lego Serious Play Methods facilitator. He's got over 18 years’ experience in the healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, technology, government, and nonprofit sectors. He is the founder and principal of Balesh Advisory Services, a high-impact, high-touch coaching and consultancy firm, and has an impressive record of consulting in areas of leadership development, complex change, organizational effectiveness, and team performance.
Jeff's coaching philosophy is based on the belief in the inherent wisdom and significant potential in people. He's certified in a number of assessment methodologies, including Hogan, Birkman, and HBDI. Jeff also holds the professional Certified Coach credential from the International Coaching Federation.
Jacquie:
All right. And on top of all of that he's a wonderful person, so I'm excited to catch up with him again. Let's go say hi to Jeff.
[ Interview ]
Mark:
Welcome, Jeff Balesh, to the Strategic Play Podcast.
Jeff:
Thank you very much, Mark. It's great to be here.
Jacquie:
It's great to have you with us today, Jeff. Thank you so much for agreeing to catch up with us.
Jeff:
I really, really enjoy the opportunity to share how we play together, and I'm excited to just see where we go today. So thank you.
Jacquie:
Wonderful. Well, I did get a copy of your model. And so we're going to jump into that. Do you remember what your prompt was that I asked you to build?
Jeff:
Absolutely, Jacquie. The prompt was to build a model describing organization transformation. And that is a topic that's near and dear to my heart, because I understand how difficult and challenging it is to transform an organization in a real meaningful and impactful way. So would you like me to just walk you through what the model?
Mark:
Yes. Just give us a basic description of it so that we can visualize it. This is sort of like setting the table for this larger reflection that we'll have.
Jeff:
Absolutely. So at the left side of the model, or one side of the model, is one way of operating as an organization. It's a way of operating in that it has been in play for probably a long time. And so people are tied to that way. And I have on the outskirts of the model, on a different baseplate, are lurking threats in the environment in the personages of a shark, a tiger, an elephant. They're watching on and they're ready to devour the organization in case it does not choose to change. And so people within the organization ultimately wake up to that reality. And there's a saying that I really like that I heard a client mention recently, and that's people really don't like change, but when they're faced with irrelevance it becomes a different equation for them.
So once they understand the need to change, need to transform, then some creative juices can get flowing. It’s not easy. And so I have multiple—what do you call those? Those rubber band, rubber things, that are reaching across the model to create kind of a cohesive vision, which is so important to align people around a desired future that's different than the current state.
So there's a lot happening in the middle of the model to create that kind of energy and excitement and a burning platform, as well, that's required to change from what I consider to be the inertial drift of an organization that continues along for so long, in the same way of doing things or a similar way of doing things, until they really understand the need to change.
As it gets—as we move more towards the right of the model, there are ideas that take shape but don't work out. And that's those two half circles, the half domes on the right with ideas that are underneath them. They really don't take shape. They lead to dead-ends. There's a stoplight that's on the side.
It really, a turtle—a tortoise watching the action. There's a lot that needs to happen in order to coalesce around the right vision in order to really move the organization forward into something great. So a lot of fits and starts, a lot of dead-ends. Really have to let go of finding what's the right way of doing things that we have to know before we can take action and move forward.
So trying a lot, experimenting. The whole play mentality is so important in order to let go of the ties that bind to the old ways of doing things to create new structures, new ways of acting, new ways of operating. And this is all obviously not easy work, but again, takes that vision, orients people together, aligns people. And when moments of truth are faced, and that's where those little barriers, or maybe not little in the model, but the barriers that are on the model, they're kind of like, again, potential dead-ends, moments of truth. What do we really want? What have we learned so far that we need to adapt our attempts so far at realizing our desired future?
And ultimately, the string that goes through those two poles that represent kind of the goalpost, with flags on top, kind of threading the needle. And it's like, after all these fits and starts, moments of truth, the vision has taken shape in, most likely, ways that no one could have foretold before.
And that represents—the structure on the righthand side of the model with a very, very different looking structure with the flag on top of the red pole signifying, hey, this is a really new reality that we've created. And we have leaders that are at the forefront who can kind of boldly go and advance the organization to a place that could never have been thought of before the entire venture started. So that's the model in a nutshell.
Jacquie:
Well, that's great. I really like the way you used a large baseplate and put the large gray baseplate with the green baseplate on top, which is smaller, just to indicate the threats on the outside. Maybe I'll just ask you a few questions. So on the outside, I see, as you said, the shark, there's a tiger, there's a lion. Looks like you made good use of all the Duplo. There’s a stop sign and the turtle. Did each one of them, when you were building it, were you thinking about something specific as you were putting each of those down?
Jeff:
Yes. The shark and the tiger figure are obvious threats. The tortoise, more like kind of a hold to the status quo. It is on the outside because as you start to let go of it, it starts to become less part of the current reality. But it's still connected and it still represents kind of those old ways of thinking, old way of doing things. And then the elephant can be benign or a threat. There's a cute nature to elephants, but of course they can be very dangerous as a herd. So it could represent: Hey, this is something we're moving towards. Or it could represent: Hey, do we really know if this is a threat or not? Is this something we need to attend to in order to achieve what we're setting out to do here?
Jacquie:
It’s funny, because often people will use the elephant to represent the elephant in the room. Sometimes people will use it to represent: The elephant never forgets. And somebody used it, when I first started doing Lego Serious Play, somebody put the Lego—it was a conflict—and they put a Lego in their model and they told the story. I think it might be a parable out of the Bible, where a whole bunch of people come and they see the elephant and one person thinks it's a trunk, somebody else thinks it's a plate, somebody else thinks it's a rope. Because they can't see the whole thing, they can only see their part of it. And he told that story and I thought it was such a great story, such a great metaphor for a conflict about how we only see parts. So I've seen the elephant used lots of different ways. So the Duplo, I'm kind of teasing you about it, but the Duplo is really often used metaphorically for lots of different kind of storytelling that people kind of add the color to.
Jeff:
Yes. It's funny you mentioned that because when I was putting this together, I kind of felt like I was cheating using the Duplo. It's too easy. But it really—the metaphors that you described for the elephant are fantastic, and I wish I would've thought of those.
Jacquie:
I would never accuse you of cheating. And I saw a bunch of pictures of you building with it all over your dining room table. So thank you very much to your family for letting you take over the living space as you built this. It’s great.
Okay. So let's just go into a couple other things. So the turtle and the stoplight status quo are maybe keeping things the way they are. And then I liked your point at the very beginning about people don't like change, but no one wants to be irrelevant. Maybe can you tell us a little bit more about why that saying or that expression had meaning for you.
Jeff:
That's a great question. I mean, we're experiencing so much change in our world today. And obviously organizations, as part of our system that we live within and work within that's oftentimes at the forefront of change. And a lot of these organizations out there have been super successful over the last many years, but now are facing a reality if they choose to wake up to it that: If we keep doing what we're doing, we might become irrelevant. And that's going to shake people up in ways they haven't been shaken up before. So I think it's a real—I really resonated with that. It was just last week I heard that statement, actually, at a conference I was at. And I think it's something to remind us of what oftentimes is at stake.
Jacquie:
I think it's true, what do they say: The biggest enemy of great is good. And a lot of organizations have had it good. And it's really hard to get people to think about changing when things are going well, money is coming in. It's really hard to say, “Hey, look. This paradigm is going to change and you need to be ready. I was at a conference and somebody put a slide up. The heading said something like: The argument for innovation. And it just had all these brands that had been really successful that have now gone out of business. They don't exist anymore. And so the challenge as people looked at the slide was just to think about, oh yes, like what happened? They were doing so well. And I think that it's true when things are going well or things are good, it's really hard to want to make any changes. And it's easy to enjoy status quo.
Jeff:
Absolutely. And one thing I've observed in my work, in consulting and coaching, is the people who are charged with making the potential decision to change have been rewarded handsomely by that status quo. So if you ask—if you're looking to them to really lead that forward, it's asking a lot. It takes a really visionary leader or a leadership group to do that well.
Mark:
One thing which I just really loved about this model, and I just was really struck by it, is the way that you've used these flexible lines to represent vision. And then how there's different people in the different parts of the organization have a vision, which they are projecting upwards that they're following and they're contributing to this larger picture.
And I love how they kind of come together almost at an accidental point where the vision from this person or department happens to align with this other person's department. And that vision becomes something that's very organically iterated within an organization. And that part of the role of the leadership is, as you've made in your model, to codify those different aspirational directions and energies that exist within the people in the organization and decide, okay: This will be our true north. I just loved how that showed the wisdom that can be reflected in the metaphorical storytelling of the objects and how you've arranged them.
Jeff:
Mark, you are brilliant. That's a—you said it better than I could have.
[ laughter ]
Jacquie:
Now don’t tell him that. Just a second here.
Jeff:
Right? Exactly.
Mark:
I'm just following your model. It's all there.
Jeff:
No. You are absolutely correct that, that's a really, really great way of describing what I was intending to demonstrate with those coming from different angles, coming from different directions, but kind of coalescing in that one central—the red stick coming out of the little bush piece. The stick that rises above all of it to where the vision has coalesced into this one overarching picture of where the organization needs to head. And everyone can buy into that because they've had a hand in it. And that's—it also speaks to—you hear a lot about the need for top down or the need for bottom up. I hear this reaction to it, “Oh, it can't be top down. It's got to be bottom up.” It's got to be both.
Jacquie:
Speak a little bit more about that. Why does it have to be both? Why does it have to be bottom-up and top-down? I know that you have done a lot of work with leadership development, so I would like to hear your thoughts on that.
Jeff:
Yes. That's a great question. So top-down, obviously, the senior leaders, they have levers of power that no one else has in an organization, necessarily. So they're in that role for a reason. And their role, at least in part is to, like you said, Mark, really put everything together. Like coalesce into, here's where we're going, and use the levers that they have at their disposal. How do they reinforce the required behaviors? How do we move the organization, the different pieces that are vying for whatever they're vying for? How do we move them all together in one general, cohesive group?
But that's limited if you're just going to rely on the perspective of the senior leadership. I think a lot of my work about— there's three core leadership conversations. One is grounding in reality. And it's well-known that senior leaders do not really have as good of a hold on reality that those who work much more closely to the actual product being put together or service being delivered, do. And they're not given the truth as much as they would like. So they have to find ways to surface what that reality looks like and to get the contribution of those at other places in the organization to make sure that reality's reflected in whatever is put together. And so you get the commitment, the engagement of those groups to do what needs to be done.
So it's a collaborative exercise that's not easy to pull off. Especially, the complexity of organizations today are unfathomable for earlier generations’ matrix, structures, global organizations. These are very difficult structures to work through. So it really takes a deft hand to coordinate such an enterprise and make sure both are doing what they need to do to create that ground in reality and then envision the possibility and then prioritize action out of that.
Jacquie:
Are those your—
Jeff:
Those are the three conversations.
Jacquie:
Those are the three.
Jeff:
That should have been—I stopped at one, but those are the three. Grounding in reality that’s the first. And there was a book that I came in contact with many, many years ago when I was in graduate school, called Leadership Is an Art by a guy named Max Depree. And he stated that the first job of a leader is to define reality. And that's stuck with me ever since then. And I—it's really, really important. I mean, you see in our world today how reality is defined differently depending on who you speak to. So I believe that especially if you're in an organization that you're working towards some desired end, you really have to ground in some reality that people can see themselves in. And I see that as a really important conversation in that, that oftentimes is not had because we assume that what I see is what you see.
And then the second conversation is envisioning possibilities. So just, what's possible for us? We know where we're at. We have the choice between not changing and—we can change or we can become irrelevant. Okay. That's our reality. Now let's not just cover our eyes and hope it goes away. What do we do with it? We want to be expansive in how we envision what's possible for using that reality, that picture of reality to derive what is possible. And then once you have that brainstorming, the searching for what is the right potential future or what are the actions that go with that and so forth. Then you’ve got a whole gamut of possibility. You have to then converge around a cohesive set of actions. And that's where the prioritization comes in. And that's, again, going back to the complexity of our modern era. Prioritization is a very difficult exercise for a lot of organizations, a lot of teams, a lot of people. We are inundated with stuff in our daily lives. It's hard for any one person, let alone an organization, to prioritize. But it's essential.
Jacquie:
It's like it's not what's on your to-do list. It's knowing which things on your to-do list are going to be the things that are going to make a difference and move things forward. I do think that we get really busy doing busy work or distractions from people needing something right now or things that look like an emergency that aren't that then take us away from the things that are important, not urgent. I think that Covey wrote a whole book on that concept. But when I hear you talk about those three, I'm thinking about the reality is really the current situation. And we know from strategy that if we don't understand the current situation, it's very difficult to develop any kind of a strategy. And then thinking about those possibilities and thinking about the vision and inspiring others to rally around what can be done, and then your prioritization around your action items. I love that. I think you hit the nail on the head. Those are so important. All three of those things.
Jeff:
Thank you. I agree. And it's that they're—each one of them requires a capability, if you think about it. They're different capabilities. They're obviously connected and they help connect each of the three conversations to each other and create an ultimate outcome. But they are different capabilities that I see in my work. Some people, some teams or organizations are better at one or two than another one. So I’ve found it very helpful in my work to really state that upfront. And people react to it like, “Okay. What does that mean for us? What do we emphasize in our work?”
Jacquie:
Well let's talk a little bit, Jeff, about the work that you've done with Legos Serious Play in this space, because you have been a trained facilitator for quite a while. And you've also taken the strategy course, so you've taken an advanced course as well. And also, we did some creative problem solving as well. So maybe you can just tell us, like how does that stuff show up in your work and what kind of success have you had with using LSP?
Jeff:
Yes. Thank you. I have had some really phenomenal experiences with LSP. And I'm going to give you a couple of examples that really, I'll never forget in my career, just because they wouldn't have happened any other way or in using other modalities, most likely. And they lead to real impactful changes to people's lives. There's one group I worked with. I like to use LSP, the visioning conversation, of the three core conversations. Obviously, visioning is a really obvious use of Lego Serious Play, and putting it together with the reality conversation.
So with this one organization I worked with, a new leader took over. There was the thinking that we can really make a difference in how much money we're making and what the difference we're making in the world. But we really don't know what that actually looks like. And so I used another tool I think you taught me Jacquie, was Business Model Canvas.
So I used the Business Model Canvas with this group to define their current business model and then talk about what needs to shift in order to—starting with the value proposition and going from there. And it was a whole day. Team got super excited, super engaged around the work, and they ended with really great clarity around what they were doing today that needed to shift and where they wanted to head and what the opportunity really was around the client set, the customer segments they were currently working with, where they wanted to put some more resources in because there was more opportunity there and so forth.
And what was really great about this experience is that one of the leaders on this team had accepted another job, and it was known by others. And the next day after our session, she came back to her boss, the leader of this organization, and told her, “I'm rescinding my acceptance of this job. I want to stay with this team, because what we did yesterday was so engaging and so impactful, I cannot not be a part of it.” And I just—yes, I just took a step back and I'm like, unbelievable. I'm so thankful to be able to impact people in such a profound and deep way.
Jacquie:
That is a great story. I know that you have others. Is there one more that you'd like to tell?
Jeff:
I do. Yes. A different one, more of an organizational impact. Another group I'd worked with, which it was a finance organization. And they had just undergone a transformation where they pulled in resources that were dispersed in the company and they pulled them back into the finance organization. And their whole business model, their operating model, changed. It was transformed. We're talking about transformation. This was definitely that. It was a very, very involved project that took a long time. A lot of resources and people affected. And finally, we got the team in place, the people who were going to be the finance business partner for their various clients that they were assigned to. But their operating model, their way of working, how were they going to engage with clients? How were they going to connect with each other? How were they going to be consistent enough to still offer that client service? They didn't have that worked out.
I used LSP to have them actually use the Lego, the bricks, to describe how they were connected with each other, how they were connected with their clients. Like put it on the baseplate and actually put in 3D form what their interactions looked like. And this was, yes, and you couldn't have scripted it any better. Because once I had them do this, they were very quiet. They have all those rubbery things that I use. They had them all over the place, like they were extending and they kept on trying to find more of these things to put on the model. And they finished. And then all of a sudden, like we just stood there and looked at the model they put together, and then one of the individuals on the team just said, “Man. This is super complicated.” And it was like the light bulb went off in everyone's head and it shifted the entire thinking about their organization.
It was like one of those moments of clarity that hit everyone at the same time. And that changed the whole future direction of how they were going to organize and how they were going to serve their clients. And so brilliant use. I love the opportunity to use the 3D, the model as a proxy for what's actually happening in real terms in an organization.
Jacquie:
It's such a perfect way to look at a system, because as humans, I mean, life is messy. It's complicated. It's interconnected. And often, we don't have time to think about what we're thinking about. We just don't. We don't slow down, stop, and analyze much because we’re so driven to do. And in that opportunity of reflection, if you can do it in 3D it's the most brain friendly way because you physically see it. And when you're using Legos Serious Play, you've built it. You built it. So—and those rubbery pieces that you're—we call them connectors.
Jeff:
Yes. That's right. I forgot the name for them. Thank you.
[ laughter ]
Jacquie:
Those rubbery things, those are connectors and they are Lego. They come out of a connector kit, and we use them for strategy. But they're perfect for illustrating the interconnections of people. But to hear that story, I just think that's such a great story, Jeff, because I think that people building it and then stepping back and looking at it and going, “Look how complicated it is,” makes it easier for people to understand how complicated and interconnected the web of, not just people but their roles and their activities. And then you've got layered on top of that how we feel, and our emotions, and how we process information. And all of that is happening simultaneously, so it's always dynamic. And having it built out of Lego, you can move the Lego around to illustrate the dynamic nature of the system.
Mark:
I'm having an epiphany as you're talking about this, about the three dimensionality of Lego and how it's so helpful. One thing which I was doing as we were talking was, I looked at another one of the photographs which you shared, Jeff. And in the view that I'm looking at, it has sort of this progression of that red connector, which is signifying vision, I guess, in your model, and how it progresses from something which sprouts from a tree and has input on the reality of the organization.
And then there's—the next one has got two flags on two pillars. And then the third one is the highest one, and it is over sort of a gateway with what looks like a prospector or someone kind of stepping off of the map. And I just wondered if this might be an opportunity for us to really enjoy the richness of your model. Am I imagining a progression there or am I seeing something that you intended? And then perhaps you could just give us a little more nuance and detail to what it is you're help—you're wanting to help us visualize when we look at your model from this other dimension.
Jeff:
And Mark, you've done it again. Brilliant. No. I think that that was great. And I half envisioned what you just described because I wanted there to be a progression of sorts and I—and you're absolutely right. The last connector, the red connector at the end, the intention was to make it higher and more prominent.
I love how you described the progression with the two in the middle. And then yes, in fact, the prospector in the front, kind of forging the new future, continuing to work. Not resting on their laurels, but tirelessly moving forward. Absolutely. That's definitely it. And there is a disk piece that reminds me of like the Star Wars, what's it called, the spaceship?
Mark:
Oh, the Millennium Falcon. Yes.
Jeff:
Yes. The Millennium Falcon. There was that piece in the front, it always reminds me of that. But that's like a part of that too. It's like it's taking shape again. The vision taking shape, the ideas changing and it’s morphing, adapting into something that again is ultimately different and ideally more optimal and more effective.
Mark:
And is that below the Millennium Falcon dish—it looks like a crown. What’s that?
Jacquie:
That yellow round thing.
Jeff:
Yes. That's a great call out. And I noticed that too. And that is totally by accident. So I can make up, what is that?
Jacquie:
There's never such a thing as an accident.
Jeff:
Absolutely. Yes. Right.
Jacquie:
You don't know right now, it's going to come to you, but that’s—
Jeff:
No. Exactly. I would say it's a castoff. It's a—potentially it's something that just didn't make it.
Jacquie:
Some ideas don't make it. They say nothing dies harder than a bad idea. Like if we have an idea and we love it, we can spend too much time trying to make it into something because we're not necessarily very good at letting go of pet projects.
And if we have one—sometimes there's companies that have gone under trying to keep something going that really should have been let go of long ago. And sometimes that's tough to do.
Jeff:
Yes. Especially with the people whose idea it was. Ideas are like children, and I've had this happen to me too. It's—you become—you can fall in love with them and it gets very personal. So that’s a very difficult part of it.
Jacquie:
So this is great. Maybe tell us—I know that you are kind of straddling two worlds: You're working inside an organization and you're also working privately. Is it about 50/50 of each, Jeff? Or what are you doing with your time now?
Jeff:
Yes. Currently it is 50/50. I have my own company. It's called Balesh Advisory Services, and I help leaders, teams, organizations, stretch into who they want to be. So again, a lot of visioning. And I like to start with that, generally speaking, depending on the work. But it really does make a huge difference. It's essential to really have that vision for oneself or the team or the organization as crystallized as possible, because it—that's what's going to hold you through the tough times, those moments of truth. So to stretch into who they want to be so that they can deliver meaningful impact to their world.
And obviously, each word is intentional. Part of my role is to help them do this with clarity, with confidence, and with heart. Because as you mentioned Jacquie earlier, the emotion, that emotional reality is so important. It can make or break a venture of any type.
So in that work, I do a lot of executive coaching, a lot of one-on-one coaching. I also do a lot of consulting with organizations, really to help them kind of accomplish what we're talking about here, whether it's full-on transformation or something less ambitious. But I look at it more like, I guess philosophically, especially in my coaching work, as our role here on this world is to become as fully ourselves as possible. And that's true for any entity, in my opinion.
And one of the jobs I have, I see personally, is to help people get into a deeper relationship with themselves. The most important person they have in their life is themselves. And that's something that we don't often realize. And that's also true. Again, whatever level of analysis you work with, whether it's the team or the organization, it can be the same.
Jacquie:
Well I have known you now, Jeff—I'm just trying to think about how many years it's been. And I would love to have you as a leader, as a coach. So I think whoever you're working with is really appreciating that you're going into that space. And I know personally, I have enjoyed working with you over the years and always found you to be so positive and inspirational and, at the same time, realistic. So it's sort of that nice blend that you have that you bring to the table. So good for you for helping, because I think this is really tough work that you're doing.
Jeff:
Yes. Thank you so much, Jacquie. Those words really touch me. Really, because I very, very much respect you and the work you do. And I admire your brilliance. I mean, I think we met in 2016, I believe. I had gotten exposed to Lego Serious Play in a previous role I had. Colleagues of mine had gone to, not a session that you did but a session someone else did around it, and came back to the group and said, “This is Lego. Like here’s an hour tutorial on what it's all about.” And I just took to it immediately and I just started using it, not knowing a freaking thing about how—what I was doing. And then—
Jacquie:
That’s right. Jump in.
Jeff:
Yes. I did. And then when I took the course with you and I'm like, “Man. I did so much wrong,” because like I was using it in a leadership development context. I was like going into— this was obviously a much younger version of myself—I was going into depth about like what this means for you as a person. And this was in a group setting. And I remember asking you the question in the first course I took with you, and I'm like, “Do you—like, how much do you probe people?” And you're like, “You don't probe much at all. You just ask what is it about the model that is meaningful to you?” I'm like, “Oh!”
Jacquie:
Don't ask the person a question. Ask the model a question.
Jeff:
Exactly. So I—that's a key learning. Very key.
Jacquie:
Well, the funny thing, when I first started doing this in the early 2000s. I ran into a woman and she did lots of strategy work. And she said, “Oh. I took the Lego into the hospital. I just got my kids' Lego and I dumped it on the table. And I just said to them, build a vision.” And she said, “And people looked at me like I was crazy.” And I'm thinking, yes, I might have thought that too. Because you can't just start there. There's a whole bunch of scaffolding that you have to do before you get to that moment. But I think that's great.
I mean, lots of people use Lego in their classrooms, lots of university. I think it's a very, very popular tool, and there's lots of different ways you can use it. So Legos Serious Play is, it's a very applied application that's systematic creativity that takes us somewhere. But, I'm just happy. I'm always happy. It always makes me smile when I hear that people just are trying to use it, because that just shows me that people are open and they're interested. So that's all good. That's all good. I think that we probably should ask you a couple questions about the Playsonality, since we're talking about sort of you taking risks and trying things out.
Mark:
Yes. I would love to hear what came forward for you in the Playsonality exploration. One thing which was really resonant for me when you were talking about the perspective that you bring to your coaching practice was, it's really important to help people understand themselves, to really help them make a deeper connection with who they really are. And I think the one thing which the Playsonality does is give a way to externalize a lot of these sort of internal processes of how we interact with people and then learn to appreciate the gifts that we have.
Jeff:
Sure. Well, I came out a Maker. And like I was telling Jacquie earlier, I didn't fully resonate with the Maker. So I think, with your consultation, I think it's a blend of a couple of different types. But I can see—a Maker. A really great example is what I'm doing now in my personal work and really putting together the vision for the future. And there's a part of me that wants to know exactly what steps I need to take, and I had to let that go because the making comes out of really an organic process that's very unique to me, just like it would be for anyone.
But there's also a side of me that is like a Contender. And when I think about the games that I play, I get very serious and I want to win. And it kind of surprised me. I remember when I was—I think I was about eight or nine years old on the playground, and we were playing softball, I believe. And I got called out by the teacher. And I thought I was safe. And I started arguing the call with the teacher. And I was like in third grade.
Jacquie:
Arguing about the rules is part of the play, right?
Jeff:
Yes. Right. Absolutely. And it's got to be fair and I want it to be right. So…
Jacquie:
So there's a bit of a blend with the Maker and the Contender.
Jeff:
Yes. I think so.
Jacquie:
Yes. That's great. That's great. I think it's fun just to even think about: How did I play as a kid and how does that reflect in how I show up at work now?
Jeff:
Yes. Absolutely. And it's a—there's a downside to that Contender’s personality, which is I can get too hard on myself when I don't win or I don't feel like I'm winning. It's not about winning, necessarily. I mean part of there is a winning—there is importance to that, and depending on the game you're playing. But like I said earlier, it's about really expressing who you are more fully as fully as possible. And if you don't happen to “win” a certain game, were you fully yourself? Did you take chances? Did you move forward boldly? Those are more important questions now to me, although I still want to win. So it's a hard balance.
Jacquie:
Well, I think the Contender, if you ask a whole bunch of people that come out as Contenders, you'll probably find that it's not about winning. It's about having a really good competition. So if it's easy to win then it's not fun. But when you have a competitor that you're playing with and you're equally matched and it comes down to like that last play of the game or that last few seconds that seems to be where the energy comes from. But I definitely can see that arguing about the rules, because I think most Contenders are very much about fairness, where other types, if there was an argument about the rules, they would just go, “Oh, whatever.”
Jeff:
Right. They don't care. And if they don't care, I'm like, “You don't care?”
[ Laughter ]
Jacquie:
That's right. And the Contender's like, “What do you mean you don't care?”
Well, thank you so much for this opportunity to kind of get into the space that you hang out in and to do a little bit of a walk there. That was certainly fun, and I know that Mark was the one that seemed to do such a great job of looking at the model and seeing all kinds of stuff that I missed. So thanks Mark, for pulling out all the red thread.
Mark:
Well, I've had the gift of being able to watch you in action, so I—hopefully I'm learning something. It's really been a pleasure, Jeff, to get to know you and learn more about your practice and to be able to appreciate the nuance and the dimension of the model that you created and the story that you tell with it. So thank you so much for being here. And for those of our listeners that are wanting to perhaps follow your work or to make a connection with you, where's the best place for them to find you?
Jeff:
Yes. Thank you. And thank you, Mark. It's a pleasure to meet you as well, and I'm very impressed with your skills. So I really appreciate it. I am on the web, of course, baleshadvisory.com. I'm also on LinkedIn, and I post there somewhat regularly. It'll be more regular next year. 2023 is a big year for me in my business. I intend to go fully on my own, and I'll be posting—it's very exciting—much more regularly in the future. But I've written some really good stuff that's going to find its way into some more tangible products and services.
But for now, I really encourage people to check out my website, look at my blog, see what you think about it. And I'm happy to have a conversation with anyone who's interested. Obviously, no charge if you just need a thought partner for something that you're thinking about doing. I'm happy to play a role there.
Jacquie:
Well, that is so generous, Jeff. I'm sure lots of people are going to start pinging you on LinkedIn now, so watch out.
Jeff:
I’m ready for it.
Jacquie:
Well, that's super.
Jeff:
Thank you so much, Jacquie.
Mark:
Thank you, Jeff. Look forward to hearing about the connections that you create and the transformations that you support.
Jeff:
Thank you. I look forward to keeping in touch.
Jacquie:
Take care.
Jeff:
All right. Thank you.
[ Conclusion ]
Mark:
What a pleasure to spend time with Jeff Balesh. He has just such natural warmth and insight and ways of expressing ideas that stick with you and then give you an opportunity to express yourself, with the benefit of the insights he's brought forward. I think he's just a tremendous coach.
Jacquie:
I was just thinking that myself. And I was thinking if I was leading a large organization, and my goodness, it's a very difficult job and can be really lonely. And I just think he would be a wonderful person to bring into your inner circle. He just has all those qualities that I think I would look for if I was looking for a coach.
Mark:
Me too. And I love the story about how engaging a team in a creative process, where they could see an exciting vision for what they were doing, helped to retain talent in that organization.
Jacquie:
Wonderful to hear someone tell a story of how Lego Serious Play makes such a big impact.
Mark:
Completely. And I wonder if there's an invitation in what he said, around helping people to visualize the transformation that they can make in their own life. Is there a prompt there that you'd like to share?
Jacquie:
Yes. So thinking about his three critical conversation points that he has regarding reality, possibility, and prioritization. I think it would be fun to take the possibility question and ask people if they can build a model that's inspirational and visionary for their own life or for the work that they do.
So the prompt would be: Build a model of the vision that you have, we'll say, five years out. We'd love to see what you're thinking. If you could build a model and take a photo. If you're listening to the podcast in our community, post it there and we'll keep the conversation going. Or just go ahead and send us an email or a photograph or anything you'd like to: hello@strategicplay.com.
Mark:
Excellent. Well, I can't wait to see where this conversation goes and who it touches. And I can't wait for our next conversation.
Jacquie:
Yes, me too. We've got some more fun people coming up. So thanks so much for your time today, Mark.
Mark:
You too. Until next time.
[ Outtakes ]
Jacquie:
The Maker fits. But the Contender totally fits too, because I know the car that you drive and I know how you drive it.