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Episode 158: From Turmoil to Trust with guest, Newell Eaton

• Garry Schleifer

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Some conversations feel like a deep breath you didn’t know you needed. This one does more than name the chaos of hybrid work—it gives you a clear, humane way through it. We sit down with leadership coach and facilitator Newell Eaton to unpack how trust becomes the operating system for modern teams, especially when time is tight, change is constant, and the room is mostly a grid of faces.

We start with the realities leaders face: training windows that shrank from days to minutes, rapid team turnover, and the quiet drift of proximity bias that privileges people in the office over those on the screen. Newell offers practical fixes you can ship tomorrow—design 50-minute meetings with a real pause, open with a quick check-in, close with appreciations, and equalize hybrid calls by having everyone join from their own space. He makes a strong case for in-person anchors like twice-yearly gatherings and face-to-face onboarding to establish the human channels that carry nuance and empathy when work gets tough. Along the way, we explore the “vulnerability paradox”: why measured honesty from leaders strengthens psychological safety and how a CEO’s choice to step back for family transformed his team’s confidence and cohesion.

We also talk boundaries at home, retirement as an identity shift, and the unglamorous habits that power great leadership: sleep, breath, movement, and presence. Expect concrete strategies to counter proximity bias, boost trust on hybrid teams, and design meeting norms that actually work. If you’ve been looking for leadership advice that respects both performance and people, you’ll find a toolkit here—simple, repeatable, and backed by lived experience.

If this conversation helps, follow the show, share it with a colleague who’s leading a hybrid team, and leave a quick review—what one trust-building practice will you try this week?

Watch the full interview by clicking here. 

Find the full article here.

Learn more about Newell Eaton here. 

Grab your free issue of choice Magazine here - https://choice-online.com/

Garry:

Welcome to Beyond the Page, the official podcast of choice, the magazine of professional coaching, where we bring you amazing insights and in-depth features that you just won't find anywhere else. I'm your host, Garry Schleifer, and I'm excited to expand your learning as we dive into the latest articles, have a chat with this brilliant author, I guess it goes that way, and uncover the learnings that are transforming the coaching world. When you have a chance, join our vibrant community of coaching professionals as we explore groundbreaking ideas, share expert tips and techniques, and do what we love to do most, make a real difference in our clients' lives. Remember, this is your go-to resource for all things coaching. But for now, let's dive in.

Garry:

In today's episode, I'm speaking with leadership coach Newell Eaton, who is the author of an article in our latest issue, "Trust. Why is it intrinsic to coaching?" His article is entitled "From Turmoil to Trust: Leading Hybrid Teams in Turbulent Times." A little bit about Newell, he's a leadership coach and creative group facilitator who partners with leaders to help them grow prosperous organizations that people to love, people love to work in while building a fulfilling, healthy life for themselves and their families. He works with these leaders to make transformational changes, new strategic directions, leadership transitions, reorganizations, plenty of those going on, new products and services, and other complex change situations. He's known for his capacity to create a safe space for difficult conversations and for facilitating energizing workshops. He's trained in ontological and somatic coaching, NLP, creative problem solving, mindfulness, and positive psychology. Newell, thank you so much for joining us today.

Newell:

Well, thank you, Garry. It's really a pleasure to meet you this way. I want to meet that guy you just described. He sounds like somebody I'd like to get to know.

Garry:

Well-rounded and like really has a great purpose going on, I say. Yeah.

Newell:

I've been very fortunate that way.

Garry:

Yes. Well, fortunate, I think you did the work to say, yes, let's do this. So fortunate it's like when people always say, Oh, you're so lucky. I'm like, lucks got nothing to do with it. I worked my butt off to get here.

Newell:

You know that that famous Chinese story of the farmer and the horse, right? In terms of it, where that one, where basically the farmer has a horse that runs away, and then everybody says, Oh, you poor farmer. And he goes, maybe yes, maybe no. But then the horse comes back with another horse. Everybody says, Oh, you're so lucky to have that horse. And he goes, Well, maybe yes, maybe no. And then his son tries to break that horse and falls off and breaks his leg, and they go, Oh, poor farmer, and he goes, Well, maybe yes, maybe no. And then a week or so later, the government declares war, and all the able-bodied men have to go off to war. But his son's got a broken leg, so he doesn't go. And everybody says, Oh, you lucky farmer, and he goes, Maybe yes, maybe no.

Garry:

Never heard that one.

Newell:

That's a favorite of mine, right?

Garry:

Wow, maybe yes, maybe no. But here we are. Newell, what inspired you to write for us and for this issue?

Newell:

Yeah, thanks, Garry. You know, I've had the privilege of working as a coach and facilitator now for, you know, as an independent for over 20 years now. And in the early days, I would be asked to go out and do maybe creative problem solving training and full day or even full couple of days with organizations to engage in both trainings in those kinds of things, as well as learning about leadership and teams. But over time it stopped being like multiple days. It pretty soon was down to a day, and then it started to become half a day, and now a day is it's like, can you do a two-hour lunch break thing for us? And even 90 minutes. So the very nature of organizations having time or choosing to invest in organizational development in working on the business rather than in the business, I've seen dramatically change in my career. And then what's going on in those organizations? I'll go back to the same organization and the members of the team have changed again and changed again and changed again. So the frequency of change on the teams has changed. Then we had now the addition with you know, the multiple channels we can now communicate with each other and people now doing what we call hybrid or virtual teams. So people aren't even in the office. So as I've seen that evolve, the kinds of things I used to be able to do to offer team development or leadership development aren't offered. And I see them as teams not being connected in the same way. So teams , to my view point of view are even more different in degree, they're more a difference in kind. So the trainings we used to offer, first of all, we can't offer them the same way, but even what's needed, I think, has dramatically changed.

Garry:

Oh, I can only imagine.

Newell:

That's really what caused me to say, so what will work, and I don't think my article is the end all be all, but it's at least in my view, a beginning step of what I've been able to identify could be helpful.

Garry:

Yeah. Well, rereading the article, and of course I've read it three or four times already, but rereading the article before today's recording, it was like everything that I was saying to my clients and working with, not saying to, but working with my clients on was exactly what you were writing about. Like hybrid team challenges and this whole uncertainty and changes that you're talking about right now. All those things, it was like you were like right there with me hearing it, and then you wrote the article. But you know, maybe I've kept it when I read it and was using some of your thoughts and ideas when I'm working with my clients. In particular, there was one. There was one section in your article that really resonated for something I was just doing this week. Oh, yeah, talking to pause and listen. You wrote in there about listening practices, starting meetings with an informal check-in rather than diving straight in, ending with appreciation. Man, I know those work. And then I'm struck with that flip side of that that you're talking about, where everybody doesn't have enough time. And I watch my client when we talk about introducing these kind of things and they pause. How do you introduce this and have it actually happen? Like I know coaches were not supposed to make things happen, but we're brainstorming.

Newell:

Yeah, I well, what I find, first of all, I do it on a coaching call, right? I start with a centering activity, you know, where we practice breath work. And even I work with a lot of techies, so I tell them, you know, when your computer gets all screwed up, what do you do? You reboot it. So before you start something, wouldn't it be useful to reboot your brain, you know, so that you're really present for that situation? So I use that sometimes. And the other is for people who like read music, I say, you know, in music, they have these things called breath marks. And so how could you put breath marks between your meetings, before your thinking? So some of those are metaphors that I use. I think the biggest piece of advice, stepping into more when I'm a coach, you know, I coach, I ask questions, but sometimes I put on another hat and I say, you know, I'm a has been, you know, I has been there and so I'll say, here's here's some cheap advice from that has been over there. Calendars are set up for 60-minute meetings. The whole thing gets plugged in. What if you set it up so it was a 50-minute meeting and you gave yourself 10 minutes in between, right? So, like when we went to school, most of us the bell rang and you had enough time to get to the next class. But how how do you really create those breaks so that you finish something up before you start the next thing? That's the time for the pause. And that's the time to pay attention to what's going on inside yourself and that sort of somatic breath type work, or just even, huh? What did we what did we commit to? What did we complete in that one? To make sure that's done towards the end of the meeting before you move on to what's next.

Garry:

Oh my goodness. Newell, I suggested with my kind of has been hat on, and I suggested that because my coaching calls have 15-minute breaks. So it's enough for me to reboot, reset, get some water, stand up, move around, clear away what I had, put down the next book or what pen and stuff like that. And I suggested that to a client once, and it was like something like they never ever thought about. It was like, well, uh, what a meeting that's less than 60 minutes? See, the thing is, and we all know this, is you get stuff done in the time you're given. If you're given an hour, you'll get it done in an hour. If you give 50 minutes, you get it done in 50 minutes. So, but wouldn't that be a shocker to the team when you say, well, today's call is only 50 minutes. I hope you're all ready, and away we go. Another client, they said that she has 18 direct reports. They can't have their one-on-one without sending an agenda first.

Newell:

Mm-hmm.

Garry:

Wow. Talk about like accountability and structure and boundaries, and that all came up through the coaching. I want to go back to something you said. You were talking about this new world order of hybrid and in-person, and a lot of managers are still trying to figure that out. You mentioned something called proximity bias. Can you explain what that looks like and share some of your nine strategies that you wrote about?

Newell:

Sure. Um, well, if you're in an organization where historically you're all in the same room, right, or same building, and all of a sudden people are spread out all over the place, there's a tendency to the momentum, if you were in that kind of prop it all working, to retain some of that. Whereas all of a sudden now you've got people all over the place, right? If they're working virtually or in different ways. So there's a tendency for momentum from the past to give more attention to the people who you know in the local level. And that's even more true when an organization expands. Let's say they bought another company or things like that, or all of a sudden they grew exponentially and their growth was more with people who weren't in the office. So there you get in groups and out groups. And I've had several organizations where even though they've been expanded in that way, before COVID, they're still the in-group and the out group. So it's important to really shift the mindset. It's like, how do you treat everybody the same? How do you make sure as a leader, how are you making sure you're giving equal time, can't do the water cooler anymore, can't go out to lunch the the same way anymore. So it requires some intentionality. There are a couple things that I found are helpful. One is it's not always possible in international companies, but in companies that have people, let's say, spread across they can get on an easy plane to get together, is to get together at least twice a year, right? Ideally four times a year, you know, and I really am pretty pushy about that, in terms of you know how important that is. And onboarding needs to be face to face. Onboarding whoever, you need to spend time with that person so that they get that that channel of direct connection. I try and do that with coaching clients as well. It doesn't work when I'm working with people in Switzerland or South America, although I'd like it to. It's an awareness both by the leaders and the members to talk about . One company I work in or did work in, even though more like I'd say, I guess there were 12 on this tech team, and eight of them were in the office, and four were working from home or elsewhere. When we had meetings, everybody was in their own office on Zoom. They didn't, the eight of them didn't get in one office with the four of them. So they were all it equalized everything out. Wow. And that that made a big difference in the sense that we're all approaching this with degrees of equality.

Garry:

Yeah. Well, you know, a wise man once said virtual teams must deliberately design what would normally happen organically, while in-person teams shouldn't rely on proximity as a substitute for deliberate trust building.

Newell:

Thank you.

Garry:

Yeah, you're welcome. And the joke here is that's exactly what Newell wrote in his article in the current issue about Trust. And I want to get back to the topic of trust because that's what this whole issue is about. Let's just go right back to the opening of your article where you talked about this poly crisis where we're all living through economic uncertainty, climate issues, institutional distrust. How do you help leaders maintain psychological safety for their teams when they themselves might be overwhelmed by all this turbulence and change that you were talking about?

Newell:

Right. I love this that, you know, first of all, leadership to me is the most difficult performance art there is. You know, you think of most athletes, they get rehearsals, they get seasons off. You know, same is true ballerinas or actors. Whereas as a leader, you are on full time all the time. So people are looking at you. If you go out into public, you know, you're still on, right? I honor people who you know are still doing that. I did that for 20-something years, and now I, you know, that's why I say I'm a house.

Garry:

Newell, your are still a leader.

Newell:

That's true. As you're demonstrating with what's happening here right now. I think it is you got to put your mask on first, as the saying goes. It's important for leaders to really take good care of themselves. And so I would say probably about a third of what I do in coaching is helping leaders make sure they're getting enough sleep, learning to take care of their bodies, right? You know, learning to how really love themselves, right? To care about themselves in terms of it. That is they're often so busy they don't take time for themselves. And as leaders, we're often more caring outside rather than inside. So as a coach, a lot of my role is to say you're gonna serve everybody better if you really take care of both your internal state, but also if you live with people that you're taking care of your home environment. I certainly did that for part of my career. I got so busy at the office that I didn't do a very good job with my teenage kids. I was, you know, I was in my passion of change that I engaged in. And so part of what I think is very important for leaders to take care of the interstate, take care of your home environment, and really then you're gonna be in a better position to also model that for others you're working with. I think that makes a world of disparance as kind of the first point.

Garry:

Newell, I really love that you say home environment, because one of the outcomes of the COVID situation is that everyone forgot the boundaries. They used to have boundaries that was like, oh, I have to go home because it's dinner or taking the kids or doing this, right? Well, I've always worked from home, I have my own boundaries, but my clients didn't. And they lost them during COVID and they didn't remember to take them back. And so for you to say home environment versus kids or all this sort of stuff really leaves it open to everyone and everyone personally to take care of it. And The number of conversations I've had with clients about exactly that, taking care of themselves, setting boundaries, and they're just like, oh yeah, oh yeah, like it's it's still there, the muscle memory is still there, but the action hasn't happened. So we're working on a lot of things to take back that home environment, that taking care of yourself. So thank you for that reminder.

Newell:

Yeah, I found Garry that as we entered the COVID period where people were going home more, I worked specifically with them on how were they gonna set those boundaries then. And even in some cases, I sat with them and their partners if they were and said, okay, you know, and sometimes it was both of them were working from home, right? You know, or they hit a more complex environment. So it's like, how are you gonna do this in a new way? Uh it's an aside, and I'm not gonna spend much time here, but I'm starting to do some retirement coaching. And so these are people that have been in the office that all of a sudden are now retired and at home. So I'm doing home visits with them and their partners, like, okay, this is a new world, a new identity. How this gonna work for the two of you? And it's not all that different than what we're talking about now.

Garry:

Well, and when I talk to a lot of them about even spare time, they don't have any outside interests because they've put everything into either their family or their work, and their family's now grown up and gone. So they're kind of like they don't have a reason to leave work. Are you finding that? And if so, what's the common what's the common hobby or uptake that people are are doing when they retire?

Newell:

Well, the first of all, retirement isn't like a single stage operation. There's what people think they're gonna do, and they may do that for a short window of time, but it's it changes like everything else in life. They navigate different things as things shift. You know, sometimes it's they get end up in caregiving of one kind or another. Grandkids or sick parents, or even so, even though they've retired. I've got one guy, he's like 70, and like you, he's got a 95-year-old parent that he's needing to take care of. So, I mean, that it it's not one size fits all into in terms of those kinds of things. It's the identity shift that's the biggest thing, particularly if someone's a founder of a company or you know, is in the top leadership role. You know, how do you do succession with them? Because that's usually the retirement things I'm doing is it succession, who's going to pick up what they were doing? How do they make that transition? And then who are they gonna be next with their life? Remember that old book, What Color is your parachute? Well, I'm finding that's a useful thing for retirement people. Just like what colors, you know, because it really in that book, he talks about, you know, how do you balance your personal interests and your professional interests to begin to look at what are things that you may have done years before that you might do now?

Garry:

Yeah. Wow. Well, that's a good note because I'm like, do I want to retire? What am I gonna do? I'll dig up that book. I might even still have it around here.

Newell:

Yeah, it's a good one.

Garry:

So thank you. I keep going off topic here, and the whole issue is about trust. And one of the things I learned about trust in reading all the articles and working with Charles, he was my co-lead, and thank you for mentioning the article, was that trust, one key factor in building trust or breaking trust is vulnerability. In your article, you talked about the vulnerability paradox that traditional leadership training tells us. Can you tell us what you mean by that and some example of where that shows up? And how do you deal with that? Bring that trust back.

Newell:

Well, you know, my favorite author around that is Brene Brown's work. If anybody gets the chance, the podcast Brene Brown does interviewing Charles is fabulous to really an exploration of both trust and love, you know, in terms of their relationship. What I think with the paradox is you think of all the old movies that we've seen about what a leader is like, you know, it's this tough whole holding it all in kind of experience. And um obviously, you know, what we know now is that's absolutely the opposite. The more and vulnerability can be overdone, by the way. You know, somebody can just bleed their emotions all over the place all the time. And, you know, that doesn't work either. But the notion that you are genuine and honest and able to express what's really going on both in yourself and in the organization at the level you're aware of it really helps create a culture where people feel psychologically safe, able to share their own questions and concerns. I've had a couple of really good experiences with this coaching. I have a guy, he's CEO of a pretty significant company, and his father had was had just been put into hospice. His wife had broken her ankle, his daughter was in college and was saying she had enough and wanted to come home. He was in the middle of so many major negotiations, as well as unforeseeables. And we talked, and I said, you know, I said, Kurt, you really need to take a break from work right now. Can you trust your team to pick up your stuff? Let's maybe have a meeting together and figure out what needs to happen. And so he was willing to say, look, I'm no good at this this top job right now. I need to go take care of my family for a couple of weeks. Can you guys pick it up? And by doing that, since then in that organization, and first of all, they did a great job, right? First of all, they were a high trust group to begin with, but it just really doing that it started to spread through the organization in ways that people could express really what their deepest cares in ways that really helped them be a much healthier organization after that experience.

Garry:

Yeah. Well, you spoke about that too, about uh building trust in teams and how to do it and and stuff like that. So thank you for sharing that example. That is absolutely brilliant. And it goes back to take a breath, right? Like if you know, it seems to be a common thread, meetings and personal life and stuff like that. And how often do we actually stop and think to take a breath? And even if the team wasn't trust as as strongly trusting as your team you described, it would be a great test or testament to that leadership if it was thrown upon them at the last minute to see what the level of trust was. And you know, when you say that, I'm thinking of a client I spoke with this this week, and I don't think that they fully realize the trust that they I think that they built trust in their team, but they're not willing to test it enough to go on vacation for two weeks. And it is, I don't think it's as much about the team as it, and it is about what they have to do to get ready to go and what they're gonna experience when they come back. And this is part of a couple where both work in the same industry in the same organization and share their own concerns, so they're building on their own anxieties, right? Take a breath, go talk to somebody else. Who does this successfully? We want a plan now for a trip like next summer. We're already coaching on building trust in that. And again, having your article, I may as well have had that in my brain while I was coaching this week because so many things you said came up for me. So I I invite our listeners to really take this one in. This is a great article by Newell. Speaking of great articles and things, what would you like our readers and audience to take away from this article and this conversation?

Newell:

I think the first one is take a breath.

Garry:

Yeah, no kidding, right?

Newell:

You know, I just want to say the neuroscience on this is so powerful. You know, um, there's so much now showing that in terms of our stress response, the breath techniques make so much difference in terms of it. So that's what I would say, number one, that if you do nothing else, you know, take a breath, right? The other is breath is pause, you know. The world is still gonna be there, right? You know, in fact, you're gonna be better. You know, I used to be a pitcher, you know, baseball pitcher. And you know, you get up on the mound and you take your time and then you throw the ball. Well, I think that's what really as leaders to take that time to pause, think about what you're gonna do before you fire your mouth open, right? Okay in terms of what's gonna happen. And then there's the listening.

Garry:

Yeah, you know, that's you've talked about that too. Yeah, the techniques.

Newell:

You know, most people want to be listened to more than they want to be talked to, right? Yeah, you know, and so the more a leader demonstrates that they're a good listener, the more people are gonna feel that they've got something to offer them. I've said a lot of interesting things I from my point of view that are useful in the article. And it's not the end all and be all, because there's certainly more if I could have written, you know, 10 pages, there would have been a lot more there. But I think the essence of if a leader could practice those, you know, those nine things that are in there as ideas, it would help them come a long way to really having a trusting team that performs better.

Garry:

And I'll add to that, it reminds me of a client I was coaching recently that had anxiety in being in meetings with peers and doing like not presentation but reporting. And when I suggested do taking a breath, it was like he was transformed. It's almost like I can do that? Like I didn't even think of doing that. Those are all the expressions that seem to come up when I suggest it. So uh, so yeah, so good, good. Thank you very much for that. And thank you for the article. Like, seriously, and this conversation, like I do this because I love it and I learn, and I hope our audience is learning some more too. Um, what's the best way to reach you, Newell?

Newell:

Uh, my email, which will be written here somewhere. It's newell.eaton@gmail.com. Also, you know, once in a while I get around to posting in LinkedIn. I will be certainly posting about this going forward. So sometimes I'm in conversations there. And I host a bunch of online groups. Uh I do one for men over the age of 65 called Aging Gracefully. Anybody's interested in that, email me and we'll add you on to that list.

Garry:

Are you eligible for that group? You don't look like you're over 65.

Newell:

I'm quite a bit older than that.

Garry:

Well, not quite a bit.

Newell:

Awesome. Um so that'd be super cool. Thank you.

Garry:

Can find out that at LinkedIn or by emailing you the groups?

Newell:

Either, either or. Yeah.

Garry:

Okay. Awesome. Again, thank you so much for joining us for this Beyond the Page episode, Newell. Really appreciate it.

Newell:

No, well, thank you for making the offer. I've really enjoyed this.

Garry:

And don't be a one-hit wonder. We've got a Joy issue coming up.

Newell:

Oh boy, okay. I'll get on that.

Garry:

I think that might be something for you. That's it for this episode of Beyond the Page. For more episodes, subscribe via your favorite podcast app. If you're not a subscriber to choice Magazine, you can sign up for free b y scanning the QR code if you're watching the video. If you're not, go to choice- online.com and click the sign up now button. I'm Garry Schleifer. Enjoy the journey of mastery.