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Bonus Episode: Building a Culture of Excellence, featuring Kyle McDowell · Humanity Working

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Hey everybody, Paul here.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_02: Today's episode is quite a bit longer than the ones we normally do, and there's a reason for that.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_02: We have a repeat guest on today, Kyle McDowell, who was on previously talking about his book, The Ten Wii's.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: That book has since been turned into an interactive program that I actually helped Kyle develop.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: So I thought that was a great opportunity for the two of us to have a conversation, much more detailed conversation about the 10 leadership principles themselves and what they mean in today's modern world of work.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: So I hope you really enjoy the discussion.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: If you want to learn more about the program, you can check out the show notes.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_02: We've got the details in there.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_02: And in the meantime, I hope you enjoy the show.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: Hi everybody, welcome to the show.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: I am thrilled today to be rejoined by somebody who was a really impactful guest that we had on the podcast previously, Carl McDowell.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: As a reminder, for those of you or for those of you that are new to the podcast, this is Carl's book, Begin with We, which is a Wall Street Journal bestseller and a USA Today bestseller.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_02: Subtitle here is Ten Principles for Building and Sustaining a Culture of Excellence.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: So first off, welcome back to the podcast.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_02: And so as we were going through the process, I suggested to Carl that he comes back on the podcast and we're going to do something a little bit different today, which is to go in much, much deeper depth than we normally do on our podcast.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_02: So fair warning for those regular listeners, this is going to be a lot longer than we normally do, but it will give us that opportunity.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: We're actually going to go through all 10 of these principles, building, necessary for building and sustaining a culture of excellence, do a little bit of a deep dive associated with all 10, get into Carl's head a bit as to as to how they all came about, and then hopefully you'll come out of it.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: A, wanted to go deeper still by looking at the book or even using the course, but also you'll start to think probably quite differently about how to be an effective leader wherever you are inside an organization, whether leadership is formally in your title or not.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: So I've been thinking for a while, Carl, as to how to start this discussion off.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I think what I really wanted to do was to start with your learnings since this came out as a book, or even indeed since the germ of the idea came about.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: You talk in the in the book, actually, and we talked about this last time on the on the podcast, that the 10 Wii's themselves were it was almost a bit of a Eureka moment for you.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_02: They came very quickly and they came up against a kind of a deadline.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: So we'll get into what's happened since then, but tell us a little bit about that origin story.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: Tell us about um where you were, how they how they came about, and and then what's happened since.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you bet, man.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: So so for me, I I I I would bet that my career is is incredibly similar to most of your audience.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: As a matter of fact, I think nearly all of our career journeys have a fair amount of overlap from each scenario to each to each scenario to each person.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I was no different in that when I entered the workforce more than 30 years ago now, I brought a ton of optimism.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: Man, I wanted to make a difference.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to have an impact.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to do something bigger than myself.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: I had I had I had big dreams.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I started to plot my way through this thing called the corporate world.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: And by most accounts, I checked nearly every box and had had wild success.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and we all define success differently.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't, you know, I don't mean to paint my picture as the ultimate picture because because you know it was my path.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: And but I will tell you, as my career began to expand and my scope and my sphere of influence became greater and greater, two things matched that growth, my ego and my level of apathy.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: And to to land on that word, apathy, as it relates to the cultures and the environments that I was responsible for creating.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: I have no one to blame for feeling the way that I felt because I created these environments.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I was a product of those environments, right?
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I was, I came up in the corporate world when, you know, banging a fist on the desk, raising a voice, that type of behavior was commonplace.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I mirrored that behavior.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I reached this point where the apathy was so loud in my brain that I knew I had to do something different, or I was gonna wake up one morning at you know, 65, 70 years old and wonder what was it all for?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know, Paul, we work a hundred thousand hours in our lifetime.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: The only thing we do more on this planet is sleep.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: And when I realized that I had spent so much time and energy, and no, by the way, from a personal standpoint, I was on the doorstep of a divorce that ultimately happened.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: My health was not good, and I just was not a fun person to be around.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: The apathy became so loud, I just had to have these tough, introspective conversations with myself.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I ultimately came to the decision that there has to be a better way.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know what the better way was, though, at that, at that time.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: As a matter of fact, I stepped away from the corporate world not knowing what I wanted to do when I grew up.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I was 24 years into a career, the apathy took over, and I said, and I was very lucky to be able to make this decision.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna step away for an unknown amount of time, probably a handful of weeks before I get back into the fray.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: And but 11 days had elapsed, and I got a phone call asking what I want to join this organization, or at least discuss joining an organization that would require me to lead about 15,000 people.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: It was a$7 billion program, very, very visible program.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I took the role in the tests came early and often, but I still had not landed on what was going to make this run different than the previous 20-something years.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: And about 60 days into my role, I requested the top 40 or 50 leaders of this organization to kind of descend into one place, and it would be my chance to share my expectations of them.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: It would be a great opportunity for us to get to know one another.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: But probably most important, I saw that as an opportunity to share the expectations they should have of me, which was a very different approach for me, required a level of vulnerability that I had not shown before and required me to set this ego aside because the night before I was going to meet with this with this group of leaders, I was terrified.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know what I was gonna say.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know how I was gonna say it, whatever, whatever the it would be.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: But I realized all in the blink of an eye that evening in Lawrence, Kansas, probably midnight before I even started this exercise because I was at a team dinner earlier.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to be a boss that I had never been.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: I knew I had a recipe for air quote success in delivering good results.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: I was always able to deliver, you know, average to much better than average results.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, at what cost was the question I probably should have asked.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: These these scenarios started to play through my mind.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I have my laptop open because I got to put a couple slides together.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I think through all these times when I was left uninspired from those that that quote unquote led me to those to whom I reported.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then I also tried to think about examples of where I left an interaction or even a job, feeling like, man, you made a difference.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: You you mattered here, you had an impact.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: And it was that process of not wanting to go back to the place that I had had seen for 20 plus years and wanting to really have an impact that resulted in the 10 we's.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: I was staring at a laptop with an empty PowerPoint, and about two hours later, there were about maybe 10, 12 sentences.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: I've I focused in on 10.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: They each began and still do begin with the word we.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: And they're principles that um that really establish expectations of behavior.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of organizations do a really fine job saying, welcome to the team.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: Here's here's the onboarding we're going to present you.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: Here's how you do the job that uh for which you've been hired, here's the X's and O's, the the SOPs basically, how to do the job.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: But throughout my leadership journey and even prior to that, as an individual contributor, I'd never seen an organization really overtly focus on the expectations for how we get the work done, how we treat one another, what matters most.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: And it was with that kind of umbrella series of thoughts I created these principles.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: I shared them the next day with this group of leaders, and it kicked off a transformation that changed my life.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: It changed professionally, it changed that organization in ways that are still really, really visible.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: They have the 10 Wii awards, all of their performance appraisals, the annual appraisal process rooted in the 10 Wii's.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: There's collateral all over these 11, 12 locations.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: And um, it changed more impactful to me, Paul, was watching bosses transform to leaders.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: And you know as well as anybody, they're not the same.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: But watching that happen and use and seeing the role the 10 Whees played in that transformation, that evolution, has been nothing short of profound to me.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: And it's what fuels me to continue to do what I do now seven years later, eight years later.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: So that's substantial.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_02: And it's it's had a it's clearly had an impact on you, and it's had an impact on other people, but that was kind of like one night initially.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um I know from working with you that the Wii's themselves have persisted, they're they're the same, but obviously the nuance is where you've done a lot of learning over the last seven years.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_02: So I guess my question would be for you, as we kick off the discussion here, is what do you think is the most uh uh impactful thing that you've learned since then as you've seen organizations look to implement the Ten Wees?
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think there I think it's twofold.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll go probably in the most organic order.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: The first is an openness to a little bit of self-reflection.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't mean to sound woo-woo or take this to a place where you know people feel like it's become this esoteric thing, but I mean is if you want the same results, just do the same thing.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's pretty simple.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: But if you want a different outcome and if you want to feel differently about your work, you have to think through what's missing.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: You have to think through what is required from your perspective to fill that gap.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: So that that self-reflection is critical.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what started the journey for me was to say, dude, I'm not happy.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not happy.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: My work is my identity, and it's costing me the most important relationship in my life, my marriage.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: And that self-reflection, and using what I call the mirror of truth, which is really just a metaphor for being purposeful about that time, that self-reflection.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: Am I am I the leader I always wanted to be?
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: Am I having the impact I've I've always wanted to have?
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: Am I fulfilled in my work?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: Am I making a difference?
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that self-reflection is absolutely critical.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then the second component is recognizing the path from here to there is not easy.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I and I know that sounds kind of cliche or or or and I think in this in this day and age, people are looking for a hack.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: So when they hear someone say, I think I found a better way, as a matter of fact, I I know I found a better way, it's very simple, but it's not easy.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: And those two things cannot be conflated.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's so when we when we have that dose of of healthy self-reflection, which by the way is not a one-time event, that's something that needs to happen every day, almost every interaction.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then we couple that with recognizing that the journey we're about to undertake is gonna be it's gonna be difficult.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: And because I've lived it, I've lived it multiple times now.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: And if you can't commit to that, or at least rally people around you and commit in a collective kind of effort, it's for not.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's for not because I can't tell you, Paul, the number of times I've been flown into an organization, given a keynote, maybe even stuck around to do some leadership coaching, to reach back to that client 30 days, 60 days later, and nothing's changed.
• 13:14
  unknown: Yeah.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: They checked a box.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't really commit to this transformation.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I think those two elements are absolutely critical.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: And they and they've and I actually was naive in thinking that you know, you hand someone this information, maybe give them a little bit of background and they're off.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: But it's it's it's like anything else in life.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: It requires the reps, it requires the daily reinforcement, it requires, you know, help, um, which has been a really profound learning experience for me.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Kyle, this is something actually I've been thinking about quite a bit as we've had various guests on the pod recently.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: We had we had Gary Ridge on recently, he was the chairman emeritus of WD-14 and the former CEO of that, author of a great new book called Any Dumb Ass Can Do It.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: And it is what I think is really interesting.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_02: He touched on this thing, you're touching on the same thing, that there is this difference between things that are simple, right?
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: As in simple to state, simple to define, at least at a at a high level, and things that are easy to do.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_02: And the recognition of that is extremely important for any human that is that is looking to undergo change.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_02: And we believe that the reason that happens is because you've got this simple thing to describe on the surface, but then you've got this super almost unbelievably complex thing in between the statement of it and the action of doing it, which is the human.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_02: The human is incredibly complicated.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: The human is doing things with their subconscious that even they themselves are not aware of, which are gonna determine whether they're gonna implement and how they're gonna implement and whether they're gonna feel it that day or whether they're not.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I do think it's so important because if you even think about it, if you if the the human that you you were talking about, right, the human for whom the apathy became so loud, right?
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_02: You weren't you you weren't making a simple statement or a simple choice not to be apathetic, right?
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_02: Or to be apathetic.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: You didn't wake up one morning and go, you know what, I'm gonna choose apathy today, right?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: This complex human who had gone through a complex set of experiences in the workplace had landed through a mainly through subconscious factors at somebody for whom apathy was loud.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think it's really important for anybody that is uh listening the big mistake that people often make when it comes to any form of human change is they take these simple statements and they go, Well, that's just like obvious.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_02: As though that means that there's no work to do.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_02: If something is easy to state, doesn't imply that it's easy to do.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: And you expressed it, you expressed it beautifully that way.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: Hey Paul, you touched on something that I gotta I gotta just pile on for a moment.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's back to the the simple and easy kind of conundrum that so many conflate.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: Every person on the planet knows how to lose weight.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: We know what's required.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: Losing weight is actually, believe it or not, it's pretty simple.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's calories in, calories burned.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: We know what it's we know going to the gym is gonna help.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: We know just going for a walk is gonna help.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: All simple.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: But not easy because life, because I've got commitments.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: I've got I gotta be somewhere in 10 minutes, right?
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: I can't get up at 5:30 to do these things.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: And you can insert fitness, you can remove fitness and insert just about any other thing.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: You want to learn a second language?
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's actually pretty simple.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's not easy, it's very simple.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: Take a course, get an app, go somewhere.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: But my point is, is we know we know how to get things done as humans.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: We we recognize the path from here to there.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: When you when you when you introduce this in a in a workplace setting, though, there's this not my job, wait for those guys, wait for somebody else.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: There's this, there's this phenomenon of always kind of you know looking the other way and not taking ownership for the very environment that we're gonna spend most of our time in.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I just wanted to kind of over-index on that on that simple versus easy, because identifying what it is that you're trying to accomplish in nearly everything in life, I think is simple, but actually achieving that is a very, very different equation.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, the environment in which we exist is a huge, is a huge factor there as well.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_02: And so I this is why I love the work that you do inside inside organizations when you're going beyond the keynote, right?
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_02: The keynote is in ADCAR terms, is like awareness and desire and maybe a little bit, maybe a little bit of knowledge.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: But if you're able to go into the organization and you're actually able to look systemically at all of the factors that are gonna cause the organization to live and breathe these Wii's versus actually just check a box and then move on, it's it's people, but yeah, it's the organizational environment.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_02: What is the organization doing to those people?
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: If you have an organized, if you have an organization that tolerates apathy, and when I say tolerates, I don't mean that if you see apathy inside your organization, you should you should fire all those people, right?
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_02: You've created that environment in which in which people in which people are apathetic.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_02: But what I'm talking about is that you if you have an organization that looks at apathy and goes, yeah, yeah, we'll do something about that next year, or the year after, or the year after, and they see it systemically inside their organization, and or their solution is just to get a couple of keynote speakers in, right?
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_02: Then they're not actually addressing it.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: But when you are able to go into those organizations and say, okay, now let's make this real.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_02: Now let's go inside into the organization and create a place where this can thrive, that's when it becomes powerful.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: And in your first organization, where you had where you were sitting in the room, that's exactly what's happened, right?
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's why they have the awards, that's why they have those those other things.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: It is because it's gone beyond a set of slogans and become something that people are living.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: Beautifully said.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I have to tell you, there's no way I was going to allow anything that I built to be confused with or even categorized with a mission statement.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: I've worked for some of the biggest companies in the world, man.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: And they've all had, without exception, they all have incredibly sexy mission statements and even corporate values.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: I can't recite a single one of them.
• 19:59
  unknown: Yeah.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I can tell you honestly, not a single one of them compelled me to work any harder.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: Because there are these kind of nebula states.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: I work for an organization who had a mission statement that was helping consumers on their paths to better health.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: Beautiful.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely beautiful.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: Who can deny the intention behind that statement?
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: But it doesn't get me out of bed.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't, it doesn't raise the level of quality of the work that I do.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't make me or compel me to partner and create connections and bonds inside of my team, inside those that I work with within the organization.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the difference, is the 10 Wii's are actionable.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: And they are, and you you know this because of our work together, how how focused I am on using black and white.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: And nearly all of my marketing, my collateral, the book cover.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: And that's intentional because these things are black and white.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: And if you can't subscribe to these principles or you think that there's something missing from them, then I just don't think there's a place for you on a team that I want to be a part of.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: When you juxtapose that to a mission statement, there's just no call to action to say, here's how I get shit done.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: I want to be a part of this mission, but I don't know that it helps me from day to day.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: And that was the experience I had, and that's what compelled me to create principles versus values and principles versus any one or two mission statements, because a principle, by definition, it's a standard.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: It is our foundational truths.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's a system of beliefs by definition, not my definition.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's the Webster definition definition.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: And when you get a group of people to subscribe to a series of fundamental beliefs, there's not a lot we can't accomplish together.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I I've seen it, I've lived it.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: You know, before we get into detail, let's just uh pull on that thread just a tiny bit because there is one situation that I've seen inside organizations, and I'd love to get your take on this, where mission statements, um As an example, mission and vision become really, really, really important in an organization, but it's not positive.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: So where I where I've seen this really, really breakdown in organizations is when you've got a mission statement.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_02: You've got a vision statement inside the organization.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_02: And then you've got the day-to-day activities that an organization is doing.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: And people inside the organization who are working there can see that the two do not align.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_02: And then at that point, that's potentially an area where you can have rapid breakdown inside inside a culture.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_02: So one good example would be if you've got an organization without naming them, probably some people can think of organizations like this, but let's say you've got an organization that says that its mission is all centered around empowering people.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_02: And all of the technology it produces is designed to empower people to accomplish more.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_02: And then that organization goes and rather than, for example, using its own technology to create more profits and to create more impact, in order to save money, it lays off huge numbers of people inside the organization.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_02: The people that are left inside that organization now look and say, hang on, you told me that your technology was designed to empower me further.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_02: Well, what part of empowering me further is laying off 5,000 people or 10,000 people?
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_02: If you believe in your technology and you believe in your technology in order to be able to create additional profits and create additional impact and so on, why are you reaching first for firing a whole bunch of people?
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's the easiest lever, but it's not the lever that you told me were your primary values in your vision statement or your mission statement.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_02: And so I would argue that they're that they are important in one sense, right?
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_02: Which is that your customers and your employees and your partners need to see that you are living up to them.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_02: And if they do not, then everything you hoped to accomplish through them breaks down.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_02: But that's kind of it, because they aren't the instruction manual in the same way that you're that your Wii's are, right?
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: They're not the way in which you can live up to the values of your vision or your mission.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's right.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'll kind of boil it down the way I look at it, even maybe more elementary, is a mission statement is a beautiful tool for communicating what we do externally.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: It set it sets the tone or the spirit of the work that we do and how it can impact and add value to our consumers, those that purchase our product or service.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: Where I focus my energy is how we deliver those things, the expectations behind the curtain.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: And by the way, when I introduce these principles and still to this day, I introduce the 10 Wii's as our guide rails behind the curtain.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's where we focus first.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: I think our consumer, our customers, they feel if we're high functioning behind the scenes, they also feel our toxicity.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: So if we start with that lens, what's happening behind the scenes?
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: We're much more better, we're much better positioned to deliver a product or service that is felt in ways that can be a differentiator from our competition.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_02: So with that kind of as a as an intro, let's let's now go into each each one of these so we can orient people for the rest of our discussion here.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_02: If you would, Kyle, just briefly list the 10 and then we'll we'll be going through them in order.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: You bet I'd be I'd be honored to.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: I I have to, and I every time I walk through one through ten, I give two caveats.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: And one is connected to a question you asked earlier.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's not really a caveat, more of a favor to ask.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: You asked a question about um unexpected learnings or things that I didn't expect.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: You let off with that, and I will say the most by orders of magnitude, impactful unexpected observation is the role that the Tin Wees are playing outside of the workplace.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: Starting with me, they changed who I am as a person, as a friend to my now wife, to my loved ones and family members.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: I they have changed how I carry myself because I've established these standards in all things in Kyle's world, not just the workplace.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm hearing from readers that are having very similar experiences, even one saying it's changed how he raises his children.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that's happened multiple times now, but he was the first to say it.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: It was actually at a keynote in person, a fellow said this to me, and it brought me to tears.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: I have to be honest.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's favor one.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then the the caveat is, and we kind of touched on it earlier, but as I walk through these, I'm certain, and I am absolutely certain, because it happens every time, there will be members of your audience that are either out loud saying it or at least thinking it, and it's no shit.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: Back to simple.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: They're gonna hear some of these things, well, no shit.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, of course I want, of course that's how I lead, and that's how I want those around me to behave.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: But it's not always what we see.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: With those two, a favor and a caveat in mind, the first of the ten wees, and I think it's number one for a reason.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's the foundation, it's we do the right thing, always.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I never leave out that one-word, second sentence.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: As you mentioned, the workplace is very complex, and we might aspire to do the right thing, but deadlines, commitments, job security, stress, pressure, all kind of corroborate against the right thing at times.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_01: So adding that one word at the end always is incredibly important.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: And when we set that foundation, everything else that we do is kind of rooted in that expectation, that fundamental expectation of doing the right thing.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's why we number two is where it is, because if you want to be one who is known for doing the right thing, the best way to demonstrate that you're committed to doing the right thing is to lead by example.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: We, number two, is we lead by example.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's this notion that I'm gonna lead by example when I have X number of direct reports or when I have a bigger organization, or you're leading by example right now.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: Right now.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: The question is not should I lead by example?
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: The question is, am I leading by an example I would be proud to see replicated and played over and over again?
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's the question.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: So if I'm committed to doing the right thing, my leadership and setting the example that I want others to follow with a theme of ownership and commitment to those around us and the bonds that we form, those are all examples of leading in a way that is connected to doing the right thing.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: But if I want to be consistent and leading by example, the number one trait where I think people kind of lose ground and lose credibility and ultimately trust is they don't make good on their commitments.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_01: We number three is we say what we're going to do and then we do it.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: Pretty simple.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's setting the expectation, delivering on it, and a culture of excellence, which is always the goal here.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: Is we're not striving for perfection, but we are striving to hit our commitments to one another.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's a given that we're going to hold our commitments to those external constituents.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: Why don't we have that same expectation behind the curtains?
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's where trust is essential and it erodes if we make these promises and don't live up to them.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: And that's especially important for the leader, because we don't have to.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: We don't necessarily have to keep our commitments in terms of our one-on-ones, or I said I'd get back to you about that training you asked me about.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: There's not a lot of repercussions if we don't.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: But the thing is, that behavior is played forward.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's paid forward over and over again.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: So if we're going to be committed to doing what we say we're going to do, that requires we number four to be next.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's we take action.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: Every organization is ripe with improvements, uh, opportunities for improvement.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: And nearly every member of the team is aware of those opportunities.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: But there's usually very little incentive to raise my hand and say, hey, boss, that's broken.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: We we should get after this.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: Or, hey, boss, if you were to insert this prompt into our CRM, that would save me 10 minutes on this transaction every single day.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like this action-oriented mindset is absent in a lot of places.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: But what is present in those same places is the wait.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: Someone just waiting for someone else to come along and bring them a better opportunity, a better solution, a better scenario to help their jobs become more fulfilling.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's not our paradigm.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: We take action, is we number four.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: If we want our teams and members of the team and those around us to be compelled to take action and really drive a culture of continuous improvement, we've got to be ready for mistakes.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: And that's we number five is we own our mistakes.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: The value of a mistake, and by the way, let me just quickly set aside, we're not talking about malice, we're not talking about things that are illegal or unethical.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: We're talking about, I botched a formula on a spreadsheet and it cost us 10 million bucks, a scenario that I lived firsthand.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: When we recognize a mistake is really it's just an opportunity for improvement and it and it has it's showing us a better way, we stop focusing on who's right and we focus on what's right.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: We stop focusing on how tough we are on people and we start to become a lot more tough on the problems that our people are facing.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: So we've got to own our mistakes.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's just not an option.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: We can't hide them.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: If we're gonna own our mistakes, we number six is the logical kind of follow-on, and that's we pick each other up.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: We pick each other up, man.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: Every one of us brings baggage to the workplace.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: We've all got issues.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: Let's let's be honest.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: And it can range from something as benign as a sick child to something much more serious.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: We've all got things we're dealing with.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: To pretend that those things aren't out there and expect people to show up and be their level best every single day is just naive and it's not reality, especially in today's workplace.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: So we've got to pick each other up.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: There is a corollary here, though.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: If you're in a position of authority, in other words, if you had direct reports, you have a second obligation with this principle, and it's your obligation to lift others to new heights.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: Someone on your team wants your job, help them get there.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: They'll want to leave your team and go somewhere else because it provides a living for them that helps them live a standard that they're aspiring to live, take care of their kids, whatever the scenario is, help them get there.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: No matter the loss that you might experience off of your team, you're helping someone on their path.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's what we're here to do, man, not just in the workplace, in life.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: So we've got to pick each other up.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: When I turn the corner from six to seven, is where I get a little bit of pushback, and it also becomes a little uncomfortable for some.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: And we number seven is we measure ourselves by outcomes, not activity.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: There's this pervasive characteristic in nearly every organization.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I would say every organization, it's just more prevalent in some pockets than others, and that's this dependency on busyness.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: Meeting after meeting after meeting.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: Where are the outcomes?
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: So sometimes I get a little confrontational with my clients who tell me they don't have time to invest energy and care into their teams.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: They don't have time to spend more time in one-on-ones.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: They don't have more time to unpack what it is that's stopping someone from being excellent and allowing them or enabling them just to be more than they were yesterday.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: They don't have there's this time thing.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, fine, let me see your calendar.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: And they'll gladly show me their calendar and they'll be triple book, you know, 47 meetings in one day.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I ask, please draw a straight line from any one of those meetings, and let's just start with the first one, to the outcomes that you've been assigned.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: We all have those.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: They're on our performance appraisal.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: Our boss has said here's what we have to deliver over the next, you know, 30, 60, 90, one year.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: If you can't draw a straight line, it's activity, man.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: If you cannot draw a straight line from the work that you are engaged to the outcome that you've been assigned, it needs to be scrutinized.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes you might say, well, this is just one of those things we have to live with.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: I have to do this, it's part of the role, fine.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: But you we need to scrutinize those because we have meeting after meeting without outcomes.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: We don't memorialize the outcomes.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: And if we're not crystal clear on the outcome of that last meeting, what are we gonna do, Paul?
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna schedule another meeting.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: And this cycle is just and it's busyness over outcomes.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: It drives me nuts.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_01: We number eight is my favorite of all the principles.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's the most impactful by far.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: It is also the most difficult for folks to really, really um kind of incorporate into their existence inside of the workplace.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: And that's we challenge each other.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: We number eight is we challenge each other.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: There's a one-word sentence at the end of this one as well.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's diplomatically.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: Challenges are essential in achieving excellence.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: They're essential for separating ourselves from a personal leadership perspective to the organization that we're a part of, to the industry that we serve.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: Challenges are fuel for growth.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of back to that simple versus easy thing.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: When we see something that has an opportunity to make us better, that's a challenge.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: Now, historically, in most environments, challenges are one direction.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: They come from the person with the biggest business card or the most, the fanciest title.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: And mathematically, that doesn't work.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: So if one person is leading a team of 10, 15, or whatever, that one person cannot conceivably have all the right questions to ask, the challenges to offer to make all of us better.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: So that's why peers must challenge peers diplomatically.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: Team members must challenge their leader diplomatically.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: The leader must challenge higher in the organization diplomatically.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: There is a rule though.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: Challenges must be grounded in either data or experience.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: There can't be your opinion.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: We all have those, and that's a slippery slope, and there's a crude cliche that follows.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: But the point here is we have to recognize mediocre is easy.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: Embracing challenge is what makes us excellent and gets us from here to where we need to be.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: Again, from a personal perspective to professional to the organization.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: We number eight without we number nine knows a recipe for chaos.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: And number nine is we embrace challenge.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna look it in the eye.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna be galvanized by it.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: And we're gonna talk about the last time this happened and how we overcame that one.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: But we're not gonna run from it.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: We're not gonna act as if it's not there.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: And this is where I think many, many leaders struggle because they confuse this, what they perceive is this need to always be upbeat and optimistic and positive.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: And that's not what I'm saying.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: We can we can be facing a gnarly challenge like a competitive entrant, or maybe we've got some cost pressures and go, yeah, guys, this sucks.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: I don't like, I don't like this at all.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm worried, but I'm committed to this team getting through it.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I know with this team, I've got the best chances to get through it.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_01: But we're not gonna act like it's not there.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: We're not gonna sugarcoat it.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't work.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then the final we was we number 10.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like the bow on the present, the icing on the cake.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's and it's I was intentional to leave it as number 10 because any earlier I think is a recipe for disappointment.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's we obsess over details.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: And details, like it or not, there's essentially two schools of thought on this one.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's hey, don't sweat the details.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's no big deal.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: We'll get to that.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: Don't sweat, don't sweat them.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then the school that I am proud to have graduated from is the school that says details are not just details.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: They make us who we are.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: The details are what separates my leadership from yours.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: The details are what separates our ability to be excellent versus our clients' expectations of our ability to be excellent, but more importantly, our competition.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: So if we when we obsess over details, and I mean the font size, the margins that we of our collateral, I mean from A to Z, you're not going to get a typo and a document from us because we obsess over details because our obsession with the details proves our obsession with delivering you, our customer, a service or a product that you feel is adding value to your existence, whether it's professionally or otherwise.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: So details are incredibly important.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll end with this, man.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: Any one of those principles on their own, I would be the one to say, well, yeah, no shit.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_01: That makes total sense.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: But when we combine them, they become this code by which we are all obligated to operate.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it makes tough conversations a lot easier.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: It makes celebrating wins so much more fun because we did it in a way that we can all be proud of.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: Ted Wees.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I I don't want to lose that as we go through each one of these, because I think that's a very, very important point that you make at the end there, which is we're gonna we're gonna spend a little bit of time, not a lot, but we'll spend a little bit of time on uh on each one here.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_02: But as you pointed out, and as we've been working with you on turning this into a program, it's been very, very clear that this is a collection, right?
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_02: This is not a oh one, I like one, I like three, I like five.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_02: And and the other ones are irrelevant.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_02: Now, of course, there can be different interpretations, there can even be some ways in which one we might challenge another, and we might even get we might even get into that uh some of that today.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_02: But as a collection, working together, that's really where the value comes, right?
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's the it's the only way.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's the only now don't get me wrong, man.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: You we can have individual contributors or folks that are solo successes.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: I was one of those guys for a while.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's not sustainable.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's not sustainable, and and the alienation that you bring to the workplace to those around you is not healthy.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's the only way for sustaining, and that's why I was really, really adamant that that subtitle of the book, Principles for Building and Sustaining a Culture of Excellence, it has to be via the team.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_01: And for me, it's via we.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_02: So we do the right thing always.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_02: And you've already talked about the fact that this is the this is the first one for a reason.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_02: As I was working through this, there were a couple of things that struck me about it.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_02: One was exactly what you said, that there's really only one place for it, which is right up the front.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_02: But secondly, that to come back to that idea of mission and vision, this is for me anyway, the thing that that is almost like the connective tissue between mission and vision into the how, right?
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_02: So if I'm if for example, I'm taking an action that is you can clearly see is not aligned with the mission of the organization, why am I taking that action, right?
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_02: So it is the it's sort of how you draw from the the what into into the how.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_02: Give me your thoughts on how this came about and why it it became very clear to you that it should be the first one.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: This one is 100% a product of watching.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_01: I gotta be careful how I say it, but it's true, watching those that were in positions that I aspired to be in behave in ways that was unequivocally not the right thing.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes they weren't even shy about it.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't even try to hide the fact that, hey, make this number appear this way so it matches something we've already said, or it ties back to this.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: I've seen that more times than I'm comfortable saying, more times than I can count.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I found that it's not usually bad people doing these things.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I don't maybe I'm a bit Pollyannish, but I think more of us than not get up with the intention of doing the right thing, period.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_01: But reality and life and pressure, as I mentioned earlier, is a hell of a deterrent, especially when it could result in a loss of income.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: I got a family to feed, I got obligations I got to take care of.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I understand it.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: And again, the there's that massive caveat that it's like we're not talking about illegal things, we're not talking about unethical, we're talking about, you know, the cutting corners is really what I would boil it down to.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I've done it, I'm certain you've done it.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we've all done it.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that can be a slippery slope because when you do it once and nobody calls you out or it's not noticed or it goes unnoticed, and only you know, wow, okay, man, maybe, maybe there's something here.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe I don't have to be as committed to doing the right thing.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then that's your new normal.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then next time you cut a corner that's even bigger, and that's a new normal.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_01: And before you know it, it's ingrained into our entire organization because bad actors, whether intentional or not, get attention and others can see what they're doing and how it's working or not working.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then now there's this pervasive behavior inside the organization.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I created that one with an absolute intention of doing away with the toxic behaviors that I had witnessed and being really conspicuous in that nothing that we do matters if it's not done with doing the right thing in the back of our mind.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I will tell you this, man, an unintended byproduct of this one that is, I remember it like it was yesterday, is it creates an expectation that reduces friction inside the inside of teams and it makes conversations and getting to the right decision much, much easier.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: My favorite example, I'll be brief, is many, many, many years ago, the organization that I was at, where I introduced the principals, we were facing a scenario that we had our someone within the organization had uncovered this opportunity for us to save a bit of money, but it would come at the expense of not compensating our employees in a way that they were expecting to be compensated.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't have to do it.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_01: We had set this expectation we're going to do it.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_01: There was a loophole that someone found that said, you know what, we don't necessarily have to do this.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_01: So this was a conversation happening thousands of miles away from my office.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: I got a phone call one day, and it was one of the more senior leaders that reported to me at the time.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, Hey, Kyle, I just need you to know that I'm in this meeting.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: We're having this conversation about not paying our folks for this day a couple of weeks ago because, you know, insert loophole here.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_01: And she gave me probably a 30 second, maybe.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: 60 second intro to the problem.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_01: And before she gave me a space to answer or at least ask another question, she said, and I know what you're going to say, we do the right thing.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: So we're going to pay our folks, right?
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: Conversation was over.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_01: So we had set this expectation, although we could have gotten away with it.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_01: Was it the right thing?
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_01: Hell no.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_01: And that one, oh, that one always replays in my mind and it sets the table for how you want folks to behave in rooms that you're not in.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_01: And this was a really perfect example of that.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_02: And as you've already alluded, I mean, that one word always is such an important role here because the or plays such an important role.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_02: Because in reality, we are as individuals are making hundreds, even thousands of small decisions daily and weekly.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_02: And some of them seem very high impact, very important decisions in the moment.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_02: Some of them seem like very minimal decisions in the moment.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_02: But what that decision seems like in the moment, as to whether it's important or whether it's not important, isn't always going to be with in retrospect considered to be important.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_02: I'll give you one example that I saw, which is it was a manager and an employee.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_02: I was working as a vendor at the time, but I was closely involved, involved in that organization.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_02: And uh the employee needed some time from the manager because they were confused as to the as to the work they should be doing.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_02: And they weren't sure whether they should be doing X or whether they should uh whether they should be doing Y.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_01: And uh situation to which no one can relate.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_02: So they just needed guidance.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_02: They said, okay, I need to prioritize, I can't do both, I need one versus the other.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_02: And the manager could have had time for the employee, and they were just like, I don't have time for this, you need to figure it, you need to figure it out yourself, and off they went.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_02: Well, fast forward two weeks later, it turns out that these both of these X's and Y's were of seemingly equal importance for the employee.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_02: So the employee just picked X because the manager told him to.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_02: And it turned out that Y was actually way more important.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_02: Y was not executed on as it should have been, a deadline associated with Y was missed.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_02: And three weeks later, the entire team got shut down because of this missed deadline.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_02: And the manager knew that Y was more important, they just didn't have time.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_02: So the point here is that in that moment it didn't seem like a big deal for the leader.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_02: But they didn't pay enough attention or think, hang on, am I doing the right thing here just by just blowing this off?
• 46:59
  unknown: Yeah.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_02: And if they had have thought that, their entire team would still be there probably today.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_02: So these are the things where we if we think this is important and this isn't important, or I let this slide, I'll let that slide because it's not important, we don't know what will be important in a week or two weeks or a month.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's why I think you're the always is such an important part of that we.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_01: If you'll allow me, there's a there's a component that I think it's worth mentioning here that, and this is not a bait and switch to go buy the book because I'll just tell you what's in the book on this on this front.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_01: I I think it's really important to look at big decisions through through one filter.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: And the filter asks, is what I'm doing is a decision I'm about to make in the best interest of my company?
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_01: And before people react and say, Oh, it's a company guy saying that.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, hang on.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_01: The client, the people we serve, those that were in business to add value to their existence, and my crew, those three C's, the team I lead.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_01: But what's conspicuously missing there is me.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm no part of that decision matrix.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_01: And if you can make a decision that checks all three of those boxes, you're almost guaranteed to have done the right thing.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_01: If you, if your decision is favorable to two of those three cohorts, you're probably doing the right thing.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_01: And occasionally we have to settle for just one of those three, but it's never me.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_01: And this person made the decision, not even realizing it was a selfish decision because it was about their time.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_01: They were selfish with their time.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that the impact of that's not doing the right thing.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it's a beautiful example.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_01: But if you can, if we can try to make these big decisions in the workplace through that lens of those three filters, I think more often than not, you'll be, you'll you can look back with a degree of pride for that decision you made.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_02: So we too we lead by example.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_02: So for this one, Kyle, let's let's stop with a scenario where that you've seen where this hasn't happened and a consequence that's come from it.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'll start with I guarantee you this scenario is something in most workplaces.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_01: And it's going to seem trivial, but I think it creates a bigger expectation for how we lead by example and treat one another.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_01: My faith, and it's my favorite.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know this one, actually.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_01: We've talked about it.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_01: As I'm walking through the hall, this is an on-premise scenario, obviously.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_01: And by the way, there's a corollary here for being on a Zoom call or whatever.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_01: But if I'm walking through the hall and I'm in colleagues approach, am I face down on my phone?
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_01: Or do I say good morning?
• 49:24
  unknown: Yeah.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_01: Do I say hello?
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_01: Do I say what's up?
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_01: How's your weekend?
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_01: Nice to see you.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_01: And it seems so trivial.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_01: But if I if I that the message I send when my face is buried in the phone is that what I've got going on over here is much more important than any connection we can have.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_01: And probably worse is that colleague now has that same license to keep their head down and not say hello to the next person that approaches them.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_01: So now we have a bunch of people with the same ID, the same badge around their waist or on a lanyard around their neck, but they're not a team.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's just people that happen to work in the same place.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_01: So and I lead with that example, Paul, because we often confuse leading by example with uh we involve scenarios where, you know, it's someone who has a bunch of direct reports, or someone who's got a fancy title, or maybe they're speaking at a town hall, or, you know, how professionally I'm dressed or how expansive my vocabulary is.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't give a shit about any of those things.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about leading in a way that if your behavior were replayed in the company newsletter, would you be proud?
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_01: Or my favorite example is if there were a documentary film crew following you, is that a horror movie?
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_01: Or is that a drama?
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_01: Is that a love?
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_01: What is it?
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_01: But you can you control the genre of that film, but only you can control what is portrayed on that and during that film.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_01: My point here is whether it's under the brightest of lights with the fanciest, fanciest of titles, or it is the newest intern who has just entered our team, we all are expected to lead by example.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: And that is creating a standard which sets no there's no ambiguity for how we interact with one another, how we treat one another.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_01: All of these are examples of leading by example.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_02: And there's nothing more powerful, right?
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_02: People will always pay more attention to what you do than what you say.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_02: And there's a lot of leaders out there who've got very, very good at saying what others should do versus modeling what others should do.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_02: And that modeling is, as you point out very well in the book, and I think we've captured in the program, the you don't get to choose when people are going to pay attention to you.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_02: They're they're paying attention to everything you do.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_02: And so you're setting an example all the time.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_02: This is the interesting thing for me, right?
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_02: Because what becomes clear when you look into this is not the idea that you choose whether to set an example or not.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_02: You are setting an example.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_02: The question is, is that example an example that you want to set, or is it an example that you might be causing some problems with your team?
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_01: Back to the mirror of truth.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_01: If there were someone observing your behavior, my my filter for this is my mother.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_01: My mother's been gone for over a decade.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_01: But I I constantly reflect on how would she react if she saw me in a one-on-one environment with that most grouchy, uh, disgruntled, unhappy, obstinate employee.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_01: How did I lead in that scenario?
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_01: When I could have just led with a business card and say, because I said so.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_01: Which was my fallback for many years.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_01: So you know it takes a level of vulnerability to kind of raise our vantage point, almost raise kind of our aperture to look down on ourselves, how we're behaving, how we interact with others.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_01: And like I said, you know this as well about me, our leadership uh impact is not measured uh over town halls and team meetings.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's measured interaction by interaction.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_01: And this became painfully clear to me one evening.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_01: I realized I was at I was home having dinner with my wife, and she was complaining about her boss.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_01: And it occurred to me, and I've done the same, we've all done the same.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_01: Your employees, if you leave people, they're talking about you at the dinner table with their loved ones.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_01: And that might be off-putting, but it's not, it shouldn't be because if you control what they say.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_01: How you behave, the example you set.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_01: And please don't confuse this with being a pushover.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's not what this means.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_01: You can communicate difficult information, bad information, things that people don't want to hear, but still do it in an authentic way that doesn't erode the trust that they have in you.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_01: As a matter of fact, I think it creates more trust.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the example I want to be known for is the one that tells it like it is.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_01: Not I'm not here to appease you or pander to you.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna tell you like it is.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_02: We three, we say what we're going to do, then we do it.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_02: Let's start with the the almost like the back end of that, right?
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_02: The the the exit the execution part.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_02: Then we do it.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_02: So we all have this, we sometimes call in in our work a billion minds almost like a um a two-phase commit.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_02: That's a that's a term that comes from technology.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_02: But the idea of a the idea of a two-phase commit really centers around this idea of there is the int there's the this will happen, and then this did happen.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_02: I know that you were very thoughtful about having the then the then we do it.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_02: Talk to me about how that came about and how you see scenarios where that's working well.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_01: It came about from too many times sitting in a meeting, whether it be a staff meeting or an up what whatever the meeting is, and you know, invariably there's this follow-up list, or ideally there's a follow-up list, but yeah, it's like, hey Shannon, last week we discussed you bringing the report that would show last week's, you know, last month's financials.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_01: Insert whatever transaction you want here.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_01: Shannon shows up and said, Yeah, well, I I I reached out to Jill in accounting and I haven't gotten it yet.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_01: You committed to it, man.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_01: And this meeting is for that purpose.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_01: So when you make a commitment to me, just as important as the commitments I make to you, we must keep those.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_01: How can we approach the marketplace and sincerely and authentically look ourselves in the mirror and say we're committed to delivering an excellent product or service if we can't even do it for each other, the people that we work with every single day, those that are closest to the work with us, that know how difficult some of our work can be.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_01: If you can't keep a commitment to someone that is on your own team, I think setting an expectation that we keep our commitments externally is foolhardy.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I had just been in that scenario far too many times.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_01: And by the way, it's I see it today in my work.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_01: I there's usually not a meeting that goes by where someone has some type of yeah, but.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a process to get past that because there's this notion that, okay, if Shannon was assigned it, in most environments, the Shannon in that scenario thinks that their obligation to deliver on that thing ended when they sent that email when he sent the email to Jill.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_01: But that's not how this works, man.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_01: Now, there's obviously an exception.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_01: And the exception is you get way in front of that delivery date to say, hey, hey, Kyle, I know I committed to this, it's not going to happen.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_01: Then I make a habit of doing that myself.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_01: If I make a commitment to someone on my team, it's like if I'm not going to hit that deadline, you'll hear well in advance of that.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's all about accountability.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's about setting the expectations, not just from the boss to the team, but the expectations, the expectations we have of one another.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_01: And in a lot of environments, there's there's these kind of like there's this operational snake that goes through, right?
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_01: And at every point of the customer lifecycle is impacted at various points of this snake.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_01: And the handoffs get broken.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_01: And when the handoff's broken, the experience is disjointed, and we have something that we're not proud of, all because one, sorry for the cliche, one link in that chain has broken.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_01: We've got to keep our commitments to one another to achieve excellence.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_01: There's just no way around it.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, it's very, very closely and tightly related to factors of trust.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, what we you see in organizations all the time is that those, it's very, very easy, and in fact, it's kind of hardwired into us as humans to say, yeah, I'll do this.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_02: Or if somebody asks you to do something, say yes, I'll do it.
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there's even some evidence out there that shows if if somebody asks you whether you to do something and you say yes, you get a dopamine hit the moment you say yes because you see the other person you see the reaction of the other person.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, great, that's done, right?
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_02: But then because of that, we're hardwired to do that.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_02: We're not hardwired to do the follow-through part, which is the really hard piece.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_02: When we don't do the follow-through part, though, that's when trust starts to erode inside inside teams, inside organizations, because they because that's trust is inherently related to follow-through, right?
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_01: Paul, the example you just gave, I think is a perfect example.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_01: Had that lead, okay, so the leader botched it and didn't take the time to investigate and inspect X versus Y.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_01: Where was the follow-up two, three, four days later when so-and-so was working down path X and the boss wanted Y?
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_01: That follow-up would have been the best opportunity, other than the first one, to say, hey man, wait, let's, let's, let's regroup here.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_01: But it didn't happen because the follow-up wasn't there.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_01: And we confuse our business card with a with a pass, like a get out of jail card to say, Well, I was too busy.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_01: I know I told you I'd get back to you on this.
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry I'm two weeks late.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm an important person.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm more yes, your my time is more important than yours, is the message that's received.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, precisely.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_02: All right, we four.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_02: We take action.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_02: Taking action and making a mistake is okay.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_02: Being idle is not.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_02: This is a fascinating one as well, because you're kind of that's the full we, by the way.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_02: It's not just we're we take action, right?
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so you're almost getting into the description as to what action means and why action is important, even if it results in things going a bit wrong.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes those things going a bit wrong are breakthroughs to another path of something that we didn't even anticipate or know or know was there.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_01: I I've been fortunate enough to work in small companies all the way to Fortune 5 organizations.
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a consistent theme on this front, and regardless of size, and that is we're only gonna do as much as we're asked to do.
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_01: Because there's not often incentive to say, hey, that's broken, let me chase that, and I might have to put this aside for a moment.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_01: But I think the value in that is much more important than just letting it rot over there.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_01: That usually means you're gonna be the response is usually go for it.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_01: You're not getting additional money, go for it, but this stuff can't fall on the floor over here.
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, there's no incentive for someone to raise their hand and say, we have something that would make us better.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_01: So without that incentive, we need some type of fundamental understanding that says, and by the way, I think the incentives for taking action and finding a more optimal path to from here to there, depending on the process of whatever we're talking about, there should always be in some incentive for people to think their way out of inefficient scenarios.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_01: We can't live in this prescription environment where the boss just says, here's how you do it, and get back to me when it's done.
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_01: I don't believe in that any longer.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_01: But when fundamentally our team is aligned with we don't accept mediocrity, even when things are hard and we recognize that a little more effort on that front could result in a better outcome on this front.
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_01: Or it also involves calling out when someone or something is suboptimal, a process is suboptimal, which is also rarely done because the people often associate a degree of personal connection to the things that they birthed inside the team, which is also, I think, a mistake.
• 1:00:43
  SPEAKER_01: But once we recognize that we are this organization that is hellbent on finding excellence, we cannot do it waiting for someone else to tell us what excellence looks like.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's helpful, but you know, Mel Robin says it better than me.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's like no one's coming.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_01: No one's coming to tell you here's how we get from here to there.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_01: The people closest to the work in almost every organization, they know a better path.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_01: They're usually hesitant to raise their hand and say so for the reasons I just mentioned.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_01: Or they're just afraid to mention it because they don't feel as if their input is valued and there's just no reason to share that feedback.
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_01: So taking action is what's going to separate us from mediocrity and it's gonna allow us to continually evolve into something better than we were yesterday.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_01: Without that, it's just this lather and surpeat, you know, prescription-filled mentality that is it's A, it's soul sucking.
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's not there's no fun to be a part of something like that.
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_01: And B, it is not a sustaining strategy for excellence.
• 1:01:40
  SPEAKER_02: We five.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_02: We own our mistakes.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_02: We're not judged by our mistakes.
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_02: We're judged by how quickly we remedy them and if we repeat them.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_02: You already mentioned that there's sort of a bit of a connective tissue here, right?
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_02: Because, you know, if we're taking action, mistakes are likely to happen.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_02: So then when the mistakes happen, what happens after that?
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_02: This is kind of what you're getting into here with We5, right?
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely, Paul.
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I mentioned it at the top, or when I kind of walked through them, is that you know, mistakes are really opportunities for growth.
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_01: They point out where we should not be going.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_01: They tell us there's a better path.
• 1:02:16
  SPEAKER_01: I am guilty of this, so I say this with complete sincerity.
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_01: For whatever reason, we expect members, we expect our team to show up and be perfect.
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_01: We don't make mistakes.
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's not reality, though, man.
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_01: We cannot, we cannot expect people to show up every single day, give 100% every day, because that's not realistic, and then deliver an A plus 100% product every day.
• 1:02:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's also not realistic.
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_01: Mistakes will happen.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_01: The sooner you recognize that a mistake is not failure, as cliche as it sounds, it really is our opportunity to kind of pivot and do something better or different, not repeat that, we're much better off.
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_01: But we don't have to overcomplicate this either.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_01: When, and that's why there's there's two or three sentences behind we own our mistakes.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_01: When we go to a fine restaurant or fine dining place, or any restaurant for that matter, and you order something and it comes out undercooked or it's just not prepared in the way that you expected it.
• 1:03:10
  SPEAKER_01: At the end of that dinner, you're less likely to be critical about the meal that wasn't served appropriately to your liking and be more critical or praiseworthy of how they reacted.
• 1:03:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:03:22
  SPEAKER_01: Think about it, man.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_01: We've all been in this situation, right?
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_01: Something comes out, it's not exactly what we were hoping for.
• 1:03:27
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it was undercooked.
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_01: It was, you know, me, I like my steak a little more on the well-done side.
• 1:03:30
  SPEAKER_01: If it comes out and there's looks like I have to chase the piece of meat around the plate because it's not cooked nearly enough.
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_01: That happens, right?
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's a mistake.
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_02: You can just have the steak to me.
• 1:03:40
  SPEAKER_02: I like it almost raw.
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, well, okay.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_01: So we found where we diverged.
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I I am convinced we we're gonna go tell our friends and family about that experience, how they reacted to it.
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_01: This happened to me.
• 1:03:52
  SPEAKER_01: I was at a brunch not long ago, and it was uh I ordered some breakfast tacos, and there was a side of sour cream next to the breakfast tacos, and there was a hair in the sour cream.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_01: Not ideal, right?
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe that's a mistake some people could get over, but I pointed it out to the waiter and I'm like, look, I get it.
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_01: Shit happens.
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_01: Sent it back.
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_01: He said, Hey man, no problem.
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_01: I got you.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_01: He brings it back out.
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_01: Paul, the hair was removed, and you can see where the finger was applied on the sour cream.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't even remove the sour cream and put a fresh dollop on it.
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_01: They you could see where they had moved.
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the story I'm telling you now.
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_01: Had they come back with like, or or said, you know, that's terrible.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_01: We brought you something else, or whatever this, if they did anything other than that, I'm not talking about, I'm not talking about the hair.
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about how they responded and they fixed that mistake.
• 1:04:35
  SPEAKER_01: And that never happens without owning it.
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:04:38
  SPEAKER_02: 100%.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_02: And there's a there's a line in in the book, fairly early on, where you talk about you say humans screw up, it's a given, so accept it.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_02: And regular listen listeners to this podcast will obviously understand that's something that that we focus on a lot.
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_02: Heck, the podcast is called humanity working.
• 1:04:57
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the things that we always look to emphasize is the fact that humans are delightfully flawed.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_02: And the fact that they are is what creates amazing results when you collect humans together that are all flawed in all of their all of their different ways.
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's what creates creative tension.
• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_02: Almost all great art comes from uh comes from this as well.
• 1:05:24
  SPEAKER_02: And where I think we get into trouble is where we pretend, either in ourselves or in our teams, that that is that the fact that humans are delightfully flawed is a bug and not a feature.
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 1:05:42
  SPEAKER_02: That is part, it's part of what can make greatness.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_02: And yes, obviously, you don't want unnecessary errors, you don't want unnecessary mistakes.
• 1:05:51
  SPEAKER_02: But your example in the restaurant, I can think of two or three examples like that a restaurant, service industry, or whatever where A response to a mistake has resulted in a better experience, or a response to a mistake has resulted in a better product or a better service.
• 1:06:11
  SPEAKER_02: And that's where innovation often comes from is through human error.
• 1:06:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's absolutely right.
• 1:06:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the Wright brothers crashed dozens and dozens of times before they sustained flight, right?
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_01: So should we say all those trial flights were failures?
• 1:06:26
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, they were mistakes.
• 1:06:27
  SPEAKER_01: They recognized what needed to change, improved, and flew.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_02: Do you like Worcestershire sauce?
• 1:06:32
  unknown: I do.
• 1:06:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:06:33
  SPEAKER_02: So Worcestershire sauce was some kind of recipe that completely and utterly sucked.
• 1:06:40
  SPEAKER_02: So they put it back in Worcestershire where this thing was made.
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_02: They put it out by the trash, as it were, and for whatever reason it never got picked up.
• 1:06:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's like a vat of this stuff.
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_02: It never got picked up.
• 1:06:54
  SPEAKER_02: And then, like two months later or three months later, they went out there and there was this delicious smell, and it had all fermented it into the awesome thing that is Worcestershire sauce.
• 1:07:03
  SPEAKER_02: So that was a failed recipe.
• 1:07:05
  SPEAKER_02: And then I suppose you could argue another failure of nobody to pick it up that resulted in this thing that we all think is delicious today.
• 1:07:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, what a story.
• 1:07:13
  SPEAKER_01: I should have included that one.
• 1:07:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because you know, I in, as you know, I included a couple other examples.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_01: The pharmaceutical company industry is ripe with those examples.
• 1:07:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:07:20
  SPEAKER_01: Develop this drug for XYZ problem, ends up serving other conditions.
• 1:07:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:07:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:07:27
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 1:07:28
  SPEAKER_02: We six, we pick each other up.
• 1:07:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this one is something that I feel like is void in a lot of places.
• 1:07:35
  SPEAKER_01: And it's about connection and it's about authenticity and the resulting trust that comes when people recognize that you're in it for more, that you actually care enough and you're in it for more than just what they can do for the team.
• 1:07:47
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, you take an interest in what motivates and inspires them and what is what it is that's gonna allow them to achieve the most fulfillment in the role that they're in.
• 1:07:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't want to come across naive on this front because I've been approached by folks that say, yeah, I'm a barista, man.
• 1:08:03
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 1:08:04
  SPEAKER_01: Who's gonna pick me up?
• 1:08:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a barista.
• 1:08:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's a step on your path, bud.
• 1:08:10
  SPEAKER_01: You are gaining valuable experiences, customer service experiences, recognize you know, using the technology inside of the coffee shop, whatever it is.
• 1:08:19
  SPEAKER_01: But as the as the manager of that coffee shop, I can approach my team of baristas as a means to an end to serve coffee, or I can approach them as an opportunity for me to have an impact on their path.
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_01: So, what does that mean?
• 1:08:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we all start somewhere.
• 1:08:38
  SPEAKER_01: Man, I sold shoes in high school and worked at a call center immediately thereafter in a tiniest of cubicles.
• 1:08:46
  SPEAKER_01: And there were a handful of people along my path that showed an interest and kind of prodded me to get my act together, to put myself out there, to try hard, to have an impact.
• 1:08:57
  SPEAKER_01: The things that I wanted to do, there's nothing like a voice in your corner saying, You got this.
• 1:09:02
  SPEAKER_01: You're not alone on this.
• 1:09:03
  SPEAKER_01: I've been there, or whatever happens, I'll be here regardless.
• 1:09:07
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the kind of thing that is, and I'm guilty of it or was for a long, long time, that there's no place for it in the work, in the workplace, which is nonsense.
• 1:09:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so as I mentioned when I walked through them, the obligation there is to recognize that we've all got baggage.
• 1:09:23
  SPEAKER_01: And when someone stumbles, they make a mistake, and that's why it follows we own our mistakes.
• 1:09:28
  SPEAKER_01: If they make a mistake, they stumble, they didn't deliver the product that you would hope they deliver as a leader, and that could be someone with direct reports or not, I think it's a human obligation to say, hey man, it gets better.
• 1:09:41
  SPEAKER_01: We got tomorrow.
• 1:09:42
  SPEAKER_01: Now, there are, and I don't mean to sound naive because there are times when mistakes are, they have retribution or outcomes that are not ideal and they're painful.
• 1:09:51
  SPEAKER_01: But more often than not, when we show that we care about the person to our left and to our right in ways that transcends the workplace, not the badge that you're wearing, but the human that you are, we create this trust and this bond that is far more important than any product or service we deliver.
• 1:10:09
  SPEAKER_01: The second corollary I can't leave out though is where it really becomes fleeting.
• 1:10:16
  SPEAKER_01: And that is back to the barista scenario.
• 1:10:19
  SPEAKER_01: I have to approach my baristas, the team that I lead of baristas, in a way that recognizes what motivates them and what do they want to do?
• 1:10:28
  SPEAKER_01: Where do they want to go next?
• 1:10:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's not uncommon for me in my business now, for members of my team and us to have direct conversations on how I help them leave the company.
• 1:10:37
  unknown: Yeah.
• 1:10:37
  SPEAKER_01: What do they want to do next?
• 1:10:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not naive in that my, I'm gonna use this, I'm gonna interchange the scenarios.
• 1:10:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not naive that my baristas, the team of baristas that I lead, they want to be baristas forever.
• 1:10:46
  SPEAKER_01: They have goals and desires and want to do other things.
• 1:10:48
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a human obligation.
• 1:10:50
  SPEAKER_01: And if I'm in a leadership position and I have the opportunity to enable some of these things to happen, whether it's mock interviews, whether it's helping with your resume, whether it's just having career-minded conversations, I think that's a human obligation as well.
• 1:11:03
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the core, the second component of that principle that is so overlooked, but equally important.
• 1:11:08
  SPEAKER_02: And Kyle, it pays back.
• 1:11:10
  SPEAKER_02: I'll use an example from my own career, right?
• 1:11:12
  SPEAKER_02: I had an excellent manager at one point.
• 1:11:15
  SPEAKER_02: I had a good example, I guess, and a counterexample.
• 1:11:18
  SPEAKER_02: I'll start with the counterexample, actually.
• 1:11:20
  SPEAKER_02: So I had a boss where where he knew that I wanted to move in a particular direction, but considered me to be very integral to his team.
• 1:11:32
  SPEAKER_02: And because I was indispensable to his team, he basically I was interviewing for another position inside the company, and I was told by the hiring manager for that position that they were going to withdraw an offer because my manager had asked them to.
• 1:11:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so, as you can imagine, it didn't take me long to make my own decision to move away from that team.
• 1:11:58
  SPEAKER_02: So it didn't benefit my manager at all.
• 1:12:02
  SPEAKER_02: My manager didn't even have a conversation with me about it.
• 1:12:04
  SPEAKER_02: They just went to the other hiring manager and told them, don't do this.
• 1:12:08
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, the other manager told me, because ironically, that other manager thought that was appalling behavior.
• 1:12:17
  SPEAKER_02: The irony is that to less than less than two years later, I was working for that other manager.
• 1:12:24
  SPEAKER_02: So I got out of where I was, went to another role, ended up being hired by that second manager who let me know what was going on.
• 1:12:31
  SPEAKER_02: And that other manager was the day to the night that I just experienced.
• 1:12:36
  SPEAKER_02: Really.
• 1:12:36
  SPEAKER_02: Every conversation that we had once a month included an element of where do you want to go next?
• 1:12:42
  SPEAKER_02: How do I get you there?
• 1:12:43
  SPEAKER_02: How do I help you, how do I help you move into that position?
• 1:12:47
  SPEAKER_02: And the flip, of course, was that because they were helping me grow and they were helping me get to where I needed to get to, the amount of loyalty that they got from me was massively, massively increased.
• 1:13:00
  SPEAKER_02: So the first manager suffered by acting in a in what they thought was their short-term benefit.
• 1:13:06
  SPEAKER_02: The second manager thrived and the team thrived because they were always looking to support the people.
• 1:13:12
  SPEAKER_02: So this is something that by and large makes huge business sense.
• 1:13:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:13:17
  SPEAKER_01: I so I learned this one myself.
• 1:13:20
  SPEAKER_01: I was on the other side of the scenario you mentioned.
• 1:13:23
  SPEAKER_01: I had a fella many, many years ago.
• 1:13:25
  SPEAKER_01: And by the way, clearly most folks are not comfortable to go to their boss to say, I'm interviewing elsewhere.
• 1:13:30
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, yeah.
• 1:13:32
  SPEAKER_01: It shouldn't be that way.
• 1:13:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:13:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because if they've started that process, they're leaving, right?
• 1:13:36
  SPEAKER_01: They have made the decision that there's something better for them out there.
• 1:13:39
  SPEAKER_01: So you can either fight it or you can help them.
• 1:13:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 1:13:43
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the human obligation.
• 1:13:44
  SPEAKER_01: So the scenario I was, I just brought up was I had a fella approach me for whatever reason he felt comfortable sharing that he was in the final stages of an interview process for a job that I couldn't match.
• 1:13:53
  SPEAKER_01: My team, we didn't have the budget for it, didn't have the role, the title.
• 1:13:55
  SPEAKER_01: It was an expansion for him.
• 1:13:57
  SPEAKER_01: And he was comfortable enough to share it with me.
• 1:13:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I had that moment between stimulus and response where I wanted to say, Holy shit, you can't leave.
• 1:14:05
  SPEAKER_01: Or I say, All right, dude, well, what's next?
• 1:14:07
  SPEAKER_01: He had a final interview the following Monday.
• 1:14:10
  SPEAKER_01: We had a few days before the weekend.
• 1:14:12
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Bring your resume tomorrow.
• 1:14:14
  SPEAKER_01: Let's do some coaching.
• 1:14:15
  SPEAKER_01: Let's do some mock interviews.
• 1:14:16
  SPEAKER_01: And we did.
• 1:14:16
  SPEAKER_01: He told me about the person who was doing the interview, and then I kind of played that role.
• 1:14:20
  SPEAKER_01: He was ready.
• 1:14:21
  SPEAKER_01: He was absolutely ready.
• 1:14:22
  SPEAKER_01: I felt great about the contribution that I made.
• 1:14:24
  SPEAKER_01: It felt so good.
• 1:14:25
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't get the job.
• 1:14:27
  SPEAKER_01: We worked together for 14 more years at four different companies.
• 1:14:31
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 1:14:32
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think that happens if I took the route that the shitty manager that you mentioned took.
• 1:14:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yep, 100%.
• 1:14:38
  SPEAKER_02: All right, we're nearly on the home stretch here.
• 1:14:40
  SPEAKER_02: We're we're over two-thirds of the way through.
• 1:14:41
  SPEAKER_02: So we measure ourselves.
• 1:14:42
  SPEAKER_02: This is Wii number seven.
• 1:14:44
  SPEAKER_02: We measure ourselves by outcomes, not activity.
• 1:14:47
  SPEAKER_02: And as you pointed out as you introduced these, we're kind of taking a little bit of a turn here in the Wii's.
• 1:14:52
  SPEAKER_02: Let's talk about outcomes versus activity.
• 1:14:57
  SPEAKER_02: For those people that have worked with my company, Billion Minds, we use the term outcomes versus actions, but it's basically the same thing.
• 1:15:04
  SPEAKER_02: So I love that.
• 1:15:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um Yeah.
• 1:15:06
  SPEAKER_02: So so yeah, share with me what you mean by that.
• 1:15:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and the biggest culprit here, or where I see this uh tragically become more pervasive than it should be, is meetings.
• 1:15:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's that recurring meeting that has no follow-up, no agenda in the meeting invite.
• 1:15:24
  SPEAKER_01: There's way more people in the meeting that should be there, and they just show up because it's on their calendar.
• 1:15:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I quote this stat in my book, Corn Ferry did a study, and I think it was like 63% of respondents said they would attend a meeting even if they knew it didn't add value to the work that so there's this fascination with busyness that has become so loud in so many environments that we actually reward it now.
• 1:15:49
  SPEAKER_01: And that is what I would call is the equivalent to a participation trophy, but in the corporate world, meeting after meeting after meeting, with without great meeting etiquette, I would say three out of four meetings are not as nearly impactful and would argue perhaps many of those three out of the four are worthless because we didn't capture, we didn't memorialize the decisions that were made.
• 1:16:12
  SPEAKER_01: How many times have you been in a I know how many times have you been in a meeting, Paul, and you show up to the follow-up meeting?
• 1:16:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, what I thought we decided this, or wait, I thought we were going this direction, right?
• 1:16:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so what do we do?
• 1:16:21
  SPEAKER_01: We rehash the last conversation, ultimately we hit the time barrier, and what do we do?
• 1:16:26
  SPEAKER_01: We schedule another meeting.
• 1:16:27
  SPEAKER_01: And why is it, by the way, meetings are 30 minutes and 60 minutes?
• 1:16:30
  SPEAKER_01: Why aren't they 20?
• 1:16:31
  SPEAKER_01: Why aren't they 10?
• 1:16:32
  SPEAKER_01: Why aren't they 15, right?
• 1:16:33
  SPEAKER_01: We always squeeze enough, we somehow fill up that window of time with work, whether it's needed or not.
• 1:16:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I look at it this way.
• 1:16:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and this is an example I tried to use when I was leading big operations inside the healthcare space, like I'm talking tens of thousands of employees.
• 1:16:51
  SPEAKER_01: If consumer A, the end user of the service or product that our company delivers, knew that I was in 12 hours of meetings yesterday or I was triple booked, and not a thing changed in their relationship with us.
• 1:17:05
  SPEAKER_01: Better product, better service, better price, better quality, none of those things changed, they would not like that, right?
• 1:17:12
  SPEAKER_01: And don't get me wrong, I don't think our calendar should be dictated by our clients, but our calendar should be dictated on the impact that those meetings should represent.
• 1:17:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:17:21
  SPEAKER_01: And the example I give, and it's a bit corny, but it works for me, is I am really happy that my Uber driver puts gas in the car before he or she picked me up.
• 1:17:30
  SPEAKER_01: But that's not what I'm paying for.
• 1:17:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm paying to get from point A to point B.
• 1:17:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's an activity, it's an important one.
• 1:17:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:17:36
  SPEAKER_01: But that's not how I am evaluating their performance.
• 1:17:39
  SPEAKER_01: At the end of the day, outcomes are what matters the most.
• 1:17:42
  SPEAKER_01: And essentially it's kind of, and I think I say it in the book, even it's like where the money is.
• 1:17:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's how we can gauge our outcomes, is over activity.
• 1:17:48
  SPEAKER_01: Is it producing an outcome that drives revenue or an employee or a customer experience that's better than it was before, which is also quantifiable, obviously.
• 1:17:58
  SPEAKER_01: Those are the outcomes that we need to chase, not the activity that we think adds value to those outcomes.
• 1:18:03
  SPEAKER_01: If you can't draw a line, it should be scrutinized.
• 1:18:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:18:08
  SPEAKER_02: We number eight, we challenge each other diplomatically.
• 1:18:14
  SPEAKER_02: And as you pointed out in your intro here, both parts of that are hugely important, right?
• 1:18:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I I was just constantly disappointed before creating the principles with how often I saw mediocrity be accepted until the boss comes and says, Hey, get better at that, or stop doing that, or how about we do this?
• 1:18:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I think absent the this open um ability to challenge one another diplomatically to say I you're not performing where we need you to perform or where we expect you to perform, you're not pulling your weight, and that's where the diplomatic part comes in.
• 1:18:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's it just simply cannot be a one-directional conversation from boss to team.
• 1:19:03
  SPEAKER_01: It just can't.
• 1:19:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:19:04
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, a lot of my comparisons invariably end up in the world of sports, and it's like, yeah, I'm a big football fan, and you know, how many times have we seen a quarterback in the NFL get sacked, get up, and bark at his offensive linemen?
• 1:19:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's not diplomatic, but the point there is they have a job to do, it's their job to keep him off the ground.
• 1:19:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:19:23
  SPEAKER_01: Should he get up, dust himself off, walk the sidelines, and hope the coach says something?
• 1:19:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:19:28
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think so.
• 1:19:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's if we collectively want to be excellent, if we want to have an impact and be fulfilled in the work that we do, it's a team sport and challenges must be part of that team sport.
• 1:19:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's the only way that we get better.
• 1:19:41
  SPEAKER_01: Challenges are a requirement in achieving excellence.
• 1:19:47
  SPEAKER_02: And so connected directly to that is this idea of we embrace challenge.
• 1:19:54
  SPEAKER_02: And we alluded to this a little bit last time we spoke, Kyle, I remember.
• 1:19:58
  SPEAKER_02: But talk to me about Wii9 and how it connects to Wii 8 and what extra you're trying to get at with We with this Wii9.
• 1:20:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we nine serves two purposes.
• 1:20:09
  SPEAKER_01: One is it stops chaos because if we have this, we challenge each other paradigm, but we're not obligated to actually embrace those challenges, then we've got we'll probably have a problem.
• 1:20:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then the second is it's all about ownership, yeah, absolute ownership.
• 1:20:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's when I look, I didn't create this problem, but it's in my world, it's in my lane.
• 1:20:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna take care of it, I'm gonna own it.
• 1:20:31
  SPEAKER_01: And embracing challenge requires us to accept challenge from each other, requires us to accept challenge from our leader, from market forces, from external any type of external constituent.
• 1:20:42
  SPEAKER_01: And what's so powerful about this, especially as the leader, and I'll circle back to that in a moment, but what's so powerful about this is, and I can't think of a better, more less crass way to say this, the scars that we obtain or that we earn through embracing challenge are reminders of our ability to do really impactful work.
• 1:21:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:21:04
  SPEAKER_01: So when we're facing adversity, we have a choice to say, ah man, this sucks, and we can kind of roll our eyes and here we go again, and this always happens to us.
• 1:21:14
  SPEAKER_01: Or we can be galvanized by it, lock arms, and say, absolute ownership.
• 1:21:19
  SPEAKER_01: If it's in this, if it's in our face, we must address it because we are striving for excellence.
• 1:21:24
  SPEAKER_01: We're not just here to collect a paycheck.
• 1:21:26
  SPEAKER_01: And by the way, I should say for those that approach their work as just a means to an end for a paycheck, I got nothing but love for you.
• 1:21:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's I understand that.
• 1:21:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was that guy for a lot of years.
• 1:21:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just here to tell you on the other side of that is an impact and a fulfillment that is it dwarfs the just show up and collect the paycheck mentality.
• 1:21:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:21:44
  SPEAKER_01: But back to the chat embracing challenge, once we recognize the value that challenges represent and how we can look at those scars for challenges we've overcome, look back, even joke about it, and say, but now this is in front of us, you guys are nervous about this after last week or last month when we overcame X, Y, or Z.
• 1:22:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's incredibly liberating for our teams.
• 1:22:03
  SPEAKER_01: But as a leader, I want to point out a nuance here.
• 1:22:06
  SPEAKER_01: If a, and this is where most a lot of pushback comes from me is to me, is those that are in some type of position of authority, they have direct reports, um, are really comfortable with we challenge each other.
• 1:22:19
  SPEAKER_01: They love to see the team challenge one another, maybe not quite as comfortable receiving those challenges.
• 1:22:25
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where the embrace is an issue for them.
• 1:22:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's a challenge for them, no pun intended.
• 1:22:30
  SPEAKER_01: If we want members of our team to recognize a challenge as an improvement opportunity or a chance for us to get better and separate ourselves from our competition or if nothing else from mediocrity, they have to see us embrace challenge as well.
• 1:22:42
  SPEAKER_01: They have to see us hear the things that we don't want to hear.
• 1:22:47
  SPEAKER_01: Kyle, you were being a jerk in yesterday's meeting, or you were you were incredibly impatient, or you didn't let me speak.
• 1:22:53
  SPEAKER_01: Any of these things, right?
• 1:22:54
  SPEAKER_01: Those are experiences they had.
• 1:22:55
  SPEAKER_01: They're allowed to challenge me on that.
• 1:22:57
  SPEAKER_01: But me actually embracing that challenge is the difference between a boss, many of one of many differences, between the boss and a leader.
• 1:23:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because when I can be vulnerable enough to say, gosh, yeah, I blew it, man.
• 1:23:08
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't live up to my own standards.
• 1:23:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, you're right.
• 1:23:10
  SPEAKER_01: I blew it.
• 1:23:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I I was wrong.
• 1:23:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I am embracing that challenge and the the trust that is gained and the loyalty that comes from me, not saying because I said so, or yeah, it's just that way, it is what it is, it creates the connection that is really hard to sever if we can if we can continue to live that way.
• 1:23:27
  SPEAKER_01: I've experienced it firsthand.
• 1:23:28
  SPEAKER_01: Issuing challenges is one thing, but embracing them is really difficult for someone who kind of wasn't used to it for a lot of years.
• 1:23:35
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, and let's be clear.
• 1:23:37
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, this is not this is something the idea of embracing challenge or you know, the flip of that could be avoiding defensiveness is something that is it's hard for everybody.
• 1:23:48
  SPEAKER_02: We're kind of hardwired to be uh to be a little bit defensive.
• 1:23:51
  SPEAKER_02: It can be, it can serve useful purpose, right?
• 1:23:54
  SPEAKER_02: Literally the word defensiveness suggests that, right?
• 1:23:56
  SPEAKER_02: You're defending yourself, you're protecting yourself, right, by acting in a particular way.
• 1:24:01
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's a hard thing to do, and we may do it to your point, we'll go all the way back to doing the right thing always, right?
• 1:24:10
  SPEAKER_02: We may do it well sometimes, and sometimes we may fail on it, and then we have to reach back in and continue to work on it.
• 1:24:19
  SPEAKER_02: I think we've all had experiences where somebody has called out a behavior, maybe a boss has called out our behavior, and in that moment we were just not able to see it, right?
• 1:24:29
  SPEAKER_02: And but six months down the line, with a little bit of distance, we can go, oh yeah, that's what they meant.
• 1:24:35
  SPEAKER_01: That makes sense now.
• 1:24:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:24:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:24:38
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 1:24:39
  SPEAKER_02: We're at the finale.
• 1:24:40
  SPEAKER_02: So we obsess over details.
• 1:24:43
  SPEAKER_02: Details matter a lot.
• 1:24:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I know from our conversations that this is a really interesting, uh, interesting one because at least on the surface, right, it conflicts with some of the other stuff, right?
• 1:24:58
  SPEAKER_02: Humans are human.
• 1:24:59
  SPEAKER_02: Humans are gonna make mistakes, right?
• 1:25:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 1:25:01
  SPEAKER_02: Humans are gonna screw up, humans are involved in this process, and and so the things we're likely to screw up on in many cases are gonna be the smaller things, because the smaller things are gonna be the things that we're gonna notice less if we're tired, if we're exhausted, if we've got too many things going uh going on.
• 1:25:22
  SPEAKER_02: So, what I'd love to hear from you is number one, how you go about resolving that contradiction.
• 1:25:28
  SPEAKER_02: And then number two, or apparent contradiction.
• 1:25:30
  SPEAKER_02: And then number two, how do you go about from a leadership perspective, creating an environment where less of those mistakes do happen?
• 1:25:41
  SPEAKER_02: What's the what are the leadership attributes that you can use to make sure it happens?
• 1:25:46
  SPEAKER_01: Great question.
• 1:25:47
  SPEAKER_01: And Paul, I was I have to give you credit, man, because where I thought you were going when you said with the work that we're doing together, you were gonna out my obsession with details.
• 1:25:56
  SPEAKER_02: I know you're living it, man.
• 1:25:58
  SPEAKER_02: Which actually is leading to something much better, which is which it shows the power of it.
• 1:26:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you.
• 1:26:04
  SPEAKER_01: You're very kind.
• 1:26:05
  SPEAKER_01: Look, man, details matter and they separate us on so many fronts.
• 1:26:11
  SPEAKER_01: You can't possibly lead a group of people or be a high contributing member of a team without being connected to the details.
• 1:26:19
  SPEAKER_01: And that and the details, they're situational.
• 1:26:22
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a question I get a lot is how do I know if I'm spending too much time on the details in this scenario or this activity versus another?
• 1:26:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I never have a good answer because it's situational, and only you can kind of evaluate the priorities and how much energy and time you should put into something.
• 1:26:36
  SPEAKER_01: But there is one filter that I just I will never relent on, and that is if it's going to be seen by anybody outside of our four walls, a prospect, a client, the press, you know, media, anything outside of our four walls, there is no room for mistakes because that communicates our brand.
• 1:26:53
  SPEAKER_01: Are you you're not an Apple guy, are you?
• 1:26:54
  SPEAKER_01: Are you an Apple guy?
• 1:26:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a bit of both, but right now I'm Apple, yeah.
• 1:26:57
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:26:58
  SPEAKER_01: So think about think of the word unboxing.
• 1:27:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:27:03
  SPEAKER_01: Didn't really exist a number of years ago.
• 1:27:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I think unboxing came with iPhones.
• 1:27:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's where the i that's where the whole thing began.
• 1:27:12
  SPEAKER_01: Think of the experience when you open an Apple product today.
• 1:27:15
  SPEAKER_01: You got the little piece of tape with the green arrow on it, you know exactly the the way to pull it.
• 1:27:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and the product inside that box is so snug and tight in there.
• 1:27:24
  SPEAKER_01: It is a sexy experience opening a piece of technology from Apple.
• 1:27:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:27:29
  SPEAKER_01: Apple spends unpublished but untold amounts of money putting engineers into rooms to create an unboxing experience that is a memorable experience.
• 1:27:38
  SPEAKER_01: That is obsessing over details.
• 1:27:40
  SPEAKER_01: Now, juxtapose that with an IKEA manual or just about any product you buy from an off brand on Amazon, if it comes with a manual, it's going to be full of typos, bad grammar, missed punctuation, those things, not obsessed with detail.
• 1:27:57
  SPEAKER_01: So when we open this package, and I'm just using This is as an example because I think the obsession I know the obsession with details sends a message to those that you serve, whether it's the team you lead or the clients that you serve externally, it sends a message that I care enough about what we do that your experience matters to me.
• 1:28:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:28:15
  SPEAKER_01: And what I'm going to deliver in the way of this product or service that we're selling you is better than my competition because I have obsessed over those details and I am hellbent on you having an experience that is detail oriented and shows that we care slightly more than our competition.
• 1:28:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:28:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's the external component.
• 1:28:32
  SPEAKER_01: Now, internally, as a leader, I'm really big on being tight on the details with everything we do behind the curtains because I think expecting anything less than that, or allowing anything less than that, and expecting us to be excellent and obsessed with details externally facing is naive.
• 1:28:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's not, it doesn't work.
• 1:28:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:28:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not naive enough to think that this was the only time I ever got a nickname, but I had a nickname late in my career before I left to write the book, and it was the Shredder.
• 1:29:02
  SPEAKER_01: It was the Shredder.
• 1:29:03
  SPEAKER_01: And that I was I earned it because you know, you know how this works, right?
• 1:29:07
  SPEAKER_01: In most organizations, you gotta some folks had to put together a presentation, and that presentation maybe is going to go somewhere else.
• 1:29:13
  SPEAKER_01: Well, in the role that I was in, we had a lot of client interactions, and I needed help preparing PowerPoints and putting stuff in my hands that I could go speak to prospects or clients.
• 1:29:24
  SPEAKER_01: And a hundred out of a hundred times, I would get the product and I'd send it back.
• 1:29:31
  SPEAKER_01: I shredded it, is the description they used.
• 1:29:33
  SPEAKER_01: And it's things like are the margins the same on every slide?
• 1:29:37
  SPEAKER_01: Is the font size and the font type the same?
• 1:29:40
  SPEAKER_01: Are we telling a story that is consistent from page to page?
• 1:29:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm just using this presentation thing as an example because so many people don't obsess over the details of their presentations, which creates this perception that you didn't care enough to create this presentation in a way that is, you know, compelling.
• 1:29:57
  SPEAKER_01: So if it's behind the curtain, I think we have to have almost an equal level of expectation for obsession over details because that's it's our personal brand, it's our team's brand, and it ladders up to our organizational brand.
• 1:30:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then externally, there's just no room for error because competition in most industries is so fierce that it just takes the smallest of missed details for me to say, I'm done, I'm moving on somewhere else.
• 1:30:18
  SPEAKER_02: So given that humans do make mistakes, what's the what is that what's that leadership in trait?
• 1:30:27
  SPEAKER_02: What are the leadership traits?
• 1:30:29
  SPEAKER_02: What's the environment that you create whereby employees are comfortable that because they're human that there will be errors?
• 1:30:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 1:30:41
  SPEAKER_02: But at the same time committed to trying to get those errors as close to zero as possible.
• 1:30:48
  SPEAKER_02: How do you square that circle?
• 1:30:50
  SPEAKER_02: How do you lead in such a way that people can hold both of those realities within them at the same time?
• 1:30:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 1:30:57
  SPEAKER_01: I think there are two lanes to this answer.
• 1:31:00
  SPEAKER_01: The first is acknowledging recognizing and acknowledging, as we've discussed, that mistakes are just get over it.
• 1:31:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's human, that it's going to happen.
• 1:31:08
  SPEAKER_01: I how I approach a team member or react to a team member when a mistake has been surfaced.
• 1:31:16
  SPEAKER_01: I have a choice to take a gotcha approach, like holy shit, here we go again.
• 1:31:21
  SPEAKER_01: You made this same mistake.
• 1:31:22
  SPEAKER_01: Come on, man, haven't we gotten better than this?
• 1:31:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like my reaction to that or with that response is very different than that's the gotcha reaction, which is very different than the I got you reaction.
• 1:31:35
  SPEAKER_01: And here's the difference.
• 1:31:37
  SPEAKER_01: As a leader, it's not my responsibility to make sure that you're perfect or that you're obsessed over details.
• 1:31:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's my responsibility.
• 1:31:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm talking over and above the core functions of being a boss.
• 1:31:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about being a leader.
• 1:31:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's my responsibility to get you better, to help you and enable you and empower you to be in a place that these mistakes don't happen.
• 1:32:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's the first path.
• 1:32:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's my obligation to say, come on, man, you are better than this.
• 1:32:07
  SPEAKER_01: We need to raise our game.
• 1:32:08
  SPEAKER_01: If we want to be recognized as being the best in our world and the best in our industry, these are the kinds of things that we cannot tolerate.
• 1:32:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's the first path.
• 1:32:16
  SPEAKER_01: The second path, or kind of adjacent path to obsessing over details, is the obsession has to lead to better outcomes.
• 1:32:28
  SPEAKER_01: So if we're obsessing over things that is connected to activity over outcomes, if we're obsessing over things that create more activity but don't drive the outcomes, what are we doing?
• 1:32:38
  unknown: Yeah.
• 1:32:38
  SPEAKER_01: We have to kind of, and that's the purpose of having all 10 of them.
• 1:32:41
  SPEAKER_01: We have to there that none of them stand in isolation.
• 1:32:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm obsessed over details.
• 1:32:44
  SPEAKER_01: I took three hours to write an email to three employees.
• 1:32:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's a bad use of time.
• 1:32:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's activity that's not leading to a better outcome.
• 1:32:51
  SPEAKER_01: But if we take this, when I pair these two things together, when I take this I got you approach and look at it as a human obligation to help people get better, and it is connected to the outcomes that we're trying to deliver, you've now positioned someone to add value, not just on your team, but hopefully and theoretically in the next step of their path, which is often overlooked.
• 1:33:12
  SPEAKER_01: All of this, Paul, is under the umbrella of it's something that Simon Sinek talks about a lot, which I think is spot on.
• 1:33:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's like this is an infinite thing.
• 1:33:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like if somebody makes a mistake, I can rein down and play gotcha.
• 1:33:23
  SPEAKER_01: Do I expect them to be focused exclusively on the next task at hand, or is part of their brain power going to be confined over in the space saying, oh shit, what if I don't get this right?
• 1:33:32
  SPEAKER_01: What's Kyle gonna do?
• 1:33:34
  SPEAKER_01: I want them focused on the task at hand, not whether or not I'm gonna come down on them because they made a silly mistake.
• 1:33:39
  SPEAKER_01: And over time, that's what the the infinite thing where it comes into play is over time, those mistakes become less of an issue because we're picking people up through the process, we're not raining down on them.
• 1:33:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:33:50
  SPEAKER_02: And it's it does.
• 1:33:53
  SPEAKER_02: And the one thing that I would add to it, just because it draws back to this concept of we is that there is a there is a world in which mistakes successes are attributed to the leader, and mistakes are attributed to the individual contributor.
• 1:34:12
  SPEAKER_02: So in the world of sports, we won this game because I, the coach, am amazing, but we lost this game because that guy dropped the ball, right?
• 1:34:23
  SPEAKER_02: And where great teams come from is this idea that is this understanding that if collectively we can sweat over the small stuff, what the there's something in British cycling is referred to as marginal gains, right?
• 1:34:42
  SPEAKER_02: They win through the concept of one consistently through the concept of marginal gains.
• 1:34:46
  SPEAKER_02: What are the tiny things that we can do better?
• 1:34:49
  SPEAKER_02: Classic example of that is that they realize that if they can improve the quality of sleep in their cyclists by, you know, 5%, then that could result in one or two seconds faster on the track.
• 1:35:03
  SPEAKER_02: So they started bringing their own mattresses with them to each of the places where they were competing, right?
• 1:35:09
  SPEAKER_02: Small marginal gain.
• 1:35:11
  SPEAKER_02: But if these things are owned by the team, so we as a team are committed because we want excellence.
• 1:35:19
  SPEAKER_02: We as a team are gonna find and iron out and remove these mistakes.
• 1:35:26
  SPEAKER_02: And we understand that a mistake can happen for a whole bunch of reasons, right?
• 1:35:32
  SPEAKER_02: Is the human making that mistake because they're afraid of losing their job?
• 1:35:37
  SPEAKER_02: Is the human making that mistake because they're tired and we've loaded too much on that human?
• 1:35:44
  SPEAKER_02: Once you start to think about it in that thing, the human is being a human, making mistakes.
• 1:35:49
  SPEAKER_02: So what can we do as a team collectively to get these humans to a high enough level of performance where the number of mistakes is minimize is minimized, and we can look at these small mistakes as indicators as to the overall health of the team, that's where the power of it really comes in.
• 1:36:03
  SPEAKER_02: So to me, it's like the collect collection of we, the concept of we owning the owning these mistakes versus somebody raining down on them.
• 1:36:15
  SPEAKER_02: And as you point out, the connection between this we and the other we's that really leads to it to be a really sort of powerful last we.
• 1:36:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:36:25
  SPEAKER_01: And that was intentional.
• 1:36:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and you said it without saying it.
• 1:36:28
  SPEAKER_01: We pick each other up, right?
• 1:36:29
  SPEAKER_01: So when that mistake happens, we're gonna we're gonna pick each other up, we're gonna move on.
• 1:36:33
  SPEAKER_01: There's no room for repeating this thing, though, right?
• 1:36:35
  SPEAKER_01: We're not like you said earlier, we're not judged by the mistake.
• 1:36:38
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna be judged of how quickly we fix it and if it happens again.
• 1:36:40
  SPEAKER_01: There's no tolerance for that.
• 1:36:42
  SPEAKER_01: But when a mistake is made, especially when someone's trying to improve something, taking action, then you have no other reaction than to pick them up.
• 1:36:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:36:51
  SPEAKER_02: All right, Kyle.
• 1:36:52
  SPEAKER_02: That was a lengthy trip through through all of the all of the 10 we's here.
• 1:36:56
  SPEAKER_02: Once again, begin with we.
• 1:36:59
  SPEAKER_02: You should be able to see it on the camera there for the folks that are watching on YouTube.
• 1:37:03
  SPEAKER_02: And 10 Principles for Building and Sustaining a Culture of Excellence by my awesome guest today, Carl McDowell.
• 1:37:10
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks so much, Carl.
• 1:37:11
  SPEAKER_02: We're really, really looking forward to to the release of this as a program in addition to the book.
• 1:37:17
  SPEAKER_02: But for folks that are interested in that program, we'll get details of that out.
• 1:37:22
  SPEAKER_02: And then also in the show notes, we'll obviously include a reference to the book, and I recommend everybody uh goes out and buys it.
• 1:37:28
  SPEAKER_02: Hopefully we've wedded your appetite for that.
• 1:37:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, thanks a lot, Kyle.
• 1:37:31
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, Paul, before we go, you can feel free to cut this if you want.
• 1:37:39
  SPEAKER_02: I have no idea what you're about to say yet.
• 1:37:40
  SPEAKER_02: So I know you don't.
• 1:37:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I just I did not want to let this opportunity to go go by without mentioning, and for your audience, this is not planned.
• 1:37:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not pandering, and there's no compensation here.
• 1:37:55
  SPEAKER_01: I could have chosen anyone to partner with to create a course for my book.
• 1:37:59
  SPEAKER_01: And there are a lot of offers.
• 1:38:01
  SPEAKER_01: I partner with you because of the mission that Billion Minds is on, your approach to the workplace, your approach to leadership.
• 1:38:07
  SPEAKER_01: I've never once regretted the decision.
• 1:38:09
  SPEAKER_01: We've been working on this for a number of months now.
• 1:38:11
  SPEAKER_01: Long time, yeah.
• 1:38:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I just felt like this was a really great platform to say thank you.
• 1:38:15
  SPEAKER_01: I could not be more excited about the tool, the thing that we're the thing that we're building together.
• 1:38:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I know I've been a pain in the ass along the way because I obsess over details, but I just want to take this opportunity to offer a sincere and genuine heartfelt thank you.
• 1:38:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited about what we're building, and I can't wait for the world to see it.
• 1:38:31
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 1:38:31
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you very much, Kyle.
• 1:38:32
  SPEAKER_02: Appreciate it.
• 1:38:33
  SPEAKER_02: And we will look forward to having you back, I'm sure, at some point in the future.
• 1:38:38
  SPEAKER_02: I think I mentioned this to you last time.
• 1:38:39
  SPEAKER_02: There's like 10 subbooks here, man.
• 1:38:41
  SPEAKER_02: So you could you could do a book on every end of uh on every individual way, so I'm sure you'll be back on at some point to talk about whatever you have to do.
• 1:38:49
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks a lot.
• 1:38:50
  SPEAKER_00: Humanity Working is produced by Matt Neal.
• 1:38:53
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• 1:38:59
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• 1:39:02
  SPEAKER_00: And don't forget, you can find all episodes and get our weekly newsletter at humanityworking.