 Welcome to another edition of Business in Hawaii. My name is John Strandberg. We are broadcasting live from the ThinkTech studios in downtown Honolulu. If you want to tune in live, we are at ThinkTechHawaii.com where you can also sign up for our mailing list there as well. The theme of Business in Hawaii is to bring you stories of local business by local people. Our guests share with us their journey to building successful businesses in our sometimes challenging environment. In the ThinkTech studios today is Dr. Charletta Wilson of Capiche Consulting. And welcome, Charletta. Let's hear about you. What brought you here today besides my phone call? Thank you. Thank you, John, for having me. Well, I am here because I want to talk about some great news about what's unfolding and being unpacked for the state of Hawaii for business leaders. I recently trained with the famous and world-renowned, Bernay Brown in San Antonio, Texas, based on her Dare to Lead model for leadership. And I wanted to just take some time to share with our community why it's so important. So, how did you get into this leadership training? I mean, you have a, you're being called Dr. Scharr. Yeah. I mean, Dr. McColl. So, tell me about the whole Dr. Scharr angle here. Okay. Well, the journey began about, I'd say about nine years ago. My husband was active duty in the military, and he was about to deploy. And I needed something to do to occupy my mind. So I enrolled in an industrial and organizational psychology, PhD program, to just create some new space for myself. You know, most wives volunteer, but you just have to go for a PhD. That's okay. Yeah. All the power to you. Yeah. Yeah. You worked out okay. Yeah, I would say so. Well, we both figured we knew that the deployments were really at the tail end of his career, and we were looking at exit strategy. And I wanted to stay very forward focused because, you know, being in wartime is very scary. And so, I wanted to see what the future was going to look like for us, and PhD was part of that process. So, what made you decide on the leadership programs? Yeah. So, I'm an industrial and organizational psychologist, and that works hand in hand with human resources and management. And what I found, at the time, prior to enrolling in my PhD program, I was doing consulting work through 13 counties in Kentucky, in the state of Kentucky. And what I learned was that, you know, when we do management consulting, a huge missing component is the people part of it. And so, we can talk all day long about strategy, but if people are not part of that strategy, then nothing's going to work. And so, with my program, I learned, I dug in that there's a huge psychology component, but then there's also the business component bridging the two. So you discovered that besides having a strategy, people, which is our number one resource for our business, quite honestly, people cost the most money. Yes. And cause the most headaches. They're a necessary part of running a business. I would think. Yeah. Until we figure out how to do it without people. Yeah. Well, you know, I'm not on that side of the fence. I'm all for people. I work in technology. I have a feeling it's going to be coming sooner rather than later. But in the meantime, we're working with people who are individuals. And they react differently to different leadership styles. We've all talked about management and management styles in the past. How does that work affect you? And after that, let's talk about why you chose this field and where you went to school. That's important. Okay. Yeah. Very important. I'm very proud of my alma mater. In terms of the people aspect and leadership styles, I am of the philosophy and mindset that it's not about style. We don't need to get bunkered down and going, hey, I'm this and I'm that. Leadership is really about being adaptable and agile. And so it's not a style. It's really competencies and skill sets and practices that we bring to the forefront. But a key piece of that that's been missing in the leadership studies as well as leadership practice is that we don't recognize that when people show up at work, they bring their whole selves. And so their history, their baggage, their emotions, all of that comes with. And so when we fail to address people in our workforce from a humanistic standpoint, we are missing the boat. We're missing it. So what I love about the approach that I take with growing leaders and my business is two-fold. So I do process consulting as well as the executive coaching piece because I firmly believe that if anything is going to change, we're going to have transformation. We start from the top and then it flows downward. So does that answer your question? Yeah. Okay. And you went to school where? Okay. So my alma mater is University of Phoenix. And it was again with the Industrial and Organizational Psychology PhD program, which is no longer anymore. So I am part of that. There was a core group of about 10 years of students. And I was able to complete my degree and defend my dissertation through them. Yeah. And that's the birth of Dr. Shah. Yeah. That's the birthplace. It was when I was introduced to you, I was like, okay, you need to meet my friend, Dr. Shah. And it's from a mutual friend. Right. Okay. And I was thinking medical doctor and after a little research, like, okay, when someone defends a dissertation enough to be called a PhD, do you want to be called a doctor? Regardless. Well, I would say it's context. It's contextual. You know? I have one foot in academics. So I do teach in higher ed in both undergraduate and graduate in two universities. So I'm with my alma mater, University of Phoenix, as well as Indiana Wesleyan University, where I'm in the school of business as well as psychology. So in that context, Dr. Shah is appropriate. Elsewhere, you may refer to me as Shah, that's totally fine. Yeah. Shah was great. I still like calling people doctor. Okay. It just sounds cool. Well, you came to Hawaii when and started your business here. Yeah. Okay. So when I originally arrived, that was back in 1996, it was a long time ago and it was early part of my husband's army career. And we spent six years here, loved every minute until Uncle Sam said you couldn't stay any longer and you got to move on. And so we relocated, we PCS'd, and then we knew that we wanted to come back. And so part of that, part of the agreement, when my husband decided to do two back to back deployments, he worked with his branch manager on making sure that he would get back to Hawaii. So we returned in 2011 and we've been here every sense and this is home. This is home, sweet home. Great place to raise a family. And we all know about how tough it is to run a business in Hawaii. Yes. That's why this show exists because of that. Yes. Because people do succeed. Yes. And you want to hear about your successes. So let's talk about your successes. Okay. Yeah. So when I came back, I had no idea on exactly where I was going to reemerge. I had started my career in human resources many years ago when AIG Hawaii was AIG Hawaii. And so when I returned back, I still had friends that were embedded in leadership across the state and I began to start working on projects. And so it worked nicely because at that time I was a younger, slightly younger mom and was raising up my, at that time, infant child. And so it was a nice compliment of doing project work as well as being able to serve the community. I started off working in assessments and that was, you know, being a broker of personality assessment and that served, you know, that I continued to use those tools, but it's not the basis of the work that I do. But then that led to some coaching. And then I decided, okay, well, and my accountant, her better judgment, she said, sure, you probably need to incorporate, you know, because you need to legitimize what you're doing because you're bringing in income now. So that's what I did. I went ahead and incorporated after doing a couple years of some, you know, work. And that was back in 2015, began to grow, grow in just really by word of mouth. I don't do any active marketing. I don't have a super sophisticated website. It's really all just relationship-based and word of mouth. So my business has grown into developing leadership programs, as well as doing executive coaching. And now that I've joined the global team for Daredelead, I'm also rolling out this program as part of my leadership suite. So the name of your company is Capiche. Capiche. Let's lift. I know you shared with me before the show how I came about. Let's tell our viewers how you came up with that name. OK, well, you know, I spent some time, a short amount of time in Europe, and my husband and I, that's our favorite place in the whole wide world, besides Hawaii, is Italy. So we would spend a lot of time, every chance we could get. We'd go there, love the food, love the people. A common expression is Capiche, right? Capiche. And it means you understand, you got it. And it's really kind of just this exclaimed expression of, you know, let's check in here. And so when I started to teach in higher ed, that was my, that was the cue for when I wanted to check in with my students to see, are you getting the material? I would, Capiche, and they would, Capiche, and then we would move on. And over time, it just, it was an expression that grew with me. And so it just seemed like the natural fit for my business. In addition, it is the basis for my process consulting work. You know, helping my clients get to a place of understanding of their current conditions is really critical for change. So that's. Well, checking in is always important when you're transferring knowledge and training. Yes. And one of the things that I've always caught myself, because I used to be a long time ago, a little teacher myself, I used to use the term, got it, got it, get it. We got it, and the kids got it. And even as adults, we all learned differently. Yes. And adults need to be checked in on just as much as kids. Yeah. That's integral for communication. Yes. And moving forward. But most people come back from Italy with Keonti or something else. Well, I had some of that, too. Okay, yeah, you come back with a catchphrase, Capiche. Yeah, Keonti and Capiche, I mean, you can't go wrong. And, you know, you have to say it with the hand gesture. Yes, yes. All right. So we have Capiche Consulting. Yes. You're working with leaders in and around the state of Hawaii. Yes. What's some of the project that you've worked on that's been a big impact for you? Well, currently, I am on a, it's a flag officer executive coaching program. It's for the government. And I work with national security leaders as well. And that has been so empowering for the leaders, but also it's changed my life. You know, working, when you have the one-on-one working relationship with these leaders, and you're able to see the work that they're doing and the work that they bring to you. And they say, you know, I'm having trouble, you know, whether it's work-life balance or it's communication issues or it's leaning into difficult conversations. And I can be a part and guide them through, you know, what are the action steps you can take in order to get through and to navigate. It's been transformational for me. Okay. We're going to be taking a break shortly, but let's talk about that hard conversation piece after. Okay. Because that's something that we all have, we struggle with. Okay. We'll talk about after the break. Okay, great. So we're going to take a short break. We'll see you back here shortly. Aloha. I'm Wendy Lo, and I'm coming to you every other Tuesday at two o'clock, live from Think Tech Hawaii. And on our show, we talk about taking your health back. And what does that mean? It means mind, body, and soul. Anything you can do that makes your body healthier and happier is what we're going to be talking about, whether it's spiritual health, mental health, fascia health, beautiful smile health, whatever it means. Let's take healthy back. Aloha. My name is Amy Ortega Anderson, inviting you to join us every Tuesday here on Pinoy Power Hawaii. With Think Tech Hawaii, we come to your home at 12 noon every Tuesday. We invite you to listen, watch for our mission of empowerment. We aim to enrich, enlighten, educate, entertain, and we hope to empower. Again, maraming, salamat po, mabuhai, and aloha. Welcome back to Business in Hawaii. Joining us today is Dr. Charlotte Wilson of Capiche Consulting. Sorry, I just had to do that hand gesture one more time. So before the break, we were talking about conversations and the hard conversations you're going to have to have as a leader. Yes. Give me and our audience some ideas of how to start that hard conversation because I have a hard time with them myself. Right. I think the first thing that we need to be very cognizant of are the feelings that we have before we enter in. Because if we're having some tough feelings around whatever the content is, we already know that logically we're not going to be in the right headspace in order to try to reach understanding. As I believe it was Stephen Covey, he said, seek first to understand, then seek to be understood. And that's just not possible when our limbic system has taken off and hijacked us and we're just ready to prove a point. So that mental check-in on what story am I telling myself about the situation is first and foremost one of my feeling. It's very difficult sometimes to take the emotion out of conversation. The difficult conversation could be anything from giving feedback. It could be where do we go next. I think a critical piece is really to try to get as much understanding first before we try to project our opinions or what we think is true and should be. Taking emotions out of that difficult meeting is probably the hardest thing because you don't want to be a robot and you try to understand that person. And over my career as a leader and a manager, it's always been, I always start off with, do you know why we're here? And if they can't respond back to me, they know why, then I spend some time explaining why we're having these conversations. And it usually helps and it's still a lot of times they don't understand why they're here. Right. Yeah. And in a, I guess in a supervisor subordinate situation, there are some things that you can't delay because there needs to be that on the spot. Let's have a conversation. As a leader, if we're not accustomed to first identifying that we're having that tough emotion, then we'll just go out the gate and it'll be helped or skelter. So the check in on what is, am I feeling disappointed? Am I angry? Do I feel humiliated? Do I feel under appreciated? Whatever that is, we have to develop language around what it is. When we can deal with that, then we can deal with the next steps. So the verbal part or the exchange of it really should be, I'm having a difficult time with this. Can you help me understand XYZ? Or I notice you're passionate about this thing. Can you help me understand? And that acknowledges that the other person is part of this thing that we're trying to get over. It includes them in the conversation, which a lot of times it's top down instead of a two-way. Right. And we don't speak at people. So I've known leaders to do this thing here, you know, and they talk and they do this thing. I know that he does this too. He's on TV a lot. Well, we don't talk at people. We engage with them. So it's an invitation and difficult conversations really is not about always having an answer or a solution at the end. But if we're, if relationship is at the core and if that's important to you and you want to keep the trust or continue to build the trust, we need to stop allowing elephants to occupy the room. So this is all part of the book that you're working with and Dr. was a Breen Brown. It's Brene Brown. Brene Brown, I'm sorry. Yeah. So this program, it teaches the courage skillset. And what I love about this is that it's not just somebody's like great idea. It is steeped with age old wisdom. But what she's done is she has collected data over a seven year period and it's grounded on 400,000 bits of data. And she found that the question or the answer to the question, what do leaders need now or the future in order to remain standing? Or, you know, what is that imperative, that leadership imperative? These leaders came back and they said courage. And so she was able to dig further and find out, well, what is exactly courage? Is it that one thing? You know, do you have the cape? You show up and you save the day? No. What she found is that courage is built on four skill sets and it starts off with vulnerability. And that is kind of like a taboo topic, especially in a very masculine society. We just... In the business world, you do not show that you're weak because you will get attacked. Exactly. So vulnerability is really at the base. It's the cradle, what she refers to as the cradle of all emotions. And in order for us to get to a place of courage, we have to go through vulnerability. And they're just... They're not mutually exclusive. They go hand in hand. So understanding what vulnerability feels like, what it looks like, what it sounds like, and being able to deal and work through the vulnerable spots, then you can live within your integrity. You can build trust. You can be perceived as trustworthy. And you can get back up when you fall. And that's inevitable with any leader. We're going to have some missteps and some losses. If you're in the arena, as she refers to it, you're going to fall short sometimes. And so what I am finding in our local community, and this is a big challenge, is I have leaders that are asking me, help. We have a gap here between the younger generations and the older generations. They're not able to communicate. And we have this group over here. Many of them are ready to check out because they're just done. And so how do we get to a place, a meeting place, where we can work together, we can glean from the wisdom of these individuals and use the energy and creativity and innovation of these folks and blend the two. And so it starts with courage. So you said vulnerability was the first. The second one is... So vulnerability is the first part. It's the biggest part of it. The second part is your values. And so it's being understanding what your values are. And the second or the third piece of it is trust building. And the fourth piece is resilience. And so those are the building blocks of courage. The trust piece is where a lot of people are having issues with. Showing vulnerability, I think, in this day and age, we do that fairly well now. It's not as taboo as it used to be. But the trust. Do I trust you enough to share the knowledge? And that's actually one of the things I've come across in my career is you have an old timer that knows your job inside out. They don't trust teaching the younger, newer person because they might do it better and they get kicked out. And that's always been that mentality. Yeah. But what's behind that really is not so much... It's not, you know, can they do. It's the fear of how does this take away from me. And what I've learned over time is that through every experience that we have on a day-to-day basis, the one question that keeps looping over and over is, how does this relate to me? And there are so many people who are driven every day, all of their decisions, by fear. And so then we put up this armor, these protective mechanisms, because we don't want to look weak. We don't want to feel weak. And so, you know, this is all part of vulnerability, leaning in and going, hey, I'm trying to be authoritative because I don't feel like I'll be respected or something's going to be taken away from me if I don't look like I know what I'm talking about, you know? So the call here really is, in order for us to break down these barriers and move to the next level in business, we all, we all are going to have to understand what is that dark cave? What are the things that we fear the most? And it's usually has something to do with the social, you know, the social environment, how people perceive us and gain those skills to put those things aside. I think the younger generation, they're asking not just for transparency, they're asking for trustworthiness. They want to know, are you going to be there, you know, number one? Are you going to support me? Are you going to give me feedback? We all know they love feedback, right? But will it be given to me in a way that's going to propel me forward or is it going to be something that's going to tear me down on the flip side for the youngers? We need our younger folks to have some backbone. We need them to know that hard work, it does pay off and that you can't be a flight risk. And so it's marrying all of these things and it really requires courage in order for us to communicate in a way that doesn't deliver a message of hurt and harm. You talked about all this. You wrote a book that I think I'm going to pick up and read. Is there any more? I'm sure there's a YouTube where she's doing a Ted style talk somewhere. Yeah. Okay. So there's some great stuff out there, John. Okay. First of all, the most recent release was the Netflix special. It's called A Call to Courage and I highly, highly, highly recommend that if you haven't seen it, it's for one hour of your time. And it's definitely something that everyone can glean something from. It's not from an academic perspective. It's from a human perspective. She does talk about Dare to Lead as her most, her latest book. She's written several books, everything from Gifts of Imperfection, Rising Strong, which was probably one of my favorites and Daring Greatly and then Leaning Up to Dare to Lead. She also is the top Ted talk. I believe that it's over like 350 million views on the power of vulnerability. I think, you know, most people are familiar with Brunet based off of that Ted talk. And then if you go to BrunetBrown.com, I believe, there is a free assessment if you want to take the assessment to kind of gauge where there's opportunity to improve. Those are the things that are online. As a certified Dare to Lead facilitator, the only one so far in the Pacific, I am rolling out this program for leaders starting June 27. So I am opening up to the general public for the summertime. I have four sessions and I'm actually looking specifically for 50 leaders for the 50th state who are going to catalyze courage in the workplace. And so individuals can certainly take advantage of that because after the summertime, I will be working specifically with companies as requested. And I also have some other engagements that will require my time. So if you're interested, the Dare to Lead certification program is available beginning June 27. All right. And we can find you on Capiche Consulting. CapicheConsulting.com to register for Dare to Lead event bright. It's Dare to Lead Honolulu or Dare to Lead West Oahu. So I have two locations. People forget there's two parts of that. Big Island, right? Not quite big enough. It's quite big. But we're out of time for today, but thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your information. Leadership is a growing part of business. You can't run a business without good leadership. That's right. And I've seen that countless times in my career and it's necessary. Yeah. It's people, people, people. It is. So we're out of time. I want to thank Charlotte for taking the time to be with us today. Thank you. If you'd like to be a guest in our show, please feel free to email your information to shows at thinktechhawaii.com. Business in Hawaii airs every Thursday at 2 p.m. And we look forward to seeing you here next week.