The Everyday Awesome Project

18: GUEST: Culture Index Expert Beka Shea on Unlocking Team Leadership

• Polly Mertens & Samantha Pruitt • Season 1 • Episode 18

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Join Coach Polly this week as she unlocks more secrets to impactful leadership and team synergy with our Special Guest: Beka Shea. Beka is influential figure in both real estate and engineering, whose military insight into leadership is nothing short of transformational. Beka's talent in harnessing the 'Culture Index' in order to elevate work place team performance is a game-changer, showing us how professional success is always intertwined with each humans personal values. If you've ever wondered how to align your work life with what truly matters—like family or freedom—then Becca's journey will resonate deeply as she highlights the power of quality leadership in fostering collective success.

Ever wanted to sit down with industry giants and explore what drives them? We've done the next best thing- explore the motivational traits of workplace teammate types like 'Sharks', 'Sunshines', and 'Shepherds' as she calls them! Coach Polly and Beka use vivid examples and relatable insights to help others learn to navigate the intricate dance of personality types inside of a team. Business leaders and CEOs will find this conversation invaluable, offering a fresh perspective on driving growth, ensuring quality, and nurturing a positive work culture.

As a wrap up, Lady Boss Beka invites us into a more personal realm, discussing how aligning one's job role with our natural traits, particularly in high-stress environments, can dramatically improve outcomes. Embrace this 'Everyday Awesome' philosophy—optimism and adventure aren't just for weekends, they're a daily practice! Lean into this professional tactics convo and see how YOU can elevate your team's success today. 

-Coach Polly & Coach Sam xoxo 

Contact Our Special Guest
Beka Shea: bshea@magneticconsluting.net
Web: www.magneticconsulting.net

Follow Coach Polly @getbusythriving and Coach Sam @thesamanthapruitt

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everydayawesomeproject

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/everydayawesomeproject

Linktree for ALL THE THINGS: https://linktr.ee/everydayawesomeproject

Website/About Us: https://everydayawesomeproject.com/about-us/


Coach Polly Mertens:

Hey, superstars, welcome back Polly here with the Everyday Awesome Project, and I am super excited to share with you my guest today, becca Shea. Welcome, becca, hi, thanks for having me. Yes, thank you for joining us, and I thought what I would do to help people start to know about who you are is share them a little bit about how we know each other, because we actually know each other in the real world, not just this virtual world or social media world. So, yeah, actually, becca and I met gosh it was probably five or six years ago somewhere in there. Becca has a huge background and well, I'll let you share more about you.

Coach Polly Mertens:

But one of the things that we have alignment is a lot of knowledge in real estate, and so at the time, you were flipping houses, wholesaling houses you know, doing a lot in that world, and so were I, and we were in a mastermind together, and I can remember what stood out to me and why I wanted to have you on the show is one of the things that you have totally become synonymous with in my mind is culture and team harmony and team success, like driving companies and businesses to success through harmonious teams, and I think if there's anything I mean, yeah, you can have good technology or processes and things like that, but if the team isn't clicking and so that's something that Samantha and I my co-hosts are definitely passionate about is culture. So, knowing that you are this culture expert, I was like, oh yummy, we get to have you on the show and share about that.

Coach Polly Mertens:

So what reminded me of this was my former business partner and I. We were doing real estate. We had gone to this mastermind and you were like leading. I mean, you were just like infectious a your energy in real life, if you ever have an opportunity to meet Becca or see her on stage.

Coach Polly Mertens:

It's like your energy in real life. If you ever have an opportunity to meet Becca or see her on stage, it's like it's always a 10. It's always just positive energy. You're just such a good people person and we were asking some questions in this like sort of breakout session and you were helping us like find some problems inside of our company and things weren't going well and you remembered. So you have this and I'll let you share about it.

Coach Polly Mertens:

But Culture Index is one of the tools that you use in helping teams.

Coach Polly Mertens:

You know find and hire and you know build the right people behind the leader and you know sometimes put the leader in place.

Coach Polly Mertens:

And you had, we had taken this test, both Will and myself had taken the test and we were just struggling with some communication and you came in and you're like, well, polly, you're this, this to the test. And we were just struggling with some communication and you came in and you're like, well, polly, you're this, this particular. You know communication style and well, you're this communication style and like it was like magic how you were able to. I was like, oh my God, ace, you remembered that about us, and I mean there's hundreds of people in the room and you remember that, but it so helped us in that moment breakthrough where we couldn't get through something or we weren't seeing eye to eye and I was like damn, whatever that is that she knows and understands, so would you tell us a little bit about you know there's more to you than you know, Culture Index is a beautiful part of it, and the work that you do with business owners.

Coach Polly Mertens:

The real estate is also a part of your background, but share with us so people can get to know you a little bit more. Who is?

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

Becca Shea, tell me a little bit. Yeah, thanks for having me. So my background is I like to think of it as kind of three phases. The first one is I went to college on an ROTC scholarship for mechanical engineering.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

I really wanted to be a pilot in the Navy and I knew that mechanical engineering would increase my chances and I also. I've just always been really good at math and science and I love data. So I went to school, got my mechanical engineering degree, went into the military. Unfortunately, my eyesight disqualified me from the pilot slot, but instead I got to go work on an aircraft carrier, got to be an officer on an aircraft carrier, and the one takeaway when I look back at that time in my life was it was so amazing. But the military is so big on leadership because, if you think about it, the majority of their workforce is 18-year-old boys.

Coach Polly Mertens:

Yeah, a little bit lost souls, right.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

Like they. They have got to really hone in on their leaders and and put the right people in place and then empower their leaders. And so I just loved all of the training I went through. We would do case studies. It was very real time. I got to be, you know, learn from some of the absolute best leaders in the world, and I was just so inspired. And so I feel like, for me, the military taught me about leadership is a learned skill and it can be learned, and that good leaders can do amazing things. Can do amazing things, and so that was my one takeaway there.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

And then, after I got out of the military, I went and I did engineering for about six years and in the energy efficiency space, and so I spent a lot of time trying to make these huge. I worked on a lot of military bases and VA hospital complexes, so these huge federal facilities where we would go in and we would collect data. We would collect all this data and then we would use that data to drive efficiency at the sites such that, even though they were going to invest in some certain infrastructure upgrades, the savings would pay for it more than anything. And they call them energy savings companies, escos, so that was just really fascinating to me. I loved doing that work and then I got.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

I left that when my third daughter was born about 10 years ago, because I wanted to be more home and present for my kids. You know about me, but for your audience, my family is the most important thing being able to be with my family. I don't I. I have been in many roles where I've traveled a ton and in fact that was why I stepped back. So then I went a little stir crazy so I decided to flip a house because why not? It seemed really cool, right, everybody's doing it. Yeah, I was doing these huge project management things you know on federal facilities and I thought, well, you know residential project management. Okay, and that went really well and I grew that business doing the mastermind where you and I met, eventually started helping lead that mastermind and again started traveling all the time as the mastermind grew and my position in it, and I decided to step back from that. I still have my real estate investments, but I took some time off, spent it with my kids. They're now entering the preteen and teenage years. I know I only have a couple of years left of them at home and so it's important for me to be present.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

So I was like what can I do that really marries these things that I'm incredibly passionate about? Leadership and data and driving efficiency through data and, um, I had been a culture index client myself while growing my, my rehabbing business, and my advisor came to me and he said I think you should do this. You will love it. It is you will, you will. He literally said to me it will be the most fun thing you ever do. And I said well, can I work with you? Like will you teach me? And he brought me on board and and he wasn't lying it's been amazing. I love. I love what I do using data to like be a better leader and build better teams and better culture.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

And I had a conversation with someone yesterday. Actually, I met with this guy who's pretty ridiculous high up in the marketing world. He actually worked for Nike, he did all of Kobe Bryant's collaboration stuff and rewrote Kobe's brand, and I had the pleasure of spending time with him yesterday and he said what's your passion when you do your marketing and your branding and stuff? What do you when, when you do your marketing and your branding and stuff, what is the thing that, like, just speaks to you, what drives you. And I said to him I want to live in a world where people have permission to find their calling and like that's what drives me when I go in, like we can use this data in the culture index data to figure out really how people are hardwired and then, like, use that to improve life. So that's a long, long story to tell you how I got to be where I am, but that's what I do.

Coach Polly Mertens:

That's awesome. That's awesome kind of dig around in a little bit and get to know more. Is you know, I still feel sometimes like I have a pretty good intuitive meter on people and trying to understand people, but I run up against things that I don't know or I haven't seen or whatnot, and so all this data from Culture Index starts to tell you about people, right. And so I think how many profiles does Culture Index have? Like 19 profiles or something like that.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

Oh yeah, yeah, they make up roughly 5% of the population each one.

Coach Polly Mertens:

That's how they've created their patterns. So, yeah, right, right and so, but you've, I think, divided it down. So, like, a big part of why you want this data and you tell me is like communication is such a vital part of working in a team, right? So a team, you know it's, it's not the glue, that is a team, it's something, but it's, you know it's like it's what binds it, it's what keeps energy flowing in it through the company and stuff. So what have you found with, you know, communication? Is it different between all 19? And it's hard to, or are there? Can you break it down into fewer? Like maybe tell us a little bit about what, what, what do you use this data for and how does it help us be better communicators, so we can succeed in our businesses, be better leaders?

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

Yeah, well, I love the story you told about, like you and Will. It's such a poignant story about. You know, two people come into a conversation and they're aligned in that they want to achieve the same goals of the business, but what they don't realize is that they're motivated differently. So Harvard is actually the one who published the study about the three main motivational traits that people have, and closure index is just.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

A lot of people talk about personality profiling and surveys, and they're all based on the same science.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

It's called psychometrics, so it's a psychometric tool and it measures certain things about your personality, your inherent traits, and the different tools show the data differently, but if you've ever taken one, you'll hear some similarities.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

And Harvard has basically taken the psychometric data and said, yeah, and there's three things that really motivate people, and almost all conflict when I work with my clients and in their teams, almost all conflict comes from not understanding that the person you're talking to is motivated by something else, and so you just assume, because you're working towards the same goal, that the reason and how you work and how you communicate are all driven from the same thing, and so I was telling you about this. I often give this talk, this speaking engagement called Communicate to Win Sunshine Sharks and Shepherds, and I just try to make it super accessible my goal I usually speak to CEO groups to help them reduce the friction of communication and the idea here is, like sharks, I just give you a really high level overview of the different motivations and these are my words for it. I put it behind it because I wanted something that people could connect with and easily recognize in a conversation so that they could then use the data right Instead of being like what was that thing?

Coach Polly Mertens:

she said, or trying to remember all 19 of them. It's like no yeah.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

I was like we're just going to go with the Harvard. The main motivational traits sharks, sunshines and shepherds. So in an organization you'll and you need all three of these in an organization. So what I like to say is a lot of times, people, we have a bias where we think that we're right.

Coach Polly Mertens:

You know yeah.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

Right and I do it right. And and if you can understand that your main motivational trait aligns with only a third of the population, and so you need to understand where the other side's coming from so that you can effectively achieve your goals together, life gets much easier. And so sharks for them they are. These are the people who are going to be the high growth, high speed are. These are the people who are going to be the high growth, high speed, drive top line revenue people. They're. They're very future focused, self-confident, aggressive, bold, entrepreneurial, just that it's more of a ego driven right. Their confidence comes from their ego. For better or worse, it comes from inside of them. It's not, it's not anything external or anything they've picked up along the way, and these start to show up from a very young age, like 10 to 12 years old. And so these, these are truly like the self-confident people and in a business they're going to drive those like high growth, high, high speed businesses.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

And then you've got your sunshines and their motivation is, let's say, the sharks. Their motivation is winning. That is really like, however they define winning. Sometimes it's money, and money's a good scoreboard. But, but I have met other sharks who you know, maybe time freedom is their, is their version of winning, and so that is what drives them. Sunshines are driven by strong relationships. So these people, everything they do, will be in service of relationships and they are optimistic and they're friendly and they're outgoing and they are persuasive and they have this innate ability to influence people. Because they truly care about people, so they build this rapport. People, because they truly care about people, so they build this rapport. And so these businesses and sunshines can lead and grow great businesses too. They tend to grow more experiential, people-oriented businesses.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

So in my speaking engagement I talk about if you were going to look at a famous business owner who's a shark, I would put Elon Musk in that category. If you listen to him talk, he is always talking about the future. It's like today is an inconvenience to get me to the future, right, but Bob Iger, who has been the CEO of Disney for a long time, a couple of times around, keeps trying to retire. But I would say Bob Iger, who has built this empire with Disney and this amazing experience that people come from all over the world, for he's a sunshine and for him I mean he leads with optimism and experience and people people first and caring about what's happening. So, again, sunshines can build great businesses and they can be great leaders. It's just they're going to do it differently.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

And then the third motivational trait is I call them the shepherds, and these people are motivated by knowledge and perfection and so they want to get it right and they're going to be. They're going to mitigate risk as much as possible in their business. They're going to be very deliberate and intentional in how they grow, unlike the sharks who are going to go for that explosive, 100% year-over-year growth. These are the people who have built businesses that year-over-year 10%, 15%, just solid, slow, steady, intentional growth.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

I think of Warren Buffett, probably a great example of a shepherd who really successfully grew a business, and if you listen to some of his quotes, he is all about taking calculated risks and trying to engineer the risks out of every situation. So when you realize that number one, these are the three motivations that people have and how they view the world. And then, number two, that I gave the examples of Elon Musk and Bob Iger and Warren Buffett, because I think we can all assign value to all of those people. Unfortunately, you hate to have to assign value, but I think we can all say like each one of us could find something to admire and respect in each of those people. Unfortunately, you know you hate to have to assign value, but I think we can all say like each one of us could find something to admire and respect in each of those people. Oh, maybe Elon Elon might be contentious for some people, but Is there another shark we could talk about, no Other sharks love him, and so you recognize that.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

Number one, the person I'm talking to. There's a more than 50% chance that they're not motivated like me. And number two, that doesn't make them less than they actually bring value to the conversation. Because they're able to bring diversity of thought.

Coach Polly Mertens:

Your communications will get so much better communications will get so much better, and so would so picking. Let's just say those three. You said each company needs all three. No-transcript in a team, let's say in an executive team. How would that go? Or how might their communications break down or break through? Or what would you suggest that each one should look at? Or you know, or like how does the shark look at the shepherd, or how does the sunshine look at the shark, or whatever you know.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

Yeah, that's great. Oh, and I do want to say, because some people will be like man, I think I'm a sunshine, but I also resonated with some of that shark. I always say you can have more than one motivational trait In Culture Index. You take the survey, it takes like 10 minutes, and it'll tell me, It'll show me in the data what you are. But sometimes we'll say, yeah, you're a friendly shark or you're an aggressive shepherd. Those are the people who are like get off my land, chase you with my shotgun. No, no.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

But you know, when you look at that, when you have them, number one you're. You need all of them in a leadership team. Your shepherds are the people. They protect your bottom line. They're the ones who, when you go out there and you sell the product, they're the ones who make sure that the product gets delivered and that the processes get built and the processes get followed. So you need your shepherds to de-risk your company and to ensure that it's compliant and quality is getting delivered. You're going to find your sharks tend to lead growth initiatives or anything that's future facing. So that strategy R and D um strategic looks and I I don't want to put all shepherds in finance, because really good CFOs actually have shark tendencies, because they're able to look into the future and make strategic moves instead of just making sure the bottom line gets hit yeah, accountability, yeah, counting for it, yeah, yeah so.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

So you know a shark's going to come in and they're going to be like well, our five-year goal is this and we need to do it and um, and they'll be able to tell you the milestones you need to hit to get there. But the conflict is going to come from them and the shepherd is you know, shepherd says but what needs to be done today? Because most shepherds live in the moment and so that creates a lot of conflict. It's like one person lives way down the road and one person is like stop daydreaming, we have stuff to do. But if you want those growth, if you want that you know that solid growth you have to have the sharks. And if you want to have profitability, you have to have the shepherds.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

And then, if you, then the sunshines come into the room and they just chat, chat, chat and everybody thinks like why do you talk so much? But then the sunshines make it actually an enjoyable place to work. They make your clients like working with you, they drive relational sales. They, you know, they create this great atmosphere. So I always say that the sunshines are the relational sales and the glue and they're the experience part of your brand.

Coach Polly Mertens:

Probably. I would think that that would be a great person to have like an HR role. You know, like like somebody that is or no.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

Yeah, hr tends to be more compliance than friendly.

Coach Polly Mertens:

like, by the time you're hiring an hr person in, it's because you need to make sure all the payrolls right yeah they tend to be more shepherds, yeah so if the company was big enough, let's say, to have the, uh, let's say a, you know, I've heard of, know larger companies have the charge of happiness. You know, corporate happiness or something like that.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

Chief people officer.

Coach Polly Mertens:

Chief people officer, chief happiness officer, something like that. That would be your sunshine. Yeah, you wouldn't want a shark necessarily in that role, but a sunshine I gotcha. Yeah, yeah, cool. So they all three can be leaders and they can all three work together as well.

Coach Polly Mertens:

There's it's knowing what motivates and, I think, also motivation and communication style, right? So one of the things that I've picked up, as you know, many years ago, like you said, these personality profiling psychometrics are kind of they float inside of different tests and I did one and it was like we did it inside of our company and so just be so like people knowing when they come into my life. So, for example, I have an account manager role and I was the liaison with the clients. So I had a portfolio of 30 clients that I was taking care of. We were building websites for them and managing their marketing and things like that, and the team copywriters, developers, graphic designers, whatever it was would bring something into me, and once everybody knew what each other was, you know and I forget if we like posted it on our door or something you know like okay, you're going into this person's office.

Coach Polly Mertens:

They're a sunshine, you know. Let's say, for example, they're a shark or something. Um, I think it's super helpful to know you know when you're a going. So one thing I things I got from myself is you know, as a high D or shark is probably the place that I would fall into is get to the point.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

Be blunt, be brief, be gone.

Coach Polly Mertens:

Let's, let's not. I mean I love you, you know, I appreciate you, I'm sure you're doing great work, but tell me what we need to do so that we can drive to the result, or I got to get to the next thing, or something like that. So they call it like a high D or high you know, direct yeah.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

Yeah, all those things. Yeah, shark, for sure, that's the sharks right, be blunt, be brief, be gone. And what happens, like what I see in my clients, is what we try to de-weaponize this and make it part of the culture, what you said. We have clients who will put their culture index profile, their dots, right below their name plate on their door so that you know when you walk in who you're talking to, and so then it becomes a joke.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

because you know, true sharks don't? They tend to under communicate details because, number one, they would think that someone was talking down to them if they explained, you know, like I'm not an idiot. That's how a shark feels. Like, stop explaining every tiny little thing, I'm not an idiot, whereas the shepherds want to know every single thing. It's they. They want to get it perfect, but they can't get it perfect unless they know what that means. And so I will see my clients say like I mean, they'll use culture and language around it, but they'll be like I'm a shark, I need more detail. Or like I need more detail, can you? Hey, mr Shark, like, can you, can you pull back and just come down, come down here for a minute and give me some clarity on what you want.

Coach Polly Mertens:

And it becomes this kind of joking interaction where like, oh, I see your, I see your shark tendencies showing through Chill, and I think that helps to just not break barriers, but to lighten the atmosphere or to yeah, it's just like gives everybody a context, like, hey, we're all playing in this game or this bubble business, whatever, and the better we can communicate like, oh, I know you're a Sher, I know you're a Shepherd, right, okay, and here's what I need. Or let's talk about, tell me, has there been any transformation? You know, so people are having some dysfunction in their team and I'm not even sure when the when you went in and you started doing culture index because you said you were at first were a client with it inside of seven figure Are there any transformation stories that you can say of, like, what was a breakdown? Or how are things breaking down, either for your clients, or you were sitting inside.

Coach Polly Mertens:

You know of a team and it's like, yeah, wow, once we started using our understanding of each other, where we got to, either like, results were different or happiness level was higher, or, you know, stop losing people. I don't know, like, is this a thing against? You know, keeping people from leaving the company? You know, whatever. So how does having harmony and awesomeness and communication help that culture and the teams themselves, the results, whatever. Yeah.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

Well, you just asked a lot. Take any part of that Specific example, actually, that I love to reference. So I'm a friendly shark and I had built a team of customer service representatives that were friendly shepherds but but mainly they were shepherds right? Their job was to make sure that everything got followed up on and done. And being a shark lives in the future.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

I came into one meeting and, um, it was like our weekly, you know, our weekly team meeting. I came into the meeting and I said, guys, I have this great idea, our weekly team meeting. I came into the meeting and I said, guys, I have this great idea Because I was living so far in the future. I was thinking what would be amazing is if I knew everything that was happening in every one of my members' lives, because then, when they're having a baby, I can send them a baby gift and if they're really struggling, I can connect them with someone else who's been going through the same thing and I'll know they're struggling and I'll know someone else has already been through it because I have this intel. So I went into this leadership meeting and I was like I had this grand vision that if I could get intel on what was happening with my members, I could build a deeper community and I could help them achieve success faster, because I'd be able to connect them immediately to what they needed. And so in my brain I thought you know, what the best thing is is, I have this staff and we would run these accountability groups, and I was like let's have a staff member sit in on every one of these like 20 accountability groups that are happening.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

I don't know, maybe there were. I think there were actually like 36. Yeah, there were 36, because I had a team of four at the time. I was like I'll just divvy it up and we'll have someone sit in on each meeting, right, it's like 10 hours a week per person. So I come into my leadership meeting, I'm like guys, I have this great idea. Here's what we're going to do. You're going to sit in on the meetings and we're going to get the intel and we're going to use it and we're going to just build this amazing place where people are seen and valued and they hit their goals faster. And and I remember one of them saying um, how do you expect us to do that? Or like, and get all of our work done, or like, you know, and I was like I said, and this is a classic shark, it's just 10 hours of your week, you'll still have 30 hours to get everything.

Coach Polly Mertens:

Whatever you were doing last week, I'm sure you had 10 extra hours. You know you, you were. You were just waiting for me to come and deliver this.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

I was like you'll figure it out, right, and just just as the trademark of a shark, like it's just we minimize the amount of work that goes into everything, and um, uh, so anyway, I leave, we finished the meeting, I leave it. They get really quiet, we finished meeting, whatever. And um, then they went back and they spent the whole day just in a tizzy, like, oh my gosh, how are we going to do this? What does that even mean? Sitting on the meetings? How is this going to impact our schedule? What kind of information does she want us to get while we're in these meetings? What are we supposed to do with that information? What does success look like? How am I going to do everything else? What's the priority here? When is this going to start? Cause I sure didn't give them that. I was like let's just do it. When is this going to roll out? Like 1% of everything, yeah.

Coach Polly Mertens:

Yeah.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

Yeah, I just gave them the idea, but I told them nothing about how we were going to execute on it and and I didn't even do a good job, Like now sunshine, would have come in and read the room and felt their energy and their vibe and gotten like nip that in the bud probably, but I did not. And so that that one, that one communication fail probably stole for other people right, Stole a day's worth of productivity from them.

Coach Polly Mertens:

Yeah, at least yeah.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

And if you do that once a week in your leadership meetings, where you just don't communicate effectively and then people are left wondering or trying to get what they needed, get their motivation met after the meeting, how much lost payroll is that? How much lost productivity?

Coach Polly Mertens:

is that? And imagine if they had tried to execute on this. So they'd spent days or weeks and maybe they did, I don't know but like, let's say, they were like, oh my God, we can't talk to her, we need to just do this. And, without any further direction, like, oh, let's just try and implement, if you will. If they were just pure shepherd, you know, not had their heads out of it, enough even you know. And then then you're trying to rein back a project that you probably never wanted to start. You're like, oh okay, wait, you know.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

So yeah, well, here's the other thing about it. Is you say, what if they had executed without me? But what often happens with shepherds is, if they don't have enough knowledge to know what perfect is, they just won't start. And so then, if you're communicating with them and you're like now me, I only really need a little bit and I'll fill in the blanks and I don't always do it right, which is why sometimes there's broken toys behind me.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

Shepherds just won't execute. And then what I've seen happen with leaders is they're like I told this person what to do and they're not doing it. What is happening? They're a bad employee, but the reality is they're like I told this person what to do and they're not doing it.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

What is happening? They're a bad employee, but the reality is they're actually a phenomenal employee. You're just not doing a good job communicating and giving them enough information for them to do their job well, so they're instead of being wrong, they would rather just not do anything.

Coach Polly Mertens:

Wow, I'm feeling that I've seen that myself in various scenarios. So what would be? So, let's say you role play, those two different people are in that room. What could the friendly shark do, maybe at the end of the meeting or during the meeting? And what could the shepherd do, like how could they each take responsibility for some communication, to not just leave the meeting? Everybody, you know, one thinking one thing and the other 10 thinking something else, or four thinking something else.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

What might they do? Yeah, that's a great question. So one of the things we do with our clients, right, we like okay, now I've given you this data, what do you do with it? Right, like, how do you actually effectively use this to increase productivity? The first thing is I empower people to know what you are. Once you know what you are, then you know what your weaknesses are. So, like if I, if you know you're a shark and your your communication motto is be blunt, be brief, be gone, and a sunshine comes into your office, then you know all right, how is your family, how's your dog, what are your plans? Right, like, you can leverage that knowledge to adapt your communication style. What I often tell my like shark leaders who have shepherds on their team is to just give your team permission. Like, set expectations, go into that meeting and say I know I under communicate detail.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

I would like you to ask five follow-up questions give them permission yeah, you feel comfortable leaving this room and and doing what you need to do, and that's probably because shepherds don't like to look dumb, because knowledge drives them. Um, I have noticed that they will not ask questions sometimes if they don't feel safe. Yeah, so so your job is, you know, when you're communicating with them is to give them a safe space and give them permission to get what they need from you, because you have it right.

Coach Polly Mertens:

Yeah. So what I was thinking as you told that story is like so how do you you know it could be, do you guys have any questions about this? Or how could you what would be some of the first steps you would take on this? And just see if they had a first step you know, just off the cuff, if you will and if like nothing or there that could like point to their I'm not really sure where we would start with that and then you could either collaborate or say, oh okay, I see that we, you know we need more clarity or we need to discover something or whatnot.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

Yeah, and I found you have to be specific. If you just say what questions do you have, they're like, um, yeah nothing, but if I, if if I specifically say ask me five follow-up questions.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

Like you must ask for more information. They're like oh well, when you said put it up on the website, did you want it in red or blue? Like, did you want the website to go up today or in the future? Are Are we, you said, send down a message to our customers about it? Did you want it to be an email or a text message? Right, like, it's just you to give them permission to lean into their superpower, which is figuring out all the specifics before they execute.

Coach Polly Mertens:

Yeah, so leadership and data I had. You know this is such an entirely different world that I didn't even realize existed and what you're doing with it, like I had no idea. You know, I get how I could kind of picture, as you were telling me the story when you were in the engineering world and green energy. It's like, okay, you're probably collecting a lot of energy about the buildings and their watts, or you know, like how much energy you're consuming and how much do you need and what is it costing you and stuff, and you could spit out some numbers and make some decisions. But, like, seeing the data, like you said and I'm guessing, is there more data in collecting this or is it like that really is the? These are some key points and, like you said, they're sort of like baked into that person, right? So that's how they're pretty much always going to function. Is that what? Right? So that's how they're pretty much always going to function.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

Is that what you say? Yes, yes, that's how they'll function when they're under stress or overwhelmed, like, basically, in times of stress and intensity. That's how they're going to default to that. That's what you'll see, and if you can put them in a job where their inherent traits are aligned with the work they're doing, you're going to get so much more out of them.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

I mean I often ask people and I can tell as soon as so you asked is there more? Yes, there's so much you can do at this, and so that's why it's like it's a journey. It's not just the way the culture index approaches. Psychometric data is like you can communicate better with it. You can hire better with it. You is like you can communicate better with it, you can hire better with it. You can have better management conversations with it. You can design your team better with it. But, like each one of those is a bit of a science that we study in chunks, so I don't want people to get overwhelmed. It's like having a really robust CRM like HubSpot. Like, let's say, if you use HubSpot, you can have the free version of HubSpot and just use it for the basics and it would be great, but it can also do a whole bunch more.

Coach Polly Mertens:

That much more. Yeah, so this is like the tip of the iceberg and I'm really a fan of you know, seeing something like this, a tool that helps you understand the person, the personality behind you know, like they can say something on their resume or whatever, and you can try and get some information out of them in a one-on-one interview or a phone call or something like that. But, like you said, when pressure shows up, right, which is, you know, it's a little hard to like force that, let's say, in an interview, but to know how they're going to default, this information is wildly valuable. And I've seen, like I think you design, let's say, team dynamics, right. Design, let's say, team dynamics, right. So you, you know, like, okay, if we have a bookkeeper or if we have a CEO or if we have a HR manager, you know, like you said, I was thinking HR maybe needed to be more sunshine, but you're saying, well, maybe you know a little bit of sunshine, but more shepherd, right.

Coach Polly Mertens:

Or you know different profiles, like that. So it's super helpful in that. So let's talk a little bit. I would love to, you know, share with some people. This is a huge part of what you're doing and I love that you're so lit up and passionate about it. It's just, it's so nice to see people that, like find their groove, find their flow and whatnot, but you are an awesome person all around, Like I mean.

Coach Polly Mertens:

I mean like, I said family is a big part for you. I mean, that's just. You know who. You are, baked in and out. You've got this adventurous spirit. You know traveling. You know we have a similar love of adventure and going places. Tell me what? So our name is Everyday Awesome, right.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

Everyday Awesome Project.

Coach Polly Mertens:

And so we find and why we started this and having these conversations and people sharing their stories is, you know, there are people sure that shoot to the top of the Olympic gold medal or the bestseller on New York times, or you know, ceo Elon Musk, right, you know super or celebrity, that type of thing.

Coach Polly Mertens:

But there's awesome everywhere. And having spent some time with you at these masterminds, I just and seeing you on social and just how you are, I mean it's so funny to me that you're still an engineer, because I'm like damn, but you're so friendly and not, you know, like I think of engineers as so how, how do you maintain awesome in your life? How? Where does this come from? Is this like something that you had a dark childhood and you overcame a lot, and now, like you know, I've, I've learned so much about myself and I'm sharing it? And now, like, well, you know, I've, I've learned so much about myself and I'm I'm sharing it. Or did you have a great upbringing? What? Where do you get your, your awesomeness, your, your personality, the side of you that seems optimistic and friendly.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

I think we talk about this a lot more in our workshops. We're like, oh, is this nature or nurture habits? And I think it's a combination of the three, with nature and nurture really playing out. There are a lot of things that started. I mean, I have children I have a 10 and 13 and 15 year old and I can tell you they were all completely different people, like despite my parenting and I'm sure my parenting definitely did shape part of who they are. But there were also things that were just obvious from 18 months, two years, three years old. Um, so I think it's a little bit of both for me.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

I've spent a lot of time thinking about this in the past, like decade the things that shaped me. I think one of the things that shapes me a lot is there was a lot of um death around my family in terms of like. Like my mom, she was married before my dad. She had a daughter and her husband. Her daughter died as a baby. Her husband was then killed in a car accident. My sister's first husband I have three sisters One of my sister's first husbands had a heart attack at 32 in the middle of their living room. I was like 21 or 22. At the time In the military, when I was in college, there were two training accidents.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

Well, actually there was one training accident where someone was killed down at the point of exercise we were on. Then at college, one of the kids in my ROTC unit. He was in my battalion and he got beaten to death at a party, just like stupid boys. And so those things I now realize really impacted me in terms of I honestly don't know how many tomorrows were promised, you know, and I think we spend a lot of time worrying about things that never come to pass and being so preoccupied with our own busyness, like I actually just I do a short, like five minute a day podcast called Challenge to Lead, and I just recorded one and I was like we need to stop being martyrs.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

Like wake up in the day and think about what would this look like if it were my one of my phrases? What would it look like if it were easy? Right, like, stop over complicating things. But I had this thought yesterday I'm like what would it look like if it were fun? Right, like what if it looked? What would it look like if it were fun when you went to work? What would have to happen for that to be true. And I'm not saying that you, maybe you have the luxury of leaving whatever role you're in and going to do something new. But, like, wherever you're at right now, whatever's happening, you're like what would have to happen for you to enjoy it more, because you don't know how many tomorrows you're going to get. And so enjoy the ride, enjoy the journey.

Coach Polly Mertens:

Yeah, yeah, I just had a conversation with somebody the other day that was very similar. You know, I I had the opportunity many years ago. My aunt and uncle were they're about to turn 90. So quite a few years ahead of me and they shared with me, like you know, when they were turning 65, like you know, we're not able to travel as much as we want, and this and that, and they're like, don't waste it. You know. So in my thirties, I got the message, like you know, you might want to get about those things that you want to be doing Right, because the body, you know, if you put it off, if you put it off, you know, we think these lifetimes, you know, this finish line, is like perpetual out there, Like you know 80, 90, whatever, right, yeah, you don't know what you have left.

Coach Polly Mertens:

Yeah, yeah. And then when you see people around you in college and 30 or you're 21 and they're 30 and just like you know, really reminding you like wait a minute, this is it, this is the, this is the, this is the show that you know. There's no second show, there's no do-overs, there's no matinee tomorrow. It's like you're you're in it and appreciating it. So I love those questions. So what would it look like if it were easy? And it's a choice too. So what you're inviting people to is like right, that's a question. How you answer that determines which way your day will go. Right, yeah.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

And. I'm not saying you have to wake up every day and my rule is I remember telling this to someone like I need to enjoy my job 70% of the time, like, more often than not, everybody's going to have bad days, everybody's going to have bad bosses, you know, bad meetings, whatever. But if you can say that you really you enjoy what you do 70% of the time, I think you're on the right path.

Coach Polly Mertens:

Yeah.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

And if it's 50% of the time like is there something you?

Coach Polly Mertens:

can do, that's in your control, to get it up to 70? Yeah, yeah, and sometimes it's action and sometimes it's just perspective. You know the story, like you said, waking up feeling like a martyr versus waking up feeling inspired, optimistic. You know, I'm going to, I'm going to, spread joy in my office today, or I'm going to, you know, give three gratitude. You know, text to people or something telling them I appreciate them, whatever that can look like, awesome, awesome.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

So I have this. I used to do oh sorry, no, I was gonna say I used to do um, when I went through a pretty like rough spot a couple of years ago and I started being like I need to stop focusing on the negative stuff, right? What we just talk track in our head. You got to get rid of it and so I started taking pictures of just like things that I saw that amused me, like somebody wearing a shirt with a funny slogan on it, or a flower in the grass, or like just walking in the grass barefoot, or something. I started taking pictures and once a week I would post I called it my joy collage and I would just make a little collage on my phone and I would post it just as a reminder. Like there's like everyday awesome, there are so many little things all around us.

Coach Polly Mertens:

Take notice of them. Yeah, you know, and what? What that reminds me of is, um, you know, it's the lens through which we're seeing things, right. So are you waking up and putting on the glasses or the perspective that says martyr?

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

What's you know? Everybody's screwing up at work today, yeah, or something. Everyone's out to get me. I have to do all the work and what a simple yet.

Coach Polly Mertens:

So one of the things that I have kind of running in the background as a theme for me is joy, beauty and magic. Right, so how can I see joy, beauty and magic in each day? And when you, when I remember that, I'm reminding myself, just talking to you, like, oh yeah, hey, remember that again, you know, remember that. But it's nice that I love that you have this sort of like deliverable or something that you could turn it into, because we can, let's say, fall off track or we can forget.

Coach Polly Mertens:

But if your goal is like, hey, once a week, I want to make this little collage each, you sort of start collecting those things, collecting those moments, and if for nobody else, for you, right, yeah, yeah, beautiful, beautiful, um, so I want to ask you uh, you know, our subconscious mind holds a lot of our internal philosophies, mindset, things like that, and I'm always curious how people's perspective and how they look at the world, because the awesome things that you're up to, the family that you're creating, the impact that you're making in your community, it's largely driven by, just like, who you are and how you see the world. So I'm going to say a couple of statements and then I just ask you to finish it. So I'll say like a couple words.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

I love games. Let's do it All right, it's a game.

Coach Polly Mertens:

It's a game. So there's four of them. So the first one is, and just as rapidly as you can like, hopefully no filtering, but whatever you can. So, becca, life is life is what. What was it? Oh, I stopped hearing you Hold on Say it again. Full of joy, full of joy, full of joy, all right, life is anything else. What is life?

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

Bleeding.

Coach Polly Mertens:

This is weird. Talking about All right. How about I am? I am what?

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

Excited I just. I've been in this space lately where I've just been just excited about the future and all the opportunities. Can you say more?

Coach Polly Mertens:

on that. Where does that come from? So, like, what's the genesis of that? Like? Did it just like you woke up one morning and I started feeling excited? Or do you have something to look forward to that you've put out there, or is it exciting?

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

I got very intentional about building my. My problem is I get FOMO, like I see all the things people are doing, my shark tendencies kick in and I'm like I could do that or that and that would help me win or that would help me hit my goals. And I got very focused when I started my culture index advising last year I mean, it was my first year as an advisor and I set some goals to bring on clients and I just I didn't even know if I could do it, I didn't know if this would even work. And I, I set some goals and I exceeded them and my clients became raving fans. And so at the end of the last year I was like, oh, I can do this. And so then I was like I'm going to shut all the other doors, like this is where I am, I'm going to be here, it's going to be hard, it's going to be work, it's going to be glorious and fun. But like I'm not going to let FOMO pull me, pull my mental energy elsewhere, I'm going to be here. And so I got very clear about what I was going to do and I just went to work and I started doing it and it's yielding results.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

And I and I feel like I'm in the place I'm supposed to be, like, even when people I always offer everyone a 20 minute survey review where, like, they can take the survey and spend 20 minutes with me and just learn about themselves and maybe half the time those people might potentially be clients and half the time they're just people who want to figure something else out. And I had a call last week with a girl and she came into the call and she was crying and she was like I just had a fight with my boyfriend and I'm really sorry and I know this is like not professional me coming in here and I was like, no, I'm like we're going to let's talk through it and through the data we could figure out why her and her boyfriend were fighting and why she was having the reaction she was having and some tactics to, you know, go back and communicate better with him. And she left the call just lit up and like she's never gonna, she's not gonna be a client, she's. You know, it was just just me helping use this and so I feel like there's I feel excitement for the potential and I also feel excitement that I'm doing something I'm uniquely suited for and I'm leaving a lot of good behind me in the world. That's awesome.

Coach Polly Mertens:

That is something to be excited about. That's awesome, and I can so appreciate what you said, like kind of putting these narrowing down, like stop looking around, for the grass is greener, or what are other people doing, or whatever, because I think I think as you look at your own future and you get a deep relationship with it and then you know you can get more excited about it's like all of your energy funneled into one thing instead of dispersed throughout. All right, two more, so all right, becca. So life is. I am. How about people are? People are what.

Coach Polly Mertens:

I want to say awesome.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

But like people are valuable, like I think that everyone has an inherent gift and some people's gifts get overlooked because it doesn't look like what society dictates it should look like. But if you really take the time to get to know people, I've never, I've never had a. No, occasionally one in a hundred conversations I meet someone who I'm like ick, gross, right. But like 99% of the time when I get to take the time to talk to people, I'm just always like wow's awesome, you know.

Coach Polly Mertens:

I mean, and they're just to the left and to the right of us, they're all around, right, there's. It's so beautiful, that's beautiful. Okay. Last one for you, my dear how about the world is? The world is what the world is.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

I'm okay, I did mention I'm in a really great space mentally right, so the world is I'm okay. I did mention I'm in a really great space mentally right, so the world is beautiful and full of possibilities and potential. I'm going to france for the first time in the summer, so I've been planning that trip with my going, with my parents and all my sisters and all their husbands. I'm just so excited to travel and explore and see it like just full of opportunity you know, yeah, yeah, the world is possibilities and opportunity.

Coach Polly Mertens:

That's sweet, that's beautiful. So we always love to end the show with asking our guests, like is there one thing? Like if you can summarize? Or it can be something that you've said already, or it could be something that you haven't said, or something that just you know is on your heart right now, or something you always remind people of. Whatever it is, what's one thing you'd want? If they fast forward and they only got one thing. Oh, we got it.

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

You got the answer. I have this pillow for people that are just listening. This is my um. Once I had kids. It says gentle and kind and um, it's funny. It's funny coming for me because I am an aggressive person. I like grew up wrestling with people. I'll be the first person to punch you if you like, beat me at a board game, like I'm. I'm not. Gentle and kind is more aspirational for me, but I say it all the time. I say it with my kids, you know, when they're fighting with my sisters and my nieces. I'm like gentle and kind, gentle and kind.

Coach Polly Mertens:

And what?

Coach Polly Mertens:

a beautiful gift to bring to the world, right like as your, as your source and your energy, gentle and kind. I love it. I love it. All right, my dear. Well, thank you for being our guest today. This was absolutely delightful for me. I hope you enjoyed sharing and, um, we'll share in the show notes. If you want to share your, your website or any way that people can mostly get in touch with you, what, what would be the best way that that you'd want people to reach out to you? Is it social? Is it website?

Beka Shea - Magnetic Consulting:

That's a great question. Social. I'm so sporadic on social so I would say email me, like I have a system for getting through my emails. It's bshea S-H-E-A at cultureindexcom. That would be the best way, awesome.

Coach Polly Mertens:

Awesome. All right, and I'll get your website and we'll share that on our show notes. So thank you, my dear, and just want to remind everyone listening as we always do here at the Everyday Awesome Project remember how your life feels is more important than how it looks, and every day is your opportunity to find your awesome.

People on this episode

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Polly Mertens

Co-host
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Samantha Pruitt

Co-host