Latest / Commander's Intent / Can AI Replace the Value of Networks with Judd Borakove

Transcript

Can AI Replace the Value of Networks with Judd Borakove · Commander's Intent

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_02: Have you ever frozen in the key moment of making a critical decision?
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_02: Whether it's in business or in life, it can cost you everything.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_02: Commander's intent will teach and inspire you how to lead with clarity, courage, and purpose.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: So here's your host, retired Air Force Colonel, fighter pilot, and your leadership mentor, Derek Oak.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Today we've got as our guest Judd Borakovan.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Judd is a six-time C-suite executive.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: He's had three exits.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: He's worked as a CEO, CRO, CMO, and those different types of responsibilities.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: And as an example, he built Uprise, one of his companies, from a$60,000 to about a$5 million ARR.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: And he helped build GTM partners and he advises companies on growth and execution.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And now he co-founded Talent Fueled.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things I really like about other than his very openness to talk, and he has a very collaborative approach to things, which is exactly what we want on this show.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: He has a desire to get feedback from people.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: He has a desire to share what he has.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: And he he really believes in the value of networking.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: And one of his arguments, I would say, is that when he look at sales, marketing, customer success, or people problems, often he sees them not as a sales problem or as a marketing problem or customer success problem, but as a system alignment problem.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: And he often discusses why organizations struggle to turn strategy into coordinated action.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: I believe firmly that it's great to have a vision.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: And you have to start with that vision and ask yourself, where are we going with that vision, creating that strategy?
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: But if I don't have an action plan that follows that up, it's just a cool story sitting on a bookshelf like we all have sitting here behind us.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's I'm going to turn the time over to Judd a little bit to do an introduction of where he's come from, what his focus is, what you like, and then we'll field some questions.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: So go ahead, Jud.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you guys for having me.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: Too bad we didn't keep all the stuff that we started before this uh on because I think we had some great conversations, but maybe we'll come back to them.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: So my experience, you know, many, many moons ago, I tried many things.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: And what I just always found was it wasn't about me doing a good job.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: It was me doing a good job, but making sure that others around me had what they needed so we could all be successful together.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I kind of took that into my world of being.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: I started in sales and marketing and I kind of grew up there.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: I ran some companies, grew some, flubbed some, the usual.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: And just throughout time, I just keep finding and coming back to the most important thing we can do is to help each other.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: So I've always looked for ways to drive value through collaboration and integration of people.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: You talked a little bit about AI and where that's going before we got on here.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think we'll get there.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: But the reality is no matter how good AI gets, humans are still here.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: And if we don't find ways to work well together and to respect each other and look for solutions for bigger problems, not just for ourselves, we're going to fall backwards.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I have some, I have a company that I started that specifically is about how do we unify people in thought, in action, in understanding, and in experience.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: And if we can do that, I think, like you said, you know, the rising tide lifts all ships.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: We all get better, we all do better, we all move forward.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: And life gets a little bit easier.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: So that that's kind of how I see the world.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate that.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: As you're talking, I think back to a lot of my time in the military, and we had inner service rivalries where you poke fun at the army, you poke fun at the Navy, and they do the same to us.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: And there are a lot of jokes that that I could repeat elsewhere that they make fun of the other services.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of value in that.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: But when it comes down to like an operation, I've been involved in many joint operations.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: When it comes down to at the tactical level, the operator is figuring things out.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's very collaborative, and nobody cares about who's getting the credit for it.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody cares about what you're there to solve a problem.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: And when I first got into the commercial world, the business world, the term NDA almost made my skin crawl.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: It just really bothered me of like, what, you don't trust me?
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: And you think I'm going to share information?
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: And why can't I share information?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because we're all in this together, we're all here to win.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: And now I understand the value of NDAs, but that's so antithetical to the mindset of the military operator.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you get in a room, you make sure everybody has the right clearance, and you say, okay, how do we solve for X?
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that's everybody's approach.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the number of people that became my de facto instructors on the spot because I needed help with something.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: That was just a very regular thing.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so I really love your approach to that.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: Could you tell us a bit of a little bit about your latest product?
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Industrial field.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Could you tell us a little bit about that?
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then how that fits into this mindset that you have.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, so coming to industrial is was not like automatic.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: I've been in tech uh for most of my career.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I started doing a lot more industrial over the last four or five years, running into people.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: Impact, one thing that that you can have at industrial still, I think, that that is really important.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I kind of started finding my way over to more of an industrial perspective.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I just find that there's a lot of need.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: So one thing that I found is some industrial companies are fantastic.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: This is not saying industrial is all is one way or another, but I find that certain systems tend to be antiquated because there's just not a big push to move them forward.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then a lot of the information that these amazing operators have lives in their head, right?
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's not something that they're going and looking at AI and asking questions to it or writing pieces on it.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's they're operating on a daily basis to make their company better, to make the money that they want for themselves, for all the people that work there, and just improvement of the world.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that information is probably one of the most important, most valuable things that they have.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: And it doesn't come out of the head.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I started something called the operators' table, where we bring together these operators around what is happening, right?
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I go and I interview and talk to tons and tons of operators.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: If you ever want to have a conversation, anyone out there, please ping me.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: Love to learn from you and add value where I can.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: But then we kind of take what we learn, what we call signals.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: So instead of just the story that you told, what is that really?
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: What is the signal behind it?
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: Are we seeing that somewhere else?
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: Then we take those, turn them into hypothesis, and we kind of bring them to a round table, six to ten great operators together who are dealing with similar problems.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: Now, what do we do?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: We bring that in, we say, great, here's our topic, and we get different perspectives from different people who are doing different things.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: They may be doing, like they may be in the same industry, but not, they're tangential.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: They're not competitive.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: So now we're seeing these different perspectives of the same problem and getting new ways to see it, look at it, and attempt to solve our issues.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: But also we're getting an insight into what's coming.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of times, you know, we can't see too far ahead of us, as we all say, like you get you want to see around the corner.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: The more times you capture a signal, the more real it becomes.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: So all the data people here know the more signal you get, the more real we know that data point is.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: So we try to get as much information and as many signals as possible to show, yes, this is real or no, it's not.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: So that anybody who wants to say, what is coming?
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: What do I need to be preparing for?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: What's around that corner?
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna start knowing.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: And the more people that do it, the more important and better this information, these signals become.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: We feed that back into the system and we keep replicating.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: So it's one of those things where you're gonna wind up as a offshoot, getting a great network of people.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: But the reality is you're gonna get the insights to make your company better and in a timely manner that are gonna make you kind of leapfrog all of your content.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: I really love when you talked about stuff that resides in people's heads and it doesn't show up on paper, it doesn't show up in any field manual.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: And and I think of like a biography sometimes.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes biographies can be the most fascinating because you're not focused on the how-to, you're not focused on the specific actions, you're focused on the why did they do that?
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: How did they do that?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: What were they thinking?
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: What are the feelings that they had?
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: And all those things play into the decision that they made and how they made that decision.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the same thing with industry, it's the same thing really with any job.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: You only get a snapshot of that in business.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's like watching the news at night and you turn on the five o'clock news or whatever time you watch the news and you watch the 30-minute segment, and you may get five or six different stories.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, if you think you have the story because those little segments, you're woefully off base because you don't.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: You have number one, one side of it, you have what that editor wanted to put on the screen, and you're missing a ton of content.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas if you're able to sit down with that individual and get the full story and talk to them about just over lunch, discuss what they're doing, why they were doing what they were doing, your opinion may come away very differently of what it is.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: So let me ask you, I I really appreciate this.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna kind of take this question a little bit further.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: We talked very briefly about AI and the value of networks, and and you've kind of highlighted the value of networks.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: What does it look like going forward?
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: And what you're trying to do, I think is admiral.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's fantastic, where you're trying to create an environment where in the industrial realm, people can talk to each other and people can solve problems and share information that isn't gonna come out in an email or a field manual.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: What is the what is the the first thing I'm gonna say, just just as a side note, one of the things we like to say is the stories stay here, the signals leave.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: So, in other words, you can say whatever you want, we're not gonna capture that.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: We're capturing kind of what's behind it.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: As far as the this kind of network and and just having access to humans, I think it's gonna become more important, much more important, honestly.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: And look, everything that I say is is opinion backed by as much data as I have, so nothing is 100% fact in any way, shape, or form.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: I say that up front.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: The way I've seen it and the data that I've seen that supports it says that we have become less and less social as humans.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: Things like social media, we don't even talk to people, we just see pictures or images or videos that we then think are real.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: But we all already know most of the time, the amount of time spent manufacturing these things to look a certain way or sound a certain way is enormous, right?
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: Humans don't look the way that most people portray themselves.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: So at some point, the reality of human interaction is gonna become so, so important.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: And why I think it's also really important is a level of what I call trust.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: We are at a point where trust is probably the lowest it has been in our existence.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know many people who would argue that.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: We don't trust people calling us, hey, you're gonna sell me something, right?
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: We don't trust doctors, oh, they don't know what they're talking about.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: We don't trust lawyers, oh, they suck.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'll go to ChatGPT and figure it out, right?
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like we don't trust anybody.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so the buying environment is harder, right?
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: Relationships are harder, connectivity is harder.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: So if we can create places where people can build trust in a safe environment, I think that the value is just astronomical.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: So it's why I'm doing what I'm doing.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: I want to provide a place where people feel that they can actually talk to humans and actually engage with humans and hear them and see their reaction.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: Because I don't know about you guys.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, look, human reaction, like you look at somebody's face as they're talking, you get a pretty good read on, right?
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I can't see ChatGPT's face.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I can't see Claude's face.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: I wish I could, it'd be funny.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: And the reality is, I think we're too dependent right now on things like AI.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: We think it's going to solve every problem.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: But as an example, right now, here's kind of like some of the things like that that ChatGPT may say something like, Oh, yeah, you're right, outbound is dead.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: So people say that all over.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: But in industrial, that's not the case at all.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I don't just say it for industrial, but just there's certain things that like we don't know until we talk to people with experience.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: And even AI, as good as it is, it can only work on the data that we provide it.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: What is one of the things we are the worst at around the world, and every company knows it is data.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's messy, it's not structured well, it's in too many systems.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: So, how can I trust that it's giving me the right answer?
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where I think the connectivity, the network is going to become extremely important.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna find people who are like, well, you've done this before, I've done this before.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: I want to be your friend.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: I want to be connected to you so we can talk about the things that we're seeing at a level that most people don't understand.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: So, to your point, I think it's going to be one of the most important things going forward.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: I used to say it was going to be creativity.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: At this point, I think it's just human connection.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: I want to touch on something that you said about trust.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I hadn't really thought of it in these terms, but that's exactly what it is.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think of, and I'm not giving dating advice or marriage advice right now, but I want to make that clear.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: But you go back a hundred years, 150 years, and marriages were often arranged.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Or it was, I only have there's only one young woman in my entire town, so I guess I'm marrying her.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: And yet the willingness to do that and the trust that they would put in each other, knowing very little about each other, dating, courting for a very short amount of time, and getting married.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't mean that all those marriages lasted perfectly, although the the success, I would say the success rate of marriages has declined pretty dramatically.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a level of trust there that I got your back, you got my back, and there are things I don't know about you, but that's okay because I know what's most important.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now you go today, and what you can find out about a potential suitor, and then before you get engaged to somebody, the amount of data you can find out about them, and not only the amount that you can find out, but it begs the question of well, how much do I not know about this individual?
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm and I've heard my own kids say, well, you got to date for at least X amount of time so that you know that individual.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: And my retort is maybe, but if you have trust and a commitment, then you don't need that.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: But that trust is not there.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost like you're so overwhelmed with data you don't know what to do with it.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: And you feel like I'm missing something, so there must be more.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then the data that that we do get paints marriage in a very negative light.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Or you hear about all the axe murderers out there and the failed relationships that you worry so much about things like that.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: So you're worrying about your trust.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's really important, that's an important point about it.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I was just gonna say that it's interesting to me that you know, here you are, Jen, you're working in, you know, the highest level, working with industrial components, and that's usually very technical, very engineering driven.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_03: And yet the the one takeaway you've taken out of it is it's all about connections, it's about networks, it's about relationships.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that if you dig into almost every single industry, almost everything we've talked about over the last year with Derek and I, it really is about trust and relationships.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_03: Those that's such an important piece.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_03: We had a a podcast we did probably two months ago with a joint terminal attack controller, and that was almost the entire core of the entire discussion was about you know, how do you have trust with somebody who's getting ready to drop a bomb very close to you that you've never met?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_03: You're just talking on the radio, and yet we build that trust.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think it would be interesting to do some cross-communication with some of the folks that you're working with, you know, in your industrial setting, with some of the stuff that like Derek and I did, because on the battlefield, you don't get a chance to build trust with people, but the trust has to be inherent, and it might be worthwhile to look at how we bring that same model out to business as we become so socially disconnected.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: One thing though, we used to have what I like to call systemic trust.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: If you believe that the system that is operating is right, is good enough, you have a trust in it.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: In the military, the system has been like you come up through the ranks, you understand the system, you can say, okay, I trust they're gonna be where they're supposed to be.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: That is not always the case in most systems.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: And what we see in business is most systems are flawed.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: And to Derek's intro, right, one of the things that I've seen time and time again is it's not like the one sales guy or the sales leader or the marketing guy or the marketing tactic.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's generally the interoperability of them, like the handoffs and the things that occur that the customer doesn't see that breaks.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: When we give people different objectives, different goals that don't completely unify them.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, guess what we get?
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: People going in different directions.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: That brings about mistrust.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that unfortunately we just see too much of that across the board from a business perspective.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: And now, I would say a living perspective.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know from a military, I mean, I would assume there's probably been some issues there, not you know, just with the way humans have become.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: But if we lose trust, I think the world is in for a very bad time.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: It makes every decision so much more painful.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: It breeds hesitation, it breeds uncertainty.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it breeds hair loss and gray hair and worry because you're stressed about what what is the decision that I'm making right now?
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: What is it gonna do to my future?
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because you control so little of the outcome and you don't trust the other entities that do control it.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_03: But Derek, it's not just painful, it's it's costly.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_03: You know, go back to what Judd said earlier.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_03: It's like you or Jud, you know, hey, you don't trust the doctor, you don't trust the lawyer.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_03: Well, now you spend an inordinate amount of time.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yeah, GPT or Claude or whatever can do it very fast, but you're spending a tremendous amount of time trying to become an expert on something that someone already is, if you only could have the trust in them.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_03: And I think it's interesting, Judd, when you talked about the different sales people, I watched it in the civilian company I worked for last where we had customer service reps that were talking to the passengers that we would go to pick up, and there were huge disconnects between what the customer service reps would tell the customers and what I, as the operator, the guy that's actually delivered the product, would give to them.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_03: And I never figured out how to bridge that gap or how to bring it together.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_03: I think to your point, I think that's probably we just didn't have the same goals, we didn't have the same driving vision.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_03: So, how do you, in your capacities as a leader or as the guy that's now trying to help people from from the sideline, how do you help people recognize that and realign their systems, their goals, and all the processes that are involved in these things, how do you get them to recognize that and fix those things?
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's the the$50 million question these days.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: Identifying those types of things is difficult.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: Because first off, if you put everybody into a room, everybody wants to point the finger.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's not our fault, it's theirs.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: Because let's be real, in a job, we we take care of our family, our money, all these things come from it.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: So people are very protective.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: They're like, I didn't do anything wrong, it's not my fault.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the first thing we have to do is create an environment of trust.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, say what needs to be said.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: If it was your team, that's fine, but we still need to fix it.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: And unfortunately, what we do is we throw around, you know, these like faults instead of saying, hey, I recognize that's what's going on.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: I always say the best leaders know when it's time to give up theirs to for the better of the good or the good of the best, whatever.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: So as an example, I've sat in C-suites numerous times.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: There are times where you get a budget and realize that that budget is not best spent with you.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: And you'll learn very quickly that no executive wants to give up their budget.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: But sometimes if you look at the greater good of the organization, what you're trying to accomplish, you realize that that money needs to go somewhere else and you give it up.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: Those are hard decisions to make, but they're also the ones that make companies better and all the people in the organization better too, because that's how they start thinking.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: So if you ever want to sit in an executive role, you need to understand that it is not your team anymore, it's the organization.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that that's how we need to approach things is the organism, the organization, whatever it is, is our top priority.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a priority level.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: My team is very important.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: I will always take care of them, I will always look out for them.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: But there are times where I understand that for the best aspect of the organization, I have to make really tough calls.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes that means we get rid of people, sometimes that means we elevate people.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: But the reality is as long as you do your do right by them and you take care of them, even with those decisions, you're creating a level of trust.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: So really it's it's creating the system, creating that trusted environment is number one.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because until that exists, nobody's gonna look at where the fault is.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so it's interesting that you mentioned those things.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_03: Derek and I, all sorry, I'll talk about a second, Derek, but I'm gonna mention this real quick.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_03: This is something Derek and I have touched on immensely because the the original idea for this podcast when we started talking about it was not really commander's intent.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_03: The original idea, the thought, the podcast was the thing we called the debrief.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_03: Because both Derek and I, as military pilots and as military operators, we had to debrief every time we went out and practiced or exercised or did, and we did it the way you're exactly talking about.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_03: You check your ego at the door, you check your rank at the door, and you talk about hey man, you were 30 seconds late on that target.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_03: What happened?
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_03: And it's not a fault finding, it's not a finger pointing, and it's not trying to make everybody look like an idiot.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think it's interesting, like I said, this is a great conversation because I'm seeing an awful lot of crossover on the things that you're working on and the things that Derek and I have discussed.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_03: So it's it's really kind of enlightening to me to see how widespreads some of these issues and problems are uh uh across the spectrum of human understanding.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to shift gears a little bit here uh and talk about some of the work that you've been doing because it it all takes us down this same path of how do you make an organization better?
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: How do you make an environment better?
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times I know that you've walked into organizations and you know it's struggling.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: And how do you distinguish between a bad strategy and poor execution of a good strategy?
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of testing, but years ago I created a little bit of a system that just kind of shows and points to whether it is an execution issue or a strategy issue.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: Because generally, if I understand what's supposed to happen when execution occurs, if I look for that signal, if it occurs, I know execution is working.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: If it doesn't occur, it is not.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: And generally, when you know execution is occurring properly, it is a strategy problem.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's just how it is.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: It can't be both.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: So if execution of the strategy is occurring as expected, but the outcome is different, we've got a strategic issue and we need to look at it.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: Now, does one signal tell us that?
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: No, you've got to watch it and you need multiple signs.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: I learned this long ago.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: I dated a woman who is a PhD chemist, and we can make data tell any story we want to.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: And generally, if I'm invested in it, I want it to tell the story that I needed to tell.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: So that becomes a challenge.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: It can't just be about the data.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: It can't just be about like my vision of it.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: It needs to be how we see it and what it is saying from a different level, different perspective.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: As I'm sitting here listening to you talk about we get wedded to or invested in information, I think that sometimes, going back to Rob's point, that can be a detriment to going into that debrief.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: We have this bias towards being right.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: And we went into it thinking our ideas were right, and then we've invested a lot of time and resources.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: And Our pride into something working out in a certain way.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: And if it doesn't, we can get a little bit defensive on that.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: But and that's where, like Rob said, checking your ego at the door, checking your rank at the door, checking your the the nameplate on your door at in the debrief room and actually going through the full debrief of what really happened.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: This collaboration in a fighter squadron.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: I don't I've never met a never been to a fighter squadron that didn't have attached to it a fighter squadron bar.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of people on base would say fighter pilots are a bunch of alcoholics.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's not true.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: There may have been an amount of alcohol consumed in those locations.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: The point was we would go in there and you would have a debrief.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: That was like the informal debrief.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: You have your formal debrief, but then going into the bar sometimes at the end of the day, and sometimes to an extensive amount on Friday, where you just talk and you get comfortable with each other.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: And in a very informal way, you kind of talk through what you went through.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: You let your guard down a little bit.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes I'm not a drinker, but I've seen it enough where pride goes away a little bit, their inhibitions go away, and they share information that they may have been a little bit slow to share in that kind of environment.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: How do you set something like that?
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now, not every, I'm not advocating that every organization has a fighter squadron bar where on Friday everybody goes and gets hammered and goes through the week, but how do you set up an environment where people can kind of let their hair down and talk freely about things to where some of the inhibitions that come with your title and and your position go away even further?
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's not easy.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: I will say the military is a really interesting case study because things like you know, the fighter pilot bar is something that can be had because people tend to live on base or close to base.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: They operate around each other all day, every day.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas in business, we go home at the end of the day, or we shut our laptop and go hang out with the family and then don't talk about it anymore.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: So one is creating the right environments for these things to occur.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: So the fighter pilots bar is a perfect example of an environment where people go and feel like, hey, this is a safe environment.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: This is a place where this is what occurs.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: Most people don't get the opportunity to do these debriefs in a way that isn't so structured that it feels unsafe.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like I don't know many people who go into a boardroom and say, I'm gonna say whatever comes to mind.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: They're like, I've got to be careful what I say because I can get in trouble and lose my job.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: And that that automatically sets the stage to say, you don't want to hear what I have to say.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: We have to make it okay in these environments that no matter what comes out of your mouth, it's fine.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I don't care if it was stupid, you know, say it.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: We're not gonna judge you for it.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: We all have those moments.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: So this all circles back to that creating an environment of trust.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I just think some companies are so good at it.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: They have places in their offices, they have time allocated to teams, they have, you know, shared resources.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: For example, one of the things I advocate pretty heavily for is let's say you're in sales, you should do a stint in marketing, you should do a stint in customer success.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: You should do a stint with all of the other organizational structures that you are a part of in one way or shape or another.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because if I don't understand how you operate, my suggestions may be horrible.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: My feedback may not help you in any way.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: So once we start to understand each other, that creates more of an environment of trust.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why I always say get your people in different organizational structures, even if it's short term, even if it's like do a week here or there, it just lets us all see through a different lens.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: And that sometimes creates a level of trust.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: Cause you know, that time where you just go like, I didn't realize that's how hard that was.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, in what we call go to market, which is sales marketing, CS and all the operational components, I say whatever touches customer money is go to market.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: In go to market, those pieces need to operate together well.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: And most of the time we don't understand how they operate together.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: We just go, you know, marketing hates sales.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: Why does marketing tell us, oh, sales says all of our leads suck?
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: They're wrong.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: Sales is like, all their leads suck, they're wrong, right?
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: And and no one sat there and saying, what does it take to get a lead?
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: And what what are we told they're supposed to look like?
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: And how are we incentivized?
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: When I understand these things, I start understanding the person and the job and how it all functions.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: And now I can see how do we work better together versus how do I get it.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I used to say two things when uh I was in the Air Force.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: I would say, I want you to believe and work to make your squadron the best squadron in the Air Force.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: But I also want you to accept that the guy in the next squadron is trying to do the exact same thing.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not a competition about that squadron.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's not we become better at the expense of that other squadron.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's we're trying to do our best as they are trying to do their best.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: And the other thing I would say all the time is know where your squadron fits into the rest of the Air Force.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: In this case, it would be nowhere your sales department fits in the rest of the company or your marketing department fits in the rest of the company.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because what it means is that you're constantly looking for an appreciation of how everything fits together and what what how your roles impact the roles of the other divisions and departments.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you do that, you're probably gonna be better at your own job.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: You're probably gonna be less disparaging about those other positions.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: The organization is gonna function a little bit better.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: I I mean, for example, and you guys will get this one.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're gonna go up in a fighter jet, you know, and you got the guy who loads your weaponry and he doesn't understand how you use your weaponry, you might have a problem, right?
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: You go hit the button and it doesn't do what you think it should.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: Hmm, that'd be horrible.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted a delayed fuse, and instead he gave me an impact fuse.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's a game changer in a negative way when I'd go to drop that bomb.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: So it it's imperative.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: It I find it funny how much we compartmentalize like business as it's not life, it's business.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: And the reality is everything we learn in life, we should take into business.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: It is the the lessons hold, you know, the understanding, you know, like family dynamics, right?
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_01: You may not love the person, you may not like the person next to you, but they're your family and you're gonna take care of them.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's kind of the same thing.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to war together.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I like to use that is in in every, if it's a real battle, if it's a business problem, it's we're going to war together.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: You are in this with me.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: You're in the trenches with me.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: This is not a, you know, I'm going to push you out.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's we are for us to survive, we need to work together.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that's how I like to approach business is that this is mission critical always.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a the world is ending mission critical rule, but it's mission critical in that if we don't work well together, we have a problem that is going to affect everybody else.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: And that's just not fair.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: No, another way of looking at that, another part of that I think is I would say that that the beatitudes don't just apply on Sunday.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that the Ten Commandments or whatever it is that you believe don't just apply on your day of rest.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: They apply throughout the entire week and how you treat people and how you interact with people.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: If your God is teaching you to interact in a certain way, you probably should interact that way seven days a week.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that goes back to the trust thing, that it goes back to it's an integrity issue, and it it makes it a whole lot easier to know where people are coming from and know what to expect of people so that you're getting along with them.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I have kind of an odd question here.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: So when, at what point does collaboration become a liability?
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: Once there's a system in place that has been working, you can collaborate a little too much.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, like everything should not be a democracy.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I know you guys being military understand this probably better than most.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: There are times where it is important to leave good enough alone.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: There are times where you still should look for incremental improvement.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: But why am I going to focus on this little teeny thing and have everybody worried about it and focused on it when we have a bigger systemic problem that we haven't even addressed?
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: So there's times where collaboration dictates where we look.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes that's a problem because we still need somebody who can keep an eye on the bigger picture, who can say, here's our biggest problem.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: Let's put our focus here.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: And that comes back to trust again.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: You got to trust that that person is seeing the board the right way.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: I always tell people, if you don't trust the people you're working with, go get a new job.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like, quite frankly, it's like if I can't trust the people I'm working with, how do I work efficiently or effectively?
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're in that kind of a role where and or in a position where you're in a company and you're just like, I don't trust the people around me, like I highly recommend going to get a new gig.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: Find someplace where you trust the people, where you you know they have your best interests in mind.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: And it is important.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: Mondays won't be bad anymore.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: I like to, I have a saying, I just say Monday's the best day.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: Most people dread Mondays, right?
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: I just say Monday's the best day because now I get to collaborate and work with great human beings and do some amazing stuff.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: Now, some of that's I tell myself that because you know we all have that, you know, hey, I just got out of Sunday.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: But the reality is it's it's by approaching life that way, I find I bring out, and and all of us bring out the good in people and we get better results.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: I agree with that.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: I I actually love Mondays also.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I've got five days to go through my task list.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: I've got five days to do amazing things, and I hope I get a portion of them done this time.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: And when you were talking about collaboration, I and I asked you that question purposely because here we are talking about the importance of networking, the importance of talking.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I think sometimes we talk so much that we forget who has authority, who has responsibility, who has been empowered to do something.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: If somebody's been empowered to do something, you're actually, if you say, hey, go talk to this team, when they already have decision-making authority, it's not that you don't want them talking, but at some point you want them to make a decision and you want them to feel like they have the authority, the power, the resources to make that decision.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're encouraging them to talk beyond talking productivity, you're actually inhibiting that feeling that they're trusted, that they are empowered to make that decision.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, think of the term in the Air Force, it's general officer steering group.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: That means that's where decisions go to die.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like, well, we're not sure about this, so we're gonna bring a bunch of generals in so we can talk about it.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: And it just gets talked about.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, who's responsible for this decision?
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: Let them handle it, let them take care of it.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like tiger teams.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna bring in a team to handle a certain problem.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, how about we decide who's responsible for it?
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: Let's empower them with that decision and get out of their way.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: And if they want to help and they want to talk to people, then great.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: But that's how I see when collaboration can become a liability when we just want to talk more.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think I said this on a recent show, you know, Blue the Bear, who's talking to Pegir, is like, you're gonna talk some more?
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, let's stop talking and start doing.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's when it can be negative to an organization.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_03: I had another question that'll kind of take us back to what we were just talking about, but I like this this kind of discussion because I think it is important to get these things all right.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_03: And I think you're focused, you know, kind of on the process, the system.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_03: I like the way you put the idea that if the process is working correctly and we're not getting the results we want, then there's a strategy problem, or vice versa.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_03: If if we got breaks in the process, let's fix the problem.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_03: But the funny thing is, in every company that I've been in and the civilian world, all of these barriers are put between every division, between every level, nobody wants to tell anybody anything.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_03: They all want to protect their their cells and their little rice bowls and their people, and they feel like they're doing the right thing.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_03: And yet, we all know, based on this discussion we're having right here today, we all know that that's like you're not getting the right communications, you're not getting the like right collaborations, you're not fixing the right problem, you're not fixing the system.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_03: So, why is it that companies struggle to fix those kind of issues?
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_03: It seems to me it's endemic in a lot of civilian corporations if you read the news or or even look at your own personal experience, that all the things that we're saying are bad are random in a lot of the companies that we've seen and watch in the news.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_03: How do you, as a guy that has been there or done before, is advising another company?
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_03: How do you help the boss say, Hey, but you gotta kick that guy a little bit in the butt and tell him to stop giving you crap?
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_03: Like give me something real.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: How do you so lots lots of good stuff here?
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: I want to go back to one thing Derek said though, just or the the line of of that we were going down.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: We the the funny part is we give people ownership of a process, but then we don't give ownership to the overarching outcome.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: And if we don't have ownership here, the rest is irrelevant.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: So where I try to yeah, when I go into executive level meetings, I try to ask very simple questions.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: So who owns that?
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: And if you can't tell me who owns that decision, that outcome, whatever it is, we already know where to start.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: No ownership means nothing.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't care what your level is, you could have a junior person who has ownership over it.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: And they should have the right to tell that executive, like, this is how we're doing it, because you gave me the ownership to take it over.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: And until those types of things happen, I think companies struggle.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: Look, we have one of the highest, well, or we'll just say lowest success rates of companies in a long time.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: More companies start up and fail than you could shake a stick at.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: And it's because of these types of things.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody is teaching what real culture is and how to create it, or what real leadership is or how to do it, or how to just step up, right?
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of people are afraid to step up now.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like, hey, I want to take that on, but they're not gonna say anything because they're afraid, like, how is this gonna make me look?
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: And unfortunately, the reality is the people who get ahead today are just vocal.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's not that they're great, they're vocal.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: And that's okay.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: But I I would love to see us get more value out of all of the people in our organizations.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you hire a hundred people, you should get a hundred people worth of value.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: And we don't, you know, at best, we're getting a quarter because there's too much bureaucracy, there's too many loopholes, there's too many doors that are closed, you just can't walk through.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: As soon as we start opening those, as soon as leadership looks at it as we're a leadership team, not this is mine and that's yours, that's when things start to change for an organization, right?
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: They go, how do we work better together?
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: How do we create the one team environment?
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: Because the reality is, how can we have five companies in one, right?
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: Look at sales, they act as their own company marketing, acts as its own company ops, acts as its own company, it's their fault, it's their fault.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: Well, if we keep doing that, then there's no way.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: So we have to kind of take a step back and look at things from the perspective of like who owns each outcome or project or whatever it is, and give that to them.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: Let them own it so that we can focus on different things too.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: Now people are moving in the right direction.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: We have ownership here, and now we layered on the understanding and trust.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: We have a great company.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I would say if you look at some of the best companies in the world, their cultures of sharing are what made them that way.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you can go back to Google.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't say they're the same as they used to be.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's some bureaucracy that's kind of finding its way in.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_01: But why did they grow so fast?
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: They trusted their people, they empowered their people, they wanted the intelligence, right?
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: They were hiring people for how great and smart they were.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: They weren't hiring just to be a cog.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where, you know, if you take that kind of model and bring it into your company and say, like, we have so much value in the company already, how do we harvest that?
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's where we start.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I heard something.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: I heard something that Elon Musk said recently.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if he said it recently, but I heard it recently.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm paraphrasing here.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: He said, but I don't, he goes, I patent very little.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: I claim very little intellectual property because I know by not doing so, I can move faster and I can share more robustly and more quickly so that my team can move forward.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that what I'm creating now is gonna be obsolete in a year, five years, 10 years anyway.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I I think about that in the military.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we get very protective of information, we get very protective of classified information, and that can inhibit the execution of an operation.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas if I just sprint with it, it I don't care if the enemy knows because they can't keep up with me.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: They're not gonna catch me.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that that's one element of being collaborative in organizations.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: Even in organizations, sometimes people get very protective of their information because they think that's their value.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: They think that that's where they're contributing to the team, so they're gonna protect it.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: You just mentioned five different companies within one.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you have 5,000 companies within one.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: You have every single employee protecting their rice ball and protecting what they're contributing to the team instead of seeing themselves as a team member and working forward with it.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I I had another question for you.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is about when you look at bosses and as they're analyzing data, is there one metric that you see that executives routinely obsess over that cause them to make bad decisions or cause them to be hesitant to make a decision in the first place?
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the the easy one's revenue.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: People drive their entire business based on revenue and it's a lagging indicator.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it says, hey, six months ago, this is what you did and here's your outcome.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: I think that I personally like to find the one major metric that drives the organization.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: So there may be the one thing that if we look at this, this is going to tell me the health of my organization at any given point in time.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_01: Most companies don't have those.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, so many do.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: I take that.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: Many, many do.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: They understand this concept, but there's a lot that don't.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_01: They kind of just look at the standard metrics that people throw out there and say, this, I guess, is what it is.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, if we go back, interesting example.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you guys know LaCroix, the fizzy drink.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_01: For a long time, they had one metric about the consumption in a certain way.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_01: They use that, and that's how they became what they are.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody knows who LaCroix is.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_01: They've got tons of follow-ons now.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_01: But it was one that literally someone tried to sue them over, said, you can't use that.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, why?
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: And they found the metric that drove the growth and health of their organization.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_01: There's many like it.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_01: So data is great.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: Understanding your numbers is wonderful, but looking at the right ones is imperative, right?
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_01: There's just, there's too much to look at.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I always say, if you're looking at the lagging indicators, you've already lost.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_01: We always say, like, you know, if we understand what our sales cycle is, okay, if I've got a 12-month sales cycle, you know, I know that what I'm doing right now, I'm probably not going to see the results for 12 months.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I have to be constantly evolving over that 12-month frame and looking at it on a running basis.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: Marketing, we say, you know, it could take three months to see the value of what we're putting in market right now.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: So what I'm working on now, I don't see for a full quarter, right?
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_01: So there's no, we have to do it today.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_01: That means that three months from now, maybe we see it.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: And those things I think are not communicated well.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: The understanding of like how do you look at and utilize the data and what does that really tell you?
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: Because standard metrics, I mean, great, you know, uh value per head count and things like that.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_01: They're great and they do tell you a lot, but generally it's an after-effect.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: So if I'm somebody who's investing in a company, of course I'm going to look at the lagging indicators because I want to understand how they did up to this point.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: But as an individual in an organization, I better be looking at everything.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: It tells me what's coming down the way.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, as you're saying that, I'm thinking about being a flight instructor and controlling performance instruments.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's the way the Air Force teaches.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: You have control instruments, which is something I control and where I put the stick, where I place my power on my attitude indicator, how many degrees nose high am I pulling the aircraft, or how many degrees nose low am I pointing the aircraft, how many degrees of bank am I putting in?
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: The performance instruments are really the lagging indicators.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: You can tell that a young pilot is looking at the performance instruments if he's in a pilot-induced oscillation where he's constantly S-turning on his course, or he's constantly climbing up and then descending down, climbing up, descending down because he's watching the wrong instruments.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: He's not paying attention to the right instruments.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: So as a result, he's just chasing things instead of being assertive and setting the ones that really matter.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so I really love that the discussion about lagging, the lagging indicators, the lagging data, you know, statistics.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: Just to put some context to even what you just said, if you get the guy who's oscillating and moving versus the guy who's stay flying steady, you know you're going to see one guy start pulling away.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_01: And that's business too.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: If you're watching the wrong things, you're going to watch your competition fly right past you.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: What uh I've loved this conversation.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: We could we can go on for actually, we could probably go on for another hour or two, but we've all got other things to do.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I have a kind of a parting question for you.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: As with all the companies that you built and all the companies that you've advised and you've grown and you watch struggle, when an organization is not performing at the level that it should, how often is the problem, from your experience, how often is the problem people, and how often is it the environment that's been created for the people?
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: They're one and the same.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's explain that one.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now I want you to explain it.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_01: So the people that create the environment are still the people.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it always it's always a people problem.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: Let's just be real.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's always a people problem.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_01: Who created the strategy?
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_01: Who's doing execution?
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_01: People.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_01: Who had the bad attitude?
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's always a people problem.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_01: Now, that doesn't mean that people are bad.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_01: It just means that if something's occurred, it happened from a people perspective.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_01: And what we do and how we manage it, how we lead through that is where the value comes.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_01: So someone made a mistake.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_01: How we handle it now is more important than the fact that they made the mistake, right?
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's, hey, I'm glad you actually took that action.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_01: It didn't work out.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe we can improve it.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: Let's work together to do that.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_01: Versus you screwed up, don't let it happen again.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so I look at all of this as you can build a business through the people.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_01: You can kill a business through them.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's always a people problem.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_01: And if you address it that way as, hey, the numbers are telling me what the people thought and did.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_01: They're not telling me what the company did.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: The company is made up of humans.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: You remove the humans, the company is non-existent.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_01: So it always comes down to humans.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why I think it's so important for us to treat each other well, to look at this as like we are one team.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_01: We're doing this together.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_01: And you don't have to love the person, you got to respect them.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: And if you can't, you should find a way to move on.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_00: I completely agree with that.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the answer I was expecting.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't sure what I would expect.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_00: It was kind of a 50-50 which one's more important, but I I love that approach because what that does, going back to some of our earlier discussion, is that if if it's a people problem always, people are able to fix it.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: If it's a process problem, if it's a system problem, if it's a culture problem, sometimes we say it did it.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's the company's fault, to your point.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: But if it's a people problem always, then it's a fixable problem because we are the people.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's it's us that's that's doing the good or the bad.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I love that approach and I love that mindset because it's an empowering mindset.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_00: Jen, any parting words?
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_00: Any other thoughts prior to what?
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate it.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_01: And and I love kind of you guys come from a military background, which I don't.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: My dad was, but I wasn't.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's so interesting to just see how much of business and military are truly similar and alike.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that people in business don't see that as much.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_01: They don't respect it at the same level.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I think military has a little bit of that with business too.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure you guys came out and be like, these guys are jokers, because there are a lot of us.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: But so I think once it once again, this is it's just a respect thing.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like I absolutely respect all the work you guys did and what you've done with your careers.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: And it's cool that we get the benefit of it now, now that you guys are out and becoming part of, you know, the companies.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully, some of what you guys took and all those great lessons are translated.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_01: I know, Derek, you have a book around it.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_01: So, guys, if you're seeing this, you got to go check out his book.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_01: And Rob, I I really appreciate great questions, great conversation.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you guys so much for having me.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate it.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: So, for all those who joined us today, keep joining us in weeks to come.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like, subscribe, follow, and share.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_00: And please also comment if you have something specific to say other than that you love Rob's haircut or whatever it is, go ahead and say it so that we can be a better show for you going forward.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_00: And together we're all going to become better decision makers for better results.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_02: So that's it for today's episode of Commander's Intend Podcast.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_02: Head on over to Apple Podcasts iTunes or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_02: One lucky listener every single week that posts a review on Apple Podcasts or iTunes will be entered in the grand prize drawing to win a$25,000 private, exclusive leadership coaching package with Derek Oaks himself.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_02: So head on over to CommandersIntent Podcast.com and pick up a free copy of Derek's Leadership Guide and join us on the next episode.