How to Be an Honest Broker in Business (2024)

Welcome to episode 41 of Season 2 of Baktari MD! In this exciting episode, we talk about the term, "Honest Broker", but not in the sense that you think. Being an Honest Broker within your company can bring about many benefits as long as it is done correctly. All of the tips and trick you need are right here! Find out all of this and more in the full episode!

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what this person is telling me both things can't be true. But, you know, there are things that maybe, you know, if you knew one other piece of fact. Yes. Both things could be true if you knew this other fact. Hi. Welcome to another episode of Baktari MD. This year we're doing Crash CEO School, where we go over all of the skill sets you need to become a great leader to move your organization forward. We're going to talk about another topic that I think would be very helpful to any leader. Before I do, I just want to ask everyone if you could take a minute to certainly like and subscribe as you come up with ideas to also comment on these topics, because it really helps us get feedback and understand what more to do and what you're enjoying. Okay. Today I want to talk about something that I think every leader, a skill that every leader has. I know I sound like a broken record because I say that about every skill I talk about on some level, but clearly some are more important than others. I did a whole video which I will link on top about honesty and integrity and how that's good business and certainly is is needed for anyone who's going to be recognized as a leader that they're going to have to convey integrity and honesty because without that, you're just not going to get much traction as a leader. But I want to talk about something similar to it, but not a not exactly the same. And this is this concept that I believe leaders also need to be what I call the phrase is an honest broker. Now, that term honest broker is used often as someone who is impartial but addresses a dispute maybe between two parties. And I'm going to talk about that because that's certainly part of it. But I think an honest broker in in the leadership sense also means being someone who can be trusted with the facts and trusted to take in information and and not be a partizan or let their own secondary gain or motivations impact their decisions on what what they're hearing or what they're talking about. In other words, if you're an honest broker and you hear or your staff tells you about something in the back of your mind, yes, there may be some secondary reason for you not to agree because it's going to cost the company more money or what, whatever the secondary issue is. But that doesn't mean your opinion of it has to be colored by that. So if someone confronts you or asked you about a specific situation, will you be able to engage with them in a conversation where you are not going to let whatever partisan bend you have impact, how you absorb the information, how you respond to the information. Because once people realize that your viewpoint may be colored not by the facts of the case or the matter, but how it impacts your company or you or some other thing, then they know often not to come to you because you're if you're always going to fall on the side of whatever is, you're being influenced by, you're going to miss out a lot and people are just not going to take you seriously and or respect you or want to be close to you or want to work with you or want to, you know, move your company forward. So if you get a reputation as being an honest broker, not only just in conflict, but just in general, where even if you know that this subject matter, it's not something you want because of it may make you put in more hours or the company may cost more money, whatever. But you're still going to look at the facts and say, Listen, honestly, if this wasn't going to cost us this much money, I think it's a great idea. I just don't know if it's worth spending this much money on, as opposed to lampooning the idea even indirectly, because you know, it's going to cost you more money. So that's just an example of being an honest broker. Now, I'm also going to talk about being an honest broker when there are disputes. So but let's do this first one first. Let's then talk about being an honest broker when there is a dispute within the organization, when people come up to you with two conflicting things. Sometimes it's professional, sometimes it crosses the professional line. But still to be an honest broker, you know, how do you go about that? Well, number one, if you're going to be an honest broker of any conflict or any issues in your organization, you have to listen to both sides. And when I say listen, I mean listen, active listening and hearing what they have to say, not only do you have to listen to both sides, but you have to understand not only understand what they're saying, what's motivating them, what the underlying currents are. A lot of times, for example, people may be frustrated at a particular issue, but maybe it's because it's happened so many times in the past that it impacts them more because it's happened yet again. So you have to contextualize both sides position on six or seven different dimensions right now and try to absorb that. And if you do a good job, the next thing is you have to be able to get to the point where even in your own mind, you can articulate both sides. Why hasn't getting a simple laboratory test been as easy as ordering something online? Well, now it is! 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In other words, if you are going to be an honest broker, the only way to be an honest broker because you're getting two sides of the story, is to be able to go to both parties and critically, maybe gently but critically question question things that you don't fully understand or have concerns about or that don't seem right or seem contradictory. So if one party gives you something that is contradictory or if they tell you two things, but both can't be true, you can't leave that standing. You have to maybe gently, but at some point you have to question those things. And you can't be an honest broker if you say, well, I don’twant to hurt their feelings or I just feel like I don't want to be critical of them because in many ways, part of being an honest broker is understanding where the discrepancies are. Now, sometimes you may get a great answer that you haven't thought about. So this is really important. You can't just you know, you may think, well, what this person is telling me both things can't be true. But, you know, there are things that maybe, you know, if you knew one other piece of fact. Yes. Both things could be true if you knew this other fact. But the point is, you'll never know unless you question it. And if you don't have the capacity, if it's not your personality, if you're, you know, want to really shy away from conflict, blah, blah, blah. Of course, the interesting thing about, you know, shying away from conflict is I have found and I think most people who do this a lot realize is you actually generate more conflict or you don't get resolution of conflict if you're trying to avoid conflict at any cost and what have you. So there is a calculation to be made that you may have to dig deeper and not digging deeper in an attempt to just hope everything blows over and nobody, you know, just somehow people get past it, whatever that might work. But often it doesn't. And you actually generate more conflict because you don't want to address the issue rather than to address the issue. And then when you're done, it is really important in a nonpartizan and impartial way for you to then get all the facts and come up with an assessment that summarizes the facts based on everything you've received and convey that to both parties. Doesn't mean you have to necessarily even judge who's right or wrong, but saying, based on everything I've received and checked out, what have you, I think this is these are the facts. I'm going to argue you're more likely to resolve conflict by doing that. Now, sometimes some people may not like it initially or what have you, but you're much more likely to resolve conflict within your organization if you actually become a nonpartizan, impartial seeker of the facts. Of course, you know, understanding that it can be done gently and in as much as possible in a non critical fashion. But sometimes you have to cross that boundary. But to simply say, look, based on everything I'm hearing, this is what I think are the facts. And, you know, how do we get past it and how do we resolve it? But these are the facts as opposed to I don't care what the facts are. Let's let's everyone just get over this and let's move on. Of course, that might work for very minor stuff, but as major struggles occur in your organization, it's really important to deal with them head on and be an honest broker. Now, one of the benefits of this is even if you're not doing this all the time, even if you did it three years ago, people then know that you are an honest broker. And that label of being a guy or girl who takes in the facts and, goes down whatever road, it goes down and is prepared to go down that road, gives you a reputation of someone that people will want to talk to. You know, even if it's there is no conflict. But they're like, he or she is a straight shooter. You know, you don't have to worry about them just telling you something. You want to hear that, or those things are really part of the qualities of a very good leader because you then become much more respected and much more sought after because you have this reputation of being an honest broker and that permeates the organization. And if you're mentoring young leaders in your organization, first of all, young leaders, you can't just mentor them by blabbing to them. They have to see it in you and there is no better mentoring than mentoring by example. And if you can mentor by showing them how you're an honest broker and then you say now, let's pass this down throughout the organization where we are going to be an honest broker of facts, doesn’t mean we're going to like every little minor thing. But when it really matters, when the chips are down, it really is important to the organization. We're going to look at the facts and we are going to, you know, call them like we see them. So whether you want to say, you know, a straight shooter, I only call balls and strikes, that's the reputation you want, although you also want the reputation of someone who's sensitive and caring and also is concerned about people. So it's this combination of these best qualities where you you have a genuine respect for people, a genuine concern, a genuine interest in seeing them improve. But when called upon you can you can call balls and strikes, you can be a straight shooter and you can be an honest broker. Okay, So I hope that helps. You have more leadership skills in your organization when things are, you know, turbulent and and leadership is needed. If you look at some of these topics we're talking about and people say, what is leadership, right? Like, what is what does it mean to be a leader? Well, you know, skill sets like this and other ones we've talked in previous videos, you know, those are those are the things you need to be a leader. And that's why in one of my earliest videos, I said being a leader is not a soft skill. These are acquired skills that you have to work on to improve and and pass down into your organization to young, younger leaders. Otherwise, anyone can be a leader. These are the things you need to move your organization to the next level. Okay. Thank you so much for watching this video. We'll see you in the next video. Don't forget to comment like and subscribe. Have a great day. Take care. Bye bye.