Speaking, Coaching, Consulting and Surviving

With 30 years in corporate helping fortune 500 companies grow their brands Sara Hanaway took the leap into entrepreneurship. Now as a speaker, coach and consultant she focuses on helping people and teams embrace change improve resilience and navigate through chaos. As someone that has experience personal and professional change, Sara knows all to well to help others navigate this. Tune in as this is a conversation that you don’t want to miss.

 

Contact -Sara Hanaway

LinkedIN – linkedin.com/in/sarajhanaway

Website - sarahanaway.com

E-mail - sara@sarahanaway.com

 

Leighann Lovely  00:20

HR professionals, business owners and operations at all levels are struggling to figure out what needs to change. Our system has been shocked practices have been questioned, and conversations are finally happening. We all know there has been a huge shift in what people want. inclusion and diversity are common phrases. But often misunderstood generations are coming together more than ever on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about what's important for employees to be successful in life and at their job and how companies can create an environment to allow them to do both because successful people will make up a successful workforce. I'm Leighann Lovely. Let's get this conversation started.  From the day she died to being let go from her 22 year career at Harley Davidson to having to shut down the iconic ever rude engine brand. Our guest Sara Hanaway knows a thing or two about change customer experience leadership. Sarah has helped a fortune 500 companies grow and expand their brand planned large scale events and launched too many products and programs to count. After almost 30 years in corporate world, Sara decided after taking many deep breaths and creating way too many pros and cons lists to take a leap and leave to start her own speaking and coaching business. Sarah is passionate about shifting the conversation that businesses can make employees wellbeing a priority while at the same time producing results. She loves helping her clients and audience realize the power that they have within themselves to push through discomfort and fear to get the change they desire and excel in life and business. While she loves what she does. When she's not speaking or working with clients. She can be found writing, running, cooking, breaking out in a dance party or in her favorite role, which is being an aunt. Please welcome this awesome guest Sara Hanaway. Sara, welcome. I'm so excited to have this conversation.

 

Sara Hanaway  02:38

Thank you, Leighann. I'm really excited to be here with you today.

 

Leighann Lovely  02:41

Your bio, you know, obviously is like starts off with a bang. And so I'm sure that there's plenty of people who, you know, listen to that, you know, I died. That's a That's a crazy statement to hear. So I'm really excited to have you tell us a little bit about yourself. And your story. Like, I got to know.

 

Sara Hanaway  03:05

Yeah, it's, um, it's a pinch. It's how I start all of my presentations. When I speak to teams and organizations, I actually tell the full story of how I died. I'll give you a slight synopsis today, because it really is the foundation for everything that I use in my life and business. And so 25 years ago, a truck came into my lane. And basically the accident reconstructionist said, If my car would have been over a fraction or a millimeter, the truck would have went right over me and I wouldn't be here. So I was stopped on a guardrail. It took them about two and a half hours to get me out. They had to bring the jaws of life I went to a local hospital where they then flight for life me to freighter, which is a big hospital here in Milwaukee. And I was there and this is where it gets fuzzy. I was in ICU for at least a week, but it might have been 10 days I can't remember. I was intubated. I broke all my ribs on flailing fracture one side I had a collapsed lung so I couldn't breathe on their own. So when the pandemic hit a few years ago, when people were talking about being on machines to breathe, I'm like, you don't want to be on one. It is not fun. I remembered it and I had a lot of vivid memories. And it took me about two years to really recover from the accident fully like to feel more back normal. You can't tell about me I actually do have permanent damage. I have limited motion on my left side and I developed a heart condition because of that. So at the whopping age of 30 Something I'm sitting in a cardiologists office and all these little nice old people which I have to be careful because I'm now one of them are like what are you doing here? And I'm like, Yeah, you can't tell but I have a heart condition. and, and really what that taught me is it taught me and became the foundation of everything I used for customer experience, which was my almost 30 year career in the corporate world, but also how to thrive and roll with change, and really what resilience is all about. And so those are the things that I'm using in my new business adventure, to help other people really push through the discomfort that happens with life. Life cannot happen without change. And our biggest struggles, as we all say, this end up being our most huge triumphs, even though they're really rough to go through. So I'm trying to use all of that knowledge and help other people as well. So yes, I did code twice, I forgot the important thing. I did code twice in the Hello, helicopter. That's how I say I died. I did not know that. The the medics came and told me that in my room, I was like, I had no idea that that was not part of part of my knowledge. Right.

 

Leighann Lovely  06:00

Wow, that that is absolutely amazing. Well, I mean, not amazing that you had to go through. I mean, the recovery portion of that had to have been horrific. But the statement that just stands out to me is that the feeling of triumph, after experiencing something that is so hard, and it's so true, the harder it is to get through something, the more triumph we have, the more you know, wow moment that, that at the end of it, we go, Oh, my God, I I did that I made it through that I survived that. And for you, it truly was sort of survival.

 

Sara Hanaway  06:45

It was it was it was survival. But also at the same time, one thing I noticed is you don't notice the progress you're making when it's something that takes that long, like a year and a half after my accident, I was seeing a specialty doctor because I just didn't have stamina, and I still couldn't breathe fully in my left lung. And they did all the tests and the lung was fine. And like it didn't, it just didn't feel right. And he finally explained it to me in a way of you aren't supposed to recover that fast your body went through a trauma. And what happens when your body goes through a trauma is that it ages he goes even women who give birth, when you give birth, you're going through a trauma. And the reason every doctor says it takes a full year for you to get back into a rhythm for your body to get is because your body aged and went through a trauma it can it'll go back and it did eventually he goes, but that's why you're tired. That's why when you work an eight hour day, you're you're exhausted because you're still healing from that trauma. And it was that moment that I realized I had made so much progress, because after the accident, I was back at work full time about six or seven months afterwards. And I worked at Harley Davidson at the time. And so I went back during an anniversary, which anyone who works events, which I did, those are long hours. Thankfully, that one I did not pull 13, 14 hour days because I physically couldn't. So I literally did a shift and and that was the first time that I was back full full in full gear other than that I was working part time, and you don't realize the progress. And until someone else pointed out to you when the journey is that long. And that's one of the reasons I wanted to help coach other people is so that you can see the progress because anyone who hears my story is like what I developed a complication about a month after going home to the hospital. And so the doctors like if you do not get up and move, you are going to have to have surgery. My long was sleeping fluid. And I was like, well, that motivated me. I didn't want to have surgery. And I just started slowly doing things. And it started with easy little things like right, I walked up the steps. I rolled the exercise bike for three minutes. And then the next day it was two, and then two more minutes. So five. So those are the things that I started to learn going well, that is progress, right? And a lot of times, especially in the corporate world, in the business world, we always measured progress at the end, like ooh, the the project launch nice, go on to the next thing. And we would forget the milestones in between. And when I became a manager of people, because of my accident and knowing all those milestones that I did. I started making sure that we were paying attention to the little milestones so that when we got to the big thing the team was already like, yeah, we launched it, that's great, but they knew they were making progress along the way. So that's what I mean by setup foundation for me to like really learn how to lead and be as a human and being in this world, because you learn a lot really fast when you're not ready for it.

 

Leighann Lovely  10:06

And that's your So corr., you know, I'm flashing back to in my audience knows that I have bipolar disorder, I'm flashing back to a time in my life where I was wildly unhealthy and I never really, you don't you don't realize, as you're going through in, in projects that you're doing, you you get to the point where you're like, Yay, we're we've gotten there. And it's such a brief fleeting feeling, especially in the business world of you, you celebrate it, and then you're like, your boss or whoever is like, okay, all hands on deck to the next one. And you're like, Well, wait, wait, I don't even get to, you know, finish my drink. You know, I've got a whiskey here celebrating it. And they're like, yep, Nope, don't dump it out. Let's go. Yep. But and I look back on my history. And I'll look back at pictures of myself when I was really, really unhealthy. And when somebody who has a mental health disorder, often you can see it just in in their demeanor, the way they stand the way they look the way they. And I'll look back at pictures of myself. And I'm like, wow, I didn't realize I even looked that way. And then you look at me now. And for me, when I was really unhealthy, I was extremely thin, I was under 100 pounds. And there were times where I would look at pictures, and I go, who is that? And my parents would go, that's you? And I would look again and go, Oh my God, why didn't anybody tell me I looked so sickly. And they're like, Well, we tried. And I'm like, What do you mean, you try it? And they're like, well, we would we would tell you you need to eat, you know, you're really thin. You look really unhealthy. And you'd be like, oh, yeah, I am really thin like I and you would think it was a compliment. And I was like, oh, oh, because it was really unhealthy. It was really. And now I look back at that and go, Wow. Well, now I'm a little overweight, and I've gone the other way. Anyways, I'm happy and healthy. The point being is that in life in business and everything, you are completely correct. We don't celebrate the milestones. We celebrate the end, which makes the everything in between that much more difficult, because you're like, oh, today was a really rough day. But what did you accomplish? Yep. Like, some days, you're like, Oh, God, it was so hard. But at the end of the day, the amount of work that's that you got done, or the amount of, you know, the fact that you've completed a huge portion of a project goes unnoticed. Because management wants to see the end result, often. And they forget that within that end result there are there are so many triumphs.

 

Sara Hanaway  12:42

Yeah, and for me, one of the things that I, I learned, and I was really good at helping other people not always good for myself, so is that you can balance well being while still producing results. Because from my accident, I was getting better. I mean, I started from having to learn how to have to sit up again. You know, I had to walk again, I wasn't, I didn't have to relearn how to walk. But after not walking for 10 days, these are all things your muscles are like, Screw you, we're not doing anything, it was much nicer laying in a bed. So you have to start all over and do all of these things. Or the little things you take for granted. Like I couldn't wash my own hair for the longest time. Like my mom had to come home and wash my hair. I mean, none of us think about that when we get in the shower, and there's like a washing my hair. And it's all of a sudden, like, I still to this day, every once in a while I'm like, wow, you're washing your own hair, which sounds crazy. But because of that, I really learned that I wanted my team to have well being and that meant that I needed to help them recognize the little things or even recognize when they're having a bad day. Like, hey, you still accomplish something today, what did you accomplish? Or it would be things like you came to my office. And finally we're done being on the hamster wheel of trying to solve the problem yourself. And you pulled the help chain. Um, like, that's a really great thing that you did today. Well, but I you know, and then they'll be like, but I should have solved it. I'm like, you solve 90% of the problems 10% You bring to me, that's a good thing. These are the things that that we should do. And what happened is my team is like, Well, wait a minute, my well being matters. And I'm like, Yes, we can still produce results. And we did all of my teams. I had phenomenal growth. We did great things with it. Harley Davidson MBRP. But I balanced their well being at the same time and I was really passionate about that. But I find in a lot of corporations. It's exactly what you said. I want to see the end result and then we don't even take time to celebrate that end result. It's like great job. Okay, go and it's like no, no, no, no We take time to celebrate that as well, we have other work to do. But you can do both. And I firmly believe that is something that's missing in the corporate world, is when you focus only on the end results, and not on people as human beings. That's why we get quiet quitting. That's why we get great resignation. That's why we have disengagement. And these are all things in my new business that I'm I'm trying to work with people on, especially new managers who've never led a team. I didn't, I didn't know what I was doing. And these are all things that it's like, well, I want to be treated as a human being not as a cog in a wheel. Right.

 

Leighann Lovely  15:39

And it's, and you bring up a really awesome point, the quiet quitting the, because when people when people don't feel that their manager, and I'm not saying that their managers don't notice, but the managers get so wrapped up in like we need to produce, we need to get this out the door, we need to finish this project, they often they also forget that because their managers, you know, if those if that's middle management, in that we're not talking about sea level, you know, we're middle management is also under the pressure to get this project done, get this project done, get your team to do this project. And then you know, the C suite is looking at it from a financial standpoint of, we need to get this out the door so that we can get the next thing done. And they're not the ones actually doing the work. So when it's when it's completed, their sense of of triumph is very kind of subdued, because they're like, Okay, great, the team got it done. Let's move on to the next. So they're not feeling so, you know, there's there's that missing link of Yeah, because the C suite didn't go through the pains to get it done. They don't have that sense of oh, great job, great. It's the people who are actually doing the work and the people who are actually doing the work have the pressure from the top down. And the top down, obviously, the higher up you get, the less the triumph is because they weren't in the in, you know, in the gutter is doing the work.

 

Sara Hanaway  17:10

Yeah, I think the manager level, which is where I like to focus, a lot of they get, I call it the screw, they get it from the top, and they get it from the bottom, because they're trying to support their team, and they're trying to deliver the results. And, you know, in full candor, I was not good all the time with myself, like my team would even tell me, you should practice what you preach. Because I was, you know, getting it from, you know, wanting to make sure we hit our goals, but at the same time supporting my team. And I would have to learn the lesson over and over again, even though I was really good at doing it with my team. And I knew all this from my accent, my life and my career, I would be like, I would get to the point that I would be so exhausted. And it's like, you aren't practicing what you preach. And that is not a good leadership practice. And one of my favorite stories, though, is, as I as I moved up the chain in the corporate world, and I became a leader of people, I prefer a leader of people than manager or supervisor, because I believe in a leader has power with people not power over I'm that's just my philosophy of leadership in general. And the term manager just is full of power over instead of power with. And when I became a leader, one of the things I promised myself is I wouldn't forget what it took of all the work that we do, because literally we would all say it. The C suite is up in their office. They don't do the work. They don't they they don't understand what it takes. And a couple years ago, I had someone on my team, she had just graduated college. So brand new in the role learning lots, and we were having a one on one. And I was like I'm, I'm I'm not understanding why you're struggling so much. And what why this is taking so long. And she looked right at me. And she's like, You have had 25 years to do this. You can do what I'm doing right now in your sleep because you've done it over and over. I'm on your one, Sarah, I'm on your one. And I went, Whoa, you are right. You haven't developed the innate skill to repeat this process over and over. Not the way not the way I do it. But just the process in general. She's like, so it takes me longer. So if it takes you an hour, add an hour or two for me. I was like, that's a good reminder. And then we would have dialogue. I'm like, Well, how long do you think this would take and those kinds of things because it was one of those learning moments of Yes, I can do something much quicker but someone brand new can't in my setting my expectations for her way up here wasn't a valuable one. And that's what I use as an example when I work with managers all the time. because we do that we know how to do something so much faster. And we have the, I was listening to your last episode, where you said something that I say quite often, it's just faster for me to do it myself. And it's like, that is not the right phlosophy.

 

Leighann Lovely  20:19

Right. And that's in that's as you were saying that, you know, that's what scares me about my own business. Because I'm like, there's going to come a time where I'm going to have to turn over this work. And I'm going to have to put in the time, and I'm going, you know, into that person. And I'm going to have to remind myself on a regular basis, because I'm not a control freak, by any means. However, I am a very much i, it needs to be done in this way, for this reason, kind of kind of person, like I want it done this way. But I'm going to have to start to let go of that a little bit and allow other people to find their way. And in the way that works for them. And I've been very successful at coaching other people, coaching other people at reminding them that, you know, hey, you have to, you have to allow other people to find their flavor, you have to allow other people to find their, you know, what really syncs with their brain. But the actual doing it for my own business scares the crap out of me, even though I know all of this, I'm a highly self aware person, I'm very aware of, you know, when I say something to somebody, and all of a sudden, something comes up. And I also, you know, have a tendency to say stupid stuff. And I and I know it when I say it, because I'll look and go, Oh, crap, the response to the especially with my husband, you know, I'll say it and then I go, oops, that's not going to go over well. Because I am, I'm very, you know, very self aware. And that, and that's what scares the living daylights out of me is when I hire my first person. For my own business. I know already the problems that I'm going to have, which is I'm going to start off with the micromanagement of you got to do it this way. And then I'm gonna go no, no, no, no, no, no, no, stop, Leon, stop, stop trying to micromanage they can they're this is an adult, who you give them the, this is what I need, this is the end result that I need, here are the tools to get there. I'm sure that you can figure out how to get the end result with these tools. You don't have to do it exactly like this. You know, I'm not a doctor, I don't they don't either. They don't have to cut this exact mark in order to not kill somebody, you know. They're and for me, and for many I know, there's many managers out there who are the same way like you have to do it precisely. It doesn't always have to be done the same way, as long as you're getting that same end result. And everybody always thinks that their way is the best. And not everybody is right, because not everybody can be right. Right. Right. And so, and I know that I'm that much. You know, when my husband says it all the time he goes, You always think you're right. And I'm like, Well, of course I do. Of course I do. But I'm also I'm also always willing to take feedback from anybody. I love feedback. I love people who are willing to say stop that. I don't believe that's the best way. Can we try it this way? And I'm open to that. But it has, I have to have somebody who's willing to match my, I guess my boldness, my tenacity. And there are a lot of people out there who don't match that, especially. And also in, in the in, in the women's world right now. Like, there are a lot of women who are a lot more timid than, than me, I'm not a timid woman by any means. Sarah, you are not a timid woman by any means. But there are a lot of women out there who still remained, you know, are like that. And don't get me wrong. There are a lot of men who are timid, but there are less men who are and more who are willing to stand up and say, Nope, not going to do it that way. Let's talk about how we can do it a different way. That's just, you know, and I'm happy to see that the world is changing. And I'm going off on a complete tangent, but I'm in the business world, that's just how it's been. And so I've, you know, again, I already see what my issues are going to be. And I hope that other managers out there are willing to when you work with them, that they're open to seeing that they're open to understanding they're open. So that kind of leads me into my next question with you, you know, what are some of the areas that you focus specifically on when you go in? Do you do you do start off with speech, do you start out or doing a you know, talking points do you go in And coach large teams, how do you engage and work with companies?

 

Sara Hanaway  25:04

That's a really great question. And you have so many good nuggets in what you just did. So I'm gonna go off those actually wasn't a bad tangent there, it's perfect. Um, so when I work with a company, it all starts, like most of us do with an intake form and understanding what your needs are, or your team's needs are. So there's a, there's a process behind that chatting with you. And then I share up what are the what I think are the best ways to go. But the managers I work with, or the directors or the the leaders know their team the best. So I'll give an example. I just did a presentation to a team. They're going their company's going through a merger. And their leader reached out to me because she wanted to make sure they were taking care of themselves. Because we get so bogged down in the day to day she's like, this is a big change. I know, there's worry, could you come in? And as we did the intake form, I told her, I said, Well, you know, what would be ideal is to do like a two hour workshop with your team around change. And she's the expert of her team. And she's like, my team is really quiet. And we're going to do this virtual. And change is a heavy topic. And, and so I, as much as I want to do a workshop, I don't think that'll work. Can you come in and just do a talk, I said, What if I come in and present to the team, but I do a worksheet before, so they have pre work. So a lot of the exercises we would have been doing as a group was in that pre work so that they could prime themselves for change. And we ended up having a it actually was an hour and a half, long discussion. And we had a great discussion afterwards. But it was all about how they manage through change. So my two areas of focus when I work with businesses are either on change, whether it's in this instance, how you manage through change, or if your team rolls out a lot of things that change the work that your company does. So this team actually had that as well. So ironically, their questions at the end was the other part of the content, which is, hey, I have to roll out this change to this team, what do I do so we spent some time on that, as well, because those are two different things like how you manage your own change versus how you manage it with others. And then the other big thing I really work on and that I'm very passionate with is helping managers move from doers to leaders. So as you were talking, there were two two stories that jumped into my head, when I first became a leader of a team and I had people be a doer is a producer, you get stuff done. And all the skills you use as a doer, you still need as a leader, you just have to shift how you use them. So instead of solving all the problems, you're helping your team learn to solve the problems. So you're helping your team get those critical skills that you learned when you were a doer so that they can build up their skills. But when I first started delegating, and I share this when I when I talk or coach, teams, I did not know how to delegate, I when I first delegated I did exactly what you were talking about Leon, this is how I want you to do it. This is the order Bubble bubble. That is not how you delegate, you don't tell them how to do that you give them this is the end result I need. And for me, a lot of times I couldn't articulate what the end result was because I never had to do that. Because before I just got the assignment, I figured it out in my head and not to explain it. So my team would come back to me and I'm like, well, that's not what I want. And of course, they spent hours on something they're like, that's not what you wanted. And so I had to learn how to do all that. So we spend a little bit of time on delegation, I told and I'm still not always good at it, I have to remind myself that it doesn't have to be the way I do it it, we just need to have the end result. And the other thing you said that I coach people on is feedback. So one of the things that I hear a lot, especially from HR professionals, and I get it because they're like because even the directors in the C suite don't know how to do this is how do you give people feedback. And the secret is it has to be actionable feedback. And the other secret I talk about is two things. Feedback is subjective. What Leann tells you to do, and you move to a different manager, they're going to tell you the exact opposite. Because it's subjective. Feedback is not fact i to enjoy feedback, but I have learned what to take and what to throw out. Be like, Yes, here it is. But what I find is most managers don't give actionable feedback. They'll say something like, You know what? Your I'll use an example for me If you're intimidating, okay, what does that mean? Right? What am I supposed to do with that, and this manager just said, you need to stop intimidating people. That does not help me that does not give me anything. But I am a person who likes to figure things out. Because the last thing I want to do is intimidate people. That is not how I want to come across. Well, I started observing my own behavior. And I realized what it was, in every meeting, we were in, I talked first, right? I spoke up, and then people didn't feel comfortable. So then I just learned to, I'm not going to speak right away, I'm going to let others talk. Now, when it was something controversial, the team would look at me to then bring it up because they didn't feel comfortable. And that that was not the same thing. And so then I learned, but that wasn't actionable feedback, right? That that that manager gave me, or for 10 years of my career at Harley, I had a boss who would do performance reviews, and all he would do is give me a thumbs up and go keep going. How does this help me? I mean, great. I'm assuming I'm doing a good job. But right. I'm human I, I even know. Like, I think my way is right. I know that's not the right thing. I can list out the mistakes I make, because I'm pretty critical of myself. And so we spend a lot of time on feedback exercises, and what is actionable feedback? And how do you not do the sandwich method, which is, you're really good, but no, so I actually invented something when I was at Harley, because no one taught me how to do this a process that I have carried throughout my entire career that as a matter of fact, BRP started using it and sharing it with their managers, other managers at Harley did is I created the standard form process that I use with employees. And it made it a dialogue, I actually asked them to tell me what they thought they did well on where they're where they met or exceeded expectations, because those were the words we use to see where they're at. So we could have a dialogue. So if an employee said, like, seated here, and I know the HR criteria, or the company criteria for exceeds, didn't meet, that we could have a conversation upfront going, Hey, you did great on that. But here's what exceeds means. And if you're looking to get exceeds, here's the things that we need to do. That's actionable feedback. So for me, what I do is I work with teams, so I can do workshops, I can come in and present. Or I can work individually. With a team. I like workshops, just because you can get other managers, you can hear different things, but I do a level. But that was a very long winded answer to your question. But

 

Leighann Lovely  32:45

so here's so i. So I first day on the job a long time ago, I and it probably wasn't the first day I met a new salesperson. And this was I was early in my career and she walked up to me, she introduced herself. And then she went on to say, a lot of people struggle working with me because they don't like me have a roof over what? Okay. She then proceeded to say sometimes I come off as being harsh. Sometimes I when I speak, I do not mean to. And I went Oh, okay. Now I was really early in my career. I had no idea what that meant. As I continued to work with her, I thought numerous times, wow, that was really harsh. Like, wow, that was really brief. And I went Wait a second. But she told me, she warned me of this, that there may be times where and that she's not meaning two years later, what I realized was that she was completely self aware that she sometimes rubbed people the wrong way. But that she wasn't fully sure how to change that. Or why? Because nobody had really sat down with her and been like, well, this is why you come off as being brass. You are very, she was also a very strong, very driven, very successful woman. Point blank sheet. I learned from every time I would go into it. She was a salesperson, every time I would go into a meeting with her. She would walk out practically with the sale and I was just like, wow, this woman is she was into this. She's still she's still brilliant. She's still around talking in terms of like she's not she's absolutely brilliant. She's self aware of the fact that when she's just having normal conversation that she does come off as being brass. She's and because of that when she meets new people, especially in the business world that she's going to work with on a regular basis. She lets people know like I'm not i That's not how I mean to come across and I'm actively working on trying to get better Read it. Okay, perfect. So her and I never had a problem, even when I was, you know, really young in my career, because she had told me, and I was like, all right. But other people were like, I'm not working with her. She's She's, she's mean. And I'm like, not really not mean, she's just blunt. And I realized that I might, my dad used to always say, You're horrible at politics, you're horrible at getting long at work, you're a bull in a china shop, you know, you got to get better at it. And I'm like, I don't know how. I'm just me. Because I've always just been one of those people, like, you know, I'm the person that, you know, if you're standing in a group of people, and somebody's got their fly down, I'm gonna look and go, Zip up your fly, and everybody else is like Google, like, you just embarrassed him? Well, wouldn't it be more embarrassing for him to stand with his fly open than just tell them really quick, hey, Zip up your fly. But there are people who will stand in that circle and never say it. I'm just the person who's like, I'll say what needs to be said, regardless of whether it needs to be said, like, that's just always been my personality. And so anyways, when you were speaking, you know, that was one thing that came to mind is that you can, you can have a variety of different personalities. But if you are aware of it, and you address it, and you, so you being intimidating, you know, you became aware of it, you addressed it, and you figure it out how to. And that's, I think the that's, that's the only thing that matters is that and then there are other people who were like, Well, okay, I'm aware of it, but they never actively try to make a change for it. And that's where the problem lies. Like, this woman knew it, actively tried to figure out well, how do I how do I don't know exactly what I'm doing? She's just, you know, she was just blonde. And that's where people shine? Is that when they're willing to accept that? Yes. And it has nothing to do with whether or not she really, let's say that she really wasn't an asshole. It has nothing to do whether or not she really is or isn't it has to do with the world? And how they perceive if she is because her manager may have may have thought, oh, no, she's not brass at all. She's the greatest person in the world. She's selling everything. And yes, she was. It's it only comes down to how everybody else in the world perceives the situation, which is why you said feedback is subjective. And that's also why it comes down to do you have a good management team? If you have a manager who perceives everybody as being just amazing and great, your manager who's like, yeah, just thumbs up, keep doing what you're doing? Well, that's not that's not gonna help you either. Because now you've gotten the perception that you're doing absolutely everything great. And then if somebody else comes to you and says, Yeah, you really need to stop doing this. You're gonna go, Yeah, but my manager told me that I'm doing everything awesome. So just simply saying, Hey, you're doing everything great is not doing you any favors. And there are managers out there that do that, too. But that also comes down to conflict, right? How do I give feedback, especially if that feedback is negative? And I think that's one of the one of the probably biggest conversations that's happening within organizations right now is conflict management and how to provide that feedback. Especially if it's negative.

 

Sara Hanaway  38:37

Yeah, and for me, I think words have power. Absolutely. And, and I'm not always good at it. And so I try not to say negative feedback. I try to say constructive feedback, or when I'm talking to my team or others, I'm like, What are opportunities for you? And one of the things that I tried really hard and, and this was more towards the end of my career, because I'm very driven. I can be forceful. People would describe me as tough but fair. I tone police myself, because I can hear my own tone, though. I get a little worried about that. Because sometimes my tone isn't that bad. But it's, that'll get me down a rabbit hole. So

 

Leighann Lovely  39:23

my tone to my husband yells at me all the time. He's like, why are you preaching at me? And I'm like, am I and then I'll go all right. Yeah. Sorry.

 

Sara Hanaway  39:33

Yeah. So when I wanted to set up is an environment where people felt safe making mistakes. I mean, think about it as a human being. We don't like making mistakes. We don't like walking into our boss's office saying I screwed up. screw ups happen. That's how we learn. That's how we grow. I mean, my accident taught me that yes, it was an accident, but I mean, talk about luck. lots of mistakes happening along the way as you learn my limits, like what I can and cannot do. And so I wanted my team. So I started asking a question which made them feel very uncomfortable, which was how did you fail? And so I'd ask it, the way our reviews happen was every quarter. So how did you fail this quarter? And they're like, You really want me to tell you that? I'm like, it's not going in your permanent record. And yes, I want you and all of a sudden, our it ended up not being every quarter, it ended up being they were comfortable saying, here's where I screwed up. Here's where I need help. Here's what I learned. And then we didn't repeat, though those types of and they started to self learn, which also helped then make the conversations constructive. I'm a huge fan of crucial conversations. So you start with the heart, and you start with mutual purpose. So if you're not going in with the understanding that you're doing this to help the other person grow, then you don't have mutual understanding. If you're going in with I need them to do this in order to produce results for the company. That's not mutual purpose. mutual purpose is we want to create an environment where people feel engaged, productive, and balanced. Right. Okay, yes, you still need to produce results. But so that is difficult to do. And I've also worked with people who are like, you only put all the negative in all the constructive? And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, we accentuate their strengths. And then we tell them the things they need to work on. And 98% of the time, the things they need to work on, are their strengths, it's when they're not operating in their strengths, right?

 

Leighann Lovely  41:44

Well, and you said something that companies is if companies are reaching out to you, or reaching out to, you know, a training, I would hope that they have the right goal in mind. Because if, if they're reaching out to you just for Well, let's, you know, have them have the employees go through this program, and if they're only for the company, and not for the employees, then there's a there's a disconnect, and they're never going to have a long term workforce, they're going to continue to have turnover. First of all, you know, and and the other thing is, is that any company who does not understand that healthy, happy employees produce higher quality, more results, is not going to survive in today's world, there is just not there has been a massive, massive shift. And this shift was happening, it's just been, you know, as everybody knows, the shift now just got compressed into a shorter period of time, because of what happened with the pandemic. And now with mental health being talked about, and people talking about the fact that they're struggling, and so many people, we all now have a new relationship with alcohol. And so more people, you You laugh, but it's not with a pandemic. I mean, it's, it's so many people started drinking more than they used to started, you know. So there's a lot more out there, people out there going, Yeah, I need help. Like, I need to have a full life wellness, and that needs to, to, you know, start with my family and go in and go beyond that into my work. And I need to have full life wellness, and I can't be unhappy at home. And then I go to this volatile environment, I need to have an employer who actually cares about my my well being, and not working me to the point where I'm so exhausted that I'm becoming unhealthy. And it's interesting because I had spoken to, you know, spoke with somebody else and actually multiple people you speak to, you know, chiropractor, chiropractors or wellness coaches, wellness, you know, wellness facilities, people who are just on the outside of doctors, right? That work on preventative medicine, all of them, all of them say the same thing. That if you are sitting in a fight situation, especially if you're you know, at work, you're constantly stressed out, you're you are never allowing your body to heal. And you will only continue to go down because it's all connected to your nervous system. And I'm not a doctor, so I could be saying this wrong. But you know, my chiropractor says the same thing. I've spoken with somebody else who, you know, was an engineer, and it's all the same thing. If you're constantly in the fight mode, which is where you would be if you're, if you're going to a job you hate every single day, and you're miserable and you come home and you're miserable. Your body is that's where it's sitting, it's sitting in that fight survival mode, which means that you're never actually going to bed and fully healing, which means you're waking up exhausted, which means that you're going to work exhausted, which means you're not producing fully, which means it's just a negative cycle. So for an employer to not understand that healthy, happy environment, healthy, happy employees produce better quality, better results, is just it's I wouldn't understand why a company wouldn't invest in the proper things for their employees. If you would have asked me 10 years ago, I would have gone well, aren't they doing everything? Again? I mean, it's not like they're responsible for making sure that they're happy at work. Maybe

 

Sara Hanaway  45:58

Yeah, but so I think a lot of companies say, so I heard this, at both of the big companies, I worked at Hurley MBRP people our competitive advantage, but even why I worked there, I'm like, if people are your competitive advantage, then you need to invest in them. Right. And the first thing to go when you have budget cuts are things you know, or you have to apply to the stakeholders. And, you know, I worked for companies that were on the stock market. And even though they say the stakeholders, we're not making decisions that way. We're making decisions that way. I mean, I run my own business, now I'm making business decisions based on, you know, some things that I'm like, Oh, I kind of get it now, why you might have made that decision. But it's the first thing that gets cut is the people stuff, or the other thing that happens, which just happened on the talk with the team with the merger, is because you're so busy producing, you feel guilty, taking that two hours out of a team meeting, to do something else. But you know, it produces results, you know, your team feels better. But you have to get through that. And another team I talked to was my former team at Hurley that I was practicing with, they knew right when I started my company, they got to me the first group that I came to present to, so they were full on board. But the thing that they wanted help with is they're a team that constantly has a standard process, but changes get thrown at them. And that's not going to change while they're trying to fix it up the food chain, those changes are going to happen. And she wanted her team to be able to how can they react to that better, because it's gonna keep happening. And I want my team to feel good. I want my team to know it's okay. When that happens. Shut your computer down, go for a walk. I don't care what you need to do. And then come back to it. So I think we're slowly getting there where where people are realizing well being, I think I think the pandemic helped with that where we all had this moment. I forget the name now. brain, brain fog is coming into my head, but the the produce produce produce mentality, the syndrome that we have that we all have, you have to unlearn that. So to the story you were talking about, you're you're miserable at work, you keep going. That's a little what happened to me in 2020 when the pandemic hit is I loved the people I worked with. I was great at my marketing job. I enjoyed doing that. I enjoyed the challenge. But every day I went to work. I was like, what, what's going on? And my therapist said the best thing and she was like, I was like, I want to quit just like you can't quit today. I was like, but I want to quit and she's like, You can't quit today, sir, you have to do the work. And the thing that I see, and I get a lot when I when I talk about a course or a program, if you work with me one on one, I'm like, Well, this is going to take six weeks or this is going to take eight weeks and I had a woman go eight weeks. And I'm like, you have to unlearn a lot in order for the change to take. So what therapist was working with me is I was one of those people who believed that my success came from my achievements. And I had to unlearn all that. I don't believe that anymore. And I was slowly unlearning that already at that point. But I was still at this. If I'm not in a big fortune 500 company, I'm not performing all of this kind of stuff. And we had to undo all of that. And she's like, that's why you can't quit. Because if we don't solve that problem first with my therapist, and this was therapy work versus a coach work, right, completely different. And we worked on it for nine months. And then I came to her with my plan and she's like you can quit now. And the reason I shared that is it takes work correct. So even having me in for a talk is not going to solve it right takes work, right.

 

Leighann Lovely  50:09

And we get so set in what our own brain believes to be true. Because of years and years and years and years of, of habit, and the idea that you can only be happy if you are this prestigious person working at a prestigious company doing this prestigious job. That is, that is the mind set of many people. But happiness, I've come to realize is doing the thing that I want to do, and being healthy and happy with my family. And that is for me to the thing that I want to do is for me to design. Yep, that looks different to absolutely everybody, if I want to go work at a fortune 500 company, and that's my passion. Great. But if my passion is working at Kwik Trip, great, I'll go work at Kwik Trip, my passion is owning my own business, and all the stress that goes with it. Great for whoever. But it all starts with being healthy in in the head first. And body, which and I think so many people get lost in the idea that there's this cookie cutter, perfect person or perfect, like design of what success is. Like there is there isn't success is different for absolutely everybody. And you will hear and talk to people who have millions and millions of dollars who have gotten to the top tippy, tippy top of owning, you know, billion dollar companies. And they'll go I thought once I had gotten here, I would understand what true success is. And it was just emptiness. And it's like, yeah, because true success has nothing to do with the letters you climb. And so many people are now realizing that because it doesn't, it's all it's it's all about your happiness and not accomplishments. And we're coming to time, I wish that we could continue to talk about this. But we we are absolutely coming to time. So I'm going to ask you the question of the season. Do you have any final thoughts on that, though, before I cut you off?

 

Sara Hanaway  52:30

Yeah. So I would just say to that, that's what I do. When I the chunk of working individual coaching with people is helping him change the stories that they have in their head, figuring out what is actual fact. And what are just stories that you've learned or done, and then rewriting that story of what you want to define. And then giving them the skills when everybody else in the stories they hear is the exact opposite. And you said it brilliantly. What might work for you, Leanne isn't going to work for me, because when I left BRP, one of the things I said as I said, I don't know if I want this pace anymore. And the president of the company is like I love this pace. I said that's great. And that's great for you just might not be great for me anymore. And there's nothing wrong with that. And Keven agreed, he's like, I concur. There's nothing wrong with that. So you have to figure out for you, right? What's you? And that's what I help people do.

 

Leighann Lovely  53:29

And that's absolutely awesome. Because it is truly the lies that we tell herself, that we need to learn how to stop telling in order to find success and having somebody help us do that. It's so much less lonely. Yes. So the question of the season, what do you think will go down in the history books from what the world has experienced over the last three plus years?

 

Sara Hanaway  53:56

I'm going to answer this in what I hope will happen. I'm a grounded optimist, which just means that through my life experience, I know we can get through a lot. And we'll come around the other side. What I'm seeing right now is the pendulum swinging all the way the other way. And what I mean by that is when change is about to happen transfer more transformational change, which is what happened when we went through the pandemic, when we all learned we could work from home. We could process some people prospered and some didn't. Some people are still better in the office, some work, all of that. But when you go through transformational change, you get forces that hit each other. And that's what we're seeing now. We're seeing, we're seeing the little bit of a generational shift, but we're also seeing people who've always done work the way they've always done work being questioned and not understanding why everybody else It doesn't work that way, even though we just did it for two and a half plus years. And it's because that is a transformational change in their mind. So I think we are on the cusp of another transformational change, I think what will happen in the history books, my hope is a couple of things. One, we all learn to slow down. And that we will continue to focus on that slow down and continue to see what works for ourselves, and our well being, too. I think mental health is going to take an uptick and be more prominent. I'm very proud of you for sharing your story. I used to not talk about my accident. And I do now because I think and I used to not tell people I'm in therapy, I tell everyone on therapy, because I think mental health is important, I hope and pray that our insurances get better. So more people, I have two friends who can't get into a counselor right now, because there's we're at a loss for them, right. So I think that'll go on up tip, I think we'll see more and more people talking about mental health, and balancing this need to produce and well being. And I think that we're going to continue to see quiet coding, until people really put the walk with the talk, which is if you really believe people are your asset, then you need to invest in people, you have to invest in people as much as you invest in your product. So that's my hope, for that we'll start seeing will continue to see this shift that it will continue. And the pendulum will slowly come back and we'll find some sort of balance. I think it'll swing the other way. And then, and we'll find balance. But that's my hope over the next three years is that's what we learned. We learned that there are multiple ways that people can work. And there's multiple ways that we can produce in society, and that we all need to be healthy and well, in order to be active participants in this world we live in.

 

Leighann Lovely  57:10

That was amazing. Extremely, I got goosebumps, because I 100%. Agree. Very well said, if somebody wanted to, excuse me, if somebody wanted to reach out to Sarah, how would they go about doing that to learn more about, you know, how to engage you for your services, and that kind of stuff.

 

Sara Hanaway  57:31

You can reach out to me at Sarah hanaway.com That's my website and there's contact information. There's also all my social media handles. Most of them are like Sarah hanaway official. So you can find me on the social media as well, but my website is the best place.

 

Leighann Lovely  57:48

Excellent. Sarah, this has been such an awesome conversation. I appreciate it so much.

 

Sara Hanaway  57:53

I loved every minute of it. You made it so easy and fun. It was just it was great.

 

Leighann Lovely  57:58

Thank you again for listening to Let's Talk HR. I appreciate your time and support without you the audience this would not be possible. So don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode to follow us like us or share us. Have a wonderful day.

 

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, work, managers, learn, team, change, talk, actionable feedback, years, happen, day, business, produce, company, triumph, pandemic, realize, sarah, end result, feedback