Latest / The Ambitious Coach Lab / What’s Really Happening in the Room? How Great Coaches See Beneath the Surface with David Ridenhour

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What’s Really Happening in the Room? How Great Coaches See Beneath the Surface with David Ridenhour · The Ambitious Coach Lab

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the Ambitious Coach Lab, Powered by Nightmare.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_02: I'm your host, Dr.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_02: Pam Lawson.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_02: Each week we explore the real tactics, tough conversations, and breakthrough moments that drive coaching success.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_02: Let's jump into today's episode.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_02: Hello, friends.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_02: I am so excited to welcome David Reidenauer with us today.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_02: Very excited to have David.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: David is a good friend of mine.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_02: We work out of the same co-working space and just happen to cross paths that way.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: But he is the founder of Undercurrent, which we will get all into uh for this episode.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: That's really the topic of this episode.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: But excited to have you, David.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for coming on the show, man.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_03: Man, thank you so much for having me.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_03: This is uh um honestly, if I ever thought about having uh a time to sit on a podcast, sitting in with you, my one-time friend of me, would uh be my top choice.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: Nice.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: We the the context on that, uh we we both have little startups, and we for a 10-minute period at this actually at the same exact time, we were on two different pitch stages competing against one another.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: And it actually is very funny because apparently we scored the exact same score.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: So we actually tied, so which is hilarious.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but super fun.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: But yes, no, David has been a good friend and and has just such a unique um uh product that you're working and developing.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_02: So I want to dive into that, but just as we kick off, for maybe those that don't know you as well, why don't you share a little bit of your just entrepreneur story of how you kind of got to where you're at to today?
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_03: Well, the the journey to entrepreneurship um I think is uh a story of frustration being the mother of all invention.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_03: Um, in terms of my vocational background, I am an entrepreneurial mutt.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so I spent about 20 years in the uh nonprofit space.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I was a pastor, I was a music director, so I have a music major and a computer science minor.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_03: So for all you people that are uh staunch left brain, light, right brain folks, just sit with that one for a second.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_03: Um after that, I uh did a bunch of different things trying to figure out what I wanted to do in sort of the second half of my career.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_03: Um, stepped back from pastoral ministry because it was the best fit for my family at the time.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_03: One of the things that I discovered really quickly in church work is that when you are leading an organization of mostly volunteers, no one has payroll or a salary to be the primary motivator.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_03: All they have is buy-in.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_03: And so the question becomes whose buy-in is stronger?
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_03: Is it the way they wanted things to be and the way they're comfortable with things being, or is it the way that the leadership is encouraging them to think and dream about?
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_03: So, more on that in a second.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I started an IT company, and so I uh used that computer science degree, um, do IT and security consulting, and then uh began wondering why it is that people that hired me and said we want to be secure for our clients and customers, now all of a sudden they're like, ah, but could we just have the password manager for everyone else and not enforce it for the leadership?
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_03: Could we have multi-factor authentication, but just leave the CEO alone?
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_03: He really gets bothered by having to do things that slow him down.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_03: And so all that kind of got the wheels spinning a little bit about how do we tackle this when the hardest things you need to say may be to the people that write you your paycheck.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_03: So, at any rate, um yada yada yada, just to bring a Seinfeld reference out and thoroughly date myself.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_03: Nice.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_03: Here we are.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: I love it.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: That's great.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: The um I didn't even know parts of that story, so I appreciate you sharing that.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, that's that's so fascinating because one of the things that's really unique about that model was how undercurrent kind of came from that.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_02: And that's actually, I remember because really the co-working space that we both work out of, you have the IT company as kind of the that's there.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: And then I remember I will never forget this.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_02: You pulled me into I think it was a conference room right across from here.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, Hey, I got this idea, and uh, and it was like, okay, I love this.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: And for those that don't understand the coworking space, it that is the heartbeat of Flywheel, is is just hey, I have this idea.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: And that those conversations happen all the time.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_02: And so, but you brought me in and you opened up this prototype that you had built that really goes exactly at what you were just explaining.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: And the end purpose of it was really to help consultants, coaches, those fractional executives that come into an environment that there's already dynamics.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm gonna use a play, you know, you're the undercurrents of the temperature of that organization, that that person that's a third party or an external factor comes in and they don't understand those dynamics.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_02: And so when we were thinking about guests for the show, it's like, oh my gosh, I gotta bring David on.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_02: This makes total sense.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: So, can you kind of just open up like what undercurrent is and how it kind of works?
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: I'd love for people to kind of understand, get a little bit better understanding of it.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_03: Well, so what I'm gonna do, and and hopefully we can spend some time kind of nerding out on the why behind in this conversation.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um, because I really want to think towards how do we help um both consultants thrive, but also help companies thrive.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_03: So um the mechanics of the software are super interesting.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and uh, and who knows, maybe that'll be another show.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_03: But for this one, I want to think a little bit about um some core assumptions that we make.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_03: So most of the time, um, and again, we're gonna go, we're gonna go some deep, deep philosophy here.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_03: So, I mean, for those of you that are in, you're in.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_03: And for those of you that need to jump ahead to a chapter marker, we've got you.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: And we're gonna try and hey, what it what is life if we don't go deep, right?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_03: What is life if we don't have chapter markers?
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_03: But that's a that's also true.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_03: That's a different show.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so if you remember, um, there were several really key moments that came around in Greek philosophy.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_03: So Aristotle is probably a name that you know, Plato is probably a name that you know.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_03: One of the things that came out of the Greeks, came out of the Stoics, came out of all of these, um, all these different philosophies that originated around the same time, basically said that we are, for lack of a better, we are brains on sticks.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_03: So we are rational and thinking people that make decisions largely based on reason and information.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_03: So uh a Greek word you may be familiar with is logos.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and so there was a lot of time that was spent around the idea of logos.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you may also know um Descartes, and you may not know Descartes by name, but you know one of the core maxims that was ascribed to him, which is I think, therefore I am.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_03: So I want to pose a what if.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_03: And the what if is what if all of those things are true?
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_03: They're no it's no less than those things.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_03: But when we assume that those things are it, they're the sum and the total, we've missed something huge.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_03: So let's go a little bit further backwards.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_03: Um in the ancient Near East, especially in languages like Aramaic and Hebrew and everything else, um language would communicate things largely through picture, right?
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so if you remember uh um uh parts of the um uh whether it's things like the Enuma Elish or whether it is parts of the Hebrew Bible, um, the idea to communicate anger would be his nose burned red.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_03: And so we understood that that meant, okay, in modern-day parlance, he's angry.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_03: Um there's an interesting word in the uh Hebrew language that would have been largely understood in the ancient Near East, lev.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_03: And that Hebrew word basically translates to heart.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_03: But we think heart, the beating thing in our chest.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_03: They would have understand, understood this as a picture of the center of our thoughts, our emotions, our deep desires, and our choices.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: The being of the individual.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yes.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_03: That's exactly right.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_03: So it's our very essence.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_03: Um and so not too long in the um in the early, early parts of uh of AD, right?
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_03: Um, there was a uh a monk uh who also made a lot of uh c philosophical contributions named Augustine of Hippo.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_03: And Augustine said that we are a people who are a people of divided hearts, right?
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_03: We have both a people who want and we want to want.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_03: Now, why is all of this important?
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um Cam, you have uh what are the ages of your kids again?
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_02: I have a five-year-old and one five-year-old.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_03: We have one five-year-old.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_03: Fantastic.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_03: Now, I want you to imagine something, and hopefully this analogy doesn't blow up in my face.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_03: Um, otherwise we'll catch it in post, right?
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_03: We'll that's the that's the that's the cardinal rule, is we'll just catch it in post.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_03: Um if you were to invite your five-year-old and put on the table two plates, and one plate is a delicious uh glazed salmon with uh crispy skin, and the other plate is uh a pate of uh MM's.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: The choice is obvious for the five-year-old.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_03: All in on the salmon, no question whatsoever.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: I wish.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um now as adults, right, we know that there's a ton of benefit to omega-3 fatty acids and uh sort of those lean proteins that are that are really good for us.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_03: And so we could weigh and make a decision, not based on what's gonna satisfy me in the moment, but what's gonna lead to a more long-term healthy life, right?
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_03: And if we're thinking about how do I maintain uh health while also enjoy in eating enjoyable food and whatever, we can regulate our choices and say, hey, the salmon's gonna be a better choice.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_03: Um, there's nothing wrong with the MMs.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_03: It's just um that doesn't win the day in terms of I want sweets, I'll have them now.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_03: Um unless you are uh un unless those sweets are um um salty and crunchy and probably out of a potato chip bag, and it's probably at about 1045 to 1115 in the evening.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_03: But again, that's uh that's a different episode.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_03: People are funny in that we are motivated not by what we know, we are motivated by what we love.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_03: We are motivated by what we desire.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_03: So what are the logical implications of that?
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so I know some of the folks that uh that listen to this podcast are um EOS implementers, and so uh completely awesome system, right?
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_03: They're coming in and helping to align people uh around an entrepreneurial operating system that drives people towards really deep clarity and really high levels of excellence and efficiency.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_03: Is that a fair statement?
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: I think that brought goes even further to like consultants and fractional.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean, yeah, I think that encompasses really that whole audience.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_03: So you've got more familiarity in this space than I do.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_03: Tell me, just kind of riff with me a little bit.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_03: What are the common, what are the common failure modes of uh of EOS specifically?
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_03: Let's just let's just camp there for a second.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, I love it.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, I think one of the most important dynamics that I see a lot of companies, let's just say struggle with.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's not necessarily failure, right?
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: But struggle with is a the the integrator and the visionary dynamic, right?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: You have a visionary of somebody, typically the CEO, the founder, right?
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: Right that has big vision for what they want to accomplish.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: And then the integrator is tasked with the almost impossible task of filtering through that and making that vision come to life and not running after the 57 ideas that they had last week, where maybe one of them is good.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, that's a that's an interesting dynamic.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: So that's a path we could go.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: And then I think another side of it would be once companies start to what they call roll out, where hey, our leadership team, we're we love this EOS thing.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_02: We're going after this thing.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: And then they're like, we're gonna start having the the departments run their level tens and do EOS.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_02: And the departments are like, what is this?
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_02: I have to go to this meeting now.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: I have this scorecard and all these things.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what is all this being done to me?
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think that's another dynamic, which they're probably interrelated.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I would say those are two of the the things that come to mind immediately for me as potential challenges.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so think about the life of the uh of the implementer, right?
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_03: And so, you know, we've got the visionary, we've got the integrator, but I want to think for a second about the implementer.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_03: Um, especially, and let's just assume, right, that it's more than just an initial training, but the implementer is really there to walk with the company over a longitudinal period of time.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and they begin to see what I think we all have seen, right?
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_03: Is they begin to see little sine waves of energy fall off.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_03: Energy, fall off.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_03: Um, what are some of the reasons that that happens?
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_03: Like, why do we see these um pushes towards something new?
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_03: And then eventually it just kind of falls back.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, I I think it's a complicated answer, but I mean, even the way that the system is designed is over a 90-day period, right?
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_02: So humans already kind of have a hard time focusing for longer periods of time.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think you see some of the ebb and flow where it's like, okay, we're gonna meet on a quarterly basis, we're gonna get aligned, we're gonna get back, make sure we're achieving and executing towards our vision.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: And then kind of probably, you know, that second end of the second month, into that third month, we're starting to kind of get a little fatigue.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: We're starting to get that tension, maybe the underlying tensions that are in a room, whether maybe you have two employees that are kind of button heads that tends to, you know, maybe we have a unified front for a little while, but then you know, we start to get stressed and and you know, emotions run hot.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_02: And so I would say there's a lot of and then on top of that, you have employees that are you know turning over where we have a new team coming in, or all these different factors that impact this kind of ebb and flow that the implementer seeing.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_03: So I uh and again, you guys can check my statistics because again, I was a music major.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_03: We learned how to count to four and start over, so you know math is hard.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um two out of three.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_03: That's a big number.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_03: Two out of three, so close to 70% of uh EOS implementations fail.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_03: So I bet you and I could riff for a second on what those failure modes are ascribed to, right?
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, failure to launch, certainly that's that's one of them.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_03: Uh failure to adopt, right?
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_03: Because um the the system basically says that if you will follow the system, right?
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_03: If you will habituate yourself into a system, uh then you will eventually be able to sort of adopt it, learn it, uh, and whatever.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_03: And that may be true for things uh such as uh you know issues lists, yeah, or for rocks, or for L10s, or for same page meetings, or for um however we are articulating what the core heartbeat and DNA of the company is.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_03: But that all addresses things at a quantity or a data point level, right?
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yep so we can check the box that these things are happening faithfully and consistently what it doesn't do is answer the narrative question.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_03: Why isn't someone bringing their full to an L10?
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_03: Why isn't the biggest issue landing on the issues list?
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_03: Why isn't the uh buy-in around the founder visionary leader's vision why isn't that being um fully realized?
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_03: And I think we can talk about the answer to that without casting any aspersions at anybody because this is true no matter what your framework is, no matter what you're trying to implement.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you simply cannot force people to participate if they don't want to.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_03: And the issue is that no system, no um no framework, no methodology, no tool has ever been able to understand, but why don't they want to?
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_03: All we can then say is ascribe, well, there is a kink in the system, right?
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um we just didn't fully lean into it.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so Which is often what is rec, I mean, that's often talked about.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it's like, well, you just didn't trust the process or you didn't lean.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_02: That's often what is basically ascribed to the the quote unquote failure.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_03: And and so we don't have language for that.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_03: And so what ends up happening is um to try and re-engage, it's well, we must not know the process well enough.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_03: And my question is simply what if to go back to our philosophers, to go back to the ancient Near East, what if it is not a knowledge gap?
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_03: What if it's a desire gap?
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_03: And so what do you do about that?
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_03: So I'll tell you, um, one of the things that got me going kind of down this rabbit hole, uh, as I mentioned, I was in nonprofits, I was in churches, what have you.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_03: And one of the things that um I think affects a lot of churches is that um, so Martin Heifetz, uh Heifetz and Linsky um authors around adaptive leadership issues and what does what are adaptive problems and what are technical problems?
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_03: And a lot of times what would happen in the churches is we would apply technical solutions to adaptive problems.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_03: So for instance, and again, if this is inside baseball uh for your listeners, um, you know, just imagine uh anything, right?
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_03: And we can actually lay in the EOS system into this.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_03: We think, okay, um, we have this thing that we need to persuade people about.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_03: And so we're gonna let them read or study or talk about what we would call authoritative facts, right?
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_03: It's not me saying it, it's these outside authorities that are saying it.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_03: And because these outside authorities are saying it, um, we should lend trust and we should lend buy-in.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_03: And therefore, we should accept that this is the right thing.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_03: And so a lot of churches get into trouble with this, a lot of nonprofit organizations, a lot of companies get into trouble with this, right?
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_03: Um, because we can watch all the security and compliance videos that we want.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_03: And I am still gonna go back to the three familiar passwords that I have the most and that Myrtle may have on a sticky note underneath her keyboard in her office because that's where it has lived for 20 years.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_03: And you are not gonna tell her to use a different one because she has grandkids and does not have time for your level of negativity.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: Putting in her life.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, preach.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: Say it louder for the people at the back.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, not that I have thoughts on that whatsoever.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_03: And so what Heifetz and Linsky would say is that you are telling uh you're trying to apply a technical solution.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_03: And so if you are uh not familiar with technical versus adaptive issues, a technical problem can best be described as you buy a box of furniture from IKEA.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_03: And so what happens is um this box shows up at your doorstep uh along with instructions, parts, tools, and hopes and dreams.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: Instructions might be a stretch, but fine.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_03: I was being generous.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks, IKEA.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_03: I know you don't sponsor this program, but you could.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um clear instructions would be great.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_03: Clear instructions.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_03: Um you hope that once following A to B to C to D and so forth, um, you end up on the other side with the furniture that you ordered, yep, um, a uh a predicted number of spare parts, um, and the lack of a need for a good marriage counselor.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's right.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_03: Underrated comment there.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_03: Um on the other side of it, think about, and again, it's another dated pop culture analogy, so just go with it.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_03: So you remember the movie Apollo 13?
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_03: Just pretend like you do and not.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: I do.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_03: I do.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, right.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_02: Come on now.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um and so what happened on the ground is that the CO2 filters in the um in the capsule were beginning to fail because they weren't designed to be able to filter, and the filters in the other module weren't the same size.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_03: And so what the crew on the ground had to do was look at this table of spare parts.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_03: And they had a clear objective, they need to breathe.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_03: They had a clear problem, they're running out of oxygen and getting oversaturated with CO2.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_03: And then they had a bunch of unknowns.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_03: What do we do with these parts on the floor?
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_03: How do we make them fit in such a way that the astronauts can breathe?
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_03: Adaptive leadership says that there is no, uh, there is no mapped-out solution and there is no hero leader that can get us there.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_03: There is an unknown and there is risk.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_03: So churches struggle with this.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_03: They say, okay, we're gonna bring in the knowledge, we're gonna bring the instruction manual and A, B, C, and D, and we get uh a convinced group of people.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_03: But the issue is the people are afraid of change.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, they're uncertain about the future, they don't know what's gonna happen if they let go of what is familiar for what is unknown.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_03: And so that fear response generally elicits I'm going to hold on tightly to what is known.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_03: How do you translate that into the corporate space?
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_03: Well, what if the reason you're not getting buy-in on bringing your full to L10s is because the reality is you and the leader have had a lot of conflict and you have not resolved that conflict, and you feel like everything is a tripwire.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah and your mortgage is coming due, and your wife is trying to just get a good amount of groceries in the house because you've got kids and they like food.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_03: What are you gonna do?
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_03: Are you gonna do that?
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_02: You're not gonna bring up the real issues, what you're not gonna do.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_03: You are not gonna rock that apple cart because you need a job.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_03: And what you really need is that outside third voice authority, right?
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_03: We talked about um, this is how authority structures work.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_03: We want to bring in the neutral third party to come in and help us, but this time it's not a step-by-step process.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_03: It's a desire process, it's a behavioral process.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_03: What really needs to happen is we need to help the leader discover for themselves, not be told, but discover what is the thing that is blocking this relationship.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_03: Why might my uh you know, my direct reports not want to bring everything to me?
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_03: What is it about me that happens in those moments?
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you and I can can rift back and forth for a while on leaders that would react negatively in situations where they have felt um their expectations not met, their um desires being thwarted, their reputation.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_03: So, I mean, let's just imagine, right?
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_03: Um let's say we've got a uh so let's say we've got an organization, um, I mean, Flywheel, for instance, just ran this great uh converged south.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_03: Um and let's just make up a it went great, by the way.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and hats off to the team that ran it.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_03: But let's just let's just presume, right, that there were uh there was a stakeholder in that event where things went went wrong.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_03: And rather than um deal with that in a good and healthy way, a lot of the employees and a lot of the volunteers shouldered blame for something that really it wasn't their issue to begin with.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_03: It was poor leadership, it was poor communication.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_03: It was a leader who was tied up in potentially this thing defines my reputation, this thing defines how I'm viewed in the community.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_03: And if it doesn't go well, I have not gone well.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_03: Well, what that does, that is a completely different uh protocol than well, you know, what we need is a better racy diagram, we need a better organization chart, we need a better set of deadlines and a better set of communication.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_03: Those things may all be true, but they're not gonna stop the leader from overreacting when they feel like their reputation is gonna be tarnished.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: And so from the coach consultant, my brain is going down this path.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there was a lot of word salad going on there.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, no, no.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's good.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because there's such a unique challenge that is not talked about a lot in inside the coach and consultant fractional, where we all, you know, a lot of times it's okay, I'm gonna take this framework, whether it's my own or somebody else's, I'm gonna come in, I'm gonna implement that, and I'm gonna work with the team and kind of help things.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: And then they get into session and stuff like this is happening on a regular basis, and they are not equipped to handle that.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_02: Where well, we're just gonna lean into uh you're paying me to come in and implement this system.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_02: Well, your implementation is dictated on the team working through the interpersonal dynamics of that.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_02: And so, and if that isn't handled, and let's say that let's just say the CEO or the visionary is not dealt with, where he doesn't come to the conclusion of like, wow, when I blow up, the team completely shuts down and the root that you know that any problems.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there are all these elephants in the room that we really need to talk about.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_03: And so what becomes a um uh an issue of disrupted relationships, what becomes a stand-in for those disrupt disrupted relationships is a clear objective system that we hope will paint over the fractured relationships long enough.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_03: And the and the and the big uh the big issue is those systems were never designed.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_03: And so what I'm saying here is not that that um what I'm calling institutional behavioral analysis, what even the undercurrent platform does, this is not a um, this is not a um a more advanced thing that would replace EOS or replace agile or replace working genius or whatever.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_03: Those are all amazing things.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_03: What undercurrent tries to discover is what are the ways that an organization made up of many people with many vested interests and many fears and many um ways that things have just they've learned how to do it, right?
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I mean, you and I know we've we've been in organizations before where if we see um a supervisor coming in in a particular way, they're not stopping off at the usual desk and saying, hey, they just drive straight to their office.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_03: What does everybody instinctively know?
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_03: They know that they're not in a good mood.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_03: Something just went sideways.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_03: We're gonna keep the train running, but we're not gonna bother them.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_03: We're just gonna kind of work around it.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_03: Every organization has built these types of defense mechanisms.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_03: And most of the time, they don't even know they're running.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_03: So undercurrent comes in and says, wait a minute, let's actually begin to understand all of these defense mechanisms that are running, all of these workarounds that are running, all of these fears that may be happening.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_03: And if you stop there, all you have done is um strip the sheath around a wire that is now exposed and live.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_03: And now you gotta do something.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_03: Because it's not enough to just go, oh wow.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_03: We understand a lot of patterns.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_03: We're seeing a lot of stuff.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_03: Cool.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_03: What do you do about that now?
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_02: Which I would argue that's that's probably the extent of because I mean, if you're not using AI at this point, you're living under a rock, right?
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_02: And so, because you could go into a an LLM and kind of pitch certain things, but I think what it's gonna do is it's gonna leave it at that level where, hey, what do I do with this?
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like in the next session, how do I handle this specific situation?
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_02: What is my roadmap for addressing the, to use your term, the elephant in the room or elephants in the room?
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_02: What do we do and how do we go about that?
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's where this is such an intriguing model because on top of the theoretical understanding of hey, there are lots of things at play here, and there's lots of really, really smart philosoph philosoph or philosophers and academics who have written on the topic.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_02: But hey, now we're gonna guide you based on this dynamic of how you and your specific role can address that.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_03: So um, you and I have both uh we've talked about this offline.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_03: You know, we've done uh work in several of the frontier models.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_03: We have uh looked and been kind of dumbfounded at the ways that these things have capabilities now that we uh that we could never have dreamed of.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_03: Um let me ask you this.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_03: So when you uh when you and your team were uh working on kind of your startup idea, um, when you uh have just even played with an LLM, um true or false, at some point you have had to say, say to LLM, you're making that up.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_03: That's not a real answer.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_03: You need to go back and reconsider everything again.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, absolutely.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, last night.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it happens all the time.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_03: Um now I will also say that um I have stopped using Google for anything other than I need to get to this website and I don't know the URL.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_03: I'm no longer asking Google anything about is there an answer to this, and it tries to serve me a bunch of websites.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_03: I will now go to my favorite LLM of choice and I will say, hey, I need to find this in Greenville, South Carolina.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_03: You know, what's a great uh what's a great steakhouse or whatever?
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and in those minutes, uh, I am I don't care to try and fact check the LLM.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, great, um, this sounds like an awesome steakhouse.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_03: That's gonna be awesome.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_03: Um when we are when we are leaning in on LLM tools to try and do what LLM tools do well, which is make sense of large complex um data issues.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_03: The thing that the LLM does is try and be comprehensive, but efficient, and make sure that you are a satisfied user so that you have what you need.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_03: The LLM stands ready to give you the next thing.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_03: And the challenge with AI, and anybody that's worked in AI long enough, is going to tell you this: that the things that Anthropic and OpenAI and Meta and Google have not solved for yet, is how do you maintain large swaths of data over a large continual um slice of time where the AI knows to consistently doubt itself and only allow the real true things that can be verified to come through and and shine through in its responses?
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_03: And the reality is we we don't have that.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_03: And that's the biggest thing that undercurrent tries to do.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_03: It's twofold.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_03: It try undercurrent tries to answer the question well, what do we do now that we know this about CEO, now that we know this about director of finance?
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_03: What's what's gonna happen if we have a meeting with those three?
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_03: What is a productive way, a non-threatening way, a caring way that we can help move this dialogue forward, that we can help really kind of lean in on not where the L10 is breaking down, not where the rocks keep showing up quarter after quarter, but really kind of lean in on what are the defensive routines?
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_03: What are the ways that we have figured out just how to run?
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_03: And what are the ways that we could really help them self-discover and not just self-discover, but actually in the future have that their own uh objectivity be like, oh, wait a minute, we're doing that again.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_03: Remember that thing?
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_03: Remember that thing that one time?
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_03: We're doing that again.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_03: So that's the first kind of big solve for is it's the so what question, which is how do you how do you do this now that we know what's going on?
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_03: The second issue is how does this machine do this reliably, repeatably, and in such a way that you can actually trust its output.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_03: And so most of the engineering that has gone in is not um how do we get to an answer?
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_03: The engineering that's gone in is how do we um how do we allow the answer to be thoroughly vetted?
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_03: Um, there's a there's a research methodology, it's uh um it's qualitative research.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_03: That was this was used back in the um in the Air Force to talk about pilot experiences.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_03: That's where sort of this critical incident method came about.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_03: And and the sort of evolution of qualitative research is to say that there can be multiple things that are true at the same time.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_03: Same time, yep.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_03: And and that's all valid.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_03: Um AI models don't like that.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_03: AI models want one thing to be true.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_02: And then quantitative, yes, for sure.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_03: So how do we then make sense of, well, there was this one conversation that happened five months ago with the director of finance and the CEO.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't even have a good memory of that, but we actually had the audio recording and we processed it, and Undercurrent remembered it.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_03: And then five months later, when a similar thing comes up, it says, ooh, wait a minute.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_03: There's a connection there.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and it so it's gonna begin to um observe things that you and I are gonna forget.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_03: And so it's going to both um give you the capacity of breadth and depth.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_03: How do you do multiple of these engagements at the same time?
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_03: Because most of us, aside of you, because of course um you are you are amazing, uh, most of us don't have the capacity to do uh multiple things at depth at the same time.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_03: So how do we do things at depth?
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_03: And then how do we do things in a caring way that's not a gotcha moment for the client, but an aha moment for the client?
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_02: And that's I love this because there was a tool that I had played around with early on.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_02: I think it was very early on, and I don't know where I still see it every once in a while, but read AI was the tool.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the things that I loved about it, because it would take the the recording, and I didn't even know you could do this with some of these things, you know.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_02: And um, but it would go in and it would do it.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_02: I this is close to my heart because I did sentiment analysis and my PhD work.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_02: But so when I saw that it did that, I was like, no way.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_02: And so, but you know, it starts to gauge things, yeah, and then over time it started to kind of build some coaching on yo, you're talking 80% of the time, you need to switch that, or hey, you're the person said this specific thing and you didn't deep dive in that, yeah, and you should have, because they they they kind of crack the door for you, like, hey, and I didn't take that.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_02: And so as a coach, how valuable that is to have that inside the context where we have whether that's meeting summaries or you know, other bits and and pieces of information that are collected over time, and then having the ability to guide hey, here's some a recommended path for you to get deeper with that individual or in that group setting or whatever it looks like.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_03: So you you want to know what's fascinating because I did a little bit of research uh around things like Reed, around Gong, around you know, some of these other systems that are kind of coach coach the coach platforms.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, totally.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_03: One of the things that they do is that they're gonna focus in on you as the coach and try and help you.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_03: And out of that um comes ways that you can be better.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_03: That's cool.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_03: That's in that's inefficient.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, not inefficient, it's incomplete.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_03: Here's why.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_03: All of those platforms are designed to gauge you and then do sentiment of that around you.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_03: What undercurrent does is it actually is trained to ignore you.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_03: It doesn't care what you say as the consultant, because um, Reed, Gong, others, they say that the data is in the um in your speech.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_03: Um, the only you know uh circumstantial evidence comes out of the noise.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_03: But what we say is the data's in the noise.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_03: The data's in uh that audio recording where someone uh began interrupting a lot.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_03: And when did they start doing that?
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_03: When did they start doing what was the conversation about at the time?
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_03: And how do we know that's a hot button issue because of the eight months of data we've accumulated prior?
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_03: And how do we begin to look at the uh not just the sentiment of you know, agree, neutral, disagree, but then begin to because anybody can do that, right?
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_03: Anybody can take a diarized transcript and get you know speaker identification or whatever.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_03: But what if we're then aware of the context?
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_03: We're aware not only of that meeting, we're aware of all the other meetings that have happened, we're aware of all the other email chains that have been sent, we're aware of all the other things where it didn't make sense until that moment because again, um, those things that are coach the coach are really looking at you at an atomized moment in time.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_03: How did you do in this meeting?
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_03: And how can you do better in future meetings?
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_03: And what Undercurrent is saying is what did we learn in this meeting about the organization?
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_03: How does that inform us about what's happening?
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_03: And then how do you, as the coach, now given that.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_03: Information that you know, go and and help them have not a gotcha moment, but an aha moment.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_02: So if there's a coach listening, let's say, and they're like, hey, I need to get better about, you know, I understand the value of seeing what's underneath the current.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_02: Let's just let's just lean into it.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_02: Let's just explain.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's a bit on the nose, but it's kind of why we need that.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_02: The undercurrent.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_02: But um, I mean, what would you say they is a good starting place for them if they want to understand, have a little bit more awareness?
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_02: Because I think this is really awareness play.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just, hey, I'm there's more things at play here than just the checking the boxes of my facilitation guide and executing the team through this.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I see so many, because I've talked to thousands of coaches.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I I you can tell I had a guest on this show, he called them page turners.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_02: He said, There are people that will literally come in here and just turn the page of the implementation guide.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I have been in those implement, I have been in, I've been a part of an implementation on that, and it drove me crazy.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_02: Because there was, it was like, can you not see there is clearly a dynamic between these two entities right now?
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_02: Like, this is we have to acknowledge this before we move on.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_02: We cannot continue down this path.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_02: I know you're trying to just watch the time and make sure we're executing on things, but excuse my language, but forget that.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_02: I'll just I'll be clean.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_02: But like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_02: Forget that, like, and move on.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_02: And we've got to deal with this before we can move on, is what I mean.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that's something that the best coaches that I see in consultants are the ones that pick up on that.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_02: They've built the skill set, the mastery to understand there are this is a room full of humans and an organization full of more humans who have baggage, who have different desires.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_02: They may see their, you know, they may be uh, hey, I'm clocking in and doing this as a paycheck thing, and I don't really give two flying flips about your vision.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_02: Now I know, you know, but there's so many dynamics.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_02: So, what would be your advice to a coach that wants to dive deeper into this?
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_03: Um so this I'm gonna really try and not make this a uh uh a uh a painfully obvious uh uh pitch for the platform.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_03: However, um most to the I think um that most consultants are page channels.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_03: I think that's uh incredibly on the nose.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and here's why.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_03: If you were going to go out um and again, here's how you would advise a company that that wanted to self-implement EOS, go get traction.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_03: Go sign up for the 90.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_03: Go, you know, begin to sort of getting all the tools that are available and begin to use the tools, right?
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um and the good, the really good implementers know for sure that there's so much more than that.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_03: There's so much more going on.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah I think that for the one that really sees like this is a way that I really need to level up because I have uh I have just stuck my hand right on top of the stovetop and gotten burned.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_03: And I have really gotten that hard, uh, that hard review or that hard follow-up from a conversation.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_03: Um this would be this is the platform that would be well worth your investment, uh, just because um we try and really not just um help you with that, but coach you through that as well.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_03: The second thing I would say um one of the reasons this is so near and dear to my heart is because I was the guy that burned himself on the stove consistently for 20 plus years, right?
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um I uh I have the type of brain that the kids would call neurospicy, which means that there are certain things about people skills and interpersonal skills and everything else that I am able to do now well, not because they came naturally to me, but because I had a bunch of really kind people that didn't try and do a gotcha but lead me to an aha myself.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_03: And what I tell people is that the uh these types of behavioral dynamics took me 20 plus years to research and understand.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_03: And what I want to really do is help the next guy, the next gal, the next one coming down the line, not have to spend 20 years of their life burning their hand on the same stove.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_03: So the hope is use the platform.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_03: But the hope is also stay curious.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't mean that in a um, I don't mean that in a trite marketing uh schmarmy type of way, type of way.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_03: I mean stay curious, ask questions.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_03: Begin to wonder why things don't feel right.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, because you just parachute it into a company, you just parachute it in.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_03: You have no idea what conversations, what yelling, what screaming, what awkward silences have occurred in that boardroom prior to you getting there, what are the things that got whispered about?
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_03: What are the emails that got forwarded?
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_03: What are the things that employees have thought?
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_03: You don't know any of that.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_03: And if you think that the answers are in the pages that you're turning, you will be just as effective as a company that could have bought the handbook and done it themselves.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_02: Man, that's good.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that's yeah, what a what a good word.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_02: I I think that's that's spot on.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and obviously, please plug the platform because it's a direct solution to it.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, I man, this is um David, I I appreciate you coming on and and sharing this.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_02: I I think there has to be a part two, probably a part three.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_03: We'll figure that out.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_03: It's uh we'll make it out.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_02: So much because it's such a deep, um, deep motion.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like we just scratched the surface with this.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_03: Well, and part of the reason you feel that is because this type of engagement has only existed in the periphery of business leadership, business models, business uh coaching.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_03: It has not been an area that has been front and center.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, I would go so far as to say the research that I and others have contributed to this over a decade and a half doesn't exist in the marketplace right now.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_03: It does in the sense that it's been validated in its pieces and parts, but it doesn't exist in terms of being brought together to a cohesive whole.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_03: You can learn more about it at the undercurrent app.com.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_03: Uh if you want to read some of the stuff that I've written, you can go to undercurrent research labs.com.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we'll link all this in the um in the in the It's deep, but it's it's one of those things that is uh an important deep, right?
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_02: Because what it does is it opens it up for people.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_02: And so, man, I I I appreciate you coming on.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_02: Let's let's make sure we get a round two of this.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um we could probably go 12 rounds.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um but uh so I'm mercy on the audience.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I know.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I I gotta have some like I haven't had a like a second guest come on yet.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_02: So I gotta figure out how to ask, but I guess this we're still relevant.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um but I always like to ask guests, um, kind of on the tail end, if you could go back to rookie David, who's just starting out, you can take this however whatever frame you want.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_02: That's right of current under current, whatever.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_02: But what advice would you give yourself?
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_03: This is an episode in and of itself.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_03: No, I'm just kidding.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um It's a deep question.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's a deep question.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I had someone challenge me one time and ask me the question, is it worth it?
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_03: And what they meant by that is is putting in your two cents worth making the other person feel 50% less important?
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_03: Is it worth you having to jump in?
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_03: I and I know you you will you will uh be agog and aghast at this.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_03: It used to be that I could go into a meeting so um uh so emotionally uh emotionally IQ blind that I could go in, open my mouth, and within five minutes of being at that room, every single person around me is checked out because everyone figured out that I'm not there to listen to them.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_03: I'm there to talk to them.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_03: If I could go back to younger me, if I could go back to to rookie me, freshman me, I would say what I have to say is not nearly as important as what I have to learn.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't mean that um I I'm still not in a position where I need to guide, where I need to uh lead.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_03: But you can't lead if you don't know if the people that are following you are on the wagon or not.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_03: And so slow down, listen, watch, be curious, and really understand the question, is it worth it?
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_03: And really understand the value of tell me more.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_02: That's good.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_02: That's such a good word, especially for this audience.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's ironic.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_02: The the guy that I referenced earlier that talked about the page turner, his little tagline, I'm not making this up.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_02: His little tagline is stay curious.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_02: And because that's what it's all about.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_02: And he has learned that he's an expert implementer, um, a just phenomenal human, and he's so good at staying curious and just that's interesting, you know, the way that that you said that.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_02: It seems like you believed that really strongly.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_02: Can we double click on that and just open that up?
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that that's so good because it'd be so easy to go in and prescribe and talk and just all right, we're gonna continue down, but staying curious and just hey, sounds like you really, you know, have strong feelings about that.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_02: I would love to know more.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_02: That's that I that's such a good word, man.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_02: And then the second question I always like to ask is what is a lesson that you're in the middle of learning right now?
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_03: Uh what I'm learning right now is how to be courageous.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_03: Here's what I mean by that.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um for a lot of reasons, I have a lot of self-doubt.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of it has to do with my own story and the ways that my own story took lefts when I was hoping it would take a right.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_03: And I can genuinely feel that I'm not qualified to speak into a space where others are those voices of authority.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_03: You remember what I referenced earlier, right?
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_03: Um, if we could just listen to the other voice.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_03: And so it's always been um an escape hatch for me to be like, well, these are there are these other people, and they're, you know, I'm just I'm just parroting what they're saying.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_03: But what if um this moment, this time, is to be courageous with the things that I've learned, the ways I've burned my hand, the ways that I've tried to be a page turner rather than a listener, the ways that I have been authoritative rather than curious?
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_03: What if it's time now for me to then be that person who believes I have a voice that I can offer something useful and legitimate in this space?
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_03: And that terrifies me.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_03: So the idea is now what is it like to be curious?
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_03: What is it like to be courageous?
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_02: Those are good.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_02: Those are things that you should absolutely lean into.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that just as your friend, you have not stumbled upon, that's not the right word, but you have over the course of your your life, of how everything, even the pastoral stuff of understanding the deeper things of how that's led to this moment, and now it's your opportunity to lean into it.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it's been so cool to see that and be a small, very minuscule part of that.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I I just I appreciate you sharing that.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_02: So what if people want to pick your brain?
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, this has obviously been a deep episode, and I'm sure people will have lots of questions.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, what's the best place to get in touch with you?
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you know, there's all the normal haunts, right?
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_03: I uh I'm there on LinkedIn and I'm really trying to not make every moment of my life a teaching moment that reminded me about running a business.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but I'm not sure.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_03: That is not a dig at you.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_03: I totally get it.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_03: I totally get it.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_03: I don't even know what's going on.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_03: Um remember, uh emotional intelligence.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_03: I'm right there now.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_02: A NASCAR race and business go hand in hand.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_02: Like they just do.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, they do.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_03: Um you have to watch out for and respect the caution flag.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_03: Did I do that right?
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's right.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_03: Find me at LinkedIn.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_03: If you want to know more about the app, find me at theundercurrentapp.com.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_03: Um and if you want to just reach out, uh you can email me from there.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_03: You can email me from uh LinkedIn.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, we do also accept courier pigeon.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_03: And uh and my goodness, if you uh if you ever see me around Flywheel, um, let's stop and grab some coffee.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_02: I love it.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_02: Well, David, thank you for for coming on.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_02: I appreciate you.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_02: I appreciate what you're building.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I most of all I appreciate the heart.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I'm gonna use it as the the ancient uh of the you know understanding of the heart is I uh you have uh a good one.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_02: And so I hope you know that.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_02: So I appreciate you and thank you for coming on.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I appreciate you tuning in.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_02: We've got plenty more where this came from.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_02: We'll see you on the next one.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_02: Take care.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_02: That's it for today's episode of the Ambitious Coach Lab.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_02: My hope is that something here helps you sharpen your craft and keep building a coaching practice you're proud of.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_02: Before we wrap, a quick thank you to our sponsor, 90.
• 59:03
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• 59:08
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• 59:13
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• 59:20
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• 59:27
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• 59:31
  SPEAKER_02: Again, that's AC20 for 20% off.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for hanging out with me today.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Cam.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_02: Cheering on as you grow your ambitious coaching practice.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_02: We'll see you next time.