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Jeff Evans · Calm Under Fire

• Col John: Well, welcome to ⁓ Calm Under Fire. I'm Colonel John Boggs. I'm the president of Fortitude Consulting, and Fortitude Consulting is an executive leadership development and coaching firm. And today we have with us ⁓ Dr. Jeff Evans. Now, Jeff has spent nearly three decades advising CEOs, executive teams, boards, and complex organizations on leadership, governance, enterprise performance, and executive judgment under pressure. his work sits in a very important place where leaders, where leadership behavior, fiduciary responsibility, and succession risk and long-term institutional performance come together. ⁓ holds a PhD in human resource development. ⁓ He's the author of two books on transformational leadership and organizational change. He has a third underway and holds a U.S. patent. For a system that identifies leadership potential and corporate roles. He is doing important work in the area of agentic AI. I'm not sure I understand what agentic AI is, and non-human intelligence as part of leadership teams, helping senior leaders and boards think more clearly about decision making, governance, accountability, and what leadership looks like in this new era that we're in. So Jeff, thank you very much and welcome to Calm Under Fire. Jeff Evans: Pleasure to be here, John. Thank you. Col John: ⁓ Well, before we get into boards, AI and the enterprise leadership. What shaped the way you think about leadership? Jeff Evans: Mm. ⁓ That's such a great question and ⁓ it really cuts to the core. ⁓ Leadership is really, to me, the key of leadership is setting a collective intelligence in a direction and holding the path to that. And the leadership itself is creating a container, an environment, a culture where that intention can be held and realized. Col John: Mm-hmm. Jeff Evans: And so that's, to me, it's the most important part. mean, it took me a long time in life to get to that point, to understand the difference between, you know, kind of command and control and supervision and management and leadership, to find that common thread that says, what is it that's universally true about humans that leadership is, ⁓ has a moral mandate with authority to provide? Col John: Mm-hmm. Jeff Evans: So, you know, more on any of those that you want to do, but that's kind of the view I have of it is we're holding a collective intelligence and intention. Col John: Wow. Could you okay, collective intelligence and intention. ⁓ Can you tell me a little bit more about universal true? Jeff Evans: Well, yeah, and I say universal, as universal as we can see as humans. ⁓ And if you look at my work, I've ⁓ done a great deal of research on global ⁓ consistency around what works globally, what works no matter what culture, no matter what language, no matter what religion, what is true about humans and what keeps us together. Col John: Yes. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Jeff Evans: if you go down to the kind of what we currently know about the origins of humanity. back to a hunter-gatherer tribal unit and how a group of people in their collectivism could accomplish more than we could accomplish individually and how a band of people held together to survive together, each with their own strengths. So a band of people is as strong as their community of knowledge and how it is all used together. Col John: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Jeff Evans: which holds true for an organization. So we depend on members of our collective community to know more about some things than others, to be the keeper of a wisdom body. And it doesn't mean to make the decisions on that. It means to hold that for the community and not for themselves. Col John: I I love this. ⁓ Really you wrote that leadership at the at the board and enterprise level rarely breaks. ⁓ y and this you're just talking about, you know, ⁓ well it breaks in it doesn't it it rarely breaks in obvious ways. Jeff Evans: Right, yeah, very subtle. Col John: It's very subtle. So what does that quiet strain look like? Jeff Evans: Well, that's a good question. So, I learned this really mostly in working mergers and acquisitions. And, you know, we were always, I came out of a background of quality improvement and process improvement. And you have a process that does something. And problems are only problems when they break the process. Col John: Mm-hmm. Jeff Evans: So when we go into a merger, a cultural merger, putting together the financial parts are all one thing, but the biggest challenge is always putting together the way people think, their culture, what's right, wrong, the kind of underlying rules. And so if you have big differences, those are the obvious ones. They always get worked. And that's what we always could spot, you know, ⁓ well, they speak a different language or they're in a, you know, they've been in a different industry, they have different financial rules, whatever. Those are obvious. But then when you put people together and they have different underlying core beliefs or hope streams aspirations, they have collectively hold a different frame of what's good. Those don't tend to get surfaced. They come out in small ways and essentially they impair the overall quality of decision making, the overall quality of execution and movement, small ways, small and subtle. And they compound not so much in failure of the business but in disengagement of the people. So the biggest killer that we have in organizations to productivity is not your process, not your technology. It's the willingness of all of the members to put their current, present thinking, energy and attention towards a common goal. And what? pulls that back is the unfinished energy of people trying to deal with the last time they weren't heard, or the disagreement with the way that the decisions came out. So it becomes a cluster of unfinished business in individuals, the ostracized, the on the edge. And so the organization essentially shrinks and shrinks and shrinks in capability, although the size stays the same. And it will go that way until the environment moves in such a way that the organization can no longer respond and it breaks. And people go, why did it break? We don't know why. And it's usually because you didn't have your organization engaged behind adapting. because they were pulled back. Col John: Jeff, is this the difference between compliance and commitment? Jeff Evans: Oh, yes, absolutely. And that's one of the ways we frame it. yes, and even if you go to the people who are disengaged, for the most part, they'll say, I am committed. But it's really not that they, it's not binary that they are or are not committed. It's just to what degree and with what part of themselves. So when we get down to compliance, what that basically means is I will commit that part of myself and my energy that beats the standards, but no more. That's, yeah, compliance is actually just a point on a scale of commitment. Yeah, what do you think about that one? Col John: Wow, that's you know, I about leaders who they get they get ⁓ compliance and they're happy with it as long as a task is getting done. They don't see that the quality of the work is low. They don't see that they could be they could produce producing X percent more if if they had commitment. ⁓ you'll get everything that compliance offers plus. Jeff Evans: Right? Right? Right. Col John: This is this is very interesting. So how do you advise a CEO or boards? How do you how do you advise them and when it comes to Getting getting commitment Jeff Evans: I have apologize for an element of cynicism ⁓ I hold in this. I hold great regard for And when we get into the business world, it becomes very ⁓ insular in terms of the focus. ⁓ And at a board level, very often they don't about anything other than are the quarterly returns being met and to what degree. So if it's one thing that I've found kind of universal it's like great what would it mean to you if those returns could be higher? What if they could be higher with minimal outlay and no capital expenditure? So they have to see it in the terms that they're looking at. So, and they go, okay, how would that happen? Then that's when you put the research hat on and the data hat, say, here's the correlations between organization performance and ⁓ employee commitment and engagement. What's yours? You know, how many complaints are you getting? How much do they cost, et cetera, you know. So you have to put it in real numbers for a board to get interested. But once they do, and then the idea is we know. as you know in the field we're in, we know that commitment gives you better performance and better yields. And so it is, we think, causative, but at least correlated. And so the idea is not to lead with, you know, commitment and compliance, our terminology is to lead with their terminology. You know, here's the data on dollars and engagement. Here's how it works. Col John: Do you do you find that boards, is there a common thing that boards tend to misunderstand about ⁓ about leadership risk, Jeff Evans: Yes, there is a common thing. And then this does vary based on what kind of board you're talking about. But the typical kind of ⁓ corporate board that has shareholders, that has ⁓ others, is that they look for senior, I'm call them leaders, what they would call leaders, the people at senior level roles who deliver their results. basically no matter what. you know, to whatever degree is necessary to hit those results. What they miss is the cost, the deeper level cost. It's like if your organization is this big and you can drive things through it to hit a quarterly goal, no matter how you treat the organization, the board is happy until they start getting complaints or lawsuits or other things like that, until something else that gets their attention breaks. But most of the time they just they don't see it. They don't know what it is. One of the things that I find very interesting, and I study these derailer patterns, like the dark triad, ⁓ psychopathy, narcissism, ⁓ Machiavellianism, and ⁓ estimate probably between like five to 10 % of CEOs and corporations are fully functional, mean, clinical psychopaths. Now that doesn't mean that they're ⁓ an axe murderer. ⁓ Col John: Mm-hmm. Jeff Evans: It means that the ends justify the means no matter what the cost. and they will do whatever they consider to be acceptable losses in their organization to get their goals met for that to deliver to their board. Col John: Wow. Jeff Evans: ⁓ You know, mean, that mentality, you know, we equate it with, you know, serial killers and things like that, but it's really much more around. ⁓ I take an immediate action to achieve one goal, regardless of the long-term consequence. Col John: Mm-hmm. Jeff Evans: Yeah, think of an emergency room physician, which is another place where this kind of mentality plays. The person hits the table and go, that leg's got to come off. This is, know, let's amputate that. Let's make all these changes so this person lives. But we don't really, in that moment, we're not trying to preserve the whole quality of their life. You know, in the moment, this is our mission and this person has to stay alive. Col John: Mm-hmm. Jeff Evans: no matter what the cost. But I, as a person, can take that action coolly, rationally, and in the moment, and do a good job of it. So think of that as a CEO. The numbers are tanking. So I need to, right now I need to amputate 20 % of my workforce right now. Show up with the chainsaw. Col John: Mm-hmm. ⁓ my. Jeff Evans: Yeah. Col John: ⁓ my. you know, Jeff, this what you're saying, it it it ⁓ of course no names. ⁓ I I've worked with a company that was losing money hand over fist. ⁓ they They started with the they broke they brought the ⁓ you know the chainsaw out. They broke that out. They tried to cut the budget and cut people to get back on track. ⁓ and my comment at the time was, you know, you can't cut your way back to being profitable. That's that's not gonna work. ⁓ thankfully they were very open to other ideas, and we talked about Jeff Evans: That's right, yeah. Right. Col John: You know, what's the impact of your leadership on your organization? And so what we did was we we literally we changed the behavior of the leadership. We had to change the behavior of the leadership. And the CEO had to take a very long, whole cold look at himself. And and ⁓ thankfully he was open to doing that. Jeff Evans: Good. Good, yeah. That's usually what it takes. Fantastic. And that's rare, actually. Col John: He was open to doing that. Yeah. And yeah. He he d yes, sir, that is rare. ⁓ that is rare because I had another company, which I shall also leave nameless, ⁓ also was losing money hand over fist. And and ⁓ I don't work with them any longer, and still to this day they are losing money hand over fist, and I am quite surprised that some people are still in place. ⁓ Jeff Evans: Right, well, they typically cut the wrong ones. Col John: Yeah, there ⁓ Jeff, y you know, you you said you said agentic AI. ⁓ And I know you're doing pioneer work with agentic AI and non-human intelligence on leadership teams. So ⁓ what you mean by non-human intelligence in this context? Jeff Evans: Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Well, it's basically not a human being sitting there telling you what they know. So our AI systems are a non-human representation of the intelligence that humans have been able to codify. So now, I mean, do you use an AI system? I mean, who doesn't? Even if we don't know where you're at, you know, go in and you type a search in the search engine, the first thing you see is a Col John: Yes I do. Yes I do. You do then, yeah. Jeff Evans: AI representation of your search. Col John: ⁓ my god, if you're using Grammarly, you're using AI. Yeah. Jeff Evans: Exactly, yeah, everything, ⁓ But many people now are saying, you know, I realize that this AI chat agent that I have could replace my team. So I can go in and I can type in my questions and I get exactly, here's the strategy, here's everything I need to know. So that is non-human intelligence. It's like your ⁓ digital executive advisor. And many people are putting that right into the middle of their leadership team as part of their discussions. That they're showing up at team meetings with their AI prepared. Thoughts, suggestions, not theirs. Now the issue with that and we call it agentic, know, and it's kind of the word that they're using for ⁓ an artificial agent that can, that has agency to be able to go out and create information like this using a large line. Col John: Mm-hmm. Jeff Evans: And by the way, I've got one patent on using this to predict leadership success and I've got 20 more being written at this current time. I've been working it for many years prior to chat GPT exploding onto the market and kind of really creating a different frame on what it means. But the idea is you've got access through your little chat, through your phone, you know, pick up right here. I've got it on my phone. Col John: Mm-hmm. Jeff Evans: Essentially, unlimited information, considered to be knowledge, not always. You think that, but it's unlimited and it's an echo chamber for my own thoughts. Because by my prompt, tell it and some of the chat systems are more than others and more willing to amplify your own thinking. Col John: Mm-hmm. Jeff Evans: And most are designed not to push back. Because if I get pushback from this, like most CEOs, I'm going to just stop listening and I'm going to go somewhere else. I'm going to consider it to be non-useful because it's wrong and I'm right. It's not telling me what I want, so I'm going to go somewhere else. Col John: Mm-hmm. Jeff Evans: So the issue is unlimited intelligence, zero pushback. You know, the question is what could go wrong? Col John: Wow. ⁓ my. Zero pushback. ⁓ my, what could go wrong? ⁓ my God. ⁓ Jeff Evans: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and so the question is not whether we use it or not because you basically have no choice. It's here. It's being used. Now we have to be deliberate and intentional when we are charged with leading an institution with how we use it. how we understand its limits, which is more than we ask of most leaders on their teams. Do we understand the limits? I mean, probably better. Well, I'm not going to ask my finance guy for HR advice. because I automatically think that's not the right source. or if I had a person on my team who could answer any question no matter how common. Col John: Mm-hmm. Jeff Evans: How would I adopt a practice of verifying? ⁓ Trust but verify. Col John: Right. Trust but verify. That's right. Yeah. Jeff Evans: Yeah, exactly. And we want to welcome input, perspective, but the idea was most large language models are trained to reflect back your thinking, your words, your bias, your language. And what we have to learn in ourselves, and this is the ultimate lesson for any leader, is how do I alter the way I... approach or the questions I ask or the way I integrate people so that ⁓ bias and blind spots are minimized. So, agentic intelligence is that AI chat that are becoming, you know, you can just talk to it, you can bring it into your Zoom meetings, you can... I was designing one recently to be a member of my team meetings, my Zoom meetings, so that we have an agentic agent that could listen to the conversation and respond. You know, it's a named agent. It has an identity. Col John: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Hmm. Jeff Evans: It has guardrails of parameters built into its training and vocalization abilities. And ⁓ it can be an active participant. It has agency. The question is, in leadership perspective, how do you treat it? Do you treat it as the ultimate authority? Do we treat it with deference? Do we treat it with reverence? Or do we treat it as ⁓ another source of intelligence? Col John: Mm-hmm. Jeff Evans: Am I answering your question or am I just running off? Col John: Yes, you are. This is this is very good. So how should a CEO how should a CEO and how sh and a board think about AI as part of the decision making without surrendering accountability? Jeff Evans: ⁓ wow, that's great. Well, we can't really fire the AI, we? I mean, good. You can cancel the subscription. the... Okay. ⁓ Col John: No, you can't. I mean can't fire him. Jeff Evans: I can't answer that without telling a slight story, if that's okay. So many years ago when I was getting my doctorate, you know, I was very into the research on these things. ⁓ we were, when I went through my academic training, the idea was not to learn more about something that's already written, it's to try and answer something that we don't already know. So it's to explore the limits of what we don't know. So when I started my Col John: Go ahead, please. Jeff Evans: program I thought, you know, I know some stuff. I got out of that and go, I don't know nothing, you know. ⁓ got nothing. ⁓ get nothing but questions. ⁓ And so, you know, to realize how little we know. So, ⁓ was studying. I was working with leadership and collaboration. as a theme, I was doing ⁓ workshops in a manufacturing facility and we were doing them cross-sectionally, which we had management, had scientists, ⁓ PhDs, MBAs, know, all this in one group and we had mechanics, process operators, truck drivers in another group, you know, the union people and the management. we're coming together to do things. And I knew enough about the HR for the system to know that, you know, and also around kind of intelligence, IQ, to know that these people, the mechanics and all, would probably have had an average or slightly above, slightly below average IQ. Whereas you get a PhD ⁓ in geophysics. chemical engineers, they've had calculus, they've had these other things. To pass calculus, you have to have a higher than average IQ. You just can't do it without it. So you go, you already know about where they are. So what I did was I devised logic puzzle exercises to be done as a group so that no one person has all the data. And to get the answer to solve this puzzle, you have to share your data. It has to be done collaboratively. And I picked puzzles that would take an above average IQ to solve. Col John: Mm-hmm. Jeff Evans: I said, okay, I'm going to give a group, two groups of people. One that I think this puzzle is probably slightly below their individual IQs and one that it's going to be above their individual IQs. Give them the same puzzle in a race condition. You've got time. Work this out. Col John: Okay. Jeff Evans: Okay, and I this repeatedly. Now, at the end of this experiment, what do you think the success rate was on the two sides, management and operators, none of whom had the IQ to solve this puzzle, and the management, all of whom had the IQ to solve the puzzle? We got 100 % completion on the mechanics side and zero on the management side. Col John: Uh-huh. Really? Wow. Wow. Jeff Evans: zero. Exactly the opposite that you would expect. What it showed was that the collective intelligence was a result of their interaction, not their individual. So the worst thing that you can be is the smartest person in the room and know everything. So I'll quote Mark Twain, one of my favorites. He says, you know, it's not what you don't know that gets you in trouble. It's what you know for damn sure that just ain't so. So that's, that's what these people were suffering with. None of them wanted to listen to anyone else. They just kept saying, I know how to do this. Just give me the data and I'll do it. I'll, I'll answer it. No, give me the data. I've got a better way. No, they'd argue the whole time. Col John: You can be. Sure. Jeff Evans: mechanics are over there, they're already finished, they're having their second donut. They're laughing and saying, you want any help over there? You know, we got it. Yeah, because for them it's like, you know, I got this piece of information, I have no idea what to do with it. What do you guys got? So it immediately started conversation and this one would be immediately people working on their paper. So that's the thing that board CEOs don't see is they get the smart people that know it. Col John: Ha ha ha. ⁓ ⁓ my. ⁓ my. Jeff Evans: and they put them together and they create the dumbest team that they can imagine. Col John: ⁓ my. ⁓ my. Smartest people in the room are not the are not gonna be helpful. So going down that road then, what's the greatest danger? Jeff Evans: Yeah. Yeah. Col John: for AI and the greatest danger? What do you see as the greatest danger in Jeff Evans: ⁓ for AI. Well, that's it. It's zero pushback. It's the smartest person in the room by far. Huge intelligence, zero judgment. Although we're working really hard to train it in, which becomes the kind of ethical dilemma about how much do you limit the knowledge ability around what and what code of conduct do you put in. When we were ⁓ working on our predictive engine, I had a group of subject matter experts, coaches, business, people who'd been doing this leadership work for a long time. And it was very easy to build the algorithmic model to tie leadership behavior to organization outcome. Super easy. You know, it's just a mechanical exercise. Now the thing we spent the most time on though, know, weeks that we would get together as a group was we would debate the ethics of what we were using as our bias for this. Because that's where the real question comes in is, you know, to what degree do you feel like you have to include this input and why? What is it in me that says that? Col John: Mm. Jeff Evans: Yeah, so that's the biggest danger is that We don't. ⁓ We don't include AI as a data source, as a participant. So it's a collective decision. It has to be a collective decision. It's not everybody says what they say and then I decide. That's a recipe for a low-performing organization. if you put up, you know, when you have working collective intelligence, the role of a leader is what is our intention? What's our mission? Where are we going? Are we making a decision towards that? I'm here to hold the community. Wait a minute, Joe over here, you've been quiet. I want to hear from you. What is your thoughts? You know, let's make sure it's safe to hear everybody. So you're much more a facilitator of thinking than you are a decider of information. Col John: Mm-hmm. Jeff Evans: The decider is an old archaic model that's false. mean, with your experience, I know enough about the training that you would have received and the code that you've lived under that says that's, you know, you're ultimately accountable for, you're responsible for. But part of that responsibility is the well-being of and the inclusion. of everybody here, you know? And that's, and John, you had the gift of having that training. Col John: Correct. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Jeff Evans: and living it in a community of like values. Whereas these CEOs and boards, most of them have never had that kind of... Col John: Yeah, this is true. Jeff Evans: Yeah, and it shows, doesn't it? Yeah, I know enough about where you come from to know that that must show and sometimes probably become even slightly like Kenny, you know, with Shackamoo. Col John: Well it keeps me in business, Jeff. It does. It does. And one of the most one of the most humorous things, Jeff, is people think ⁓ they they think, well, the well, it's well, there's some Marines and you all it's do as I say. I said, Well, ⁓ that's the movies and that's the common belief, but that's really not how it works. You try that for you try that, and I'm gonna tell you what, you'll Jeff Evans: Yeah. ⁓ right. No. No. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Col John: You're gonna go someplace and look behind you and and suddenly you're by yourself. It it it doesn't quite work like that. No, it it doesn't. Ugh. Jeff Evans: You're by yourself. All right. Or if... Yeah. ⁓ worse. Yeah, ⁓ they're ⁓ And ⁓ You got bunch of Marines back there. ⁓ Col John: Or or get or worse. It can be worse. It can be worse. Exactly right. It it can be worse. Well Yeah. Well, Jeff, tell me, the fiduciary responsibilities in the age of AI. ⁓ what does that look like? Jeff Evans: Yes. Yeah. I don't know, John. I'm trying to figure that out. You know, that's kind of the level of where we are with this, you know? Col John: Okay. Mm-hmm. Jeff Evans: the Condutiary responsibility, AI, can give you really, really accurate books. It doesn't make spelling errors. It doesn't make subtraction. I do. I've got dysgraphia. I can't add to subtract. Give me a piece of paper and tell me to add up some numbers and you're guaranteed you're going get the wrong answer. But I can type them into a spreadsheet and I can give it to AI and they're going to get it exactly right. And they're actually going to tell me the whole. of information around accounting systems. It's going to get it all. It's not going to forget about something or you know it's got everything. That's great. That's deterministic knowledge. ⁓ It's known in Noel. they can project much like we would do, like a CFO would do. Here's what that would look like mechanically. Col John: Uh-huh. Jeff Evans: But what it can't do is that on the ground, in the environment, judgment that says, what else is going on and what does our collective experiences tell us can be shifting in that? Because it doesn't sense the environment. It can only sense what's written into the internet. Col John: Mm-hmm. Jeff Evans: So it's always behind. And you don't know when you're doing projections, you don't know if it's taking a source that is pure conjecture, is pure fiction, pure opinion, or if it's taking a rigorous data, you know, source of scientific studies. But when it comes down to deterministic information, known and knowable, a body of knowledge, you know, you get, ⁓ I'll tell you that, John, slight difference. parallel, we were doing chat bots. I was supporting an organization implementing chat bots for ⁓ financial decisions and investing about 15 years ago. So it's been around a long time. ⁓ they were talking about how accurate is this going to be? And they said, well, at the time, at that point in time, chat-based attorneys were already more accurate than actual attorneys in legal items of basic legality. Here's contract law. What's legal? What's not? What fits? What doesn't? What does the code say? What are my ⁓ comps, know, or the conditions? But it's not good for ⁓ complex intuitive Col John: Well. Mm-hmm. Jeff Evans: judgment types of these. So you need that. You need that understanding for complexity. So the idea, so we were talking about fiduciary responsibility and it's the same way with accounting and accounting principles. You know, my books have to have defense accounting standards. So I can have those reviewed by AI and they can tell me like that. This is that fits, that doesn't. You know, take a look at that. It can't tell me what the outcome of that or the Col John: Mm-hmm. Jeff Evans: expensive that might be in terms of reputation analysis or an auditor's view, but it can tell me if it fits or not, black and white. So, for fiduciary responsibility, it's like a super, super accurate accountant, but it can never have the responsibility at this point. Now, whether in another year, two years, ten years, it will have a Col John: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Jeff Evans: emerged to that point, maybe, but right now it's still on that person who sits in the chair and says, I'm accountable for this organization. Col John: Mm-hmm. Jeff Evans: And I'm going to take every source of data and input that I can for what they're worth. And I'm going to use our collective intelligence to bias it. I mean, to remove the bias, to unbiased it and to smooth it into the best path forward. Col John: Mm. Jeff Evans: So, you know, fiduciary responsibility has not changed. It's still the person in the chair. Just hopefully they'll get more accurate information. Now that's the important part. Col John: There we go. Still the person in the chair. Okay. Well Jeff, as as we look forward, look ahead for a little bit. What kind of leader will be most valuable in the next I don't know, say five to ten years? What kind of leader would be yeah, that's the that's the leader we need for the future. Jeff Evans: ⁓ And I'm going to say this in general context, not just business, not just corporate. We need leaders who have. the courage to look beyond what's known, to look into the face of this emerging change, what looks like chaos of a reforming world. and to hold onto a set of principles and ideals. They need to have high inclusivity. And I'm going to say this, using the words that, you know, the DEI words that just cost us the largest contract I've ever had in my life with the government a year ago. Col John: I lost business with them too. Jeff Evans: ⁓ yeah, I lost a huge amount for that reason because we were supporting their framework. But I use those words, I mean, and this is the bad thing about organizations. Here's a principle that's really good. We need diversity in every conceivable way because this is a diverse world. You can't, I mean, it's almost... It's almost ridiculous to say that we need to talk about diversity because we are diverse. You know, it's just like, yeah, we, we need to consider air, you know, areas. It's like we make it a thing that we could choose or not choose, you know, but the diversity of thought, diversity of perspective, diversity of goals. And we need to include all of that. Col John: Mm-hmm. That's correct. ⁓ Jeff Evans: And ⁓ it needs to be fair. mean, God, you know, you can't have a leader who's there for their own gain. Now this is one that I'm going to know rings for you is the idea of service. That serving means I am here to serve the greater whole. I am not here to be served. And so too many of our legacy senior employees and executives are there to be served. They're there for their own gain. And that is a artifact of our humanity that has to die out and go away. That's according to me, the world according to Jeff, okay? Col John: Well well Jeff, I I couldn't agree with you more. Jeff, what are you working on now that that has your attention? Jeff Evans: ⁓ Well, for one thing, the agentic world, the emergence. I am working on the concept of leadership that you just talked about here. ⁓ And I'm also going to put it in here like this way. It is a very ⁓ patriarchal model. It is very ⁓ male dominated in the sense of the kind of I want to say it's an old model of being a male, you the alpha male, you know, the biggest gorilla in the room, you know, whatever, you know, as you mentioned earlier, you know, like the being in charge, the model, you know, when I was growing up, it was always John Wayne. Everybody looked at John Wayne and says, how would John Wayne do it? And I said, please don't do it that way. If you don't do it a different way. Col John: Don't do it that way. Jeff Evans: So the thing that I'm working on now, ⁓ When I first went into this, I was about as, ⁓ I would call myself a functional anarchist that was working ⁓ in ⁓ organizations because I ⁓ was there to and the field. I an OD practitioner, which is being around egalitarian levelings. Col John: Mm-hmm. Jeff Evans: which meant reducing hierarchy. And I spent 10 years with a super major oil company designing three layer organizations, three levels that were self-managed teams. And this was in the nineties. I spent the nineties doing that. And I had this whole thing around what they call leadership. When I realized that what they were talking about was not leadership, they were talking about dominance, self-serving dominance. That's what I had an aversion to. And it wasn't until later when I realized what I learned about emotional resonance and limbic tango that leadership is about leading the hearts so that the mind can function. Col John: Mm. Jeff Evans: And so I've been on that theme and now I'm seeing the emergence of the super brain, which can even further distance from this, am I as a human and who are these people with me? So that's my current thing is how do we move into this new plane of super intelligence and keep humanity, keep the human connection? mean, That's where I'm working still. Col John: Well, Jeff, how do how do people reach out to you? How can you tell us a little bit more about your organization, what they do, and how can people reach out to you and connect if they want to learn more about what you're doing and and maybe get some help from you? Jeff Evans: Thank ⁓ John. Best way is on LinkedIn. ⁓ And my LinkedIn is Dr. Jeff Evans, D-R-J-E-F-F-E-V-A-N-S. The ⁓ company that I work with, I'm CEO of Envision Global Leadership, and we're working mostly in this area of organization performance predictions and behavioral assessment around leaders. We're designed to function for CEOs and mid-level to create the kind of resonant organizations that we describe. So that's the best way to get in touch with me is LinkedIn ⁓ and yeah, Envision Global Leadership. Col John: Vision global. All right. Jeff, thank you. Thank you very much. I'm sorry, what else? There's d Yeah. Jeff Evans: show. I just had a question just for you, John, with all this together, anything emerging for you that I can provide or what stands out? Col John: Well, I tell you what, Jeff, the the things you're working on, ⁓ it it resonates with me so wholeheartedly. I mean in October I'm doing a ⁓ what I'm calling momentum. It's a it's a ⁓ It's not a conference. It's nothing like that. It's ⁓ it's an event. ⁓ but it's it's this is it's a small thing for leaders who understand that no, I can be better. The leader you described, that's what this is for. This is for that person. Let's take let's take leadership here. You mean you're you're good already. If you're not good, you probably don't need to be in the room. I'm only gonna have four or six people in there. Jeff Evans: right. Col John: And this is this is for that very I mean you almost you described him. You described it. This is that leader, the leader that's gonna take organizations into the future. And ⁓ that's what I'm working on. ⁓ I you know, I do my my coaching, I I d I love that, and I work with some truly phenomenal people. And ⁓ and so I just had this wild crazy bug, like, hey, no, just do something really small. Really small. We're gonna have it at a nice resort. It'll be a lot of fun. So ⁓ Jeff Evans: Fantastic. Great. Fantastic. Col John: So ⁓ yeah, that's that's what I'm working on. I I believe like you, I believe leadership makes the difference. It makes the difference. Jeff Evans: Yeah, yeah, and good for you for doing that. I think that's, I'm just saying, let's do it God's work, you know, if you want to put it in the context of, know, supporting humanity, being of service to the greater good. That's what we need. That is what we need as a world. That's what we need as humans. And it's what this planet needs from humanity. And ⁓ good for you. Good for you. Col John: Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yes, we do. Thank you. Thank you, Jeff. Well, Jeff, ⁓ I can't thank you enough for being here. It's you were absolutely spectacular. I mean, just really wonderful. And ⁓ for those who are listening in, ⁓ hey, remember leadership is is too important to to not take seriously. And if you need help, look into Jeff. Jeff can give you some help with. Jeff Evans: Well, thank you. Col John: being able to guide you and your organization safely into the future. That's really that's what being a senior leader is all about. It's guiding your organization safely into the future. Okay? All right, well hey, that's it on this end. Out here. Jeff, thank you so much. Jeff Evans: Thank you. Thank you.