Dr. Kerri Burchill - Dealing with ASKhole® Trap
Unlock the secrets to fostering a more productive and engaged workplace with our special guest, Dr. Kerri Burchill. Have you ever encountered coworkers who seek advice but never take action, or ask questions they already know the answers to? Dr. Burchill introduces her groundbreaking ASKhole® framework, designed to pinpoint and remedy these unproductive behaviors that drain time and resources.
Links and Resources from the Episode:
Click here to visit Kerri's website
Click here to purchase Kerri's book
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The Bosshole® Chronicles
"Dr. Kerri Burchill - Dealing with the ASKhole® Trap"
Original Publish Date: 8/27/2024
Host: John Broer
John Broer: Welcome back to all of our friends out there in the Bosshole Transformation Nation. This is your host, John Broer. It is so good to have you here and this episode came about in a really unique way. You are going to get a chance to meet Dr. Kerri Burchill and let me tell you what, Kerri reached out to me because a colleague of hers, Karen, said hey, I met these folks at a conference a few years ago and they have this podcast called the Bosshole Chronicles and Kerri has this program, this platform, this framework she created around ASKhole behavior. That's right, you heard it right ASKhole. And we talked a few weeks ago and we thought, oh my gosh, Bosshole, ASKhole. We got to have an episode together.
So let me tell you a little bit about Kerri. Kerri helps leaders in messy, dynamic situations slow down so that they can go fast. Leveraging her international work with leaders and her academic studies, Kerri developed the ASKhole framework as a tool to help leaders figure out and recognize ASKhole behaviors, slow things down so that they can be more effective in dealing with it in the workplace. She is a leadership and development trainer, provides individual and team coaching and is speaking all over the country and team coaching and is speaking all over the country. I'm excited for you to meet her, and we'll have a chance to explore this unique work and also understand how it factors into the world of talent optimization and helping managers stay out of the Bosshole Zone.
So let's dive in and meet Dr. Kerri Burchell.
Announcer: The Boss Hole Chronicles are brought to you by Real Good Ventures, a talent optimization firm helping organizations diagnose their most critical people and execution issues with world-class analytics. Make sure to check out all the resources in the show notes and be sure to follow us and share your feedback. Enjoy today's episode. Well, Kerri, it is so nice to have you on the Bosshole Chronicles. Welcome.
Dr. Kerri Burchill: Oh, what a pleasure.
JB: It's exciting because we got connected through another individual that you know and who heard us speak at the Optima 22 Talent Optimization Conference and said, hey, there are these people that have this podcast called the Bosshole Chronicles and you have a program around ASKhole and everybody check the show notes. You're going to see so much information on this, but ASKhole behavior in the workplace. And I said, oh my gosh, we got to get together here. So, Kerri Karrie, help us understand this niche that you've carved out ASKhole hole behavior, where it came from and where you've taken it in the workplace.
KB: Well, I'm certainly very appreciative not only to be here but for your pronunciation of ASKhole.
JB: Yes, you got to be really really. Yeah, yeah, you got to be careful.
KB: Absolutely so. I've just finished writing this book, "Leading Out of the ASKhole Trap, and really ask holes are people in the urban dictionary right Defined as somebody who asks for your advice and then doesn't follow it. And I've just taken that a little bit further those people in the workplace that ask you to do their work for them when they should, or ask you questions that they know the answer to. So it might be things like hey, I'm running late, would you mind grabbing those copies off the printer and bringing them to me? Or it might be, you know, somebody asking their boss am I allowed to take, you know, the Monday and Tuesday from the long weekend when, like the you know, company policy is no, you can't add on to an already long weekend. But then you just get targeted right Because you're sort of now the messenger delivering the bad news and that in person that person's upset and blaming you. They're the behaving like the other. A word, Fair enough.
JB: Where does this come from? I mean, again, it's like people that are asking you. It's different than asking you for input. Well, maybe no, no, maybe maybe it's the same thing, but they're asking you questions where they probably already have, or we're pretty certain they have, the answer. Is that correct?
KB: Yeah, they, they know it, they're just spinning that day to day pressure, get more done, go faster, do more, be better. And they're just not thinking straight in a lot of cases, are not slowing down to critically think through what the solution might be llike. They have it at their fingertips but they're in the spin, they're spinning, they're not thinking. The spin creates ASKhole behaviors and if leaders give into that the ASKhole in the ASKhole trap of doing other people's work.
JB: All right, because we talk about the Bosshole Zone and this is where, when we started talking a week or two ago, I started to see that intersection of wow. You could see where an individual who is sort of demonstrating ASKhole behavior can sort of pull a manager into doing their work for them or constantly soliciting their input, when in reality they know it. And if the boss will get sucked into that you know, then that boss will. Behavior can can certainly come out. Let's step back for a bit. When did you, when did you realize, wow, I've got something here. I'm seeing this as a trend. These are things that are happening in the workplace. I mean, how long ago was it that? Oh no, this is something. And I got to really lean into this particular topic.
KB: Great question. So I was leading a leadership academy group in a healthcare setting a couple of years ago and played around with different terms for the spin. But everybody recognizing like the fast pressure of leadership today, regardless of industry, go, go, go. And then really exploring like what causes that? You know, know the spin triggers some unwanted behavior. Right, what does that unwanted behavior really look like? And so I did a keynote a couple of years ago in Boston, like 20 minutes in and out, and I explained the trap of the ASKhole behaviors, what leaders can do, thought I was putting it out on a silver platter, easy peasy. And then a leader you know leader stands up at the end going do you have a book or something for this? And I thought I just told you everything you need to know like that and actually diving more into it with leaders. It's nuanced and they're hungry
JB: The term spin and that sort of catches my attention because it's almost like I think about, like a vortex or a whirlpool. You talk about fast-paced and trying to do too many things at one time. Perhaps within our world of talent optimization, oftentimes we talk about the change curve and for anybody that's ever seen a change curve, there's always this dip and there's this sort of whirlpool or vortex people get sucked into. I wonder if that spin is related to a person's difficulty in dealing with change and what they're doing is in desperation. Could the spin also be caused by desperation and just reaching out and saying, hey, help me here, help me here, I need this, I need this.
KB: Yes, yes, it can be caused by burnout by just straightforward stress. Confusion, lack of confidence. No-transcript. They might be the pleasers where they're really asking their bosses. Oh, just just tell me what to do, cause I really want to please you.
JB: Okay.
KB: And they might be the perfectionist, where they just can't complete anything because it's just not perfect enough. And so they, they pester the leaders with question after question on what else can I do? Is this good enough? Can I do more? What do you want me?
JB: Yeah, well, it is exhausting and I think now we're starting to, at least our listeners are recognizing, because we talk about behavioral DNA and the tendencies and the traits that are hardwired into us. This is starting to sound a lot like a lack of sometimes a lack of self-awareness, awareness of each other and some of those traps that we can get into. We'll get to that in a little bit. Let's just say we have listeners that are saying, oh my gosh, I think maybe I'm an ASKhole or I'm dealing with that. What are some very practical strategies, things that like, okay, managers, supervisors, can do since that's our target audience on the Bosshole Chronicles what can they be doing to really navigate ask hole behavior? What are some strategies that would be helpful to them?
KB: Great. Okay, so I've got one insight and two very concrete strategies. I've got six in the book that we kind of outlined. But for the sake of time and really giving your listeners the key nuggets, the first thing that you have to do before you can even begin addressing and you're going to buy into this, John is you just need to recognize people that are spinning. So part of that starts with, as a leader, knowing yourself. So when you're feeling ticked off, like I don't want to do this person, I'm avoiding them. When you feel that ding, ding, ding, this is likely an ASKhole trap. The second thing to sort of analyze in that is how you react. So typically, leaders that are not managing their own emotional intelligence and they kind of get sucked into the spin because the spin is contagious, right? Someone can come saying oh my goodness, you know, my mom just got a call from the hospital, I have to go there right now and just jumps. Just they're in the spin, crazy.
JB: Right, right right.
KB: And legitimate. And then the leader's like, oh, my goodness, let me take all of it on. We haven't like slowed down to sort of like, what did the hospital say when they called? How was she going to the what? Let's slow down together. So the spin's contagious. So recognizing your reaction and then, secondly, recognizing your action. So if I jump in to do somebody else's work, if I jump in to answer the question really quickly, if I sigh, what am I doing? And the true leadership stuff is like, oh, that's John, that's a great question. I'd love let's set up a meeting and talk about this. Like that's the reaction that says, hey, this is the good stuff, the real true leadership, versus kind of that resentment or that quick, get it over with and we are again our audience is familiar with.
JB: We talk about self-awareness a lot.
KB: It is the number one competency for effective leadership and a lack of self-awareness.
JB: For example, if you have a propensity to sort of get sucked into the spin, you could totally lose yourself. And I know what you're saying is you don't want to downplay the fact that somebody, there's an emergency or something's going on, but how do you model that calm approach to really assess what's going on and look beyond the smoke and understand what the fire really is that you can deal with? One thing I struggle with as I think about my own self-awareness, is active listening, and I know when we talked a couple of weeks ago you really did say that active listening has to be a core part or skillset to be good to deal with that spin. Talk a little bit more about that.
KB: Yeah, great. So once I've identified that, hey, this person's spinning, I'm in a position to help them do the true leadership work. My first strategy in helping them is active listening. Somebody calls and says like, oh, I just got a call from someone that my mom's going to the hospital. It's like, hey, you, just, you just got a call and not even asking questions, not fixing, not jumping into the trap.
JB: Right.
KB: Just gosh, you sound really stressed. Sounds like this is urgent. Slow them down, just repeat, paraphrase, reflect on what they're saying and just put their feet back on the ground. So once they hear sort of how frantic they're sounding and you can sort of identify like what is the real nugget, I sort of say at the bottom of the spin.
JB: Okay.
KB: What's their real concern is that they need to be there for the mom their mom's out of town. This is like the third time this week their mom's been in the hospital. Like just slow down. What's the real panic about?
Okay, and once they've identified that, so it's. This is all about empowering other people to manage their spin. Now, as a leader, I can help slow them down so they own what's causing them to spin, and I'm going to ask open-ended questions. So what's your next step? What do you need for peace of mind? How can we move forward? And just real, real generic, open-ended questions, so that I'm first of all recognizing hey, they're spinning. I have a responsibility here to not get sucked in and irritated by the A other word behavior, but really recognizing this is askable behavior.
I'm going to actively listen so that they hear themselves spinning, they recognize why they're spinning, what the real crux of the issue is. Then I'm going to ask them questions to help them identify what their next steps are and, at the end of the day, all I've done is just be a really great partner. But I don't own any of the work. I'm not in the ask try.
JB: Right, right, You're shepherding this along. And what's interesting, Kerri, is we just had and our listeners will remember Dr Jeremy Pollack, and in his original episode he talked about the peace-building leader. In this episode, most recently, he's talking about his new book, Peaceful Leadership. But one of the things that is so critical is that, as a caring, active listener, effective leader, he says we take the approach, or we encourage people to take the approach, of letting people know that I care, but you control. And that's what I'm hearing in this is that you're saying listen, I care about what's happening, I'm happy to help in any way I can. What do you think is a good next step? Who should we look to to pick this up for you while you're caring for your mom or whatever, wherever it would be.
KB: I want to challenge that thinking a tiny bit of what should we do to really, what do you need to do? And if they need to ask us to do something. Fair enough, but I I hear often and I'm my work in consulting and coaching just takes me in a variety of industries from like police departments to manufacturing, to healthcare, to colleges, and I just hear leaders often saying, oh, what can I do to help?
Oh, okay, you know a bit tricky, like what can we do to make your situation better? Like that sort of care and let them control. Piece is about what do you need?
JB: Yeah.
KB: Maybe they do need something from me, but really empowering them to ask the question of me not me being there fixing the issue or driving the plan with them and so thinking through, absolutely like that active listening, says you care, you hear them, they're seen, and the open-ended questions are saying like I'm empowering you to control this and I'm challenging you to control it because you're going to have less burnout and more empowerment and more engagement when you control, versus me fixing it for you.
JB: Right. Well, and I think what you heard from me was my own capacity to get sucked into the spin, because that was me. So what can I do? No, that's great, that is a good, that's a check. I mean, that's check ourselves. We care, we want to help and we want to empower and recognize their agency and their control to be able to do that. Okay, that makes sense. So, active listening and, by the way, I've known it for a long time. I'm self-aware enough to know that I have to work on active listening all the time. It's a challenge for me. There are other people that aren't naturally very strong at it. That's just not one of my traits. So for those of us out there that suffer with being good, active listeners, that's a great takeaway. One of the other things you talked about was emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is at the core of it is self-awareness. We talk about that.
KB: But it's also one of the tools for emotional intelligence is impulse control, maybe fighting that impulse. That's what you're talking about as well. It's analogy, because we're good at addressing problems, right. So our tendency is to do what we're good at, which is solving problems, and when someone's spinning that is the opposite time, do not use your talents, please don't fix, which is counterintuitive, right. And so the strategy, super high level, that I share with leaders when I'm speaking and kind of doing training and development, is just repeat verbatim what someone says, which is the first degree of active listening. So if somebody comes and says to you oh my goodness, I just got a call from the hospital, oh, you just got a call from the hospital, like verbatim, and that is then going to manage my discipline, to not get sucked in, and it gives me just that second or two to slow my head down, sort of analyze whether or not this is an askable behavior, I now am managing myself.
JB: Yeah, not automatically trying to fix. No, I think that's powerful, absolutely, absolutely. We talk a lot about psychological safety and psychological safety in our world is the belief that one will not be punished, there will be no retribution for bringing forward problems, issues, errors. It's huge. I mean at the core, and our listeners know Dr Amy Edmondson was on our program a couple of years ago. She's the pioneer of psychological safety in the world of business. But I've got to imagine that for a manager or supervisor creating a psychologically safe environment, people know that they can come to them with issues that don't necessarily need to be fixed, but they need to know, they need to hear. There's an awareness part of it. But there's also the side where, if the manager but there's also the side where, if the manager, the individual being sort of sucked into that spin is not careful, you could become part of the problem.
KB: So, yeah, tell me if this is a little bit related to what you're talking about, John, when I talk about active listening, which I say is like the hardest soft skill. So I celebrate your awareness just to say this is a lifelong journey to be a really great active listener. It's interesting, when we pull out of the spin and use these strategies, that you do not have to be right in what you're actively hearing. So if I say to someone oh my gosh, you sound really panicked that your mom's in the hospital, I'm hearing them panic, so I'm actively listening to what I hear. That the person might say, no, actually it's my brother's turn to manage for this week, and I'm so angry that he's not doing his job.
Oh that conversation back and forth opens the portal for psychological safety, because that employee knows that I'm listening and they're empowered to correct me as we have this slow conversation back and forth. Right, that's a powerful thing is often leaders are like oh, I don't know what to say in the moment. I don't know what the right. The magical thing about being heard is that if you're not heard accurately, the other person will correct you without judgment, because you created this psychological safety by truly listening.
JB: Yeah, that makes sense. Any other tactics or strategies? I know you have six in the book, but did we miss anything? You were going to talk about three.
KB: Yeah, so the other several others after that are really about asking them questions. To empower people to action starts the accountability movement.
JB: Okay.
KB: How do you audit that, that that they're actually taking the action, and then how do you celebrate when the action is done?
JB: Okay or kind, and again, I want to point everybody to the show notes and find Kerri's book and her contact information. If you suspect that you are dealing with some ASKhole behavior. This is a resource that you want, but, Kerri, the last thing I'd really like to explore in our world of talent optimization and talent optimization we define as aligning your talent strategy with your business strategy to get the results you need and the thing is that chasm between our strategy and the results. That chasm is filled with wonderful people, wonderful people that also can make us a little crazy and we get ourselves in a spin.
But when I think about the idea of people, we talk about the head, the heart and the briefcase. And the head is where your behavioral wiring lives. The heart has to do with core values and your passions, but the briefcase is about skills, and I would think, well, first of all, people can learn the skills of active listening, the tools of active listening. They can learn the tools of emotional intelligence. Of course, you talk about a lot of this. I mean a lot of those tools they can glean from your book. What are some other, let's just say, tools that you have found to be at the core of dealing with this kind of behavior.
KB: Yeah, so a couple of things to think about. One behavior yeah, so a couple of things to think about one. You can be in a meeting or with a group of a couple of people, or 10 or 15 people, and you can recognize the group spinning.
JB: Oh, okay.
KB: Really powerful as a leader to just call out like hey, we're spinning.
JB: Okay.
KB: So when individuals do not feel heard, they will continue to spin forever. So you never get to the strategy or the business work because the heart part isn't dealt with first. And so you're facilitating a meeting and you're feeling that pushback and you're feeling that resistance and there's not even healthy debate but just people mired in what they're thinking. It's healthy to just call that out and just say, hey, it sounds like we're spinning. What's the real issue here, when people sort of have a stop sign that like beep, beep, beep back up? Yep and they often have a space to say actually, I'm really angry that you know we've initiated five things this year and we just don't follow through on anything, so why bother buying into this? Okay, now we've got the real thing that we should talk about before we get to the strategy. And then the other idea was just this really simple tool in communication is, I feel, statements.
JB: Okay.
KB: So often and if you listen to like TV shows or just everyday language, people say I feel that it was a great podcast with John, I feel like John was a great facilitator, right, but they're not feeling words. And so when somebody's spinning and maybe even it feels a little attacking, having that awareness of yourself, to kind of go, I'm not feeling psychologically safe, to put I feel, with a feeling word. So I feel attacked, I feel overwhelmed, I feel concerned that you're speaking aggressively, I feel worried that you've been spinning for three days on this, I feel, and put in a feeling word and that can often have a dramatic impact on slowing down the spin and kind of helping the other person with like, oh, I'm doing something that has an emotional impact on someone else Very few people actually want to be jerks, and so another tool in there, if you're just looking for one-liners, is that I feel, and then honestly a feeling word.
JB: That is powerful. And, interestingly enough and I don't know if you use this in your practice we have a just a PowerPoint slide of a table of feeling words. And we will oftentimes during the beginning of a team session say, hey, let's check in here. It is up on the screen. Just take a moment, Think about where you are right now and I will tell you.
When I first and Sara, my business partner, is amazing at this, but when I first saw this technique, I was uncomfortable. It's like, oh, this is super squishy and feeling words, are you kidding me? And then it was like, oh my gosh, this is really powerful because it sort of cuts through all the BS of team dynamics and saying where are you right now? And if somebody says I feel frustrated because we are coming together again talking about the same thing and we're not moving forward, and then somebody may say I feel distracted or I feel super excited, and you may realize there is such a broad spectrum of you're all there maybe meeting on the same thing and we're all feeling very different about it. That's very powerful, yeah.
KB: Name it to tame it right Like once you identify where everybody is on that spectrum because it is also a strategy I use then you can just feel the tension in the room sort of dissipate a bit because you've named it and now you can tame it right. Well, what are we going to do? So-and-so is super happy. This person feels numb. They're just overwhelmed because of other things. Okay, how are we going to move forward then?
JB: Yeah, Kerri, something you talked about in terms of the dynamics of a team. I don't know if it was a bad flashback that I had, but there was. I remember being a member of a team. I was not the team leader, but there was a member of the team that would always come in and ask just these obscure and obtuse questions and my impression was I want to know if I was dealing with ASKhole behavior. My impression was that this person was just wanting to be difficult I'm using my words very carefully here because I don't want to go way below the line but it just pissed me off. I could see none of these questions I don't feel are in good faith to help us move forward. I think you're doing this just to really mess everything up. How does that fit into this world of ask-whole behavior?
KB: Yeah, so you kind of have the pleaser, the perfectionist and the insecure, and then you have this other category of jerks. Okay, okay, straight up, a-holes, right okay, um I heard somewhere back in the day doing my PhD that 10% of the population thrives on conflict and the jerks are just obviously not the right people on the bus like. I don't think that we anybody shy of the 10% right. If we're being contentious, we're not thriving, we're not in the right position.
Let's assume the best about each other, grace and generosity, and so if people are, that is very much askable behavior, right? And they're asking questions with an agenda. It's not out of curiosity and true openness, right. So they're trying to be disruptive either not the right seat on the bus or not on the right bus and there's really no perfect strategy to get them to come around. I mean, I think you can have crucial conversations and other tools, but at the end of the day, if people are just persistently cantankerous, they need to get out.
JB: I totally agree with that, and what frustrated a lot of us is that the team leader did nothing about it in the moment and I thought, well, maybe the team leader will take this person aside offline and say listen, this is not healthy for the team. I don't see this as constructive and I'm going to give you the opportunity. I'd like you to step off the team or really give you the opportunity to go do stuff that you really want to focus on. Didn't happen and we didn't really get anywhere. It was a really unhealthy scenario. Okay, that makes total sense. Yeah.
KB: And so in that example, you know, I can't help but infer your unhealthy word, because the group was not feeling psychologically safe because of this person's influence and in a healthier environment you or somebody else on the team might have had the courage to say hey, when you ask questions like that, it really derails the conversation. What's going on?
JB: Yeah, yeah.
KB: Right, but nobody felt comfy and maybe the leader falls into like who knows all the dynamics, not being there. Sure, if you see the spinning in a healthy environment, you're empowered to call that out. It doesn't have to be the leader, it doesn't have to be you know somebody on the outside looking at it and you, you know, if you see the spin, call it out. That's my challenge to your listeners. Right, if you see it, say it.
JB: Yeah, I think that's healthy, I think that's good and also we really don't have time for that. I mean, everybody is so busy. This just seems like a colossal waste of time and it's. It's not above the line where we always like to, always like to live. Well, Kerri, I mean well. First of all, again, reminder to everybody go into the show notes and get Kerri's book. Check out the resources and I know you've got some YouTube content out there of your speaking engagements. Tell me what's next for you, what's on the horizon? You got the book. What's next for Dr Kerri Birchall?
KB: I am starting book number two, Outline. Okay, so what I've learned is this it is nuanced, right, like what do we do in group settings? What do we do with really toxic employees like you're describing? And the first book doesn't get into all that detail and all those layers. So I'm starting the second book and I'm revamping my keynote to just sort of simplify it. I realize I need to spend more time with audiences slowing down to help them be aware of when they're caught in the spin and when it's true leadership. And I kind of just assumed that you know cause. I've lived this work for years, right, I've been deeply invested in sort of nurturing this idea and I sure audiences need just some help slowing down to really give themselves space to kind of go.
I can recognize the spin. Oh, there's this whole attraction around servant leadership and I just see leaders across industries sometimes thinking of servant leadership as being a servant for my team which is just on lots of ask. Cool like behavior and traps and so helping audiences really think through that. I would say half of my work is training and development, so I'm always on the go doing more of that, which I just love doing the interaction online or in person.
JB: Yeah, well, I'm so glad that we got connected and I am losing the name of the person that connects- Karen.
KB: Karen and interestingly she never told me about the two of you meeting in a conference. She is a listener also and said I think I listened to this podcast. I think you would love it. So that's just neat. You also have remind me, John, if I sent this over to you. The ASKhole trap quiz that people can take. It's a two minute quiz where they can just sort of assess how much time are they actually spending in the ASKhole trap.
JB: I don't think I have that, but please do send it to me and it will be in the show notes. Yes, thank you, Kerri.
KB: That'd be awesome.
JB: Well, thanks so much. This has been awesome. I have no doubt that our paths will cross again. Good luck with writing the second book. We understand what a chore that is, but I encourage everybody get to know Kerri Burchill and the work she's doing out there.
KB: Such a pleasure. Thank you very much, John, for the chance to be here.
JB: You got it and we will see you next time. On the Bosshole Chronicles. We'd like to thank our guests today on the Bosshole Chronicles and if you have a Bosshole Chronicles story of your own, please email us at mystory@thebossholechronicles.com. Once again, mystory@thebossholechronicles.com. We'll see you again soon.