Episode 124 | The Leadership Illusion That’s Costing You Talent with Dr. Tajiri Brackens

Dr. Tajiri Brackens  00:00

That looks like to me is Dorothy is your visionary, and she has her team of the Scarecrow, the Lion and the Tin Man, and they all have to work together in order to get to the goal of seeing the Wizard. And along that journey, you have the different pedigrees, the different backgrounds that each of her team members come from, but you’ve got to pull on the strengths of them, not necessarily honing in on their weaknesses, but pulling on their strengths so that everybody can accomplish the goal.

Voiceover  00:05

Welcome to the “Lead at the Top of Your Game” podcast, where we equip you to more effectively lead your seat at any employer, business, or industry in which you choose to play. Each week, we help you sharpen your leadership acumen by cracking open the playbooks of dynamic leaders who are doing big things in their professional endeavors. And now, your host, leadership tactics, and organizational development expert, Karan Ferrell-Rhodes.

Karan Rhodes  00:36

Hello again, my superstars. This is Karan, and welcome to another episode of the lead at the top of your game podcast, we have an amazing guest with us today who is going deep into the world of storytelling and a unique leadership experience that she wants to share with you, and I don’t want to steal her thunder, so that’s all I’m gonna say, really deeply about it, but we’re happy to have on today’s show Dr Tajiri Brackens, who’s the founder of heritage leadership consulting LLC. She is a very renowned leadership strategist and is affectionately known as the workplace wizard, which is such a fantastic nickname. But she’s also a retention architect and the visionary behind the oz experience, where she uses storytelling to help leaders better understand business critical approaches, which will foster more productive workforces. And of course, you know, I can’t wait to hear more about the oz experience. So welcome to the podcast Tajiri 

Dr. Tajiri Brackens  01:41

Thank you. I am so honored to be here and to be in your space. Karan, Oh my gosh, I get to be in Karan’s space!

Karan Rhodes  01:49

I get to be in yours. No, this is absolutely fantastic, and I I’m just going to give you kudos up front for such a creative and unique approach to up leveling and upskilling leaders, but I can’t wait to talk about it. But before we go there, you know, we always love to learn just a tad bit about our guests so

Dr. Tajiri Brackens  02:11

Cool! We don’t have that much time, but I’ll give you the Cliff Notes versions. I am a movie enthusiast. Enthusiasts, so you’ll see how that plays into the oz experience as we continue to talk. But I absolutely love movies. I love documentaries, things that help me to try and figure out why people do what they do. What is the motivation behind that. So oftentimes I which is where stories come from, because I see things in stories, hence the storytelling that you mentioned earlier. I just see things differently. That’s that’s the best way I can tell you, visionary and being able to watch the movies and look at things through leadership lenses, versus just watching the movie for the plot and the antagonist and what have you, I’m seeing everything through leadership, um, through leadership lenses. So you you got a good movie or a documentary for me, or even something like SVU, or, you know, crime shows and what have you, I’m just, if you’re there, into girl, into give me some popcorn, give me the remote, and I’m good.

Karan Rhodes  03:23

I love it. You know, we’re actually sisters from other mothers. Because you know, even in my bios and my listeners do know this, that My dream is to one day be a movie critic who’s also a sommelier. So I have mixed my love for wine tasting with movies. And so I use movies a lot, too, as analogies for either leadership or the way the world of work works. So we are definitely kindred spirits.

Dr. Tajiri Brackens  03:52

Oh yes, I love it. Another sister from another mother. So. And I  Love it. We’ll have to go do movie time someday or something. Meet you up somewhere.

Karan Rhodes  04:03

Absolutely, absolutely. Well. Thank you so much for sharing that. And would love to go ahead and jump right in to the meat of our podcasts and conversation. But first, like to start off, if you wouldn’t mind just giving us a high level of kind of your professional experience and what led you to start Heritage Leadership Consulting.

Dr. Tajiri Brackens  04:25

The journey has been quite interesting. I love it. I love from where I started and where I am now, and how it’s all developed. So my background and corporate experience comes from being a part of an MLM for over 33 years and working in corporate America as a corporate travel agent for about 25 years minimum. I’ve just lost count on how many, but I know at least 25 years.

Karan Rhodes  04:54

You look too young to be at 25 years, I mean, really.

Dr. Tajiri Brackens  04:58

Girl…stress…If you you don’t have stress and you’re at peace, and you command that in for you, in your environment, yeah, it spills over.

Karan Rhodes  05:07

It does.

Dr. Tajiri Brackens  05:07

And when you’re operating in your gifts and in your anointing and what you’re supposed to be doing, that makes a huge difference as well. So I thank you. That means I’m doing something right.

Karan Rhodes  05:16

Absolutely. You’re just sharing secrets for when I get off the podcast.

Dr. Tajiri Brackens  05:21

I got you. I got you. But from those backgrounds, I looked at teams, so first looking at the MLM side teams,

Karan Rhodes  05:31

Define MLM for those that don’t know,

Dr. Tajiri Brackens  05:33

I’m so sorry, yeah, multi level marketing, direct sales, I do apologize. It’s just so natural for me to say

Karan Rhodes  05:42

I knew what you were talking about, but I want to make sure the listeners know, so they keep track.

Dr. Tajiri Brackens  05:46

Stay with us on this. I’ll take you along the journey. So with being in that environment in direct sales for over 33 years, I looked at the teams that were doing exceptionally well and just hitting the mark and killing the game, reaching the goals, exceeding the goals, versus those teams that were barely getting by, you did enough to where you still met the requirements, but you weren’t super exceeding like the other teams were. So I began to wonder, well, what is it that makes this team so special? What is it that makes them so different? Why does this one not get it? Well, I’m just gonna say not get it for right now. Why are they struggling to get to that point when you have great examples of what it can what it can look like. And as I dove into that, I began to see it was about the relationships that the teams had amongst each other, and the soft skill development of the leaders of those teams. So I’m like, Okay, there’s something to this. They begin to work together because they had some type of relationship. So if one wasn’t able to make an appointment, then they call the other people on their team. And just so happens, and I’m just going to be very specific here, just so happens that two of those team members have children that are on the same baseball team, so I can’t go pick up my child, but because you’re on my team, and we have that relationship, and I trust you, can you pick my child up too, so that I can go do what I need to do? So it’s that extended family and relationships that you have. So that’s kind of how that began to grow from that side of it, and because of skills that I learned there were transferable when I worked in corporate America, I’ll use when I was at Continental, specifically working in accounts payable department, looking at, you know, trying to reconcile things, and it’s like, okay, this is missing. This is missing. This is missing. But because I transferred those skills with me to that position, I began to build relationships with the people that I had to reconcile their credit card statements with. So, you know, they may be walking by my desk, or I’d see them in the hallway we’re passing by. Hey, you said you weren’t on vacation. How was the vacation? What all did you do? Just a little small talk, you know, I’m not trying to find out how the divorce proceedings, you know, get deep down into that but just the small talk and building that report and relationship with them, and what I found was that once they saw my name, come across an email or the caller ID, obviously they knew what I was calling for, because of the department and the position that I held, but when they saw my name, it wouldn’t be dreading what they were what I was asking them for sure. So they got those things to me in a relatively timely manner, and the people that were on my team were like, Okay, what she got going on here? How is she able to get through these a lot faster or more efficiently than what we’re able to do. And again, it was that soft skill relationship that I was able to take over to corporate America. And that being said, let me give you a visual with that. So let’s just say you’ve got a plate Well, the way that we operate now, especially as women, we have a platter. It’s no longer a plate. We’ve got a gazillion different things on our plate. But if someone asks you for a favor, or ask you to do something, even though you have all these things on your plate because of the relationship that you have with them, the camaraderie that you have with them, you will figure out a way to get it done, whereas, if you don’t really have that relationship because of your character, you’ll do it, but there won’t be as much zeal to make sure that you get it done. So that’s where I tie in soft skills and relationship building, because it goes a long way. It’s in everything that you do. It’s professionally. It’s personally. You know, you can take that example and plug it in wherever you want, and you can see, ah, if Mary Jane calls me and asks me for something, it’s done within 10, 15, minutes, whereas, if it’s, I don’t know, Bob, John, I’m just throwing out names here. You ask me for something, because there’s not that relationship, okay, I’ll get to that later on today, or I’ll get to that later on in the week, or by the deadline. And it may even be at the…at the hair of your chinny chin, chin, and you get it to them as far as the deadline that they have for you. But again, as you can see, there’s a difference in the relationships and how people react to that, and how they’re willing to serve and to help you

Karan Rhodes  10:46

That’s right. Relationships make the world go round, and they actually influence, like, how quickly things get done, to what efficiency and effect they get done. I mean, it just it trickles down, you name it, depending upon the industry. It really helps to make things happen

Dr. Tajiri Brackens  11:03

Absolutely.

Karan Rhodes  11:04

So share with us how you came up with the Oz Experience. Well, first what it is, and maybe maybe a few tips or things that you want to make sure that our listeners understand about the oz experience.

Dr. Tajiri Brackens  11:18

 Sure now we get to talk about good stuff,

Karan Rhodes  11:22

Absolutely!

Dr. Tajiri Brackens  11:24

So as I mentioned in the beginning, my away from work time is centered around movies and documentaries. And as a child, my very my favorite, favorite, favorite, favorite, favorite. Did I mention favorite movie was The Wiz and of course, that was a different remake, a parody on the Wizard of Oz. And you know as a child, of course, things are culturally appropriate, cultural appropriation. And that just identified with me more, not that I didn’t understand the Wizard of Oz, but the ways just really resonated with me. So, you know, as a child, you don’t you understand the basic principles of what the movie is talking about. But now that I’ve become more mature and I’m grown and have more experiences now, when I look at that, I see things totally different, again, from a leadership perspective, because that’s my jam, that’s my niche, as far as leadership, and what that looks like to me is Dorothy is your visionary, and she has her team of the Scarecrow, the lion and the Tin Man, and they all have to work together in order to get to the goal of seeing the wizard. And along that journey, you have the different pedigrees, the different backgrounds that each of her team members come from, but you’ve got to pull on the strengths of them, not necessarily honing in on their weaknesses, but pulling on their strengths so that everybody can accomplish the goal and get what it is that they need, individually and collectively. And I believe in simplifying things, because I think we can all say that we’ve been to a lunch and learn or some type of training. Somebody can attest to that, and once we leave that environment, we don’t do anything with what we’ve learned. It’s just something to check off of the to do list, unless it’s a topic that we are just hone in gung ho about and we want to, you know, dive into that a little bit more. But again, most of the time it’s just checking it off of a to do list. And I believe in simplification, so using childhood stories, which takes the barriers off of what we may think about whatever it is, and using those simple childhood stories, it not only takes us back to a nostalgic place where life was much simpler, true, much much simpler, then we can understand it through a different perspective, through different lenses. So that’s why I choose childhood stories and again, The Wiz in this particular instance and how the workplace wizard came about.

Karan Rhodes  14:32

I absolutely love that because making your experience the oz experience space in it, or creating a foundation in a common you know, story that most people know, at least the basics of really helps to, you know, bring the lessons home, helps it resonate and to your point of storytelling, people tell that story in their own like life or worldview. And so you know, no matter your background, you can make it resonate with them. Now I’m assuming, and this is a big assumption, because I haven’t had a chance to go deep on on the experience itself, I’m assuming that the Oz was not the best leader in the world. So I I wonder if there’s some lessons that that you share regarding the less than ideal leader and how they maybe unknowingly sabotage themselves.

Dr. Tajiri Brackens  15:26

Oh, well, that’s where wicked leadership comes from.

Karan Rhodes  15:29

I love it!

Dr. Tajiri Brackens  15:32

So yes, looking at the wizard, we’ll just call it transparency and authenticity. He hid behind a mask, and a lot of times, or let me say, I have had my share of leaders that hold the position just entitled only, and they are somebody completely different than what that position, what you expect of that position, they just have this facade of who They are and what they’re supposed to be doing. But when you dig deeper, they got all this other baggage behind them that’s either preventing them from being the true leader that they can be, or it’s sabotaging them, as you mentioned from well, let me say it this way. I’m sure we’ve all been in those circles where when somebody walks in the room, we’re just ecstatic that they are there, yeah, because they’re just such an energy giver. They’re such a good vibe about them. It’s just, oh, I want to be around that person. And then we’ve also been in those same rooms, or it’s like, oh, that person is here. Let me go the other direction. Let me run for us. Run

Karan Rhodes  16:50

Right.

Dr. Tajiri Brackens  16:52

And I tie that to being an energy giver or an energy taker. And usually, if you’re an energy giver, then you’re willing to pour into people despite what it is that you’re going through or what you have going on with you, that you’re willing to pour into the person so that they can succeed and so that they can be better at whatever it is that they need assistance with. So I’m big on not only energy, excuse me, not only relationship building, but also the energy that accompanies that. Because you can be a great, great, great relationship builder or net let me use the word networker in this in this instance, I can be a great networker, but if you got a nasty attitude,

Karan Rhodes  17:42

It’s a problem

Dr. Tajiri Brackens  17:42

being gramatically incorrect. Don’t nobody want to be around you, and don’t nobody want to be bothered with that. I don’t care if you do have the gates to heaven, for me to be the keys to the gates of heaven, for me to be able to get in with no problem. But I just don’t want to be affiliated with that. I don’t want to be tainted by what it is that you’re spilling over because of your energy, because of the way that you interact, or you’re you know, just as as the young people say, your vibe

Karan Rhodes  18:08

Absolutely, and what

Dr. Tajiri Brackens  18:10

I was not trying to be a part of that,

Karan Rhodes  18:12

Not at all. I say yes, and I don’t know about you, but in my experience, we have a high astuteness or around or high or how I want to say it, I’m gonna be political correct. But you know, we know when there’s like BS going around, if you’re hiding behind a facade as a leader, people sense it around you, and when they sense that the trust level just plummets. It does in my experience, and I know it does for me personally. And so I’m just curious, and in your experience, what does it take if you go down that route, what does it take to regain trust? Or can you ever regain trust from your team if you’ve been behaving or operating in a kind of suspect way,

Dr. Tajiri Brackens  19:02

You can it’s going to take time. First thing that I believe it’s going to take self evaluation, realizing that you are the problem. It’s not them

Karan Rhodes  19:13

That’s true.

Dr. Tajiri Brackens  19:13

It’s not them. There’s a common denominator in it all, and you just have to take that self assessment, and then from that self assessment, you have to make the change, because it does no good to hear again, have the information, know it, and you do nothing with it. Very true. So once you realize what the problem is, realize that a change needs to happen, then you get the necessary tools in order to make the change now, and people will begin to see the change and give you the benefit of, excuse me, the benefit of the doubt that you are trying to make some adjustments to make it better for them in the workplace, in that, you know, creating that culture where people want to be there. Because, if I can be quite frank, people do not leave organizations because of money. They leave because of bad leadership, and they leave because of bad culture. So don’t be a part of the reason why people leave be the reason why people stay I love that Absolutely.

Karan Rhodes  20:23

That’s almost a drop the mic moment right there, but…we will continue on. So thank you for sharing a bit more about the oz experience, and I want to touch base on something that a lot of people and organizations are faced with these days, especially in this business and work environment and climate, and that’s around, umm, employee engagement and retention. And I know that’s an area of specialty that you know you have as a leadership expert. And I’m just curious if you have any insights on what people leaders can do, or what steps they can take to really strengthen their retention efforts, to keep their top talents on their teams.

Dr. Tajiri Brackens  21:10

It’s gonna to me, all goes back to relationship building, because if you know your people, and you know what, what they’re good for, and the value that they bring, and you hone in on that and give them a sense of belonging, so that they know they have a purpose. Because if, I mean, if we just look at Maslow’s hierarchy, yeah, I mean, that’s a whole nother part of it, you know, once you have that sense of belonging, then you’re going to do whatever you need to do to make that place comfortable for yourself, alongside with the other people that are around you in that environment, that so if I feel that I have that I’m giving some value, that my part in the team is helping the team be great, to be efficient, to be proficient, then I’m going to do whatever I can In my world to continue to do that. So that’s my spin. That’s that’s my thought process on that. It is knowing, knowing your team. And then from there, you know, it’s like, oh, well, this person is good with XYZ. And when you hone in on their strengths, when they go to contribute, it’s not a pull from them, it’s a natural thing for them. And with that, that creates the synergy to where the team begins to work together. Some people, I mean, that’s getting to know your different personalities, your different temperaments. And I touch on that with with what I have my framework called mixture, blended culture. And here again, with simplifying things, I use candy with that. So I believe

Karan Rhodes  22:51

Ok. Share more about that candy, I’m curious.

Dr. Tajiri Brackens  22:55

So let’s say that I don’t know. I’ll just use red hots right now, okay, as an example. So if I am attaching specific characteristics and traits to red hots, ie, you’ve got this, this team member, this gung ho, they’re all in. I got you. Tell me what you need. We’ll make it happen. I may not have the wherewithal with no head, but I’m gonna figure out how to get it done, because you asked me to do it, and I know what the goal is. I’m all in. I have the buy in for the goal. I’m gonna make it happen. So they’re just that, you know, that go getter type of person. So now when you see them and you can identify them, you can label them as, ah, you’re red hot. Now I know how to deal with you. Now, the flip side to red hots is you got somebody that’s always flipping off and going off on the end,

Karan Rhodes  23:48

True, true.

Dr. Tajiri Brackens  23:50

Hot headed, and it’s like, okay, now I know how to deal with you too. You a red hot so once you’re able to label things, then it makes it easier to deal with. Yeah, you know, just like when you go to the doctor, you have this problem, you have these symptoms, but when they diagnose you with blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now you know the treatment that you need to take in order to solve that problem. So that’s where I come in with it on the mixture, blended culture. And we can all again, identify with candy. We’ve had some piece of candy at least once in our life, yeah, again, taking away the barriers, simplifying it so that people can understand it. It becomes palatable and retainable, and then from there, it’s executable,

Karan Rhodes  24:38

Amazing. Well, gosh, I have a ton of notes that I wrote down Dr Tajiri, so hopefully our listeners have as well. But we can’t let you get out of here without asking you our signature question that we love to ask our guests and for my newer listeners out there, you may not know, but my firm actually did quite a bit of research on leadership execution and what high performing leaders and organizations did to reach their pinnacles of success. And there were like seven main buckets that came out of the research, but we always ask our guests which of the seven, which are all equally as important, which are of the seven really popped for them? And so Tajiri was so kind to share that leading with intrapreneurship really resonated with her, and for my newer listeners, intrepreneurship is all about building an organization by identifying new opportunities to either develop or improve operations, products or services. And it’s basically within whatever work environment you’re in, whether it’s corporate America, small business or in a nonprofit, whatever that infrastructure is, it’s all about having an eye about developing or improving whatever operations, products and services that you all are focused on. So curious minds would love to know. Dr chidiri, why did entrepreneurship really pop for you?

Dr. Tajiri Brackens  26:04

Well, if we go way back to the beginning of our conversation, yeah, and the Dorothy that I said, the archetype of Dorothy is the visionary,

Karan Rhodes  26:15

Yeah,

Dr. Tajiri Brackens  26:15

And it’s looking beyond what is just right here in front of him and being that person, that visionary thinking outside of the box, that totally resonates, because that gives you freedom and it gives you creativity. Oh, yeah. And if I can be quite honest, here it is, because of the visionaries that we have the necessary tools, especially in technology,

Karan Rhodes  26:41

Yes, yeah,

Dr. Tajiri Brackens  26:42

It’s because of those visionaries that were able to use some of those things. And somebody thought about and tried and figured out, not try to, but figured out, oh, this is how I can bring this to fruition. So it’s that creativity and operating in your zone of genius and in your gifts to be able to make that happen. And I firmly believe, firmly believe, that when you let people that are visionaries do them, then you’re going to see so much growth. There’s going to be so much progression, because visionaries don’t do well with operating in a box. We understand structure. We can work within structure, but we also need the freedom to be able to flap our wings so that we can fly and get some other things done too. So if you tell us, okay, this is what we’re looking for, this is what we need, then just drop that to me and let me go to work and let my brain figure out how to make it work. And then I’m going to come to you and say, Hey, this is what I came up with. What do you think about XYZ? And either you’re going to say, I like this part of it, I like that part of it, but this here in the middle ain’t working for me, then I’m going to go back to the drawing board, or you, you’re going to tell me, this is crap, and none of this works for me. Or the third option is, this is amazing. We’re going to take it, we’re going to run with it. What else you got? So that’s where I am with with that. And I am that person, and that person is me. So if you’re looking to move forward, to go into the future, dare I say, then I am one of those people that you want on your team that can help you get that because being stagnant is not going to get you anywhere, but left behind.

Karan Rhodes  28:29

Okay, it will not you’ve got to take those baby steps forward no matter what, like you said, the status quo is not going to get you to where you want to be. So definitely, I totally agree with that. Well, Tajiri, thank you for your time today, but before we let you go, you know we’re going to have your bio and info about how to reach you in our show notes. But I always love to give our guests air time to do so as well. So if people want to learn more about heritage, leadership, consulting and the oz experience, and I know you do a lot of speaking and things as well, where can they find you and your company?

Dr. Tajiri Brackens  29:01

So I’m going to keep it very simple for you. It’s Doctor-tajiri.com, it’s my name, and that’s a dash, not an underscore. Let’s not because you’ll be looking for somebody else or find somebody else. So it’s a dash. It’s a dash, D, R, dash Tajiri, T, A, J, I, R, I.com very simple. You can find out how to follow me on social media, what my intensive my boot camp intensives are all about my books, who I am, whatever you want to know and you want to dive deep into, you can find it right there at Dr dash tajiri.com, all right.

Karan Rhodes  29:35

Well, there you go. Listeners. Time we finish up, that’s your next link. Go to the show notes, the links will be there, and going to definitely check her out even more well. Thank you again Tajiri for the gift of your time and your insights. This was fantastic for our listeners, and I absolutely love what you’re doing with the oz experience.

Dr. Tajiri Brackens  29:55

Thank you. Thank you,

Karan Rhodes  29:58

And thank you to listeners for the gift of your time as well, because we know that there are literally millions of other podcasts out there that you could be listening to, and we do not take your patronage lightly. All that we ask is that you like and subscribe to the podcast and share the podcast with just one friend, because by doing so, we’ll all get better at leading up the top of our games. Thanks so much, and see you next week.And that’s our show for today. Thank you for listening to the lead at the top of your game podcast, where we help you lead your seat at any employer, business, or industry in which you choose to play. You can check out the show notes, additional episodes, and bonus resources, and also submit guest recommendations on our website at leadyourgamepodcast.com. You can follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn by searching for the name Karan Rhodes with Karan being spelled K a r a n. And if you like the show, the greatest gift you can give would be to subscribe and leave a rating on your podcast platform of choice. This podcast has been a production of Shockingly Different Leadership, a global consultancy which helps organizations execute their people, talent development, and organizational effectiveness initiatives on an on-demand, project, or contract basis. Huge thanks to our production and editing team for a job well done. Goodbye for now.