Ep. 146: Patti Humble - Developing Others Starts With Me!

Contact Patti Humble:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/patti-humble-46651235/


FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTAdam: (00:05)
 Welcome back to Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things
affecting the accounting and finance world. I'm Adam Larson and I
first like to thank you for coming back to hear episode 146 of
our series today's conversation features Patti Humble, the chief
accounting officer at UPS. Patty is an experienced senior leader
with a broad background in both business unit and corporate
headquarter environments. She is also a passionate leader who
truly emphasizes personal development and the need for knowing
yourself first. Next, you'll hear her discuss steps to
successfully getting to know yourself and how that translates to
strong leadership. So keep listening as we head over to the
conversation now.
 
 Mitch: (00:50)
 So I know our conversation for today is going to be about
developing others, but I understand it's very important to you.
And I know it's a topic that you're very passionate about. So for
some background for our listeners, why don't you start off by
telling us why this is so important to you?
 
 Patti: (01:05)
 Well, thank you. I appreciate that. And I'm just going to
begin with kind of an overarching statement that, you know, what,
we all have a unique purpose in our lives, right? We all want to
make a difference for our families, for our workplaces, for our
country, even globally. And so just pause for a second and think
about that. How do you make a difference? Because in my view,
effective leaders, they have to start by knowing themselves
first, before they can start paying it forward to others. So for
me, self journey, my self knowledge and my journey, that was a
linchpin. And that's when I really started putting some of my
leadership puzzle pieces together. And I'm really passionate
about this because I really want to share some of my aha moments
with other people. I think what I've observed is that people are
often very hesitant to go deep inside themselves. It can be
intimidating, it can be a little scary, but as I look back over
the course of my career, I found that I really needed to know
myself first. And only then is when some of these other
leadership traits, my coping mechanisms, all of that started to
fall into place. So that's why I'm so passionate about it.
 
 Mitch: (02:31)
 It's very fascinating. And you know, I'm curious these aha
moments, you know, you said a couple of times right there, you
have to know yourself first. What does that actually look like?
You know, and I'm sure it's different for different people. but
what do you, what does that ultimately look like to you when you
make that recognition?
 
 Patti: (02:54)
 Well, I think it's knowing your style, right? It's what
drains you of energy when you get home at the end of the day and
you're just wiped out what happened that made that happen and
what gives you energy? I mean, when you think about those moments
where you're just really jazzed, what was that? What gives you
energy or maybe it's where you look up at the clock and you've
totally lost track of time. I mean, the hours have gone by, and
you just don't even know where the time went to. It's knowing
that it's knowing your personality type. I think we all kind of
have a sense of what our personality types are like, what are our
blind spots? Where, what are the landmines that we might step on
more than once. And also it's knowing your hot buttons, right? We
all, we all know what those are too, but I think knowing yourself
is really, it's so important because people succeed differently.
So for example, extroverts and introverts, they succeed very
different in the world. And you may, or you may not know where
you fit along that continuum. And when I say introvert, I don't
mean people that are shy. All right, there's a misunderstanding
about introverts. Introverts are people that get their energy
differently from thoughtful and quiet activities, right? We know
our extroverts love to, to be around people and go to events. It
doesn't mean that you're different, you're different than in a
way that you succeed differently. That information can be really
critical to adapting how you lead and how you position yourself
for advancement in your workplace. So there's that piece of it by
knowing yourself and even on a more personal level, you have to
know yourself to know how you cope and, and to conquer sometimes
your own gremlins, whatever those might be. I mean, think about
what happened to us during COVID right during this pandemic, our
coping mechanisms were really taxed. They were really strained.
And I think that's a global phenomenon. So you probably learned
some things about yourself during the pandemic that you might not
have known and some of your gremlins might've been more
pronounced, but I think when you know yourself, you're aware of
your thoughts, you know, how you talk to yourself and you can
talk yourself through moments of fear or uncertainty, you know,
how to speak to yourself in the third person. So, you know, you
think about the movie that runs in your head and you know, you
tell yourself, oh my God, I can't believe I screwed up or I, how
could I have done that? There is not a third person that would
speak to you the way you speak to yourself. So try talking to
yourself, like another, someone who loved you would speak to you,
they'd say, you know what? You tried your best, you did the best
you could with the information that you had, or yeah. You know, I
didn't handle that so great. But you'll do better next time. If
we speak to ourselves that way you talk to yourself, instead of
listening to yourself, you try things like being grateful, when
you're stressed out, because you look to the bright side of
things, it's all that, that movie that, that plays on in your
head. and I think that's part of knowing yourself. It just helps
all those coping mechanisms work really well. A good friend of
mine recommended me to me once, to create an "I love Patti" box
and then fill it up with all the positive affirmations that you
get that you receive. And then when you're having a really bad
day and you need a boost, you just go read all those things all
over again to say, you know what I do well, I am loved. And it
just helps that, that inner, that inner voice. And I think that's
really, really an important part of knowing yourself because
knowing your style, knowing your energy, knowing how you speak to
yourself is the platform for leadership.
 
 Mitch: (07:05)
 I think that's all amazing advice. And as you were sharing
this information, I started thinking, you know, we kicked things
off talking about or setting the stage, really developing others.
And it starts with you first. And as you're speaking, I kind of
said, you know, developing others that other person can still be
yourself. You know, it's, it's, you know, it's the other person
that, you know, people see that maybe you don't always see. So,
it's really interesting. And as you, I can understand the more
you learn about yourself, the easier it is, as you just said to
then eventually develop other people other than yourself and
lead. And it's just all full circle. So you'd already just
mentioned a few really great techniques, but I'm sure, you know,
you're very passionate about this. You have other things that we
could share with the listeners, you know, specific steps,
anything that, again, how do you identify when you are successful
in knowing yourself, you know, what, how, how can our listeners
take this another step further?
 
 Patti: (08:05)
 Yeah. well, there is a wealth of information out there on
the internet about personality types. I mean, if you, if you put
that into a searc...