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Speaker 1 (00:00:04):
People are the most consequential and dangerous forces on earth. Well, personality psychology isn’t about the nature of human nature. It’s about people, and wouldn’t that be useful to know? I mean it seems to me. I can’t, I can’t think of a more important problem.
Speaker 2 (00:00:23):
You are listening to The Science of Personality Podcast, brought to you by Hogan Assessments, the global leader in personality assessment and leadership development since 1987. Your hosts are Hogan chief science officer and world renowned personality psychologist, Dr. Ryne Sherman, along with Hogan PR manager and resident storyteller, Blake Leopp.
Ryne Sherman (00:00:49):
Hello everybody. And welcome back to The Science of Personality Podcast. I’m your host Ryne Sherman, along with my co-host as always Blake Leopp. Say hello Blake.
Blake Leopp (00:00:58):
Hello everybody. And welcome back to The Science of Personality Podcast episode 28. Today, Ryne and I are joined by Jason Blair, a mental health and leadership coach who uses the Hogan suite of assessments as part of his coaching practice. For today’s topic, we will be talking with Jason specifically about the mental wellbeing and professional development of leaders during the pandemic.
Blake Leopp (00:01:20):
The coaching profession has long said that it focuses on the whole person, but the mental health of, of Jason’s clients during the pandemic suggests that maybe coaches haven’t been doing the best job of practicing that approach. In a previous life, Jason was a journalist for The New York Times, but resigned following an investigation into plagiarism and fabrication in his stories. Jas- Jason, would you mind elaborating on this for our audience and how you rebounded from this?
Jayson Blair (00:01:46):
Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, um, very early on, probably in high school, I, uh, realized that I, I wanted to be a journalist. And in fact it was, uh, my high school, uh, the journalism teacher got sick of me writing letters to the editor picking on, uh, picking on their team. She confronted me in the cafeteria was like, “Look, if you’re so good, why don’t you join us?” So I did. Um, and it sounds corny, but I really got into journalism because I really saw very quickly that it had the power to heal people, to help people, to entertain people, and really to introduce new idea, uh, new ideas and new ways of thinking.
Jayson Blair (00:02:25):
So fast forward after stints with like The Washington Post as an intern, The Boston Globe, and at The Times, um, I was hired at The Times as one of their youngest reporters. I was actually the youngest reporter at the time. So I covered the September 11 attacks, law enforcement, the sniper shootings, and a number of other high profile stories. I also had mental health issues that I didn’t know about. So undiagnosed, uh, bipolar disorder. And so that contributed to my spectacular downfall, um, but I don’t attribute the scandal to bipolar disorder. Instead I look at it through a slightly different lens that’s relevant for this conversation.
Jayson Blair (00:03:05):
My friend, the late writer, uh, the David Carr or David Carr wrote in his book, it’s called The Night of the Gun, that after talking to me, ingesting all the coverage about my story, he still didn’t know why I did it. So he wrote in the book, you know, that I more or less grabbed a rope, tied it around my neck, then tried, uh, to tie it around the rest of the staff at The New York Times and then I jumped.
Jayson Blair (00:03:31):
I think though through the lens of behavioral psychology, it’s actually pretty simple why it happened. Um, I didn’t have the skills to handle the challenges that I faced on the job. And I had some other maladaptive skills that created sort of a perfect storm. So a personality psychologist might say that I was confident, I was driven. I was really resilient, but I was also very arrogant, immune to feedback and really resistant to even admit my minor flaws.
Jayson Blair (00:03:58):
And so I think that has more to do with not being able to handle the undiagnosed mental illness. So at the same time, I was also very creative and willing to take risks and, uh, test limits. So you shake all that up and you get a quite ornate, spectacular, uh, scandal. And so if those words I just used sound familiar, it’s because I took the words themselves right out of my Hogan Assessment description.
Jayson Blair (00:04:26):
So the, my belief in how personality can be impactful is not just rooted in the science, it’s not just rooted in all the evidence out there, but it’s really rooted in personal experience. It’s somebody who has derailed. And so what I really did to sort of turn life around was basically try and find that sweet spot between those things that you guys would call derailers and sort of the strength side of them.
Jayson Blair (00:04:53):
I sort of viewed it like you would view, um, you know, a baseball pitcher, right? A good pitcher needs to have a nice balance and velocity, spin rate, accuracy, trajectory, movement, but like with the runners on first and third (laughs) most pitcher feel stress and tend to sort of overuse what they’re good at or what they’re comfortable with. And all of a sudden the strengths that they have turn into a weakness. So a pitcher is too much movement, can, can’t hit the strike zone anymore or fool a batter. And so I, I very much view, uh, that period of my life, the stress of the bipolar disorder, the September 11 attacks, my overuse or incorrect use of some of my traits and qualities just caused me to throw a lot of wild pitches.
Jayson Blair (00:05:40):
The way I was sort of able of the turn it back around is just the opposite side of this. Obviously getting treatment and, uh, taking care of the mental health issues, but also taking care of some of those underlying personality characteristics that probably led to the situation. I became much more humble while balancing that with resilience for example. I learned to kind of dial down some of my limit testing or some of my creative risk taking.
Jayson Blair (00:06:10):
And so I was able eventually to connect with the psychologist because I did some mental health advocacy afterwards who really pointed me the direction of coaching. And at first I was like, “Yo, dude, you are out of your mind. Do you know my background?” And finally, uh, he convinced me to do it and actually hired me as a mental health coach. We saw really positive outcomes and, uh, you know, the rest is, uh, history.
Ryne Sherman (00:06:37):
Well, thanks for providing that background on that, on your story, Jason, and, and I know listeners might, you know, if they want to hear more background, I think you have a book, Burning Down My Masters’ House, I believe is the title.
Jayson Blair (00:06:49):
Yeah. That is the title.
Ryne Sherman (00:06:50):
But it’s, and, and I don’t know. I mean, that’s like, I don’t, maybe I, I’m wrong about this, 2004, that feels a like forever go to me. Does it feel like forever go to you?
Jayson Blair (00:07:00):
It does. (laughs) It really does. I mean, it’s, you know, uh, you think 9/11, 2001 and then 2004 for those events.
Ryne Sherman (00:07:09):
Yeah.
Jayson Blair (00:07:09):
Um, it’s been a long, long, long, long journey for me over that time and a super rewarding one. I, I like to do joke Ryne, or it’s not much of a joke, but I, I, I tell students when I go and visit, it’s a real tough call for me that if I had the, the choice to like, learn all those lessons about myself, uh, if I had to give up learning those lessons, uh, would I go back through the scandal? And sadly, as painful as it was, I would’ve for everything that’s happened since then, so.
Ryne Sherman (00:07:43):
Yeah. Well, and what I really think is cool about your story, Jason, is that it is one of the things that we talk about when we talk about getting feedback. And obviously we don’t hope that in, um, most people’s cases, feedback is quite as, uh, poignant or, um, you know, delivered in such a powerful way as it was for, for you and your career. But I think in lots of people’s cases, um, you know, uh, feedback it comes too late, comes too infrequently, or isn’t clear enough, or isn’t powerful enough to, to sort of drive the kind of change that you’re able to, that you’re able to accomplish, you know, basically, you know, based on that feedback and then of course, some positive experiences that happened after that.
Jayson Blair (00:08:25):
Yeah. And I think you’re, you know, I think you’re spot on Ryne that the core piece of that experience really had to do with the outside world feedback, right? People being able to describe to me what they saw and the gap between who they thought I was and what I was doing. And that really provided a great roadmap to get back on track. That’s a great sort of lens to look at it through.
Blake Leopp (00:08:50):
Well, Jason, I mean, personally, I, I think this is just such a great comeback story and it takes an incredible amount of humility, I think, to, to really be able to, to talk about that, you know, with, with an audience like we have here. And so we really appreciate you coming on ’cause we do think it’s a great story. And, um, but we also have other things that we want to talk to you about today, aside from that.
Blake Leopp (00:09:12):
We just wanted the listeners to, you know, be upfront with it and, and allow you to kind of tell that story and, and, you know, really how it’s kind of shaped the rest of your career, which I, I, I think is really, really awesome. So, uh, okay, Jason, with, with all that out of the way, let’s go ahead and get into to- today’s topic. So first, what got you interested in being a professional coach following your career as a journalist?.
Jayson Blair (00:09:36):
Yeah. So it’s, it’s interesting. Um, you know, after leaving The Times, total ball of flames, you know, do not pass go. I really struggled trying to figure out, um, what to do next. So I spent many years trying to figure that out. Um, you know, I worked some odd jobs. I did some mental health advocacy. And one of the things I did was found a nonprofit that helped people with depression and bipolar. One of the things that we did was educational advocacy work, mental health screenings. And that’s where I met the psychologist that I mentioned who’s like, “Dude, you’re already doing the job of being a coach.” And I didn’t know a lot about coaching, um, but really, he was able to introduce that to me.
Jayson Blair (00:10:19):
I began working in his practice, um, after getting a certification. And one of the, one of the really neat things, uh, I think there were probably two real neat things for me. One, we could see positive outcomes, right? With compliance, with prognosis, um, with the wellbeing of clients, um, but another thing that was really cool about becoming a coach coming from the perspective of a former journalist is that you use a lot of the same skills.
Jayson Blair (00:10:50):
So in both jobs, you have to be really curious, in both jobs you have to learn how to ask people questions, delicately and gently, and you really have to let people tell their story. Um, you also, uh, in my mind, have to solve a lot of puzzles in both jobs. So I found it to be really sort of a, you know, a natural fit for me, a melding of my interest in helping people, interest in solving puzzles, and my interest in having something positive come out of my experience.
Ryne Sherman (00:11:25):
Oh, that’s such a cool, uh, point that you make there about those parallels because I, I mean, I would think, it, it’s funny ’cause to you, you say, “Well, they’re kind of naturally overlapping.” I would think most people, maybe I’m biased because I think myself personally, I, I wouldn’t necessarily see coaching and journalism. I mean, you’d think, well, these are totally different departments in a university and, and things like that. You might not, but the parallels, those three parallels that you drew Jason, I think really make a lot of sense. So that, that’s really cool.
Jayson Blair (00:11:51):
Yep. And I think another piece, uh, that’s somewhat similar is the notion of inquiry, right? You know, you guys as researchers constantly jump into research projects where you start with a hypoth- hypothesis and you think it’s headed in this direction, but the evidence and the facts tell you something different and that’s the direction you [inaudible 00:12:12]. And I think journalism is very similar in the same way too. You know, we’re very, as a profession focused on inquiry and often we’re walking in with hypothesis, but we’re letting the truth and the evidence guide us in a similar way that psychological research does to what the real answer is. And some of the most fun stuff, both in that work and your work, is in the nuance or the surprises, um, that pop up.
Ryne Sherman (00:12:37):
Yeah. (laughs) I mean, absolutely. I, I don’t think I ever did an interview with a journalist where they didn’t ask me if anything surprised me about our findings. That’s like one of the big, big topics.
Jayson Blair (00:12:47):
Write everything. (laughs)
Blake Leopp (00:12:49):
(laughs) Yeah. And it’s also a little bit intimidating for me kind of as the interviewer in this conversation, (laughs) um-
Jayson Blair (00:12:56):
You’re good.
Blake Leopp (00:12:58):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I never thought I would be interviewing, um, you know, a former journalist for The New York Times so that’s core.
Jayson Blair (00:13:03):
Don’t worry Blake. I never thought that I would be on the other side of any interviews in my life, so you’re good. (laughs)
Blake Leopp (00:13:07):
Yeah. Well, okay. So, you know, we had a little bit of back and forth, uh, via email prior to recording this podcast. And, and in that you, you basically stated that personality hasn’t changed during the pandemic, but you believe anecdotal evidence suggests that the frequency and intensity of the dark side personality characteristics showing up has increased over the past 15 months. Can you tell us why you think that’s the case and also maybe provide some example for our audience?
Jayson Blair (00:13:36):
Yeah. Let me give you just a little bit of background about the space that I operate in. Um, so I run right now, since 2010, I run a firm that probably has about, let’s see, 10 full-time employees, coaches, consultants, and then probably about 40 independent or part-time coaches and consultants that work with us. So we do a lot of work still in the mental health space and career development with individuals, but we also do a lot of work in the federal government or with private corporations.
Jayson Blair (00:14:05):
Um, and to sort of answer your question, you know, you guys have done some of the research that shows personality hasn’t really changed. And even internally here with some of our clients, we’ve actually retested people during the pandemic and also retested some who have gone through trauma. Now our sample size is not particularly good, but we, I mean, we have not seen much movement, um-
Blake Leopp (00:14:27):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jayson Blair (00:14:27):
… in those situations. Um, but what we have seen is really an increase in the frequency and the, sort of the amplitude and the wavelength, right? So how high and low derailment is going and then how, uh, short the wavelength is between the incidents of derailment? And it makes perfect sense to me. There are these researchers right now at Georgia State University, they publish this, um, article, preliminary research in the Journal of Loss and Trauma that concluded that the pandemic is like no other event, um, that we’ve collectively experienced since psychology has seriously been studying trauma
Blake Leopp (00:15:11):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jayson Blair (00:15:11):
So world war II might be an event like that, 1918 influenza, but we really weren’t seriously studying trauma at those points. So they took a look at 1700 adults, um, across, uh, the globe. And they basically came to the conclusion from their preliminary research that we’re going through a continuous traumatic stress right now. Um, we’re facing sort of more fear of death, uh, fear of infection, economic collapse, um, you know. We’re naturally social beings and we’re having to deal with more isolation.
Jayson Blair (00:15:48):
So where there is stress, there is more derailment and, uh, where there’s traumatic stress, which is probably like a much smaller group, um, there, that’s where you’re seeing a lot of the shorter wavelengths in terms of the frequency. Um, so, and, and, you know, just contextually before I go into some examples, the real tragedy of, you know, derailers or maladaptive behaviors are there, they’re just really our way of protecting ourselves-
Blake Leopp (00:16:18):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jayson Blair (00:16:19):
… um, you know, when our stress and our emotions are running a muck. And one way I like to describe it to my clients is to say, you know, think of your, uh, think of your personal- uh, of derailers as like your personality’s version of your human immune system, right? And you’re in a world full of threats and your first line of defense when a virus threatens you, is your saliva, it’s your nose hairs. If that doesn’t work your killer T-cells and B-cells sweeping. They attack the invading force without doing damage in your body. Like these are your strengths, right? So those are the things that are protecting you.
Jayson Blair (00:16:57):
But if that doesn’t work, they’re these cells called macrophages and they’re something to behold. They like shoot out of the spine and other parts of your body and they will kill any virus, but they’ll also destroy everything else in it’s path. They’ll destroy the ha- healthy cells. So a maladaptive coping skill is a bit like those macrophages. It’s trying to help, but at the same point, it’s like blowing up your spot. So clients, uh, to get to the core of your questions, clients are increasingly want to talk to our coaches about their anxiety, their fears on a personal level.
Jayson Blair (00:17:33):
Um, organizations are increasingly expanding coaching, um, to meet whole person needs. We’ve had a lot of contracts or organizations where we work. Uh, where they’ve really broadened the topics that we can engage on in coaching. Well beyond let’s say, pure leadership development, emergence, and effectiveness, but really getting into some of those issues around anxiety or stress or even depression, really looking at the whole person, so.
Jayson Blair (00:18:02):
You know, one leader that sticks out to me is a C-suite executive that I work with. Um, she called me, she was looking for a coach. Um, I lined her up with one that fit her career goals. She liked the coach, we had a long discussion about it. And then as soon as our conversation ended, maybe two or three minutes later, I got an email and it said, “Hey, I like the coach, um, but do you, by any chance, have somebody who has experience with trauma? It’s been a hard year.” And so I’ve heard a lot of that over the pandemic.
Jayson Blair (00:18:32):
And so I sort of feel with my clients, the pandemic has sort of accelerated and intensified the foreign natural responses to stress and trauma, right? And I’m sure you guys and your listeners have all heard about fight, flight, freeze and fun, which happens to line with like attachment theory. And it happens to align with Karen Horney’s moving away, moving against, and moving toward concepts which are at the sort of foundation of the Hogan.
Jayson Blair (00:19:00):
So, you know, I’m seeing a lot ex- a lot of examples of people sliding into space where they have previously experienced derailment, but on a level that they’re not really used to and more often than they’re really used to. And it’s sort of throwing off the, uh, patterns of their coping skills and making it, uh, more difficult to, um, identify.
Jayson Blair (00:19:24):
I can also give you, uh, uh, two or three real quick examples for my own company. So in the middle of the Pandemic we were seeing this in our clients and that made us say, Uh-huh “(affirmative), this is gonna happen in our company. So what we did, what, our solution was to give the Hogan Assessments to every employee or at least to offer it and to get them all a debrief. Um, a lot of the employees wrote back or commented that it was actually life changing and it was just what they needed.
Jayson Blair (00:19:52):
I recently sent a letter to our, uh, employee. I was thrilled about her development. And she wrote back that she just wanted to thank the Hogan (laughs). So it really helped her understand why she quickly retreated under stress and why at the same time, um, she was taking on more than was reasonable. So she built an awesome development plan around it.
Jayson Blair (00:20:15):
Another really warm diplomatic friendly employee, you know, I was wondering why she was getting so angry. So she took the Hogan, looked at her volatile scores, and looked at her other scores and all of a sudden understood, “Okay, I need to figure out how to keep my intensity and my inner without sort of like blowing, transforming from Bruce Banner and blowing up into the Hulk.
Jayson Blair (00:20:38):
Um, I had another employee, and I’ll give you, this as my last example, who was very high on the Hogan reserve scale. And the remote environment put her in back to back meetings like she’d never experienced. And it was just absolutely draining her. And once she recognized that, that was a risk for her, she was able to come up with a way where she didn’t work the same eight hour day as us and really communicated with her colleagues, why she needed to step back and have time off And it worked perfectly.
Jayson Blair (00:21:08):
So I really believe that if you want to be a good leader, if you want to be a good colleague, you can’t really just look at your, um, skills. It’s really not about your competencies or your skills, as much as it is about your personality, your strengths, your risks, um, and, uh, and what really matters the most to you.
Ryne Sherman (00:21:31):
Yeah. Thanks, uh, Jason, for, for sharing those, those stories with us and, and, and that background, um, you know. And, and speaking of background, one of the, I really liked the analogy you used earlier when you were talking about, and partly because, uh, uh, baseball player and my kids play baseball and things like that. But I, I really like that pitching (laughs) analogy that you used earlier, but another way we like to sometimes think about the dark side is in terms of the sort of like background music.
Ryne Sherman (00:21:56):
And so this idea that it’s sort of more visible now or the idea that people are getting the same scores on assessments, but you might actually see these behaviors come out more. I think it really makes a lot of sense when you think about, uh, these dark side characteristics, these derailers as background music and that is the tone. They’re there all of the time. It’s always kind of playing in the background or, uh, the other way that you used it, I, I, I really kind of think of them as sort of like your primal instincts, right? This is your defense mechanism. This is the way to protect yourself, um, from a threat.
Ryne Sherman (00:22:27):
Well, when there’s more threats, right? When threats are more frequent, like, like a pandemic or, you know, a potential financial crisis, things like that, then all of a sudden that background music gets turned up more, right? Or, or those self-defense mechanisms, um, kick into overdrive. And I think that really makes a lot of sense. And I think it, it also aligns with the three, um, examples that you gave. And of course the fourth example with the CEO, uh, or sorry not the CEO, but the, the, the top executive that you gave there as well.
Ryne Sherman (00:22:55):
So, um, really cool and thanks for sharing those examples, and I think, um, it, it is totally the case that you would see similar scores, right? The background music to that individual is still there all the time. So their score hasn’t changed. It’s just the volume on that background music is up a little louder.
Jayson Blair (00:23:16):
Yep. I think that’s a great, a great way to look at it, Ryne. And certainly that’s been, um, you know, that’s been my experience. And I think that, um, there’s a difference in the moment, you know, we all get used to that background music playing in the background at a certain beat. And we are-
Ryne Sherman (00:23:35):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jayson Blair (00:23:35):
… used to it sort of like knowing the moment where we need to turn it down, but when it keeps on going up over and over again, even though we have the coping skills exist, we have to recalibrate them in a new way based on the, the volume and how often it’s happening to take your metaphor and run with it.
Ryne Sherman (00:23:55):
Yeah.
Blake Leopp (00:23:57):
Well, and Jason, you know, you talked a little, we, I mean, this episode is really about coaching the whole person and, you know, you had acknowledged that during the pandemic, um, it’s taught you that coaches need to change their approach to developing and helping the whole person. Can you maybe elaborate a little bit more about that and how you’ve changed your approach?
Jayson Blair (00:24:14):
Yeah. I can speak a little bit to, to that in general. So for me personally, coming, you know, as somebody who really comes from a clinical background, um, one of the things that I sort of recognized and was very clear to me at the beginning of the pandemic was that ultimately, and this was really, this was, we were all gonna be going through, uh, more stress, but something that really caught my attention very early on, on the, the mental health side of my practice was that my clients who experienced intense anxiety prior to the pandemic, they were like completely chill.
Jayson Blair (00:24:53):
They were like, “What’s new? I have anxiety and I don’t know how to avoid it and I have these coping skills to use.” Now that wasn’t necessarily okay. I mean, the truth over the arc of the pandemic, but it certainly was, um, in the beginning of it. And what I was noticing on the leadership, uh, side of my practice is that people were dealing with new levels and greater frequency of the anxiety than they were used to and they didn’t really know how to cope and manage.
Jayson Blair (00:25:24):
And so when I talk about what the whole person really is, um, it, it, it, it’s really truly looking at the mind, you know, uh, the mental part of it. It’s looking at the body, it’s looking at the inner self and it’s looking at the external self. And so where I find personality assessment in my coaching to be particularly helpful, um, particularly in the pandemic was we as coaches, you know, we say we deal with the whole person, but in reality, you know, the moment somebody starts talking about anxiety, or they start talking about depression, or they start talking about certain things, coaches tend to refer those people out and stop coaching.
Jayson Blair (00:26:07):
And I think in the pandemic, if you referred those people out and stopped coaching, you weren’t coaching. So I really think it forced us as a profession to truly treat the whole person and also recognize that some of our discomfort in dealing with things like this with leaders, really had more to do with our own fears than reality. And so, one thing I, I will say about the coaches that I work with, many of them stepped up to deal with issues, I often had consults with them, to deal with issues that their clients were facing that they wouldn’t normally, um, face.
Jayson Blair (00:26:42):
And so when I mentioned before that notion of the whole person having an external element, this is where an instrument like the Hogan is super helpful, because it really does give you that outside view of personality, meaning how others perceive you. And most of the challenges that we face, um, you know, Freud had this great line. It was something along the lines of, I’m gonna butcher it. It was like the self that you know is not worth knowing.
Jayson Blair (00:27:09):
And what he was getting at there, despite his many challenges was that the inside view of ourselves is very limited. What we get in life, what we accomplish in life, the friction we have in life is really based on how others perceive us and how we interact with the world. So I love personality assessments, but in particularly the Ho- in particular the Hogan because it gives you that outside view of the whole person that someone can use to truly build strategic self-awareness.
Ryne Sherman (00:27:41):
Well, I, I really like your points about the whole person there, Jason, because, um, but even, I mean, I would say that some of, one of the traps that you can fall into, right? You mentioned some things where people might start talking about, you know, a clinically diagnosable disorder and you said, okay, we’ll go talk to somebody else.
Jayson Blair (00:27:57):
Yep.
Ryne Sherman (00:27:57):
Um, but I think there’s other traps, even, even if you’re using our stuff, even if you’re using a Hogan instrument, right? You can narrow in on one scale and say, okay, I’m just gonna get like, lost on that scale and forget that, for example, you know, this person may be having marital issues. This person may be having, um, economic issues. There may be, (laughs) you know what I mean? There’s whole lots of other things going on in this person’s life. And you know, of course, I think, you know, and now as you just mentioned, personality is a huge part of that, a huge part of that coaching enterprise. But I do think there’s lots of factors that it would be easy to overlook, um, when, when we’re doing our coaching practice by just getting narrowly focused on one, on one thing.
Jayson Blair (00:28:39):
Yeah. And I think that that’s, uh, another trend from coaching in general, that narrow focus, we tend to focus more on emergence, right? Helping people get promoted or advancing their career less on sort of effectiveness, right?
Ryne Sherman (00:28:54):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jayson Blair (00:28:54):
And being the leaders, not that we don’t touch on that, but we put a greater premium on leadership emergence. And we often, to your point, Ryne, we don’t factor in those things. And that’s another thing that the pandemic made very, very obvious too. You know, when your kids are running around behind me, it’s very behind you, on the Zoom call, it’s really hard to ignore what role they play in your life. Um, and that for you to truly be integrated and for you to truly be successful is not really about just being an emergent leader at work. It’s about being the person that you want to be in your work, your personal life, in the other as- every other aspect of it.
Blake Leopp (00:29:34):
Yeah. And Jason, wow. It, it almost, it’s as if you, uh, it’s like you work at Hogan. I feel like I’m talking to a coworker ’cause you’re using all of the, (laughs) all the same, like terminology and whatever you said, uh, Freud’s quote on, you know, the, the you that you know is hardly worth knowing, you know, that’s something that if I had a nickel for every time, I’ve heard that while working at Hogan (laughs) then, well, I probably wouldn’t be working at Hogan anymore. I’d be retired. (laughs) Um, so, so that was great.
Blake Leopp (00:30:03):
And then Ryne, also to your point, you know, um, you know, people with having their everyday struggles or, you know, the, the different things outside of work, you know, you know, whether people are, you know, maybe it’s a marriage issue or maybe, you know, they’re just thinking financially, you know, something like the pandemic is just gonna amplify those things. Um, which I think gets back to, you know, we’re gonna see more of those derailing characteristics that we, that we talk about under stress and all of that.
Blake Leopp (00:30:29):
So, um, not to, not to get (laughs) too far down a rabbit hole on that. Uh, the next thing I wanna talk about, Jason, is, you know, you claim that using the evidence-based scientific sound, personality assessments, you know, like the ones we develop at Hogan have been instrumental in coaching the whole person. Can you maybe go into a little bit more detail as to why that is?
Jayson Blair (00:30:53):
Yeah, absolutely. So like I had said before, for me, it’s been very much about a full integration of the two types of coaching I do. So one rooted in industrial organizational psychology and one rooted in clinical, right? And so, like I said, you know, we have said that we’re focused on, uh, the whole person and what the Hogan really does is give us an opportunity, and I wouldn’t necessarily limit it to the Hogan, right? But Hogan is one of the few assessments and definitely the only one that gives you that outside view that really helps us A, identify, you know, the motives people have, their drivers, the things that really get them up in the morning and help them set their goals.
Jayson Blair (00:31:38):
And then truly identify the strengths that they have, um, that are gonna to get there, get them there. And I also, you know, looking within strengths too, is, is not just the strengths that are gonna get you there. It’s really about your preferred way of operating in the world, right? ‘Cause I don’t want to get there not using the strengths that, you know, using my key strengths or not using my key driver.
Jayson Blair (00:32:04):
And then ultimately I am a fan of the concept that, um, psychology exists and, and, and I really do think psychology, uh, there is a positive aspect to it. But where positive psychology really, really in my mind gets it wrong is that the primary utility of psychology is to fix things. Rarely do I get someone come in my office who’s like, “Hey, Jason, I’d like to know what my strengths are?” Maybe we do work on their strengths, maybe we leverage them, um, but what people really wanna do is solve the friction that they have with their world between their goals, between sort of, um, getting it done, getting along with other people and really accomplishing their goals.
Jayson Blair (00:32:50):
So a personality assessment is a great tool, particularly if it measures, uh, you know, uh, your motives, your values, uh, those strengths, and then ultimately the roadblocks that’ll get in the way. But where the Hogan is great is each element of the Hogan is really rooted in the best science for its area. Um, you know, the, the, uh, you know, there are strong parallels between the Hogan develop mental survey, which measures derailers and the, um, diagnostic and statistical manual of, um, uh, mental disorders. And to some extent, uh, Dr. Hogan was actually ahead of the thinking in clinical psychology in the sense that he and others like Thomas Milan were really looking at the dimensional model of, uh, of, uh, personality psychology.
Jayson Blair (00:33:43):
And by that, I mean, you know, we essentially on the clinical side have disorders like we were discussing, right? And, uh, these disorders are really just taxonomies and those taxonomies exist to describe something. And so insurance companies will have a code that they can use to decide whether they’re gonna pay for something. The reality is that most people operate across a personality spectrum. And that’s one of the things that I truly love about the Hogan. It lets me to, it allows me to see the nuance in that spectrum. And it’s the only, only scientific valid tool that gives me that nuance across strengths, that nuance across derailers so I can see the actual person as opposed to just a label or a category. Does that make sense?
Ryne Sherman (00:34:34):
Yeah. Well, I mean, it makes total sense to me and I think I hopefully it’ll make a lot of sense and that was a great explanation, I think, for our audience as well. Um, you, you know, Jason, one of the things you said there got me thinking that when we’re talking about strengths, um, and you made this comment that nobody ever came in, you know, to ask you about their strengths. I think that’s, I, I don’t wanna be too critical of the strengths movement because I think there’s a lot of value in understanding your strengths. But one of the things that’s strikes me about strengths is that a lot of times people are kind of aware of them, right?
Ryne Sherman (00:35:06):
We kind of know what we’re good at. We kind of know what kind of interpersonal skills. I mean, maybe not to a full extent, but I, I, I think maybe that’s one reason people don’t come in asking for the strengths so much ’cause we, they kind of know. It’s those blind spots. It’s those, those things that get us in trouble that we don’t really know, um, those kind of weaknesses. And I think that’s where the real value comes in is, is finding out those things about yourself that you, you don’t realize are actually a part of you.
Jayson Blair (00:35:33):
Yeah. And I see two, two sort of values to the strengths, uh, aspect of it. Two values I see are one, you know, when we’re looking at our road, roadblocks and the things that get in the way, uh, knowing our strengths in a little bit more detail or nuance can be kind of helpful or reminding ourselves can be helpful to avoiding the roadblocks. And then the second place I see strengths in the, uh, you know, focusing on strengths to be a value it’s like novelty, right?
Jayson Blair (00:36:04):
Like I don’t know why, you know, I’m, I’m an introvert, but I like engaging with other people or I’m an extrovert or, or wait a second, I feel like I’m an introvert, but I really like spending time with people. Okay. I can get a picture, you know, from my strengths assessment of this explains why I do a little of what I do, but it’s really just for me, it’s novelty. And I think that part, at least speaking of the coaching profession, not, uh, not necessarily the research per, uh, per, uh, profession, I think some of it has to do with the nature of the type of people who get into coaching.
Jayson Blair (00:36:42):
I think we’re very, like, we’re not really comfortable with uncomfortable as a profession, but to really help people, you have to get very comfortable with being uncomfortable. Um, and I think that really means diving into the things that are getting in the way. And I think what you’ll find as a coach, if you’re really willing to go those places, to tell the people, sometimes things that make them feel uncomfortable and make you feel uncomfortable, that’s where they’re gonna be the most grateful that’s what’s gonna be most rewarding. Does that make sense to you, Ryne?
Ryne Sherman (00:37:18):
Yeah. No, I, I totally agree. Uh, a hundred percent, uh, agreement for me on that.
Blake Leopp (00:37:23):
Yeah. And, and so, and this is all, this is really, I mean, to be up front, Jason, this is something that’s fascinating to me. Like (laughs) like, I actually was asked by a coworker early on whenever I started at Hogan, they were like, “If you didn’t do PR what would you want to do?” And I kind of, you know, after being at Hogan for a little bit, I thought, you know, it’d be so much fun to be a coach because I personally feel like, you know, I don’t mind having those uncomfortable conversations with people or, or anything like that.
Blake Leopp (00:37:53):
So that it’s something I find a lot of joy in and I actually kind of do it for fun with my friends on the side. Just like they come to me and just, they feel like someone, I’m someone they can talk to and, and be open and honest about things. And I can be open and honest with them in return. So it’s, this is a fascinating topic for me as well.
Jayson Blair (00:38:12):
Well, Blake, if, if I were your coach, I would suggest that maybe that’s something you should explore for your, uh, next chapter because, you know, public relations is not all that different than journalism. And if we buy the argument that journalism is not unlike coaching. Um, you know, I can give you a great example for my scandal. Guess who my closest advisor was right after the scandal? It was a public relations professional that I had become friends with. And this guy was used to hearing people’s worst stories, talking to them on their worst days, being very empathetic and that’s how he is an effective PR guy. So you never know coaching might be in the future for you. (laughs)
Blake Leopp (00:38:51):
Well, (laughs) we’ll see. For now I, I, I do like my gig, but pretty, pretty. It’s a pretty sweet gig. I, I, I really do enjoy it, but. I guess for my next question, Jason, is why do you think it took a global pandemic for coaches to realize they were falling short when it comes to coaching the whole person? I mean, I don’t wanna, I don’t, I don’t wanna look at the pandemic as like, “Oh, maybe this was a good thing for the coaching profession.” Because obviously there were, you know, tragedy across the world, you know, a lot of people lost their life and I don’t wanna diminish that in any way whatsoever. However, if there is some kind of silver lining in certain professions, this might be one of them. Uh, so can you elaborate on that a little bit?
Jayson Blair (00:39:31):
Yeah. I describe it as an insightful moment for us, if that makes sense. Um, I think we as coaches really focus on helping leaders change their behaviors, right? Without looking at what fundamentally causes behaviors, you know, those personality and driver factors. So one of the most common consults, you know, for years that I received from leadership coaches is whether should stop seeing a client or how to help a client who’s dealing with some issue that they’re not necessarily comfortable with? So that’s the most common consult, uh, over the po- over the course of the pandemic that I got with coaches was no longer like, should I refer this person out? Or Jason, will you take this client? It was how do I help this person with their fear or their fill in the blank or whatever they’re dealing with.
Jayson Blair (00:40:23):
So I think as coaches we saw, you know, just like Ryne was talking about the music playing louder with derailment, the music was playing very loud for us and it was screaming, you need to look at more than leader behaviors. You really need to look at the whole person because if you try to just look like, look at leadership behaviors in the pandemic, you are absolutely gonna fail your clients. So what is very true became very obvious during the pandemic. So if you chose not to work on people’s mental health, you know, something we all have in the pandemic, you just chose to not be an effective coach.
Ryne Sherman (00:41:03):
Yeah. Well, and I think this goes to one of this points you made earlier, Jason, when you mentioned something about, you know, you see their kids in the background or that, that kind of thing. And of course, you know, with Zoom and, and, you’re more likely, with, with people working from home, you’re more likely to see some family things and, going on. And I think you’re right, is that there is a tendency for coaches to focus on, okay, what’s the next career step for you? How can I get you into this career step? Um, you know, what are the behaviors you could do at work? Who are the people you need to interact with at work?
Ryne Sherman (00:41:34):
Um, and you’re right. I think you, we can lose the focus on that. This is a, this is a person who has a life outside of work and, um, that might really be having an impact on their career in ways that we would miss if we don’t ask those kinds of questions, if we don’t investigate those kinds of things.
Jayson Blair (00:41:51):
Yep. You’re spot on. Uh, you know, a hundred percent I agree with that. And I think that hopefully what we’ll see, and there’s, there’s a lot of suggestion, you know, among those who do research in coaching, that we need to start exploring some of these ideas and better integrating all of those aspects. Um, you know, family finances, uh, all sorts of other pressures, um, into, into our coaching work.
Blake Leopp (00:42:21):
Yeah. And Jason, so another thing, you know, it gets back to the kind of the back and forth we were having prior to recording this episode. And something that stood out that, you know, was fascinating and I wanted to bring it up here was that you suggested that personality assessments like, like Hogan are more effective in looking at the whole person than competency assessments.
Jayson Blair (00:42:40):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Blake Leopp (00:42:41):
Why do you think that’s the case?
Jayson Blair (00:42:42):
Yeah. So the underlying premise, right? In the research, it suggests that they’re really probably four dimensions to leadership, right? Tour like an iceberg above the water. They’re easy to see and they’re easy to develop. Um, those are competencies, right? Observable, measurable behaviors. And the second involves, uh, sort of your personal and professional experiences, but below the line on that iceberg, the bottom giant part of the iceberg, bigger than the top part, more foundational than the top part, those are the things that are our motives and our drivers, the things that drive us in life.
Jayson Blair (00:43:22):
And the other thing is our personality. Those are our natural inclination, tendencies and traits, right? We know those things are harder to see and harder to develop, but almost more important because in, what, what the research seems to suggest is that your competencies, the behaviors that people see on the outside, are really driven by your drivers, your personality and your experiences.
Jayson Blair (00:43:48):
So when we’re sort of treating, uh, and addressing just the leadership behaviors, like I give you an assessment, I measure your behaviors or how your colleagues see your behaviors, um, I can’t give you any earthly idea on how you, in particular, as an individual should change. I can give you generic information. I can give you a developmental guide for those competent, but if I really want to change those behaviors, I need to understand something about your personality and I need to understand something about, uh, what motivates you and drives you to really customize and, and frankly, what will get in your way, to really customize the solution to change those behaviors that people see on the outside.
Jayson Blair (00:44:35):
So, you know, in particular, one of the things that sort of sticks in my [CRA 00:44:41] is the common use of 360 assessments, right? And you guys have sort of con- coined this. I think I read this on one of your blogs, but it’s the idea that a 360 assessment is a snapshot, right? It’s feedback from people around you. The, you know, you’ve got a giant circle and you imagine that giant circle, and that’s all the people in the universe. And then inside that circle, there’s a norm group. And then inside that circle and even smaller circle are your colleague. And then inside that smaller circle are the people that you invite to take your 360. And inside that circle, there’s even this smaller, teeny tiny circle. And those are the people who randomly choose to rate you. They can give you a decent snapshot of where you are and what your behaviors are in a moment of time.
Jayson Blair (00:45:34):
And even though the Hogan itself is not a competency assessment, uh, like you guys said, it is a motion picture view of the person. It’s how they’re gonna look now, how they’re gonna look in the future, how they’ve looked in the past to other people. So it gives them a tool and a lens to look at themselves through that goes beyond the moment in time with this very, very narrow group of people. So it goes back to the point that I was looking at or talking about, are we really gonna address all four dimensions? Are we gonna address the whole person? Are we gonna actually fundamentally do it, um, in a way that actually allows people to change, uh, the way they’re perceived on the outside?
Jayson Blair (00:46:21):
Focusing just on competencies is a bit like a doctor telling somebody they have a rash on their skin and it’s really bad. Uh, yo doc, what’s causing it? Why, you know, to figure out the underlying causes in how to do something about it, right? I really need to know something about personality and drivers.
Ryne Sherman (00:46:41):
Well, you know, Jason, that, that analogy is a nice one because I think it, you know, if you have some, some, uh, medical ailment, um, and it’s, it might have there, there might be multiple symptoms, right? And they might show up in different parts of your body, um, or in different ways. And, um, you know, if you think about each competency is sort of like one of those symptoms, like, okay, we need to fix that thing. We need to fix that thing, right?
Ryne Sherman (00:47:08):
Um, you’re, you’re never, when that person, here’s another way of thinking about this, when that person does it a new environment, in a new situation, even if they’re out, not even in a work environment, maybe they’re in a home environment now, um, that though the competencies that they’ve learned to navigate or have been coached around, aren’t really gonna carry with them into those new environments, right? That’s learning a specific skill for a specific circumstance, but coaching around personality can let you take, take an understanding of, um, how those personality characteristics might be relevant. They might lead to, um, some behaviors that you, you know, some derail behaviors in different circumstances that you can counteract because you’ve been coached around personality, not coached around a specific circumstance or a specific competency.
Jayson Blair (00:47:57):
Yep. Yep. And, and don’t get me wrong. There are moments where something like a 360 assessment can be, be helpful. You know, I often will combine a 360 with the Hogan and then build an integrative report sort of saying, you know, here’s, here’s where you’re perceived and here’s like a snapshot for you over here, a tiny snapshot over here. But usually the 360 for me is just, um, an additive, uh, sort of sprinkling info- information that comes on top of it.
Jayson Blair (00:48:31):
And I tell organizations when they come to me and they say, “Well, we can’t do the Hogan and the 360.” You know, fatigue, other things like that. I always say, “Well, take the Hogan because it’s going to give us a much more clear and, uh, useful view of the underlying piece of it, but also a pretty good clue about, um, how it’s gonna show up on the outside.”
Jayson Blair (00:48:57):
By the way, in my clinical practice, I actually find great use for 360s. I, I will have my clients sometimes bring in their 360. And if they, if I look at their 360 and I see that all of their self ratings in every competency are lower than all the raters, I just go, “Hmm, I think you might be clinically depressed.” So (laughs) so, but in reality, like there’s very little utility and, um, in, in 360s I find other than just getting an idea of how people feel. And there are also some problems with 360s.
Jayson Blair (00:49:32):
The biggest one, just coming at it from a diversity inclusion perspective, is that there’s a lot of real good data that I’m sure you guys know about out there. That certainly suggests that women rate themselves harder on 360s that other people rate women harder on 360s and that on top of that women get more vague feedback. So sometimes when I’m walking into those situations where I’m using just 360s, I’m often having to caveat that with all those facts, which just further diminishes those values.
Ryne Sherman (00:50:04):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jayson Blair (00:50:05):
The beauty of the Hogan is when I’m taking the Hogan, you don’t know if I’m a woman and you don’t know if I’m a man. Your normative group that’s commenting on how they perceive the people answering those questions, don’t know anything about us. So you’re getting a much more, uh, same thing with race and other topics.
Ryne Sherman (00:50:25):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jayson Blair (00:50:26):
You’re doing something that doesn’t have adverse impact. Um, and I, you know, if, you said, if you add 5 cents for that quote, if I had 5 cents for every time I worked with a woman leader who got her 360 results, it was just baffled by what to do with the comments. I, well, I’d probably still be doing what I’m doing, but I’d be like richer. (laughs)
Blake Leopp (00:50:49):
Well, okay. Um, Jason, this is, first off, this conversation’s just been awesome. Uh, (laughs) we’re so glad that you agreed to join us on this podcast, but, um, before we wrap up this conversation, you, you have three specific leadership development cases that you’ve seen during the pandemic that you would like to discuss that led to your realization that the coaching profession has fallen short of its goal of coaching the whole person. Would you mind outlining those for the audience?
Jayson Blair (00:51:16):
Yeah. Absolutely. So I’ve got three examples, um, that really sort of demonstrated in the middle of the pandemic. One was working with a railway system and their operational managers who had to stay, uh, they didn’t, they, you know, they haven’t taken a day out of the office since the pandemic, uh, uh, began. They’re sort of like your air traffic controllers of a railway system. And these were managers who were there. They had COVID outbreaks within their rail traffic control center.
Jayson Blair (00:51:46):
They had, um, colleagues who died, um, and they’re already running a mass tra- transit rail system. They’re already always, they’re already the ones who are seeing all the derailment accidents, the, uh, jumpers who jump on the tracks, um, any negative event, uh, law enforcement related events. So they’re constantly exposed to trauma and the pandemic itself added another layer, uh, to that. And so we were brought into a particularly troubled rail traffic control center, um, that was having a number of safety issues.
Jayson Blair (00:52:24):
And, uh, one of the things, their head of talent and development recognized that, you know, there are only like three or 4,000 people in the world who can be a rail controller. So they’re, it’s highly specialized. You spend a lot of time in apprenticeship and guess what? You don’t get, you don’t get (laughs) any leadership development training. So she really realized that these folks had never been prepared as leaders and now we’re expecting to turn things around.
Jayson Blair (00:52:52):
And me and my team got in to do some discovery work. We knew we’d kind of be offering some coaching and facilitations. And in our discovery interviews, what we realized was that we had a group of people who were terribly traumatized. Um, you know, we realized that we had people who had seen very, very difficult things that their teams were dealing with very difficult things, and that we really needed to look at the emotional elements that were playing, uh, playing a role in it.
Jayson Blair (00:53:23):
And one of our coaches, we actually, luckily it was a team of four of us, all Hogan certified just by happenstance. You know, we all turned around meeting one day and two people said at the same time, Hogan. (laughs) Um, so what we did in that particular situation is we implemented assessments for all the leaders on their Hogan, because we had made the decision instead of trying to fix all these safety issues really quickly, these folks need to have a better idea of how they are perceived by their team and how their personality characteristics are really playing in a role, playing a role in let’s say they’re resilience, or, um, uh, because let me tell you something guys like these guys were all, you know, at the time we were seeing all their maladaptive behaviors all at once.
Jayson Blair (00:54:12):
So what we were able to do then was build a group talent review for those leaders and literally use the Hogan group talent review that we had built, um, to coach the entire team as a group back away from their derailers collectively into a sweet spot and then individually coach those leaders in the same way. So that’s one example.
Jayson Blair (00:54:36):
Um, another one it’s a national laboratory. I can’t say which one, but it was involved in (laughs) the COVID 19 response, very central. You are, we should all be grateful that they’re here. Um, but working with the senior executive there, um, who had actually taken the Hogan years before. And had, you know, really sort of like confident, ambitious, maybe a little too confident, little too ambitious, very intense, very energetic, maybe a little too, of both those things.
Jayson Blair (00:55:07):
He had taken the yo- Hogan years before, um, in another job and had really gotten some benefits from it. And he actually came back to have his Hogan redebrief to him in his new job context, because he was so concerned that if his derailers got in the way, that there’d be catastrophic impact for the country. So that’s another example.
Jayson Blair (00:55:30):
And then finally, um, we brought the Hogan into a police department that responded to the capital attacks. Um, the leaders there had been doing some development work. It was all competency-based. And I think it became very apparent to them in that moment that they needed to look under the iceberg. So for their senior leaders, and then eventually their mid-level leaders, we used the Hogan to help them sort of pull back and build resilience within the force and to get away from some of those behaviors as they were isolating that were really harmful for their team that had dealt with this collective stuff.
Jayson Blair (00:56:06):
So those are just three example. I could probably give you dozens and dozens of more, but, you know, it comes down to the idea that, you know, like you say, with The Science of Personality, being willing to look at personality, you have the opportunity to be quickly impactful to people in a way that some of the other approaches in coaching just can’t do and just can’t do as well.
Ryne Sherman (00:56:31):
Well, I, I just wanna, I don’t really have much to add other than to say, I love all three of those examples. I love hearing examples like this. I, I particularly like that they’re, you know, sort of, they’re very different industries and they’re very creative approaches to helping people solve problems. And I think that is one of the beauties of personalities assessment.
Ryne Sherman (00:56:48):
One of the things that I’ve found very useful about it is that it can be used to help people solve a whole variety of problems, whether it’s, as you mentioned, a national laboratory or in, uh, uh, a train, um, uh, transit engineers. Um, I, I, I think that that’s the real power is that you can take this assessment and apply it to so many different domains in life and, um, help for a better, you know, a better career, a better interpersonal outcomes. Um, that’s, what’s really cool to me and, and I love hearing examples like that, so, so thanks for sharing those Jason.
Jayson Blair (00:57:24):
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Blake Leopp (00:57:25):
Yeah. Jason, I, I echo what Ryne just said and it’s, it’s, I think this is a really good kind of reminder of, you know, we have 40,000 I think, certified Hogan users worldwide. Um, but we don’t always get to hear the different stories that these, that these people who are certified, you know, their clients who they’re working with. So that was just really cool to actually, you know, hear the story from you, uh, based on your experience using Hogan. So it’s a really thank you for that.
Jayson Blair (00:57:55):
Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think, I think that’s a two-way street because I think a lot of people feel, and you probably don’t get this feedback the way that we do that it’s awesome and a blessing to have this tool and this focus on personality. This focus at, on the whole person, which I think personality and drivers are really the key, key, fundamental, um, aspects of that.
Jayson Blair (00:58:23):
And so, you know, I’m sure the big question is, you know, sort of where should coaches go from here? And I think the answer to that is really to open themselves up to exploring more than what’s comfortable and safe in the world of things like behavioral competencies and really genuinely look at the whole person through the lens of science and the lens of personality.
Blake Leopp (00:58:49):
Well, that’s (laughs) I couldn’t have said it better myself, Jason. (laughs) So, uh, I guess for my last question, Jason, what advice would you give coaches who are looking to improve on the quote coaching, the whole person approach?
Jayson Blair (00:59:05):
Yeah. I, I, I think that the core piece to it actually begins with ourselves and our own development and our, so, so maybe my answer might be take the Hogan yourself and get a debrief. Uh (laughs) but I think to some extent it’s really exploring what we’re here to do. And if what we’re here to do is help people live better lives or we are here to do is build better leaders because that’s gonna have a positive impact on society, that we really need to explore all elements of what make up those people.
Jayson Blair (00:59:40):
And think it requires a recognition, um, that the tools and the skills that we’re using, the things that we’re focusing on right now, are, are, are merely identifying and coaching people on the symptoms, right? Like, you know, it’s just like medicine in the sense that focusing only on the symptoms doesn’t really ultimately help the client. It’s a bandaid. And so really I would encourage coaches to get deeper and to go underneath the surface and really explore the things that can have an awesome positive impact on people’s lives.
Ryne Sherman (01:00:18):
Well, I just wanna say, thanks so much for coming on Jason. I think this, these are some really impactful stories. It’s, it’s always good for somebody like me who works, you know, sort of in the, in the data science division to hear stories like this, because, you know, we hope that our work has an impact. We hope the stuff we’re doing behind the psychometrics and, and building the tests and maintaining the norms and all that is having this kind of impact. So it’s really rewarding for me to hear these kinds of things. And I think, you know, for, for my staff as well, about how, um, our assessments are being put to use to, to really help people and better people’s lives.
Jayson Blair (01:00:55):
Great. I’m glad to be able to share and I’m appreciative too, Ryne. (laughs).
Blake Leopp (01:00:59):
Yeah. Jason, thank you so much for coming on. This was really great. It’s been great getting to kind of know you, uh, and, and learn more about your story, you know, your, your past, but also just how, you know, awesome (laughs) the work you’ve been doing, you know, with the coaching profession and how you really redone it. We think it’s a great comeback story, uh, and certainly something that I think our listeners will enjoy.
Jayson Blair (01:01:25):
Right. Thanks Blake. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on.
Blake Leopp (01:01:28):
And that does it for episode 28 of The Science of Personality Podcast. Be sure to join us in two weeks for another fun and informative episode on a topic that literally affects all of us. Cheers, everybody.
Speaker 2 (01:01:45):
This has been The Science of Personality Podcast brought to you by Hogan Assessments. You can access all podcast episodes on our website, thescienceofpersonality.com or on the streaming service of your choice. See you next time.
