Sept. 29, 2024

Elevating Leadership with Jennifer Nash Powering People to Peak Performance

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In this episode of Living the Dream with Curveball, host Curveball dives deep into the world of leadership with Jennifer Nash, a renowned consultant, author, and executive advisor. Jennifer, recognized as one of the top coaches globally by Marshall Goldsmith, shares her insights on how leaders can empower their teams to achieve peak performance. From her transformative journey in dance and music to her impactful work with high-profile clients, Jennifer reveals the secrets behind her success and the tools she uses to help leaders excel.Listen in as Jennifer discusses her book "Be Human, Lead Human: How to Connect People and Performance," and introduces the innovative Humans Framework. Discover how this tool can enhance communication, relationships, and collaboration within any organization. Jennifer also gives us a sneak peek into her upcoming online course and other exciting projects.00:00:00 " Today, we're talking about leadership and how leaders can help their people
www.drjennifernash.com
Want to be a guest on Living the Dream with Curveball? Send Curtis Jackson a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/1628631536976x919760049303001600

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> Curtis Jackson>Welcome, to the Living the Dream podcast with Curveball. if you believe you can achieve Chee Chee.

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> Curtis Jackson>Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate, and inspire. Today, we're going to be talking about leadership and how leaders can help their people to power performances, as I am joined by the founder of Jennifer Nash, consultant, author, executive advisor, and leadership consultant, Jennifer Nash. Jennifer is one of the top coaches in the world, according to Marshall Goldsmith. She's an author, and what she does is she helps leaders in organizations bring people to their power performance. She's worked with several high profile clients, so we're going to be talking to her about everything that she's up to and how her services can help. So, Jennifer, thank you so much for joining me today.

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> Jennifer Nash>Oh, thank you so much for having me, Curtis. It's an honor.

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> Curtis Jackson>Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

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> Jennifer Nash>Sure. So, I am, a leadership consultant and coach. I'm based in Austin, Texas, and I, wrote a book called be human, lead human, how to create. Sorry. How to connect people in performance. And I'm just. I'm really excited to talk with you today.

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> Curtis Jackson>Okay, so, first, start off by talking about some of your qualifications. The first one is Marshall Goldsmith wanted you to join them as one of the top coaches in the world.

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> Curtis Jackson>So tell us how that even happens and how it felt to get that award.

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> Jennifer Nash>Curtis, you're making me talk about stuff I don't normally talk about.

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> Jennifer Nash>so, I was invited to join marshall, Goldsmith's 100 coaches, which is a group of coaches that is made up of the, top executive coaches around the world. it's an invitation only group, and I was surprised by the invitation because, one of my mentors and my heroes actually invited me to join, and his name is Alan Mulally. And that happened about a year ago. So I joined the group about a year ago, and, I've just been honored and grateful to, learn and grow with these people who are at the top of their craft.

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> Curtis Jackson>So, tell us as much as you can about some of the select clients that you work with because you work with a few high, profile clients.

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> Jennifer Nash>Well, I have, so, you know, often I don't usually share the names of the clients and where they are because that's, you know, that part of the coaching work that I do is confidential, and I wouldn't want to break that trust.

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> Jennifer Nash>but what I can do is share, like, in general, about you know, some of the different clients that I've had with, you know, pseudonyms and share about the types of results that they've had. So, for example, I worked with one leader who was, ah, running a nonprofit organization, and she really, was struggling to get to that executive level in the organization. So, we spent a lot of time looking at, her prioritization, how she handled her, her working days, and helping her get from the level she was at to becoming the executive director of that organization. there's another client that I worked with who had, a data information brokerage company. And when he came to me, he, was doing okay. But there were a lot of things that weren't working so well in the organization. So we focused on him, getting better at being transparent with his team and helping his team understand, you know, here's the situation, here's where we are and being clear about the situation. So they understood why things were happening the way they were happening. And we also worked on having him improve his, strategic planning capabilities so he could be better prepared to weather the ups and downs that were coming, you know, as an entrepreneur, and then also just helping him be surrounded by the right team of people. Because when you're leaving an organization, you know, there's a lot going on and you need people that are specialists and experts in what they do to help you grow the organization. So, you know, this leader I was working with had a tendency to just take everything on by himself, and shoulder the whole, the whole load when, you know, if he just could learn to ask for a little bit of help, it would make things so much easier for him. And so ultimately we got him to a place where he had a full team supporting him and he could be outd doing business development and building relationships as the CEO, which is what he should be doing, and letting everyone else handle the technical part of it and the operational part of it and all of the nuts and bolts that go into operating a business on a day to day basis.

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> Curtis Jackson>So tell us about Jennifer Nash coaching. Tell us, if I came to you and said, hey, Jennifer, I need some help here, what kind of services could you provide if I came to you?

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> Jennifer Nash>Sure. so most often people come to me for coaching and consulting services. so from a coaching perspective, I do executive coaching where I help, leaders who are typically at the director level and above in organizations, improve their behaviors. So they may have some things that they're doing well and they may have some things that are getting in their way, you know, of being more effective and being that leader that they aspire to, to be. And so we work on those behaviors over a period of time together, and we pull in the stakeholders who are around them in the organization, to help engage them in that process of growth and development.

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> Jennifer Nash>for some organizations, I do, like, training and facilitation, and I do, leadership workshops. So I'll come in and I will help the organization grow its people's capabilities, in different areas, like helping them build communication skills or helping them build leadership skills, you know, depending on what they need, there usually isn't a one size fits all because everyone has different needs and different goals. And so I typically work with an organization or an individual to help them really get clear about what it is that they want to accomplish and then help them understand how I can support them in that space.

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> Curtis Jackson>So talk about your book. Tell. Tell listeners where we can get it and what we can expect when we read it. And what made you want to write it.

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> Jennifer Nash>Yeah, so, you know, the book is really interesting because I like to say that, you know, I've been writing this book, really since I started working, in the business world. So, you know, I have a somewhat of a different background than most typical executive coaches or consultants.

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> Jennifer Nash>I actually have a background where I started out in dance very young, and I also started out being trained as a classical pianist very young.

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> Jennifer Nash>And so having those two types of training, going into my young adulthood and then into my, first career as a working professional, it just helped me think about things a little bit differently. And so when I got dropped into this business world, it was a little hard for me to make sense of it because people were talking in sports terms, and there was all this unwritten cultural rules that I didn't really understand.

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> Jennifer Nash>And I just sat back and I observed a lot because I was trying to figure out how do I fit into this space? Do I fit into this space? Do I want to fit into this space? I spent a lot of my career in observation mode and trying to figure that out. The things that I learned ended up being the things that I coach and consult most often on the. And because I can't coach and consult everyone in the world, I figured, well, if I share that information in a book, then I can reach a lot more people and help a lot more people that way, and, you know, every person will have access to that information. And so, that was part of the reason why I decided I wanted to write a book.

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> Jennifer Nash>And so the book is actually coming up on its first birthday next month, so it'll be one year old. And, you know, I've just, I've had some really amazing stories from people who have shared how much the book has helped them in their leadership. I have had stories from parents who have shared how they want to role model leadership behaviors for their kids so their kids grow up with these positive, influences. I've had, first time, to the job market, new college graduates telling me, look, this is a great way for me to try to figure out what do I want to do with my career and what do I want that to look like and what are the things I'm looking to get out of that.

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> Jennifer Nash>So while the book is titled Be Human Lead, how to connect people in performance, it's not just for people who have a leadership title or have a huge p and L under them or have 20 people reporting to them. It's for people who are finding themselves in a space where they want to be the best human being they can possibly be, and they want to have the best communication skills they can possibly have, and they want to have, you know, healthy, happy and positive relationships in their lives. And this book helps them do that.

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> Curtis Jackson>Okay, so I'm kind of curious, and I'm sure the listeners might be, too, how did you go from dancing and piano playing to business?

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> Jennifer Nash>Yes. You know, so, so when I was twelve, so I started dance at three, and my mom had started teaching me piano at three as well. So I started both of those. And then when I was twelve years old, my parents moved to a new town and they couldn't afford to drive me to the dance lessons anymore because it was a pretty far drive. And, there were some other, you know, younger siblings in the family and my parents were busy. So, unfortunately, I stopped dancing at that age, at that time.

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> Jennifer Nash>but in the new location we were at, there was a piano teacher that I was fortunate enough to be able to start taking lessons with. And I took lessons from her from like, age twelve until, I graduated high school, at age 17.

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> Jennifer Nash>And so, you know, that was a big part of my life. You know, the dance and the music, it really formed a lot of how I think about the world. and so it really helped me, have a different perspective on things. So when I got into college, I was also very fortunate to have an ability to learn languages very quickly.

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> Jennifer Nash>And so I decided that I wanted to, pick up a couple different foreign languages. And, you know, I was. I was working my way through school. I was, you know, living with my parents to save money while I went to community college. and during that time, you know, my dad had had a conversation with me because he really wanted me to be able to support myself. And he knew that it was really, really hard, you know, for musicians to m support themselves. And he didn't want me to be a starving artist, if you will. So, he strongly encouraged me and recommended that I, pick something for my undergraduate major that would be marketable. And so, you know, having had to let go of dance and then having to let go of music, you know, when I graduated from high school, I, was able to, you know, use my love of foreign languages to combine that with business because I thought that that would be a marketable degree when I graduated, and that's actually how I came to be in the business world. It really wasn't because I had always wanted to be in the business world. it was because I spoke different languages that the first job out of college I got was helping, working on a customer support desk for one of the big automotive companies in the United States, interacting with their service technicians and helping them diagnose what was wrong with the vehicles. And I did that in French and in Spanish.

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> Curtis Jackson>So how many languages can you speak, so fluently?

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> Jennifer Nash>I can speak three languages, and I have working proficiency in a fourth and just a smattering of a few words in a fifth.

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> Curtis Jackson>Okay.

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> Jennifer Nash>Yep.

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> Curtis Jackson>Well, tell us about any current upcoming projects that you're working on that listeners need to be aware of.

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> Jennifer Nash>Well, you know, I'm really excited because one of the big things that I'm working on very hard, and I'm hoping to get it out there in this next month, is an online course about, the masterclass for the humans framework.

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> Jennifer Nash>So the humans framework is the, tool that I have, introduced in the book, and it is a set of tools that leaders and anyone really can use to improve their communication skills, their relationship skills, and their collaboration skills, and be a better leader if they're in that type of position. So that course is coming out hopefully in the next 30 days.

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> Jennifer Nash>and then I have a few other things coming out later this year as well.

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> Curtis Jackson>Okay, well, so people can keep up with you. Purchase your book, check out that course and all the other stuff you got coming out later in the year throughout your contact info, your website, all that good stuff.

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> Jennifer Nash>Yeah. So if they'd like to get a hold of me. they can go online to drjennifernash.com. that's Dr. Jennifernash.com.

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> Jennifer Nash>and there they'll find information about the book. They'll find information about all my services. I also have an index on the website, so they can take what I call the human leader index and get a personalized report that tells them where their strengths are in terms of being a human leader and where their opportunities to focus are. and they can also learn about all of the new things that I have coming out. so just if they go there, they, can sign up to be on my notify list for when the new, items come out.

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> Curtis Jackson>So tell us about that human leader index. How did you come up with that? And if somebody takes it and they compare their results, so they get their results, how will it help them? Or, show them what they need to do to improve or whatever?

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> Jennifer Nash>Yeah, so the human leader index, is a research based, questionnaire. There's 67 questions on it. And it came out of the research that I did for the book. So I actually interviewed about 400 people for this book, and I got a lot of stories about their leadership and challenges that they faced and different, tools that they would use to help work it done in an organization. And what I saw was that there was a subset and a pattern of different behaviors that leaders would exhibit that helped them be effective in what they were doing and leading people. And so I took those things and I translated them into seven different dimensions, that I saw that kept being repeated.

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> Jennifer Nash>And so the dimensions are hearing, understanding, mattering, appreciating, inspiring, seeing.

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> Jennifer Nash>And then the 7th one that holds all of those things together is called relationships. And so the human leader index measures a person's capabilities in each of those seven dimensions, and then it gives them a report, and it tells them, hey, here are the strengths that you have. This is what is rated highest for you. And then here are some of the areas that maybe you didn't rate as high in. And there are some opportunities where you can improve those.

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> Jennifer Nash>And if you want to improve them, here's some ideas and tips on how you can do that. and so it gives them an opportunity to create what you would call, like, a leadership plan or a leadership action plan or a roadmap for them to improve their leadership behaviors.

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> Curtis Jackson>Okay, close us out with some final thoughts, maybe if that was something I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on, or any final thoughts you have for the listeners.

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> Jennifer Nash>you know, I would say that in first and foremost, like, human leadership, like I talk about in the book, you know, it's an invitation to think about and practice leadership differently. You know, we've had, in the past, we've had these command and control leaders who micromanage and tell people what to do. And, we saw with COVID that people are very capable of leading themselves. People are very capable of managing their own work, getting that work done and delivering it. If not delivered on time, they can deliver it early as well.

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> Jennifer Nash>So when we think about that from that perspective, you know, there's a lot of skills that leaders, I think, aspire to build today to be able to lead people more effectively. And so the book is an effort to help leaders fill their toolkit with people leadership skills, rather than using the skills that they've used in the past or using skills that they use to manage projects and tasks which are not the same skills as managing people.

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> Curtis Jackson>All right, ladies and gentlemen, there you have it. If you are a leader or you know of somebody or you just want to, power yourself to peak performance, doctor Jennifer Nash.com go check it out. Go pick up a book. Check out her online course and everything that she's going to be up to later on in the year. Please follow rate review share this episode to as many people as possible.

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> Curtis Jackson>If you have any guest or suggestion topics, Cjackson 102 Ah Net is the place to send them. Thank you for supporting the show.

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> Curtis Jackson>Give us a review. Follow us.

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> Curtis Jackson>Jennifer, thank you so much for joining us and sharing your expertise.

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> Jennifer Nash>Thank you so much for having me, Curtis. It was a pleasure.

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> Curtis Jackson>For more information on the living the Dream podcast, visit www.djcurvefball.com.

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> Curtis Jackson>until next time, stay focused on living the dream. Dream.