Reflections on Podcast Themes and the Impact of Presence, with Andrew Cohn
In this episode of the podcast, Andrew flies solo and reflects upon some of the learnings gleaned from the first nine months of the podcast. Some steady themes are identified and explored. Andrew dives into his definition of presence and the practical importance of presence from leaders in the business world. He also talks about his experience as an Aikido practitioner in bringing presence to life, consistent with his priorities and values.
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Reflections on Podcast Themes and the Impact of Presence, with Andrew Cohn
Introduction
*Please note that the podcast transcript is AI-generated, and thus there may be inaccuracies in the transcription from time to time.*
On this episode, it’s just me. Some of the responses I’ve received to the show in the last nine months have been generally super positive. Even the critical feedback has been very positive in terms of how we can do things better. Thank you so much for that feedback. Honestly, I thought I was the last person on Earth to have a podcast. I’m learning so much and finding out what I don’t know. That’s the feedback that sometimes is the hardest to receive, but the most important to process. I appreciate that.
Some of the most positive feedback I received was suggestions to periodically do a solo episode. Just me talking about what I’ve learned, what I see, what my point of view on this topic of spirituality and leadership as I’ve defined it, and what have I learned from my guests to help provide the audience with some summaries, aggregates, key points, and key takeaways.
The Foundation Of The Podcast
The intention of this episode is to share a bit about my learnings in conducting this show. Share a few examples of things that I think are right on topic but may not have been brought out by some of the show guests, at least thus far. I’m grateful that you’re with me. I would first want to share a little bit about the foundation of the show. This came about as I began to think about what kinds of conversations I believe need to be happening in the workplace to increase effectiveness as well as fulfillment.
To help people do better, get more, and have their organizations do better and get more while being fulfilled in the workplace. In the 27 years since I’ve been in the leadership development space, and that’s how long it’s been since I left my law practice, unbelievably. To be effective in the workplace long term, we need to be fulfilled. We need to be satisfied. Short-term, we can burn the candle at both ends. We can be stressed out. We can possibly have mistrust with our colleagues. We can be dissatisfied and unhappy.
In the long term, we need to find places where we are fulfilled enough to keep us going. How much is enough? I can buy you a glass of wine and we can talk about how much is enough, but fulfillment and effectiveness. My partner, a few years ago, challenged me and said that given my consulting experience over the years and given my personal mission and values and what’s important to me, what would I want to put out into the world to invite these key conversations or these most important conversations?”
I told her, “I would want to create this show.” That’s how it came about. I appreciate her prompting and the invitation to clearly express what conversations I believe would be useful. That’s based on my 27 years of work, supporting leadership teams, coaching individual leaders, designing and conducting leadership training and workshops on a variety of topics, doing team retreats, new leader assimilation and orientation activities, and just working with leaders on a variety of levels.
In my case, that work includes both working in the corporate space and conference rooms and off-sites all over the world. Also, work with emerging leaders and younger leaders in a training setting, and also MBA students at the Wharton School in Philadelphia, executive MBA students at Wharton who live all over the US and around the world, as well as executives who participate in programs at Wharton. It’s been a very important partnership for me over the years, both in terms of the clients I’m meeting, but also in terms of the colleagues, academic and otherwise from whom I’m learning. I’m super grateful for that affiliation.
As this show has unfolded in the previous approximately nine months, I’m grateful for the range of expertise and experiences that have been shared, the actionable ideas, and the deepening of our own learning. Also very importantly, how do we invite others into meaningful conversations without judgment, expectations, or pressure? How do we invite healthy conversations about what’s most important to people?
Short-term profits are almost always not what’s most important to people. If I were to ask someone what’s most important to you and they said, “Reaching our quarterly profit target.” I’d say, “Why is that the most important thing for you?” There’s probably something along the line of individual personal values underneath that, so safe and practical conversations about what matters most to us. That’s what this show is about.
For some people, when we talk about spirituality in leadership, there is a wide range of definitions of spirituality that have come up a lot on the show. In my work with the focus of the show, it’s typically how people approach that and bridge these two dimensions of their lives. Things that might be called spiritual dimensions of us might be called spiritual on the one hand and our involvement and applying our precious energy at work in the corporate space.
Definitions Of Spirituality
There are so few examples of these healthy conversations in the workplace in my experience. That’s why I’m so committed to this show and promoting these conversations. In terms of definitions of spirituality, that means different things to different people, especially in the context of the workplace. For some people, it’s about engagement. What engages me is what touches my values. What touches my values gets close to what could be called spiritual for me. For other people, it’s not about engagement. It’s about connecting people with their higher motivations. It’s about what lights people up.
It’s about what’s the highest form of service. What are our aspirations? What’s most important to me about who I want to show up in the world? How do I want to bring my values into action? All of that comes under that definition of what spirituality means in the context of how might we bring it to work. I’ve been super grateful for the range of beliefs and expressions that people have shared. I look forward to learning more about this in the coming months and years.
I personally believe it’s important for me to invite as many responses to this question as I can. These conversations have evolved into broader conversations about what engages people, what matters most, and why am I here personally, as well as other areas of organizational health, team formation, organizational culture, and values. It’s both individual and broader. It’s the I, but it’s also the we and the it of organizational life. I’ve been pleased with the breadth and depth of these conversations.
The Importance Of Presence
One thing I wanted to share a little bit about is that, for me, one of the most important areas of connection between what might be called spiritual dimensions and leading in the working world is the experience and practice of presence. Sometimes this notion of presence can be slippery and elusive. I love to try to clarify things and make them actionable and understandable as much as possible. I’m not talking about the idea of presence. I’m talking about the experience and practice of presence.
One of the most important areas of connection between spiritual dimensions and leading in the working world is the experience and practice of presence.
I learned a lot about presence in my practice of Aikido over the years. I’ve been practicing Aikido for about twenty years. I’ll come back to this in a minute. I’m learning more about presence in new ways in recent years as part of my work with Equus in beautiful Santa Fe. This work is experiential and nature-based learning.
That is facilitated by or fostered by the environment and sometimes the horses with which we work very often. Presence means different things to different people at different times. For me, what may be most important is the ability to be present, focused, and available. How can I be listening, attuned, thinking clearly, undistracted, and available for the person, the issue, or the problem in front of me, which maybe there may not be a human being there?
This sounds like something simple but I don’t believe it is, given the level of distraction and demands on our attention coming from both outside of us, as well as inside of us. I remember once hearing Gene Houston talk about considering life 100 years ago versus now. The level of stimulation, the level of tension, the level of stress, and the demanding nature of the world around us in 1924 versus 2024. Now think about how much our own individual systems have evolved, and how much of our capacity to think more deeply and clearly.
Our senses, for example. The speed of our thinking, our physical, emotional, and neurological evolution in 100 years. If it has evolved at all, it’s been very minimal, I would say. I’m not a scientist and I don’t pretend to be one. We’re dealing with much more with the same tools as we were 100 years ago. Gene Houston told me when I spoke with her about that, “We need to cook on more burners,” which is a beautiful expression.
The point is we need to use different tools if we’re going to be effectively managing the exponentially higher levels of pressure, tension, stress, and distraction around us in our world that lead to not only what’s around us and demanding upon us, but also what’s within us demanding upon us. These judgments, saboteurs, limiting beliefs, and other voices inside us that we all deal with on a pretty regular basis. Presence is about listening with a clear, open, and caring mind.
In my experience of the leader’s presence, then she can truly hear and understand. For example, when a team member is in distress or when a customer has important feedback that isn’t being shared. That feedback may be particularly difficult for that leader to receive and for her team to receive and take action on. Presence is grounded in parts of us that we might call spiritual and it’s precious. It’s needed in leadership.
For example, I had a conversation with a coaching client recently, a senior lawyer in a leading asset management firm. In my experience as a lawyer, I often am called upon to coach other lawyers. She was presenting this to me and said, “I have a stronger sense of executive presence. I want to be more present, especially with my senior stakeholders.” She was talking about being fully available to serve key business partners and to manage the pressures of her role, the pressures of certain key meetings, and those pressures as she called them inside and out.
This was very practical in terms of getting better results in her job and also very personal in terms of feeling more fulfilled, satisfied, successful, and ready at work. That involved increasing her own awareness, which we talked about intentionally, and deliberately choosing what works better. Honestly, what I’d say about her work, as with many other clients of mine, it takes courage to take a look at what’s keeping us from being present, what’s showing up like we say we want to, and what’s getting in the way of that.
Podcast Reflections: It takes courage to take a look at what's keeping us from being present.
That is at the heart of the presence conversation, which is so powerful and can be measured and looked at in specific ways. It doesn’t need to be this slippery term that’s being thrown about over everybody’s heads but rather is specifically measurable in terms of what are the dimensions of presence that are most important. Are they physical and emotional? Are they intellectual and mental presence? For example, focus and somatic. There are different ways that this can be looked at and different tools for that purpose.
Learning From Aikido
I appreciate the attention that she paid to what was working for her in response to some of the pressures that she felt were keeping her from being as present as she liked. Circling back to what I mentioned earlier about my Aikido practice and what it has taught me about leadership, and my own spirituality in action, it’s a place of experiential learning like we often talk about here at Equus, Santa Fe. It’s not talking about how I respond to pressure or how I may be feeling uncertain or unprepared. It’s about experiencing these things.
Talk is cheap when it comes to addressing things we want to improve in ourselves. I’m talking about experiencing these things and training myself to respond in ways that work better. On the mat, as we call it, this means breathing in a certain way and moving in certain ways, focusing my attention in certain ways, and practicing so that I can embody some of these changes. I can feel my body moving. I can develop the muscle memory to do things differently.
The same holds true for my corporate clients who are so often challenged, that’s an understatement, but challenged by tough work issues, challenging people, and challenging circumstances. The work is to increase awareness of what’s happening both outside and inside and what’s happening within me. That awareness generates options. What could I do differently? What do I want to pay attention to? What do I want to listen to? What do I want to capture and practice? What steps would I take? What actions would I take to deliberately behave in particular ways that hopefully will get me better results, and then pay attention to those results to see if I want to keep going on the same plan, refine things, or do something a little bit differently?
Increased awareness generates more options, which then would be the basis of some of the behavior choices that I would make, and then reflecting on what works for me. This also includes operating from my own values. I’ll give an example of this. In the martial arts world, for example, what does operating from my values mean? It could mean I’m going to focus on developing this practice, but one of my overarching values is I am not going to hurt my partner. I have two black belts. If I’m working with a White belt or a Yellow belt or something new, I’m going to be very gentle in handling that person.
Even though I want to be practicing and I may want to get something out of my practice, my overarching value is I’m not going to injure this person in part because as a Black belt, I’m responsible for that person on the mat. That’s how I see it for myself. Frankly, I think that good leaders see themselves as responsible for the people on their teams the same way. It’s this process of using experience to grow and to be more successful and more fulfilled that is core to the theme of this show.
Good leaders see themselves as responsible for the people on their teams.
We talk about what’s most important to us as people and as leaders in a particular setting. We focus on bringing it to life. That could mean demonstrating our values or practicing the qualities I want to bring into the world or I want to bring to work some of the things I’ve been developing outside of work that, for me, I might call spiritual things. Things that help me be more balanced. They help me be more caring, accepting, forgiving, patient, and more human. I want to bring that into my work. I want to encourage other people to do that too.
Openness And Inclusivity
If you’re tuning in to this show, you understand that I walk the line between referring to some things as possibly spiritual, but also wanting to keep the conversation as open as possible. The last thing I would want to do is exclude someone because either my beliefs or one of my guests' beliefs would somehow be alienating or exclusive or would make someone feel uncomfortable. I’m calling that out as it’s just the reality of talking about a topic like this.
There are times when I need to take a step back and broaden a definition to invite more into the conversation. There’s an important opportunity to keep the definition broad and continue to invite and include in the conversation so that we can continue to learn, grow, and be more effective. Dare I say, happier too. That’s what we get to on this show.
Conclusion
Those are some of my thoughts at this point in time. I welcome your feedback as always. I continue to have more of these conversations with leadership teams, whether it’s in keynotes that I may deliver or offsite meetings. As well as in my individual coaching and working with groups and leadership teams. I invite you to contact me if you’re open to talking about it. Thanks for tuning in.
Important Links
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