Moving from Procrastination to Action: A Conversation with Ulrike Seminati

Ulrike Seminati shines great insight into something all of us struggle with to some extent -- Procrastination.

We might find ourselves dragging our feet for a certain task we don't love, or we might find that procrastination has become our go-to.

Regardless, Ulrike provides some specific advice to help us get out of the mud and into the work. 

She also leaves titled leaders with some specific tips for better understanding themselves which can help open the gates for stronger relationships and more effective output. 

Until next time, communicate with intention and lead with purpose.

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Transcript

Dr. Leah OH: 0:00

Ulrike Seminati is a global leadership and communication coach. But she began as an administrative assistant and was a C level executive when she left industry to open her own consulting firm. She provides thoughtful, pragmatic suggestions to help us move from procrastination to action. This is definitely an episode I know I'm gonna find myself returning to when I'm feeling a little bit stuck, or can't quite put my finger on why I'm not getting going on that project that needs to be done. Hello, and welcome to the communicative leader hosted by me, Dr. Leah Omilion-Hodges. My friends call me Dr. OH. I'm a Professor of Communication and a leadership communication expert, and the communicative leader. We're working to make your work life what you want it to be. Thank you Ulrike for joining us today, I'm so excited to chat with you about leadership and Avoiding Procrastination. But before we dig in, can you tell us a little bit about yourself maybe the path you took to get where you are today?

Ulrike Seminati: 1:08

Yes, so I'm coming actually from the corporate world. I have spent 23 years and I started as an assistant and climbed up the whole career ladder until I became a C level executive. And during these different stages, I was obviously then having all the different experiences as a junior manager, middle manager, and also a very senior executive looking at an international organization from the top. And that came then when I thought now I have to change something in organizations because wherever I have worked, people are mostly unhappy and are not feeling seen or not feeling heard or not feeling like their ideas are taken into account. And in worst case, don't even treat it as humans, at least not in their eyes. And I thought we have to change something. And so I stepped out of the corporate world four years ago, and shake my own company, because I also made the experience that when you come in as an external expert, you are listened to much more than if you're an internal expert. And this is why I shaped my own company. And today I am giving trainings, one on one coaching and also do consulting in terms of communicating with impact leading with authenticity. And ultimately, that leads really to leading change in an effective way, which is what every leader has to do every day.

Dr. Leah OH: 2:26

Yes, and you hit on so many important things and really infuriating things at points because like you said, not treated like humans. And I really do I do think we we treat our technology better than we treat our employees often. Right, we see that as a bigger and more important investment than our human resources. And then also the fact that unfortunately, like you said, a lead is when your external, you are listened to, you are seen as an expert, even if you have that same degree of training and expertise internally, as we you know, hitting on those things that can make being an employee so challenging. Yeah. So we know that you are this internationally renowned leadership communication expert, you're a consultant, and a productive leader, right? You're juggling multi, multiple tasks. And maybe some of these are even competing demands. And you don't get here by dragging your feet or constantly Miss missing or pushing deadlines. So considering this, what can you kind of tell us about the intersection of leadership and procrastination.

Ulrike Seminati: 3:39

I think it has a lot to do with each other. Because at the end, we all procrastinate every day. And we also all lead every day or try to lead. First of all, we lead ourselves every day, that's for sure. And then we also lead others even if we don't have big teams, but you are operating or cooperating with your colleagues, for example, with peers, and with people around you. And we always can influence others, and help them achieve something. And that is leading to me too. So when it comes to procrastination, and leadership, I think it's extremely important for any leader or all of those who want to be leaders. And it's clear that it's about that one of the core things that you have to do is is creating trust and relationships with people. And trust and relationship is always related to keeping your word sticking to your words, being consistent, showing some continuity. And this is what is most of the times total opposite of procrastination. Because it's about over and over promising, for example, not sticking to your word postponing things eternally. And it's important that you stick to your word as a leader and for yourself because also, you tell yourself off when you do not stick to your word. We all do that automatically without realizing it. And that doesn't help us to be fully present to be in our full power. and all of that. So there's a lot around procrastination I could talk about. But I think the most important thing is to understand, why do I procrastinate? And first of all, to admit that I procrastinate. Yeah. And if people look back at just what they have done over the past four hours, for example, just look at your past four hours, what have you procrastinated on? Which email? Did you not send out and say, I do this later? I do it tomorrow, which meeting Have you not put into your calendar, because for some reason, you shy away from doing that. And sometimes, and often we procrastinate on tasks, where we do not even know why. Obviously, the tasks we don't like, and then it's obvious, but they're much more task where it's so obvious at all, where it's very clear why we have to do that. And still we procrastinate on that. And that is something I'm really working on to find that out and help people find out why they do that against all logic against all the rationale that we have around our goals, and next steps and all of that, why we still know not take action accordingly. And by this, we are not showing the best example we do not walk the talk for others. And this is how it ties in with leadership.

Dr. Leah OH: 6:08

Yeah. Yeah, you hit on so many important points in can, what I'm hearing is, and we know, this is leadership, you know, kind of experts and scholars is the importance of role modeling. In that so often that's overlooked? Because they think, no, it's what I'm saying. And I told you to do this, but then what are my actions? Telling you? Right? So anything of that in the workgroup, we can think about that at home with kids in the community. So really, really important things. And another thing I had never thought of procrastination as over promising. And I really liked that take on it. So I'm going to I'm going to ask you a little bit more about this in this follow up question. You've kind of touched on some of these. But I'm wondering, in your experiences, either when you are working in industry in these different positions, or more recently, as a consultant with your organization, what do you see most formal leaders, these title managers, directors, supervisors? What do you see them doing in terms of engaging or managing their procrastination?

Ulrike Seminati: 7:19

I think most people, normal people, let's say, who have not really reflected on that topic, yet deeply, just act out of their own perspective, which is always a limited perspective. So you and I, we also have limited perspectives of exactly the same thing, we might have a different opinion, a different perspective. And most of the times, and most people do not think about that, they just take this perspective, as the reality. And they take for granted that everybody else will see the same reality and therefore fully understand what they are doing or saying or what they want others to do, for example, because for them, it's crystal clear. And I think that is the point that we we are acting out of our own belief system, which has been formed by our upbringing by our personality styles as well. All of that plays a role in how we see a situation and what is logical for us a logical next step, what is attractive to us why a goal is interesting, why an action should be taken, for example, and we believe that for everybody else, it's the same. And I think that is the point where leaders who do not go this extra mile into really eating others from another perspective, where they just stick to their own. And this is how communication becomes inefficient as well and not impactful at all. Why? Because they communicate out of their perspective. And that means that the message is whatever they say, whatever they write, is perfectly tailor made. And we're the one and single person who will never get it. Because it's tailor made to themselves, not to anybody else.

Dr. Leah OH: 8:56

Yeah, oh, I really liked that. And I think too, as made my master's PhD all in communication, and the simplest thing we can do is consider the audience. And that's often the last thing that we do when we've exhausted all of these other ways of trying to explain and provide direction and instruction. And then it's like, okay, where are you? How do I get there? And we, if we started there, life would be so much easier. But like you said, it's, it's, it's challenging to step outside of your perspective, one and then to to really consider others perspectives around you. Excellent. So our last question, we kind of talked about what most leaders do, and I bet you've had the experience of working with some really great leaders like the ones who say, Okay, Coach me, I want to get better. What do I need to do so what are these what is that gold standard? What are they doing in terms of kind of interacting with procrastination and managing it in a healthy, productive way.

Ulrike Seminati: 10:07

So for me that two dimensions into that, that's the AI dimension, okay? Or the being, you can also call it and there's the we dimension, which is rather than doing, and mostly to stay in the weed I mentioned in the doing, because also they have been trained and told so often you have to care about your teams and your teams and your team. And I realized that, first of all, people need to understand themselves. And that is something that leaders do not do. Excellent leaders do that they have worked on themselves, they have found out first, and it's so important to do that first, before you think of your team, that they have understood how they relate to a goal, what's motivating them about a goal, and sometimes they're not motivated by goals they're given to. Yeah, so that's also a good question, how can I still motivate myself indirectly, maybe for a goal that I don't like very much at first sight? What's my relationship to everything that I do to my tasks to my actions? What is holding me back usually, you know, what are some of these very classic patterns that I have me as a leader as one single individual person. And it's worth looking into this and being very clear, because that gives leaders the opportunity then, to no longer ruminate about themselves, and being stuck in their own perspective. Because they are clear about that. And they can move their focus to the outside world. This is when you start connecting, because you if not, you're just connected to yourself all the time. It sounds a bit paradox. But being first of all, connecting to yourself, and understanding yourself helps you to be connected, then to others and less to, you know, less concentrated on yourself and say let's not thinking about how I should say that why I should say to you, because you have some clarity. So that's the first very important step. And what I then see, out of that perspective, leaders can understand how they are different to other people or to their team members. And it's really about changing that perspective and understanding that they have also because of the level where they are, they have certainly a different view on a team goal than their team members. Yeah, even if it's only, let's say one hierarchy step away, it is very, very different. So they have another knowledge, other background information. And it can also be that they have a totally different personality. That's why they are the leader. Sometimes not always, but very often it's like that, and it's really about them. Changing this perspective and thinking about, you can call it a dictionary, you know, if you use a typical leader dictionary, you will find words like growth opportunities, performance, best practice, high performing teams, you know, agile, okay, all of that. And every organization wants that. And 70% of the world's population shiz away from that, or even hates it or fears it. Yeah. And that is the whole point that that those who like these words, and not all leaders like these words, but they think they have to show up as if they liked these words. So the first thing is to admit that you might not like them yourself. Yeah. Which doesn't mean that you cannot embrace it. But at least you know, my heart is not in these words, and change the dictionary, you can explain exactly the same growth project, or what for most people is was the same change or transformation project, you're just ahead of them. By using just not the words like growth, opportunity, performance, all of these words, which are more performance and result driven. And you can go into something else we can say this brings us more continuity, they can bring us on the midterm, more stability in our jobs, something people can feel safe, because most people feel extremely threatened by this vocabulary. And so you need to change the wording. But for that, you need to understand that some people really, really need that even if you do not need that at all, and you can't feel it. I think when people hear that when they listen now they might understand like, yeah, right, I have so many people who should always resistance. I don't know they're procrastinate on everything. They do not do what I asked them to any three email reminders to get them out of what they're doing right now. And why is that? Well, it's exactly because of this because you will most likely have used words that are that are frightening them and most people used and more of these words because they think it was not enough. And that's even worse. At the end people do it but they do it without joy. They don't break their foot ideas in they do not use the whole brain because they just are not in it at all. So they do it because they're paid for that.

Dr. Leah OH: 14:52

Yeah. Yeah. And you can see the like you said the cycle that continues. You didn't respond to my leader. dictionary words, first time, so I'm gonna throw more leader dictionary words at you. And it's, you know, we can sit and smile and laugh about this because we're not in the situation at this given moment. But you're right, when you're on the receiving end, that's really frightening, and not recognizing to what that means for your job for your stability, and maybe even for the project. So, thank you, that's so insightful. I really, really love thinking about it in that way. The other thing that I was thinking about when you're talking is relationships, again, like you said, even relationship with self in relation to to project and relationship to certain goals and recognizing the importance of relationships are not just external. That if we don't have that kind of shored up and that self reflection, you know, our successes are likely to be short lived, even if we

Ulrike Seminati: 16:01

Yeah, exactly. Thank

Dr. Leah OH: 16:02

you. So I this next question is one that I imagine you hear often, and I imagine this is a lot of times what clients come to you with is this idea of this is costing us time this is costing us money, this ineffectiveness. So what do you see what is the you know, the cost of ineffective time and project management and teams, leaders and organizations.

Ulrike Seminati: 16:30

So it's hard to say, because I always try also to find studies about this, and three, how to find those who are compelling, but the number that I use often, and then everybody can calculate for themselves. But it seems that 70% of business mistakes made in organizations are due to poor communication. 70%, you know, a client that you lose a client that is delivered too late, where you have to pay fees, for example, an opportunity is completely lost for a merger and acquisition or something like that, whatever. They can be big, big deals, 70% of business mistakes. And poor communication is a vast topic, obviously. But it's always about assuming that people understand what you want from them, and just assuming it without knowing. And that's what we do. And this is poor communication. Because at the end, people do not understand. And people always, because just because they are informed, they will not take action. So we always make this conclusion that when we inform somebody about the why or about what we think is the why, again, it's always from our perspective, then people will take action automatically, how could they do something different? And at the end? No, they don't, because the Y is not compelling for them. And somebody else or something, something else is holding them back from taking that action, maybe they have just very different priorities, maybe they have a lot of fear. And this is why they don't even go for some some action they need to take because they think oh, if I do that I might be rejected, I might fail in this typical fears. We do not take this into consideration. And this is how a lot of opportunities, business opportunities are lost. And that's what you see at the end the bottom line results of any organization. And I think the trick is really that you can't calculate it mathematically, like you can calculate how much less cash flow you have when you have a high inventory, for example. Yeah, that's, you can calculate that. And these, and I don't really like that term, the so called soft skills can never be really measured. That's why they're called like that, that at the end, in my opinion, the difference that they make on the bottom line result is much higher, like you said, In the beginning, we take more more time or more care of digital systems, or have developing processes and methods and all of that. And never really think about the fact that all these perfect processes methods need to be at the end used by people. And if you don't take action, well then fine to have a great process. But if nobody applies it nothing happened.

Dr. Leah OH: 19:15

Yeah, exactly anything like that. The way you framed it, the why is not compelling. Me or we've made some assumptions that recognizing to kind of going back to the audience analysis, like you said, step out of our perspective and figuring out what we're asking people and how this impacts them in very real ways. And maybe gasp asked for their opinion. i Oh my gosh. So thank you that I have so many things to think about. I'm really enjoying this and I have two two final questions for you. So this first one is kind of reflecting on either your experiences in organizations or not out in owning your organization and consulting. But if you had two leadership lessons, so what are these two that either kind of you've learned and you continue to return to? Or alternatively, what are some lessons that you wish the leaders you worked with? Or served under? What do you wish they knew?

Ulrike Seminati: 20:20

It comes back to what I said earlier on is these two dimensions I and the we. So focus really on yourself first, take time for that. Whenever Yeah, but it's so important. I wish that I was more aware, when I was a leader. And I wasn't I was more or less stumbling successfully through my career more or less driven, because I wanted to learn and because I wanted to have an interesting profile. And so yes, I tried a lot of new things. And that was great. But I could have standard really differently. Because very often, I felt awkward, no imposter syndrome in place, not confident enough. But on the outside Everybody thought I was. But I was certainly not authentic. And I was losing a lot of power, a lot of energy in that a lot of worry and anxiety behind the scenes in myself. And I think many people have that. And just the first thing is really to understand, who am I? How did I do I relate to my job to what I have to do. And admitting also the things that don't work? Well, when you're not perfect to yourself, I mean, really admit things to yourself. Many people shy away from that, when I speak to leaders, they have all these also, this kind of fear as if they couldn't function anymore operate anymore, as soon as they see something which they don't like in themselves. And I think it's really important to get away from that. You can only win if you look into yourself, really. And you can only develop like with any project, you can only develop something where you are aware with other development areas. And so help yourself really to get out of this anxiety mode and out of this mode of oh, I just somehow do things and I don't really feel being myself, oftentimes, by understanding who you are, I think that's the biggest task. Because when you have done that, and then comes to second step, and that is really about looking at others and creating just much more awareness about their reactions and learning to be emotionally intelligent and more empathetic. Learning to understand what triggers them. Some are similar to me for sure. But some are totally different. They have Why the heck are they interested in that? Or why are they not reacting to this wonderful thing that is said Yeah. And, and seeing this is something that you can then grow and really work with that much more deliberately and address it as well with people the differences and value the difference is there's no good or bad profile. So I think it's really about understanding what we always call diversity. And we'd love to have that. That's That's it understanding, first of all, who you are, who are the others? And how can we value all of that how we can bring these very different strengths together to create synergies, instead of trying to push everybody into the same leader shape of being a perfect growth mindset that loves agility? Because it's really an illusion. Some people cannot be the answer, even if they wanted to, but they can't.

Dr. Leah OH: 23:24

Exactly yeah. Gosh, it's so, so helpful. It reminds me of advice. When I first became a faculty member, my current my previous director, she took me to lunch. And she's like, you're not teaching yourself. And I was like, okay, and she's like, No, stop, listen, you don't have a classroom full of Leah's. And it took a minute to set in them. And it's been so helpful since because things before be like, I don't understand why you didn't turn this assignment. And of course, I've always loved school. That's why I'm still in a school. Right? This is a professor. So it is so helpful to return to that advice. And remember, I'm not serving my students, well, if I think I'm only teaching to myself, because I am missing their goals and their needs and all of the things that make them them. And I can see that parallel to this advice that you're offering us. And again, it's helped me tremendously, very humbling, but also really helpful. It's helped me to be a much better faculty member because of that. Great. And so my last question for you. So this the previous question we kind of talked about from a leader perspective. We know we spend more of our time and follow our roles and even when we are a CEO, we might have a board of directors to answer to. So we're we're employees all ranks levels industries, in terms of embracing the unknown, becoming more comfortable with pivots, anything related to leadership and procrastination, what advice do you have for these friends?

Ulrike Seminati: 25:16

Find out what is really important for you. It can be your values, but it can also be just needs that you have, you know, some people have a need for status and power. Some others have a need for stability and security, or for for very connected social relationships, or for exploring new things, and to end having adventures all the time. These are four very different types of profiles. Now, what are your needs? What do you really, really need at work and newly at home as well. And when you understand that, then you can help yourself to better understand how you relate to the tasks that you're given to goals that you set yourself even in your private life. And ask yourself like a marketing person, what's in it for me? What's in it for me? And what's in it for you? is probably not what's in the FAQ that comes maybe from the top of your organization? Yeah, it's most likely not because somebody has written that out of their perspective. But you have something particular what's in it for you. And if you see, wow, there's this huge organizational change, let's use that example. Because that is very often very common. And I don't know, I don't know if I can stay in my team, I don't even know if I keep my job or whatever. And you are somebody who has a strong need for security and stability, then you're really in trouble. And that's what most people face around out there most of the time. And it's really important to start reflecting and you need to become a bit creative around what's in it for me in this one. So okay, first of all, I acknowledge I'm frightened for sure. This is really scary to me, I acknowledge that it's not a weakness, because I have other strengths and maybe super reliable, so I have other strengths. But so what's in it for me, ultimately, and very often in things that we don't like or don't like to do, we can see that right away. And it's not exactly in the thing, you will not find something in the organization, the reorganization or the change as such. But you might something, find something that is behind that, or a side effects are really think out of the box, think broader. If there's something in it for you something that fits your needs. And especially when it comes to things where you have a strong resistance, but no choice, then doing it, because you're paid for that because it's your job, let's say that if it thinks you can, you can change that and not do well and take the deliberate decision to be bold enough to say no, but sometimes you can't. But if you really, really can't, then it's about finding a motivation for yourself that is outside of the obvious motivation that people expect from you. And you don't have to say that to anyone what it is, it's very personal. It's really for you give yourself that strength, that gift, that you have something else you can you can hook yourself on somehow. And that gives you this this, yeah, this power and this not enthusiasm, but at least a certain will, to execute on certain tasks to take certain actions with a bit less resistance than you would have if you hadn't thought about it at all. And I think this is important in today's world, when it comes to inner balance to be a bit more mentally healthy as well. And not to run into these extremely stressful situations that we might face mentally without reflecting on this.

Dr. Leah OH: 28:39

Yes. And in love in your response. It's this idea. I think so often we in these positions, we can feel like we're just kind of being tossed up, tossed along and bobbing along waiting for the next wave to hit. But when we kind of spin it, we acknowledge how we're truly feeling and like you said, we don't have to verbalize this to anyone else. We acknowledge that and then think about to what's in it. For me. I think that's something that many employees don't often give themselves the luxury, I don't even know if we should call it a luxury, the benefit of looking at because there's so often just to do this and this and this, I might be losing my job. I don't know what this big change coming. I'm gonna keep doing this. But like you said, I really love how much that empowers an employee to say, you know, I'm going to shift this way and I'm gonna have this new perspective. Or I didn't realize this was in it for me, but now this is something that I can keep, you know, working toward as we navigate the situation.

Ulrike Seminati: 29:46

You know, for example, and it's just, it's just came to my mind because often people you know, they do that job also because they have a family and they feel like oh my god, I have to stick to it. I have to go through all these. Let's call it bad exposure. against those who are forced into things, I'm really, really stressed. It's horrible. It's horrible. It's horrible. And this is this is the carousel of words, chatterbox in our head all the time. And instead of doing that, for example, you could more deliberately shift your focus and say what's in it for me is that I can spend outside of that job quality time with my children, that we can still I don't know afford this really beautiful garden. And instead of when you are in that garden with your children, then ruminating about your child, how horrible it is, rather say, I can enjoy that. And I'm grateful because I am delivering that through what I'm doing. You know, you give it a different quality. You give you work, a different quality, give it a different sense, not like the fear of losing something. But rather like this creates the power of creating something in my life. That's valuable for me and lets me in completely outside of your role of your dress

Dr. Leah OH: 30:54

in such a powerful and empowering mind shift. Exactly. Yeah, thank you. I have truly enjoyed this conversation. I've learned so much. I cannot wait to integrate it into my classes and to continue kind of thinking about this as I do my own research and discovery. So thank you for being here with us today.

Ulrike Seminati: 31:17

Yeah, thank you. It was great to be with you, Leah.

Dr. Leah OH: 31:23

All right, my friends. That wraps up our conversation today. Until next time, communicate with intention and lead with purpose. Looking forward to chatting with you again soon on the communicative leader.