Selling in a Time of Corona – S3E5 – Couples, Covid and Clients – Dee Tozer

Transcript S3E5 - Couples, Covid and Clients - Dee Tozer

Creative open

Brad Pitt ( Mr and Mrs Smith )

Okay, I'll go first. Um, let me say we don't really need to be here. See, we've been married five years. Six, six years. And this is like a checkup for us. Uh, chance to poke around the engine, maybe. Change the  oil. Replace a seal or two…..

Marriage counsellor

Very well, then let's pop the hood.

Introduction

So someone ate a bat, apparently, and the world turned upside down. Hi, I'm Elliot Epstein and I spent the last 20 years of my life coaching, consulting, training and speaking about all facets of sales development, pitching presentations, negotiation, the C suite, sales calls and all of the various components in the sales cycle in between. And now we find ourselves in a world that's very foreign. Welcome to Selling in a Time of Corona.

Elliot

On that opening clip was the equally beautiful Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as Mr and Mrs Smith, meeting with a couples therapist to see what's really going on in their relationship. Apart from the fact that they’re both trained assassins secretly assigned to kill each other. Whilst I hope you and your significant other are not plotting to murder one another, there is no doubt that restrictions, lockdowns, working from home and home schooling are not natural conditions.

They cause stress, and in turn, that stress can manifest in your results, at work, in sales, in leadership or simply coping with the adaptability 2021 demands. I continue to mentor a number of very successful professional people. And despite that, there is no doubt that personal work relationships are currently more tense than Episode 10 of a Nordic noir thriller on Netflix. By the way, it's always the innocuous looking neighbour from Episode 1. So in a bit of a twist for this podcast, I decided to catch up with a couples therapist who specialises in helping professionals navigate their path through successful work and personal relationships.

Dee Tozer is not just a great therapist. She has a background in business, including being a CEO in the medical services industry, which is where we met when I coached the pitch for her business some time ago. Dee understands what straddles between corporate couples and family life and three decades later, having counselled over 4700 couples, there aren't too many scenarios she hasn't seen, especially for business professionals like you. So, grab a wine or a beer. Stick your earphones on, as we delve into the world of couples, Covid and clients. Here is my chat with the wonderful Dee Tozer.

Hello, Dee. di. It's so great to have you as part of the podcast because I've been wanting to get some insights into what's going on in people's lives at home and their relationships with their colleagues as well,  and see how that's impacting performance generally not just in sales, but across the corporate world. So tell me what you've been seeing out there in your role.

Dee

Hi, Elliott. Lovely to talk to you. Thanks for having me. So what am I seeing? Well, in the context of me seeing, I’m doing a minimum of probably 25 online sessions a week with couples where the high achievers in the main, are looking through the window of my screen into their homes and watching everything in a session.

So I see the tension between the ‘what needs to be done’, ‘what has to be done’, meeting to meeting to meeting online business pressure, pressure, pressure with all the other noise in the house and demands around them. And who's going to attend to them. So the most obvious thing that turns up that I see is irritability, very high irritability and intolerance and frustration. So from no space it seems like building space into the day that would have been there in an office where you might walk out.

This is probably pretty obvious here, but you might walk out to the tea room or the coffee machine or something. Or, of course, that's not happening unless you walk out from either an office into the fray, where the kids are at the table doing their home learning with the other parent, or you have to find some other way to get some space. So what happens is they don't do it. They stay. I'm finding with my clients. They stay locked in their room, and if they want a private consult session with me, they go and get in their car office in their car and sit in their car in the carport to get privacy from kids or whatever they're talking about.

So it's full on tension, no space, no relaxation. There doesn't seem to be a focus on needing to relax even the drive home or the commute to and from the office used to give some space to find yourself again. There isn't any. So that's what I'm noticing.

Elliot

So given the irritability Dee, what are you asking couples and executives to think about changing to get more of that space? More of that, that time to be able to focus on what they need to achieve?

Dee

Yes, good question.

Well, one of the things I'm doing, which is I'm actually looking at people's diaries without or scheduling without talking about, uh, breaching confidentiality. And I'm saying, Well, why do you have to have a meeting for that? So I'm actually getting them to look and say, Well, is this an in-person or an online face to face meeting? Do you have to be at that one? Could it have been handled by four emails? Could you have done it differently? Do we need to rock and roll to all these scheduled meetings so you don't breathe or do you go through and rule out, block out all the times?

So you give yourself some sense of well being in amongst it all and some family well being as well. So I'm talking to them about scheduling, taking charge of their own well being and then to project their own well being. Not their irritable, unwell, being onto their family around them and their dynamics. And often I'm obviously talking to a husband and a wife, but often they're both corporates. They're both working from home in high pressure jobs and their intolerance. So they're so fractious that I get them to hear and listen what impact they're having on the other person.

That then reflects back on them through reactivity. So it's just a loop, a chain reaction of consequences from not putting yourself first, really.

Elliot

So what are you seeing in terms of the disparity between female and male executives?

Dee

Well, that's an interesting one, and maybe pretty obvious, I don't know, but I'm seeing the males take or took over the home office, and the females were at the dining room table doing the home learning in the main. I have had some other switches of those rules, but usually if they're coming to me because they can't cope and they need help, that is the dynamic.

So then the guy is the man. Male is in his office. He can shut his door. He has all of his privacy. That's his space. Some of this is to do with positions in their corporate ladder. So if there's an inequality there, which there can be, and I'm not necessarily talking in inequality in the gender sense, but just between salary ranges and commitment to a career path. I have a story, if we've got time about a barrister and a lawyer, a lawyer going to the bar and one already a barrister, of a husband and the wife and how they got into a real mess last year. So you know, it's about grabbing our own space.

But the other person getting left hanging with the home learning and out at the dining table, still doing very important significant meetings on laptops. So what I did and do and still do and just did., on Saturday morning, I had a couple who we worked out that they could share their space better and rotate through hadn't occurred to them. So I said, well couldn't we do some sort of rotation? So they ended up deciding to do week by week rotating, and have had others rotate day and day about all morning and afternoon, about which is moving out of an office or changing some space into a better office but actually addressing the fact that you need decent space and equipment and everything around you and calm and peace to function absolutely.

Elliot

And I think there's there's an underlying resentment that goes on here. There's resentment at home with some of these issues. And I'm seeing resentment from executives back in the workplace. It's taken back into there. So as soon as a colleague does the wrong thing or people are not performing well, there's an irritability that's translating back into their work life. So if you take the sales leader, for example, they could be really irritable with their team because they're irritable at home. Are you seeing that sort of thing?

Dee

Yes, and I hear them talking about how they listen to each other. So one example is the two executives doesn't matter which the gender is. One listening to the other one having her or let's say it is, it's her sales meetings. We'll hear the husband is criticising her afterwards for being irritable or raising her voice or being too intolerant or criticising her performance on her calls on her meetings.

Elliot

That's fascinating. That's fascinating. So not only is it tight space at home, you get automatic critique from your spouse after your call on your poor performance.

Dee

That's just  … I shouldn't laugh. But just the fact that you've got your inbuilt coach that you’re married to or partnered with, is kind of funny because, you know, it's no wonder that there's there are issues.

Elliot

I've been coaching for 20 years and I can share with you that having coached thousands of business people, if I coached my wife, the feedback I get from her is not particularly positive. We do not take that because it feels like criticism, and it feels like a put down.

Dee

It almost doesn't matter how it's delivered. That's how it's interpreted in a marriage in a partner. We take anything that's feedback, and people can say, well, I'll take constructive feedback. Well, I do, but not from my partner. So, especially if it's a critique on performance, that's something that's really very subjective, and that normally you wouldn't know about. So normally hear the positive feedback when somebody got home from the office. Where you sit there and hear the gaps and the holes and pick on the holes so it starts wars.

And I've had 10 and 12 year old kids or the parents reporting to me. The reason they came was that the 10 or12 year old kids or the Dad say, we can't stand this like, you know, let Mom have a meeting. Dad, Dad, you know they don't have his meeting. It's okay. Why can't they go for a ride on his back now? Because he hasn't got a meeting athoughl he should have a meeting. It's like this intense microscope on the other person's business world, which wasn't there. Can't be there if you're not in the office.

It's like two people in the same business, in a sense, like a couple in the same business who fight. But it's a very different fight because you don't really know that other person's business like you know, your own business.

Elliot

So let's talk about the kids for a minute. You mentioned the 10 and 12 year old as an example, How is this affecting relationships with children? And in turn, affecting the parents, right?

Dee

Well, in my view of what I know, affecting the relationships with the kids, it's making the kids feel a bit torn, and the kids are ratty to a lot of them.

Some have gone to be too subdued because that's how they're coping. Mechanism is, but what it is is they are disconnecting or detaching from the parent interaction, which is tense. And then they come back in and offer suggestions. So we've got kids of that age. One little nine year old had a brilliant solution for one situation. Watching Mom and Dad, and they're coming in and trying to solve and settle it down to be the peacemakers themselves. It's interesting, interesting, trying to replicate. They can't stand it because they're not usually around so much of it intensely, day in, day out

Yes, and not only are they coping with their own issues of being isolated in Covid, they've now got to be peacemaker and referee at home as well. Well, they don't.

Yeah, well, they step into it quite easily because it's, so I guess so uncomfortable for them, then the ramification back then is each partner. A parent blames the other one for causing it. It's all blame. It's all blamed and accused of accusation. Based is what I see, because I'm only remember my groups are by a group that I see they're unhappy, madly happy ones.

Elliot

And I'm sure there are thousands of people that are coping quite well and enjoying their time together. Yes, besides the scheduling that you mentioned earlier Dee, what else are you recommending business couples do to get through these phases?

Dee

So I'm recommending one very simple thing, and it's to allow time for the other person, for each one to individually go and get some space. Whether it’s walking around the block, you know, a good walk, not together. But if some people want to go together, they go together.

The rule. There's a rule from my view, no work talk, not at all as they're walking around the block with their frustrations about their colleague or the one that didn't turn up to the meeting until 9:45 that was scheduled for nine. All the grizzles and all the offloading, venting, not on those walks. So I talked to them about how can you have some signals through the day that gives you some breathing space? And how do you actually manoeuvre into that if one's in higher demand than the other?

So the best way is to each take your space, each do it, and nobody is criticising here. Have seen couples arguing over you're only allowed half an hour space. I was here with the kids all that time, and I had to do lunch or whatever and you took 40 minutes. I mean, it's literally to that level of intolerance or stretched. Overstretched.

Elliot

Yeah, yeah, it's pretty crazy. There’s some really good insights, Dee. I'd like to finish off by talking about something a little different, which is about identity in Covid.

So let me describe what I mean. The world is changing very quickly, and when I say the world, the business world and that is that it's not just technological change, but certainly through the prism I look at and my listeners look at, which is about revenue generation and business growth. Things are moving pretty quickly if you're in a Covid accelerating business. You're flat chat trying to cope with that. If you're in a downturn or you're not going so well, you're under pressure to keep the hamster wheel running.

And as a result of that, the adaptability to changes, one of the biggest things that I see people struggle with, which is a constant in a lot of our lives. But, I'm seeing people that are really struggling with this adaptability because it challenges their identity. So who they thought they were as a salesperson, for example, or a sales leader is not what they have to be now. They might have been tough and aggressive and hustling, and now they have to be more empathic as a leader, and they have to be more conscious of their teams and coaching their teams.

And, you know, a lot of the work that I've done recently has really been about giving value and solace and ideas and fresh thinking back to the team because the sales leader believed in freshening things up. But yet others are struggling with adaptability because it challenges who they were. What are your thoughts about that?

Dee

Absolutely, a very sound observation from your part. Yes, it definitely does challenge who they were, and there's nothing more destructive. I think to self worth, a sense of self worth is to have our identity wobbled.

And we actually don't know what it is, especially if we've got a sense of defeat with it coming with it and even some small shifts in revenue. I mean, I actually have a couple sharing their revenue with me, which I'm not privy to so much and they'll tell me the small changes to see. And I'm not coming in from a business aspect what I can offer in how they can adapt around that significant mood shift that's come with a sense of defeat or failing, even when that is something quite small.

And when they get their relationship noise, the space between them settled down. they can look more objectively at it because when they're going down because they're feeling defeated or whatever, often they're much more sensitive to the partner, putting them down or feeling like that. So they go down, down, down, whereas in my role I can lift everybody and focus them on, they're all the positives between them, it's interesting how they then adapt better.

In my world it’s all about how the family and the couple unit keep buoyant, remain buoyant, adapt. And my old good old word that we're all talking so much about these days is ‘resilience’ and how to bounce back if there's a little bit of whatever it is, but that isn't addressing the question of the people whose businesses have had a serious downturn, who are all you know. It's heartbreaking. I'm talking more people who are struggling to adapt. Their adaptability is absolutely through reactivity to irritability, is what it is.

Elliot

Yes, so you're saying stay connected. If you're irritable, either because of work or especially at home, that's going to translate back into the workplace. If there was one thing that you would recommend for people to work on their resilience, apart from obviously gaining the space that you've talked about, what do you think that might be to lighten up?

Dee

I know that sounds a bit weak. So it’s to take some breaths, lighten up and think about about yourself for self care, but also to look and see what impact are you having on the other partner.

Because people are couples in my world, one partner or the other things they're entitled to say, That's not fair. You're to blame stuff comes in where I go. Well, what about we take a step back, get a bigger picture, take some breaths and think, how much does this really matter? Is this so important that we need to get bitter about it?

Elliot

I always like to throw a bit of humour in my articles and my training, and you see people smiling and people are missing that camaraderie around the office, and there's no banter in a home until it's encouraged.

Dee

And I actually give people words to actually say to have a bit of a jibe without offending just on lightweight things. And when they do that, this is being the whole family unit, the kids lighten up and everyone starts getting a bit lighter and funnier, and they can see the humour in it. So, yes, I do bring humour in all the time.

Elliot

Yes, it's critical Dee. It's been great to catch up with you. Some of these insights are fascinating, in terms of how we operate at home and be the direct connection to how we perform at work.

I'll let you go off. I know you've got another, you know, 10 sessions back to back because this is an ongoing issue.

Dee

Thank you for having me on Elliot. I hope it's helped.

Elliot

It has. Thank you very much, Dee. All the best.

So now you have a choice. Do you share this with your partner? Do you share it with a work colleague, or do you just keep it to yourself? As you implement some of these ideas, you have the power.

Remember, your ears are safe. Dee and I recorded this entire podcast whilst lying on the couch on comfy cushions with the Covid resistant smell of sandalwood and vanilla candles in the air.

Take care of yourselves, until next time.