Olivia: What if the most important question you can ask your team isn't about their performance, but about their purpose? And what if the answer is the key to unlocking a business that doesn't just grow, but thrives without burning everyone out? Jackson: That feels like a trick question for most managers. They'd say, "Their purpose is to hit their quarterly targets!" But the idea that something deeper is at play, especially with burnout being so rampant, is incredibly compelling. Olivia: That's the central, almost radical, idea behind Robert Glazer's book, Building Capacity. It challenges that exact mindset. Jackson: Right, Glazer's the guy who founded that huge marketing agency, Acceleration Partners, and built it to be fully remote before everyone had to. He wrote this after seeing his own fast-growing company push people to their limits, realizing there had to be a better way. Olivia: Exactly. He argues that the old model of just demanding more from people is broken. Instead, we have to build their capacity to handle more. And his framework for doing that starts in a very surprising place. Jackson: Let me guess, a high-tech productivity app? A new project management system? Olivia: Not even close. It starts with something he calls 'Spiritual Capacity.'

Jackson: Hold on. Spiritual Capacity? In a business book? That sounds... fluffy, Olivia. Are we talking about office yoga and mandatory meditation circles? Olivia: I had the same reaction at first! But Glazer reclaims the word. For him, it has nothing to do with religion. Spiritual capacity is about deep self-awareness. It’s understanding who you are at your core, what you value most, and what your non-negotiable principles are. It’s your personal operating system. Jackson: Okay, 'personal operating system'—I can work with that. It’s less about incense and more about introspection. But how does knowing my own deep-seated values help my team perform better? Olivia: Because if you, as a leader, don't understand your own operating system, you can't understand why you react the way you do. And you'll mismanage people constantly. Glazer tells this incredible story about a manager he calls 'Andrew' from one of his leadership workshops. Jackson: I'm listening. Give me the details. Olivia: Andrew was a rising star, a great manager, but he had one major blind spot. He would overreact, sometimes harshly, whenever a team member showed a lack of self-awareness. If someone was too loud in a meeting, or missed social cues, or just didn't read the room, Andrew would come down on them way too hard. Jackson: I think we've all worked for, or with, an 'Andrew'. Someone with a weirdly specific trigger you can't quite figure out. Olivia: Exactly. So, in this workshop, they did an exercise to identify their personal core values. They had to reflect on things like, what environments make you happiest? What qualities in others are most challenging for you? And as Andrew did this, he had a breakthrough. Jackson: What was it? Olivia: He realized that one of his parents lacked self-awareness to a painful degree. This parent would be oblivious to social situations, talk too loudly, overindulge, and it caused Andrew deep embarrassment and discomfort throughout his childhood. The pain of that experience had unconsciously made 'self-awareness' one of his most critical, non-negotiable core values as an adult. Jackson: Wow. So his biggest trigger as a manager wasn't about his team's performance at all. It was rooted in something deeply personal from his past. That's heavy, but it makes so much sense. Olivia: It's a perfect illustration of the concept. Once Andrew understood why he was reacting so strongly, his entire approach changed. He could separate the past from the present. He even shared this with his team. He explained, "Look, self-awareness is a huge value for me, and here's why. Here's what it looks like in practice, and here's how we can work together on it." It transformed his leadership. He went from being a reactive manager to an intentional coach. Jackson: That’s a powerful story. It moves the idea from abstract to concrete. But okay, how does a leader actually do this without turning one-on-ones into therapy sessions? You can't just ask your team to journal about their childhood trauma. Olivia: Of course not. Glazer provides a practical path. It starts with the leader doing the work on themselves first. He walks through a process of identifying your own 3-5 core values. Then, you use tools to help your team do the same. He’s a big proponent of assessments like CliftonStrengths or the Why Archetype. Jackson: What's a Why Archetype? Olivia: It's based on Simon Sinek's work. It helps you identify your core driver or purpose. For example, Glazer's own 'Why' is "To Find a Better Way and Share It." He knows this means he's constantly trying to improve things, which is a strength. But he's also self-aware enough to know it can be exhausting for his team and family. His wife's 'Why' is "To Do Things the Right Way," which means she values process and stability. You can imagine the potential for conflict there. Jackson: Oh, I can definitely imagine that. My 'Why' would probably be "To Ask Annoying Questions Until Things Make Sense." Olivia: A noble purpose! But you see the point. When a team understands each other's core values and 'Whys,' they develop a shared language. They can navigate conflict better because they understand the underlying motivations. It’s not about "you're wrong," it's about "we're wired differently, so let's find a middle ground." Jackson: So, spiritual capacity is basically knowing your personal operating system and your team's, and not letting it run on buggy, unconscious code. You're making it explicit. Olivia: Precisely. And once you have that self-aware foundation—that spiritual capacity—you're in a much better position to build the next pillar: Intellectual Capacity. This is all about how we learn and grow, and a huge part of that is feedback.

Jackson: Ugh, feedback. The corporate version of "we need to talk." My heart rate literally just went up. Why is it that even when it's positive, it feels terrifying? Olivia: Because most of the time, feedback is delivered poorly. It’s vague, it feels personal, and it triggers our defensiveness. A LinkedIn survey found that 94% of employees would stay at a company longer if it invested in their learning, but how can you learn in an environment where feedback feels like an attack? Jackson: Exactly. You just shut down. You're not learning; you're just trying to survive the conversation. Olivia: Glazer argues that we need to re-engineer the entire process. He says a learning culture is a feedback culture, but you have to build psychological safety first. And a key tool for that is a simple, powerful framework he calls SBO. Jackson: SBO? Another acronym to remember? Olivia: This one is worth it. It stands for Situation, Behavior, Outcome. The goal is to make feedback about the work, never the person. It forces you to be specific and objective. Jackson: Okay, break it down for me. How does it work in the real world? Olivia: Glazer gives a great, simple example. Let's say an employee named Simon was supposed to deliver a monthly report to a client. He misses the deadline and only tells his manager, Catherine, at the last minute. Catherine is, understandably, frustrated. Jackson: The old way would be for Catherine to call him in and say, "Simon, you're unreliable and you dropped the ball. This is unacceptable." Olivia: Right. Which immediately puts Simon on the defensive. He's not listening anymore; he's just thinking of excuses. But using the SBO framework, Catherine's approach is different. She starts with the Situation: "Simon, in our one-on-one today, I want to talk about the monthly client report that was due yesterday." Jackson: Okay, factual. No accusation yet. Olivia: Then, she describes the Behavior: "You let me and the client know that it would be late on the day it was due, without giving us a heads-up that you were running behind." Jackson: Still factual. She's describing what happened, not his character. Olivia: And finally, the Outcome: "The outcome is that this damages the client's trust in us, and it puts me in a difficult position of having to apologize for something I wasn't aware of. It makes our team look disorganized." Jackson: I love that. It's like a sports replay. You're not saying, "Simon, you're a terrible player." You're saying, "In this specific play, at this moment, this action led to this result." It depersonalizes it completely. Olivia: It does! The focus shifts from "what's wrong with you" to "what happened in this situation and how can we fix it for next time." Simon can hear that. He can understand the business impact without feeling personally attacked. He leaves the meeting with his manager's support and a clear path to improve, not with a sense of shame. Jackson: That sounds great in a book, but what about those really high-stakes conversations? Like when someone's job is actually on the line? People are still going to be defensive. Olivia: That's where practice comes in. Glazer talks about a role-playing exercise they do in advanced leadership training for having difficult conversations. Managers have to role-play telling a direct report that their job is at risk. And almost every single time, the audience—the people watching—say the manager was too soft. They didn't make it clear how serious the situation was. Jackson: They try to do the "compliment sandwich"—say something nice, drop the bomb, say something nice again. Olivia: And it completely muddies the message. The employee walks away thinking, "Okay, that was a tough chat, but I got some good feedback too!" They don't realize the severity. The SBO framework, delivered directly but respectfully, avoids that. It provides clarity, which is a form of kindness, even when the message is hard. Jackson: So it's about building the skill of giving feedback, not just having the courage to do it. You need the right tools in your toolbox. Olivia: And you also have to train people to receive feedback. To listen without defensiveness, to ask clarifying questions, and to assume the feedback is about the work, not a personal attack. It's a two-way street.

Jackson: So it's a two-step process, really. First, you build the 'Spiritual' foundation so people know who they are and what drives them. That creates the safety and self-awareness. Then you build the 'Intellectual' scaffolding with tools like the SBO framework so they know how to improve without feeling attacked. Olivia: Exactly. Glazer’s argument, backed by his own company’s success and endorsements from people like Arianna Huffington, is that burnout isn't an inevitable cost of high performance. It's a symptom of poor capacity. We keep asking people to carry more weight without ever taking them to the gym. This book is the workout plan. Jackson: I like that analogy. You wouldn't expect an athlete to compete without training. Why do we expect that from our teams? We just throw them into bigger and bigger games and act surprised when they get injured. Olivia: And the training isn't just about job skills. It's about building their core as human beings. The book also covers Physical and Emotional capacity, which are just as critical. It’s a holistic system. The ultimate message is that if you build your people, they will build your business. It’s a long-term investment, not a short-term expense. Jackson: It makes you wonder, what's one conversation you've been avoiding with your team because you didn't have the right framework for it? That SBO model feels like it could unlock a lot of those stuck situations. Olivia: That's a great question for our listeners to reflect on. We'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Does this idea of 'spiritual capacity' resonate with you, or does it still feel too abstract for your workplace? Let us know. Olivia: This is Aibrary, signing off.