Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Tina Berger - F500 Digital Transformation Advisor | Fixing Toxic Workplace Culture

Transcript

Tina Berger - F500 Digital Transformation Advisor | Fixing Toxic Workplace Culture · Success Story with Scott Clary

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  there's a real need to change the way we reward people if we really want people to take the risk of
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  working that differently for what's been paying their bills what they've been rewarded for what
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  they've gotten as for all their life so let's look at the model is the model somewhere else in the
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  world for how we should do business how we should collaborate i could come up with a better solution
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  probably but would it be a better solution for long is it the better solution no i believe that
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  what we need is a driving vision as somebody who works with change i know that people don't like to
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  let go of things that they love or that they're comfortable or that they know without having the
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  next thing to grasp on to and say this is a better way for somebody earlier on in their career
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  this is a great warning don't close yourself off to other experiences to creativity that things
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  that will long-term make you really happy to be successful was to get your goal and grind that out
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  and then i get there and i go i don't want to do this you know for this is it
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  welcome to success story i'm your host scoclery the success story podcast is brought to you by
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  thanks again for joining me today i'm sitting down with Tina burger she is an advisor to fortune
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  500 companies such as chevron and bp she has had an incredible amount of experience with
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  corporatism over her career advocates for a total reset of the corporate paradigm she holds an
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  mba in global energy she advises fortune 500 through strategic digital transformations having
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  engaged deeply with the challenges faced by corporate executives and staff for more than 20 years
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  she now advocates for a systemic reset a collective re imagining of our economic paradigms
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  such that they serve the global good in the needs of future generations she writes and speaks on
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  the power of receptivity and the power of a co-creative innovation and environment she has a book
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  that she's released coming around surprises and surrender on the path to inspiration and she
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  discusses various leadership in crisis leadership experiences and lessons in that book but she also
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  speaks on the corporate activism like i mentioned systemic reset she speaks on various technologies
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  just a she used to work in finance so an all around very very interesting person very excited to
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  dive into your origin story so walk me through your career wherever you'd like to start
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  okay let me uh so it's uh it's been a fun uh it's been a fun journey and thanks so much for having
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  me on i think i was uh in the in the pre-talk i was telling you i'm a little bit of an odd duck right
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  i'm i have a so this is the context of me i'm super curious about a wide variety of things a
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  ridiculous variety of things so business and finance and investing but also spirituality and
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  awareness practices and long term yoga and meditation practice and our teacher science and
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  which most of my business contacts aren't aware of science and technology and digital media
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  and blockchain and travel and culture and poetry and art it's it's it's every it's ridiculous
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  so you can imagine like when the internet started being a thing it was like the my favorite thing
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  in the world because i could dive in there and uh and learn new things but i got my start
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  as a technical writer in the early 90s uh doing project work for a service company and documenting
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  processes and policies and work instructions uh within large energy corporations so and i live
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  in Houston so that's what there is here that that's the primary um industry in the Houston area
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  in the Houston market so um at the time i just for some context there most of my clients or at
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  least many of my client corporations did not have email or or windows based uh environments and
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  and so a lot of the business processes were still at the time managed using paper and and manual
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  processes and manual handoffs and things like that and i got fascinated um early on with the
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  challenge of new technology platforms and tools and and started developing my skills in that direction
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  and over time that's where my career went i followed that interest and and i built my career as a
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  consultant uh you know advising energy companies and leaders um on how to get organizational
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  support and engagement and adoption of new ways of working and new tools new digital tools in
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  in particular and that's been my niche hi for years and years i think i did my first
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  like what they were calling digital oil field project around 2003 which was really i'm almost
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  kind of a pre-face bookish you know like i mean it was a hurly and so it's just been fascinating
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  work for uh you know 25 years has given me so many different perspectives and possibilities and
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  i've engaged um with lots of different large corporations and how they're seeing how they're
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  similar the similar challenges how they're different culturally um every kind of process within
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  those organizations from procurement materials management into engineering processes and technical
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  design processes and uh and and um and every few months or years my my whole work life changes because
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  i get on a different project and with different people and different opportunity to learn something
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  new through so um i've led businesses and teams and um and it also worked and i currently work as an
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  individual contributor um and right now i'm working with a digital innovation team inside of one
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  of the largest energy corporations in the world and i'm having a great time i i'm working with some
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  but a wonderful people yes so you've been it's you have you been sort of
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  dabbling in individual consulting for the majority of your career and you just that's that's
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  mostly what you've been working on or has it been taken different forms it's taken different forms um
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  i uh early on got interested in digital media and there was a particular um there's a particular
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  issue uh well there was a gap in hiring for a lot of the major oil and gas companies due to uh
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  you know basically the the whole industry died off for a while in the 80s and then the nine had
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  took a long time to start hiring again so there was this big competency gap and so i i teamed up
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  with one of my friends and and and retooled the company to address that so we you know but i was
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  still consulting we were selling in e-learning and digital uh communication and um and a variety of
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  other media projects but also doing services and consulting delivery at the same time uh so um so
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  i've i've run companies um but you know i've i've discovered that i'm a big enough headache just
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  to run myself but actually i really did enjoy that at different times in my life different things
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  have worked and so i've led teams um but currently yes uh and i've learned a lot from the teams that
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  i've worked on and been with um but right now uh for about the last eight years i've been kind of my
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  own um i say that but with one exception where uh one of my clients hired me full time and permanent
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  for about a year and a half and i thought and i really there was there was a lot that i enjoyed
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  about that um but i'm not i'm not by nature wired to be corporate so here i'm putting your
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  out of art and you got pulled in i yeah so so this i did so you're you're working so that's why
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  that this is why you're on on the bleeding edge of all this different tech because this is what
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  like you live it and then you're bringing it in like you said you're working in an innovation units
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  in all of these more more traditional industries some of them are probably have advanced quite a bit but
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  so like for people listening a company like chevron or bp or or a company like that size
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  they they bring you in walk through a project that you would have done with a company that would
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  would walk like what what a digital transformation is for a company like this
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  um okay so um so for example uh there are in the upstream part of the energy business so
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  there's there's there's ways that there's typical um there's certain terminology they use
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  upstream or is the part of the energy business that goes out and finds where the oil is and
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  pulls it out of the ground wherever that is if it's in deep water if it's on land if it's in
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  shell wherever it is so um in the past that work has been done in their in silos for example so
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  there's i'm the person who uh looks at and uh who looks at what we've done in this area and says
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  and and i'm a geologist and i'm working with a geophysicist and we look at this data and i say
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  this is where i think it is and this is how far down it is and i've done that in a particular way
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  um using a certain kind of tool and then i throw it over the the fence to somebody else who takes
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  that and put runs an economic analysis on it and says here's how we can develop that out and here's
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  how we can deliver it over the years yada yada and i think we should do it here's how much risk is
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  associated with it well all of those things were one done in and um tools that were not connected
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  and two were done in processes that were not connected and now we have new technologies that
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  enable all of these people to look at the same data at the same time and troubleshoot and come
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  up with really interesting ways to uh to solve problems that have been problems for a long time
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  or reduce the uncertainties and risks associated with very expensive operations and what we're
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  finding is people are resistant to letting goable tools right and then also don't know how to work
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  together in a collaborative in a collaborative situation tools or note tools so they're trying to
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  get people to adopt new tools and don't often realize that they're asking them to really sign
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  almost a different contract than what they signed on to do so my job is to come in work with the
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  team understand what kind of engagements need to happen and advise people on how to improve the
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  delivery of the tools improve the configuration of the tools and help people learn how to get over
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  the barriers of working together in new way now you do this obviously through digital transformation
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  but some of the some of the things that you speak on seem to stem from your understanding of the
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  nuances of how companies work and how they don't work so even within a company um
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  after building out and sort of transforming some of these organizations for the majority of your
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  career what did you see was broken and that you wanted to or you thought it should be fixed
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  so there's different levels and different barriers what does it work right right right but
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  one of the things that um I think gets in the way so digital tools in order for them the
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  newest ones uh to work well and to and for us to work well with the capabilities and fully
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  realize the value of those tools it requires a collaborative dynamic it requires that people get
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  together and and throw out ideas but also really integrate and listen to the ideas of somebody who
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  has a different perspective and listens well but the way that we historically our systems through
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  school and all the way through in in corporations and and in the way we run business is competitive
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  and it advances people that are assertive um and it doesn't reward people who have learned how to
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  be receptive and integrative uh and so when you need to then shift uh when you're looking at a tool
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  and you say we just need to learn how to do this tool you have you have you have missed a lot a lot
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  of the big picture of um what really needs to change in order for people uh to work better together
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  which is no there's a cultural barrier not just at the corporate level but in our kind of social
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  and cultural paradigm in the US is very individual not communal it's very competitive not collaborative
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  and uh co-creative or um um cooperative um we we do that sort of that's second layer down if you
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  can make it look cooperative do that but know that you won oh and people said it yeah and so I think
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  we miss the boat on that so that's within the corporate context there's a real need to change the
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  way we reward people um if we really want people to take the risk of uh of working that differently
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  from what's been what's been paying their bills what's what they've been rewarded for what they've
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  gotten a's for all their life it's a bigger transformation than what than than just a new tool
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  we're really good at taking letting go of old tools and just picking up new more efficient tools
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  that do the same thing that we're good at but not at completely changing the way that we interact
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  and really learning how to listen deeply and how to really disrupt um processes and um and and
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  and be creative and innovative together because creativity and innovation are not processes they are
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  their emergencies you know and we don't know how to make we don't know how to make space for that
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  we want to know if I give you three days to do innovation sessions you can promise me that you're
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  going to have you're going to have some innovation at the end of that you know but
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  what causes innovation what causes the flash that that opens up a new possibility
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  and it's a little bit mysterious what's the model for what what so you you advocate for systemic
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  reset of a system that's entrenched it's not easy right so let's look at let's look at the model
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  is the model somewhere else in the world for how we should do business how we should collaborate
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  that we should reverse engineer I so love the question because it's a it's a question it's a it's a
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  delicious question because it's the as somebody who works with change I know that people don't like
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  to let go of things that they love or that they're comfortable or that they know without having
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  the next thing to grasp on to and say this is a better way and um I also am aware that um that
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  that we don't know the answer yet I'm not pointing at a different system and saying we should adopt
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  that system and part of the challenge is that's what we want it's that we want a certainty about
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  the future that's not really possible so we keep grasping for that and asking for that and say I'm
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  not letting go of this until you show me and we're gonna hold on to this with all of its destructive
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  um you know damaging impacts until someone delivers us the actual better solution well
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  I could come up with a better solution probably but would it be a better solution for long
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  is it the better solution no I I believe that what what we need is a driving vision which is not
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  a goal that's different from a goal even if you stick it's it's much easier to talk about these
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  things if we look at the individual level because everything that's true about the individual experiences
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  also true about the the collective so if I if I say uh oh you know how we ask people that are
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  just coming out of uh of high school what they want to do for their career and then we make them
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  choose and then they go to school and then they study that thing and then they get in that career
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  and they go oh I didn't want to do this this is not what I want well this happens to people
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  that are not just in school this happens with it people's careers in general is like there's
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  something we like about that so we say that's the goal and maybe it's a five year thing and we
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  start driving in that direction and we get a lot of flags along the way that this isn't really quite
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  it there's something I like about that but I this was my goal so I have to drive here um instead of
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  taking the hints along the way and going what was it about that I want to be in service this way
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  I have a gift to bring this way this is me but this part's not me so much you know I've done that
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  in my life many times where because that's what I learned to do to be successful was to get your goal
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  and grind that out and then I get there and I go I don't want to do this you know for this is it
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  and I've had so many conversations with senior leaders and executives inside of corporations
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  and they say yeah you know I'm here this is what I spent my last 15 years trying to dig go and
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  is this all there is this is it we're just not and it's like we're not good at inspired vision and
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  and and and inspired business you know inspiration comes from being still and going what serves
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  and what serves what I think serves right now is not a bad question to start with
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  what are we trying to serve what are we in service to by saying every year these large
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  global corporations need to be another four or five percent bigger on the bottom line
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  well we're in service to at this point it's right it's so you said you you first of all you
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  nailed it like the the individual you look at the individual situation and then you just
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  extrapolate that and that's the collective situation so you see you know the individual has the
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  goals and the KPIs and the in the organization and those goals and KPIs are aligned with
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  the organization's goals and KPIs which are usually to the shareholder right to the to the
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  stakeholder and and that's and and even if the company's private the end goal is to you know exit
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  and to a higher evaluation or you know have a positive ROI for the investors until they IPO so
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  it's always about the shareholder or the stakeholder that's what drives everything right now
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  that's possible I mean but but from from for a privately held company if you look at like a
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  Patagonia like where that's owned I can't remember the guy's name but that one dude and he gets
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  to say whatever he wants to say you know he'll he'll he'll he'll get big you know pages uh
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  front pages on the New York Times or whatever saying what he wants to say about indigenous rights or
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  what he wants to say about gay and trans rights or whenever he wants to say about what the government
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  should or shouldn't be doing and uh and I've had people say well how come they can do it and I'm like
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  no that's not a publicly traded company it's a private privately held company and publicly traded
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  companies in my view I don't see anybody really owning um the decisions made by those corporations
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  because uh senior leader uh CEO says I'm doing what the investment behavior of the market
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  tells me it wants which is to grow this bottom line to grow the profit line that's it and the
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  reason I know that is because that's the only thing that consistently drives investors to buy
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  this stock and it's fair enough that's true but I think people are unconscious in in general
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  public is unconscious about our investment behavior um and how it drives those decisions so
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  we don't think of ourselves as owning those decisions just because we own stock but when we sit
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  down at the end of the year uh and either decide or buy ourselves or with our advisors what are we
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  going to invest in next year the question is well what's what's going up it's not what does that
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  company do and do I really feel aligned to it um and even my spirit yeah it's what's going to
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  make me the most money so I can get out of this misery faster this this misery that's like it's
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  like a self perpetuating prophecy almost it's totally like that it's completely like that and so
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  it's kind of a crazy it's kind of it's a certain kind of crazy um and you know and I feel like the
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  work that I'm doing right now the work that I'm getting to do right now to come back to the
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  question of of what do we do different because I didn't really answer that I do believe we have
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  to learn how to engage with each other in different ways I do believe that uh so if I say there's a
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  bias towards the assertive in our culture and and that's basically this logical rational um this
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  need to uh to plan things this need to have everything be predictable these are these
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  this need to build things uh and grow things and this need to uh get your point into the room and
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  to win at something these are not terrible instincts these are not terrible um this is not a terrible
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  aspect of being a human that we want to be known for what we do that we want to be heard when we
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  speak that we want to plan things and be able to have some predictability in life that we care
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  about our individual uh needs and the needs of our particular families uh that we're interested in
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  those things uh that we really want to move in the world and and and and feel the earth under our
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  being get things done but they're out of balance with the whole other aspect of who we are as humans
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  so the other aspect is really listening deeply so that we can hear from other people that have
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  different lived experiences different gifts different capabilities and different perspectives on
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  the same challenges and problems and that's really like deeply listening not like how we typically
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  listen where we're rehearsing what we're going to say next while the person speaking is really taking
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  that person in fully um learning how to allow space for spontaneity instead of having everything be
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  planned out and being and this push for uh this constant push for action and this constant push for
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  efficiency takes all of the space out it takes all of the space for breathing out of our systems
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  and so there's no space for spontaneity there's no space for the emotional understanding that you
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  need to get things to be different taking into account the emotional impacts uh and really holding
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  what are what what are what are what is the what is what are our systems perpetuating in the world
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  are we really fully aware like emotionally um the pain that that's causing because we are not
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  just individual we're also fully connected with everything on this planet there's no way to
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  separate us out completely because we're living both of those things both yes we're having an
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  individual experience but we're also impacted by knowing and you can see it in our like I can see
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  it in my kids and they're they're part of why I speak about the things that I do but um they know
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  who makes their smart devices and they know the situations those people are living in I didn't
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  grow up knowing that uh it's painful for them to know that so I'm not surprised by the fact that
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  so many young people don't want to plug in and continue to do what I grew up doing you know so
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  we have to hold the emotional also at the same time as the intellectual it's not just a matter of
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  putting money in the bank it's at what cost and you know what does it mean that we're doing that
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  and uh and also this this um this focus on structure overflow and this lack of space for just being
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  being and um and being in a receptive quiet mode is one of the ways you know that we become
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  receptive so we have to figure out how to do these as individuals first and how to acknowledge and
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  make space for them and when we do this in a group when we learn how to do these things individually
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  and we bring them to a group different things happen and much more creative much more inspiring much
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  more integrated much better solutions are possible when we can do that because we can bring at
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  that point the full value of the gifts and the rim in a way we can't do it if we are doing what we
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  call collaboration which is eight people sitting around a table advocating for the thing that they
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  already knew they wanted to happen when they showed up I now I see I see that the I see why certain
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  spiritual elements are now permeating how you optimize yourself in business and this is I can see
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  that this is like the way that you speak about these two components like yes we have a whole bunch
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  of issues in how we do business but then there's there's a lot of more personal issues that we have
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  to figure out as well that have just also been entrenched in the individual I actually loved
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  one thing that you said before we spoke was very interesting because I want to I want you to maybe
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  talk about how to better yourself and and to and to be a better uh citizen of you know citizen
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  of the world but also like in in your organization and I'm sure there's a lot of lessons and
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  and teachings that you have but um one thing you mentioned was how when people are upset with
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  corporations or people are upset with how things happen um they they advocate but then
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  they aren't aware that they may be owners they may be part of technically part of the problem
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  and I just want you to touch on that so that was a really interesting point you made that people
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  may not be really in line to well I mean so anytime I hear things like I hear terminology like
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  corporations versus groups of people because that's really um what corporations are their groups
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  of people that have a specific job that they're that they're given you know whether they're whether
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  though whether given that job consciously or not they're given that job this is your job leader
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  of a company increase the bottom line forever it we never go oh hey city bank you're big enough
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  you can stop right there and and so will we see over it over time is more and more weirdness
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  in a company that's the size of a city corp um that is making up products that don't exist or
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  finding ways to build for services that have no value in order to increase that bottom line
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  and and so uh then people get angry and same thing with energy corporations I I picked
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  something different but it doesn't matter what publicly traded corporation you're talking about
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  they're all dealing any once they get to a certain size they're dealing with the same problem
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  which is where we're going to get another four percent eight percent on the bottom line and so
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  you know so people are out protesting and they might be protesting any number of things
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  wages bad wages or treatment of employees reduction of benefits damage to the environment
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  pipelines and and my my reflection back to people when they when they do that is to say um
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  are you sure you don't own that company are you sure that you're you don't know that and they say
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  well what do you mean and I say well you know look in your mutual funds you probably own if you
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  actually own any um mutual funds their stock base you probably own a lot of the companies whose
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  whose practices you most derived you know and uh and and that gives them a moment of pause
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  and I only tell them these stories because their stories that I have lived out myself
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  you know and I constantly do challenge myself on how how do I continue to work in corporations
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  that have practices uh and have impacts that I am not in favor of like that I want to stop
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  it's because and I for my and you can only answer that for yourself right so I'm not saying
• 30:48
  everyone should not invest in the stock market I'm not saying anything global like that I'm
• 30:53
  saying you should know what you're invested in you should be intentional if you decide um if you
• 30:59
  decide to invest in these companies anyway be aware of it like I fly a lot I have a huge value for
• 31:07
  travel but I don't fly without knowing what my impacts are like don't get to tune out to that um and
• 31:15
  so there are other things that I try to do to to accommodate to compensate to pay that out myself
• 31:23
  and I don't invest in the stock market and I have that I could be retired multiple times over if I
• 31:27
  did but I stopped doing that almost 20 years ago because I worked in the stock market and I saw
• 31:33
  the kind of behaviors and the kind of impacts it was driving to and I'm not going to be there's
• 31:38
  no way for me to come to come absolutely divest I have my own personal risk profile that I'm managing
• 31:45
  but I am managing and I am actively holding the impacts and being sad about them sometimes
• 31:53
  you know and that's okay and being aware that's it yeah that's it and so I don't hold myself as
• 32:01
  separate or different in any way except that way of look no I'm really trying to be responsible
• 32:08
  or accountable for my impacts and I'm trying to know them and and that's what I encourage people
• 32:14
  to do you're you're a risk profile is going to put you some I have I have friends that are
• 32:18
  beyond me as far as like they've tried everything they can to check out the system having a hard time
• 32:24
  staying up with their rent and I get it you know it's not how I it I'm not wired to work that way
• 32:31
  to live that way so it's like well where do you put yourself and I also think I'm more powerful
• 32:36
  and more impactful where I am working within those structures that I know so well and I've and I've
• 32:41
  been successful in you know from within and I there was a time where I said now that's a
• 32:47
  cop out like you're not but actually I I feel that I am now I actually can see can see my impact
• 32:55
  in a way that I couldn't as a younger person success story is part of the HubSpot podcast
• 33:00
  network in the network there are other incredible podcasts like the ops authority hosted by Natalie
• 33:05
  Gingrich every week on the ops authority Natalie discovers actionable strategies to move your
• 33:10
  business forward and transformational stories of powerhouse business owners who value operations
• 33:16
  you can't ignore backend pieces that have to work together and flow smoothly in order to build a
• 33:21
  brand grow a movement or disrupt an industry if the operation side of your business is a mess putting
• 33:27
  out fires will always take priority leaving no room for creative innovation visibility or networking
• 33:33
  with powerhouse peers or even wannabe powerhouse peers you gotta get your house in order and to do
• 33:39
  that you have to listen to the ops authority wherever you get your podcast you've you worked with
• 33:44
  some of the largest organizations in the world at what point did spirituality start to permeate
• 33:51
  your understanding of what it is to be a good professional a good person and and walk me through
• 33:58
  that transformation and how and things that you teach about that now so I don't I'm not broad
• 34:04
  in to teach but you mean sorry not so I'm here in a traditional sense but yeah yeah but you know
• 34:10
  what I mean yeah no but it's it's a fair question I just want to be I I have a service agreement
• 34:17
  that I am responsible to and I take it very seriously people you know I get called into
• 34:22
  for particular business problems and so I solve them but I also know that these business
• 34:28
  problems a lot of the challenges that that I'm seeing reflected in in businesses right now have
• 34:36
  to do with rigidity they have to do with some of the same imbalances and issues and so if you say
• 34:44
  hey we have got to get more collaborative we have got to work together we can't just have
• 34:49
  we can just have solutions that that make us more efficient we have to have step change
• 34:55
  solutions that move us into a completely different space well you can't do that unless people feel
• 35:01
  like they can experiment and fail you can't do that unless you can really hear from everybody and
• 35:07
  create space that is that allows for integration that allows for out of the box and this until because
• 35:14
  like when you're working in one of those like if you look at oil and gas companies their work is
• 35:21
  highly risky so they have processed everything down to to try and get the health through human the
• 35:31
  human risk out of it the environmental risk out of it but they've over generalized that so that
• 35:36
  now it's like do you think we can can we just get lunch for the team oh I don't know it's like
• 35:42
  it's not everything it's it's a you know what I'm saying it's not like not everything is like that
• 35:49
  there are areas where we and we have to create spaces where it's okay to experiment and we have
• 35:55
  to be real clear about that well and then in order to do that um in order to create containers that
• 36:01
  allow for uh the kind of exchange and the kind of um inspiration inspiration is like um it's the
• 36:11
  inhale it is so receptive it's like when you're still in quiet when you listen to somebody you
• 36:17
  take them in fully you go to sleep you're in the shower you go boom there's that thing you know
• 36:23
  it it finally got in there and it mixed around with some other things and now I've got this idea
• 36:28
  that I never would have come up with on my own you have to create safe spaces for people where
• 36:33
  they're affirmed so you bring in things like um uh unusual things like um and what's that what's
• 36:43
  what's the word with the oh like improv approach yeah improv you bring in improv yes because if your
• 36:51
  pattern is to say notice something because it's outside of your experience or you're perceiving
• 36:56
  it immediately to be risky because not familiar to you then we have to get out of habits like
• 37:03
  natural habits that continued to maintain the status quo and so yes we can experiment with this
• 37:09
  and people can have really exciting amazing experiences where they reminded their of their
• 37:15
  full human expression to solve a business problem and then there's the possibility to apply
• 37:22
  that outside of the business as well so that's part of how I hold my own vision yes we're
• 37:27
  going to solve business problems and we're going to have we're going to habituate some new
• 37:32
  behaviors and some new practices and some new approaches that make us more able to do that
• 37:37
  outside of a business context and maybe to solve the problem of business as a whole
• 37:42
  and some more cultural issues that you can see every day on Facebook and Twitter
• 37:47
  where if you know one's listening no one's really hearing and taking in and everybody's
• 37:52
  parsing language and no one's really not knowing but you know the the cultural norm right now is just
• 37:59
  just to be repeating things at each other yeah well I think you've been like a social social media
• 38:04
  algorithms like further propagate that problem because they create echo chambers but
• 38:08
  I guess so the best the best interpretation I want to define I think this is very important when
• 38:14
  I when I define spirituality what I what I really meant I guess was self-awareness mental clarity
• 38:20
  creativity just being a better person not not necessarily like you know I need to do better in
• 38:28
  business so I have to go find a religion or something like that's not what I that's not what I
• 38:31
  meant if you want to find but I meant like just being like a some more self-aware
• 38:35
  in touch person in my opinion that's a component of a spirituality and self-awareness that you
• 38:41
  have to have just to because if you're just always in the zone always working and you don't have
• 38:47
  a concept of self then then you can't you take it to whatever level you want you can't be
• 38:55
  aware of your strengths and weaknesses you can't be aware of how you communicate or have other
• 38:58
  people so I think that that being in tune with oneself is like an incredible superpower and
• 39:03
  that's what I that's I saw you dancing around that I just that's what I wanted to bring out but you
• 39:08
  nailed it I really appreciate that thanks for the help and also the the the knowing yourself is
• 39:19
  is and being aware of yourself but also being aware of your own flexibility those two things because
• 39:28
  I can know like who I am and my limits at this stage of my life and I also know I'm capable of
• 39:38
  a lot more that I haven't even begun to explore so yes I mean I have some some central gifts and
• 39:46
  strengths that consistently show up the other thing that practice like when I say practice I mean
• 39:53
  daily meditation breath all these things that I gotta tight she all these things that I have
• 39:59
  experimented with over time because I'm naturally curious have created a flexibility in me to be
• 40:05
  able to navigate projects changes people on my own crap you know with some sense of humor because
• 40:14
  I know it's you know I know it's just being human but also that I am capable of being better
• 40:21
  one thing that we didn't touch on really yet which I think would be interesting to get your
• 40:27
  opinion on because I think this is I think this is the cragment are wrong when I went and looked at
• 40:32
  your book on Amazon this seemed to be the main theme so success and and I think the main the first
• 40:39
  line in your book was you thought success would be more fun and I find that interesting so you know
• 40:45
  we we speak about the assertive people the high performers would whatever okay so say say somebody
• 40:51
  say somebody has achieved incredible incredible success whatever that definition is you know in
• 40:57
  their career or whatever they have a certain role they have a certain title they make a certain
• 41:01
  amount of money but you thought success would be more fun obviously they're missing something so
• 41:08
  walk me through your your thoughts on on that because that's not the first time I've heard that
• 41:13
  from people that do have some level of success but then they seem to be the satisfied just oh this
• 41:19
  is all it is and it seems like such a privilege problem to have which it is but it's something that
• 41:24
  people do experience when they get to a certain point in their career it's a real issue so I walk
• 41:29
  me through that you have I'm sure you have some ideas yeah I think it's a real issue when the most
• 41:35
  privileged people in our culture and in in our so we'll say our our country can reach the
• 41:46
  pinnacle of what we consider to be successful which is exactly what you said what's your position
• 41:51
  what's your income you know and and then go this is not I don't feel amazing and I don't feel like
• 42:03
  I'm fully alive here I feel like so in order for me to become successful and I could I track
• 42:09
  this in my book I learned how to close off fully half of who I am and I think this happens to
• 42:15
  a lot of people so what is going to become successful is like so so so so close off so so I was a
• 42:23
  highly highly sensitive kid and what I learned growing up in our culture is emotions are not
• 42:32
  useful learn how to work around them learn how to mute them learn how to come from a place of
• 42:39
  logic and and in rationality instead because you will not get anywhere if you show up with those
• 42:47
  emotions and that was and still is a kind of an advice advice that people get in the work world
• 42:55
  don't don't be emotional about this put put the whole case together bring it in a rational logical
• 43:01
  again I'm not saying that's a terrible idea but I'm seeing if you lose contact with the emotional
• 43:06
  side of it and you can't you can't pull that together after a while because the only thing that
• 43:12
  gets reinforced is this other if it so so I learned how to do that I learned how to pull my plans
• 43:18
  together I learned how to get my voice into the room and to one-up people and to assert my
• 43:24
  points of view and to get my plans implemented so that means I stopped listening so I've learned
• 43:32
  us to stop listening I've learned to dismiss people who are quiet and a lot of times you're
• 43:40
  quiet people in a room are people who are most thoroughly processing all of the information
• 43:47
  they're slower they despise a brain storm because they're not going to be done
• 43:54
  interpreting thinking, noodling, integrating by the time the whole thing's over and they will
• 44:01
  have missed their opportunity to to engage so so we punish you know not it's it's I don't want it
• 44:10
  to sound judgmental because I don't feel that way I feel like it's just a miss you know it's like
• 44:16
  our systems our systems are such that they they punish people in an effect they don't they pay
• 44:22
  us for being a certain way they advance us for being a certain way so then everybody who is
• 44:28
  that way is promoted into corporations into leadership positions and other people are not
• 44:33
  which means the whole thing repeats itself and we continue it perpetuates itself so we continue
• 44:40
  to advance the same kind of people when we really need a much more holistic approach to the
• 44:46
  problems that we currently have some of which are within organizations and some of which are global
• 44:51
  but that still doesn't oh well so I didn't mean to interrupt I was going to say I want to
• 44:55
  bring this back to to finding fulfillment but keep going that's that's all I was going to say
• 45:00
  well so foot so it's it's very difficult to find fulfillment when you're emotionally closed
• 45:06
  off and shut down it's like where's the joy and if you're not really holding the emotional
• 45:13
  impacts and the emotional and the love of the work that you're doing for itself for the
• 45:20
  connection that it has with people for the way that it allows you to create when do people get
• 45:25
  excited they're they get excited when there's a surprise a spontaneous surprise that shows up well
• 45:32
  if you if you've designed all the spontaneity out if you weren't listening for new opportunities
• 45:39
  ways to do things if you're not having dynamics with people where you don't know what the outcome
• 45:44
  might be you're missing some real bridge experiences as a person if you can't
• 45:55
  solve the problems that most matter the the problems that most matter are the ones that are
• 46:01
  are hurting people the ones that are helping people the ones that are protecting the the people
• 46:10
  who most need it and not just the people but the planet and the beings that live here the things
• 46:16
  that inspire us you know if what we're doing is driving towards uninspired outcomes that didn't
• 46:23
  come from anywhere except for somebody's intellect or somebody's old idea of this of what should
• 46:30
  what we should be in service to what are we in service to like if my kids don't want us to keep
• 46:35
  doing this and we keep plotting along the same path and they're like hey how about we stop
• 46:41
  destroying the planet wouldn't that be cool and you're like yeah oh and I hear many people
• 46:46
  of my generation going they'll figure it out they're smart and I'm like that doesn't feel fair to
• 46:50
  me you know I know I'm not I'm not feeling that I think you know to me that's a wake up call if
• 46:58
  the people that we say we're doing this for on some level or another oh I'm yeah they want
• 47:04
  their phones or whatever if they're saying no really we we would rather you we'd rather you
• 47:12
  save some resources for the future we would rather you you know not keep going down this path
• 47:18
  then maybe we should listen and I think we would find more meaning in our work if there was more
• 47:24
  meaning in our work interesting and for somebody earlier on in their career this is a great this
• 47:30
  is a great warning to make sure that fine you want to you want to have you want to have success
• 47:36
  whatever that again whatever you define success by but you know red flag warning don't close
• 47:42
  yourself off to other experiences to creativity to things that will long-term make you really happy
• 47:50
  but for people that are farther along in their career like you said you had to like you said
• 47:56
  you closed off half of yourself how did you open that back up to find fulfillment in what you were
• 48:01
  doing well it's an ongoing process because everybody is a work in progress until we die so I don't
• 48:09
  feel like oh I'm all open then it's all fixed I feel like you know I'm constantly trying to be a
• 48:14
  better person and some of the issues that have plagued me for my whole life still prop up and
• 48:19
  plague me but I I think the idea that I think what we have to do is watch our is learn how to watch
• 48:27
  our internal and listen to our internal navigation you know not just what is considered out there
• 48:37
  to be successful not just what somebody says you'd be good at and you could make a lot of money
• 48:42
  at but what moves you what uh and that again doesn't mean that's what you should do right now it
• 48:48
  just means you should hold that as a knowing and see what shows up for you and follow things that
• 48:55
  feel correct you know I think there's some ways to to do that yes you can have a goal and if you
• 49:02
  keep checking on the goal and that's a part of the process it's just like the creative process is
• 49:08
  both receptive and active so I'm not saying we should do one or the other but receptive is hey
• 49:15
  what wants to be painted on the page right now it's yellow you pick up then you have to respond
• 49:21
  with an action you pick up the paintbrush you grab the yellow you paint something on the page
• 49:25
  then you're back in receptive mode what's next you know and if we consider a little bit of that
• 49:32
  instead of just driving and grinding a little bit of that you how you constantly have to come back
• 49:37
  to this receptive place and go is this still right do I still want to be a doctor or do I want to
• 49:42
  heal people or do I want to be a part of people's healing and then what way do I want to be a part
• 49:47
  of people's healing what what did I learn this year that I didn't know last year about how I want
• 49:52
  to be a part of people's healing is it still a doctor do I want to you know so am I liking school
• 49:57
  am I liking these classes or am I hating them and really it's a different direction so those are
• 50:03
  the kinds of things that I would I encourage people to tune into again it doesn't mean don't be a
• 50:09
  doctor it just means understand and be aware of your choices every day it doesn't mean don't
• 50:14
  invest in publicly traded companies it just means hold and understand and be aware and be accountable
• 50:20
  for your your choices there um yeah so there's all kinds of I say you know you follow the instincts
• 50:28
  and intuition intuition is widely of what ignored in our culture is like we know a lot internally
• 50:36
  about what wants to happen what we want to be a part of and we're constantly closing that
• 50:41
  that down and I think the more you learn we learn to listen to that too that the more
• 50:47
  fulfilled we can be because even if we can't do all of those things in the workplace we can find
• 50:52
  ways to work with that energy and and that knowing until we figure out how to bring it into the
• 50:58
  workplace I'm a much better consultant than I was 20 or even 10 years ago because I listen better
• 51:06
  that you know even if nothing else came of the the spiritual practices that I do and the
• 51:12
  meditative and awareness practices that I have experimented with that right there is worth
• 51:18
  very very very smart very smart um I want to I wanted to ask you some like lessons from your
• 51:25
  career but was there anything else that we went into we went into system system race that we
• 51:32
  went into digital transformation we went into uh being aware of of your role in in the world
• 51:40
  in companies we went into you know professional development personal development touched on
• 51:45
  spirituality self-awareness I was a lot of a lot of topics and I was very good is there is there
• 51:52
  is there stuff that you anything else that you bring up in the book that would be a good knowledge
• 51:57
  nugget or or learning for people that are listening or is did we cover most of it off already
• 52:02
  there's one piece that I want to come back to because everybody's asking well what's the there
• 52:07
  what's the next system so you're saying we should be done with this one that's all profit
• 52:12
  and what what I would like to see is exactly the same thing that we've been talking about
• 52:18
  as individuals is that we come up with a system that works for the challenges that we have now
• 52:23
  and we acknowledge that we are in a dynamic world and that means we constantly have to revisit
• 52:29
  what we do so we don't have to pick a system that works forever we have to pick a system that
• 52:35
  solves at least some of the problems that we have right now that are showing themselves right now
• 52:40
  and we have to get the right people in the room that have the different perspectives the right
• 52:44
  perspectives and and figure out how to integrate those perspectives and co-create the new solution
• 52:50
  together you can't wait for somebody else to bring that to you because it won't have you in it
• 52:59
  and if it doesn't have you in it you're not going to like it because it won't reflect your gifts
• 53:04
  you know so it has to have enough of but it has to have enough of the right
• 53:09
  um enough of the perspectives and enough of the gifts that people can find themselves in it and go
• 53:14
  yeah that's inspired yeah that's what I want to be a part of um otherwise it's just it's just
• 53:22
  somebody else's idea of the next best thing and it might be a little better but it's it's not
• 53:27
  going to be the solution so I think we modified things I think we got to get out of this is the
• 53:35
  anchor thing it's like there's so many I think that obviously I love the fact that you have like
• 53:41
  everybody building this but I think it's first like step one is to even so it's like step one is to
• 53:48
  get companies to understand that there's other ways to do things which we're seeing shifts slowly
• 53:53
  of course over the past two years I think shifts have sort of sped up a little bit
• 53:58
  and expedited a little bit but then after that then you you have organizations that hopefully adopt more
• 54:05
  of a bottom-up approach and just their policy making in the way they interact with the world their
• 54:12
  customers their stakeholders and then when and that's like it's just like going down this path
• 54:17
  it continues to going down this path and then I think the evolution of that would be when you have
• 54:22
  a more bottom-up psychologically safe work environment you also touched on this
• 54:30
  then that's when the ideas that are coming from people that are at every level of the organization
• 54:36
  and with all these different experiences and you know very all at different points in their life
• 54:42
  from different backgrounds that's when you have an organization whose policies towards everything
• 54:48
  start to shift but it definitely takes like you have to you have to enable that that psychological
• 54:53
  safety so people feel safe you know putting their opinion in you know yeah and real hard to do
• 55:01
  when you've got a bunch of people that you've promoted because they're not like that
• 55:08
  so so this is the this is a bit of the challenge and not and these people are not just
• 55:14
  in corporations they're also in government you know leading our country or people who have
• 55:18
  been trained to argue to the debt you know that they're attorneys you know and that's again
• 55:25
  that's just the job that's not like that's not who they are as people although I'm sure you know
• 55:33
  like over time we all get anchored to certain things if we're not careful so you know so I think
• 55:39
  we need to move to a much more dynamic you know system and way of working together which is
• 55:45
  uncomfortable to people so that's the that's the collective view that I have on we've got to get
• 55:52
  braver we can't keep holding on to things because we're not brave enough to live with the uncertainty
• 56:00
  of what's next I love that very well said okay I'm gonna I'm going to ask you some career questions
• 56:08
  to pull out some inspiration for people um you've had a very interesting career obviously a lot
• 56:14
  of a lot of different aspects to your career um what was the biggest challenge of your of your
• 56:20
  career and how did you solve it um so I'm not a I'm not a fast learner in a lot of ways and so I
• 56:29
  have had to uh I so I'd say the the things that have been the the thing that's been the hardest
• 56:36
  for me is letting go of the fact that in certain situations I just know better because I'm an
• 56:42
  expert in this thing letting go of expertise uh well enough to allow other uh other perspectives to
• 56:49
  inform me has been one of my biggest challenges and I'm I have uh I've learned that lesson the
• 56:56
  hard way enough times that I'm much much better at it now I I it forced me to surrender uh at a
• 57:03
  point and I was doing a lot of uh this this I would call them old school leadership things anytime
• 57:09
  you hear someone talk about buy-in that's an old school leadership term it means I know what we're
• 57:15
  gonna do I know it's correct and now I just need you to buy in uh and recognize how genius I am
• 57:22
  and take this forward with me instead of I'm looking for your feedback I'm looking to make this
• 57:27
  better here's the problem trying to solve what do you think about it and that that's a great uh
• 57:32
  segue to the next question what is the biggest misconception about leadership that you see uh
• 57:40
  yeah I think the biggest the biggest misconception about leadership is that people who get in
• 57:46
  leadership rules inside of corporations I can't speak from from my experience outside of them
• 57:52
  but but that they're um all money driven I've seen what I have seen in my life is that people
• 58:01
  mostly uh with very few exceptions and I've had a lot of experience with people and and I have seen
• 58:07
  exceptions uh you know there are some psychopaths out there but mostly people have read this though
• 58:14
  I mean I like I would have argued with you about that 10 you know 10 years ago but now I'm like oh wow
• 58:20
  yeah um but but but most people are really well-intentioned and they move into leadership because they
• 58:26
  care about people and they care about doing things right and they uh and they they want to have
• 58:31
  a legacy a good impact on the world and what happens is over time that they they have fewer and
• 58:40
  fewer options uh you know in order like I one example is I sit tell this this story in the book
• 58:47
  is that there was a leader who was in charge of a of a um a large business unit and one of the
• 58:54
  biggest energy corporations that I've consulted to and he was probably the most engaging most um
• 59:04
  emotionally aware and uh caring um leader that I've ever worked with and he brought his team
• 59:11
  together and they did a collective values and visioning um workshops and they were
• 59:17
  they were a cohesive team and they had decided together that they were not going to
• 59:22
  do a process called flaring when they produced the asset uh which means um they were got they were
• 59:29
  gonna be a green they were gonna do a greener process and they were gonna flare hydrocarbons burn
• 59:34
  hydrocarbons off into the air um and they were responsible for a significant delivery uh during
• 59:43
  this particular quarter and he was pushed to reverse that decision and he had to otherwise he was
• 59:51
  gonna not hit his number and that number was really important to the company the corporation it
• 59:57
  was important to their quarterly earnings and so he had to reverse it and his team uh didn't feel
• 1:00:05
  like he went to bat for them didn't feel like it thought you know they were angry and they they
• 1:00:13
  and anyways he didn't he probably could have handled the resolution of that better but the
• 1:00:17
  plea was he didn't want to make that decision the you know a well an asset like that is going
• 1:00:25
  to produce what it's gonna produce over its lifetime whether you delay it for you know four weeks
• 1:00:30
  or not it's not gonna make it more or less ultimately so he felt like his hand was forced
• 1:00:38
  and uh and this happens all the time where people end up having to lay layoff huge numbers of
• 1:00:45
  people that they don't really they know they're gonna have to hire back in a year or they're gonna
• 1:00:49
  have to find somebody who's not as good as the people that they're having to let go um they're
• 1:00:55
  having to cut benefits to people they're having to reverse on decisions that they made a long time
• 1:01:02
  ago in order just to make this one number go up as fast as it needs to go up and these are damaging
• 1:01:10
  uh these are damaging decisions that no one really wants to be forced to make and the question is
• 1:01:15
  why do we keep forcing people to make decisions that they know are bad it shifts the perspective
• 1:01:21
  quite a bit because I don't because the the obvious uh scapegoat is the individual that makes the
• 1:01:27
  decision right regardless yeah exactly yeah and I and I can push but I can see too that I don't
• 1:01:36
  want to think that um a lot of times uh we don't have enough bravery in that role and CEO roles to
• 1:01:44
  say look I want to actually I want to communicate directly to stakeholders to the to the shareholders
• 1:01:50
  about this I want to say look we're gonna take a loss or we're gonna we're gonna reduce earnings
• 1:01:58
  by this much for this year and this quarter because we're making the decision to hold on to our
• 1:02:02
  people and there have been a little bit there's been a little bit of that some companies do that
• 1:02:07
  a little bit better or we're gonna cut dividends dividends as a profit share why would you
• 1:02:12
  lay people off before you cut dividends that like makes no sense to me like unless you really
• 1:02:18
  want to let people go and they're not really you know you're trying to like cover some other
• 1:02:22
  different objective but in general it's not an easy role to to lead a P&L and a large corporate
• 1:02:32
  it's a it's a very impersonal role and so what happens is the people who are
• 1:02:37
  personally connected often leave and so what you end up with at the top of those companies is people
• 1:02:43
  that can sleep like a baby and still have decisions which is not what you want because they're leading
• 1:02:49
  they're they're they have they wield massive influence on our government and all of our other
• 1:02:55
  systems if you could tell yourself if you could tell your younger self one thing what would that be
• 1:03:06
  yeah I would tell myself that this is gonna be a fun ride I would tell myself that it gets better
• 1:03:15
  I had I had a I wouldn't say I didn't have a rough start in like my family I was I was very
• 1:03:21
  supported but I felt like a real weird kid because I was one and I'm now I'm just a real
• 1:03:28
  weird adult and I'm okay with it but but I I enjoy I enjoy the engagements that I have I enjoy
• 1:03:36
  the work that I do I enjoy the people that I do it with and I enjoy becoming more alive every year
• 1:03:42
  and that's that's that's the magic I like that I like that answer a lot just no I'm just
• 1:03:50
  funny because you know when when when you are young you just tend to try and rush everything and
• 1:03:58
  to try and just move faster and quicker and do more right but you know after a while you realize
• 1:04:05
  that's not the answer yeah it was always a smart kid you know and but and I and that's what I
• 1:04:13
  ended up leaning into is like okay you know this is who you are well I mean
• 1:04:20
  okay but that you know that's not that's not all okay um who is one person that had an
• 1:04:30
  incredible impact on your life and what did you learn from them who so many um I yeah this is
• 1:04:40
  it's a hard one um well I can say one of the the most fortunate things um in my life is that I
• 1:04:51
  have had a large extended family around me like the whole time that I was growing up
• 1:04:57
  and even when I was at my most awkward which was probably up until last year but like if I
• 1:05:04
  but but if we say we stay with like my adolescent years um I I had some real
• 1:05:11
  uh internally difficult times reconciling who I was and where I fit into the world but I always had
• 1:05:19
  people around me um cousins and uncles my parents too who just thought I was the best and like
• 1:05:28
  that has like lifted me through my entire life so I've had great professional mentors
• 1:05:34
  I've had wonder but but the idea that there's only so far I can fall because I have people in my
• 1:05:41
  ear um and in my life all the time that don't care if I fall or not you know and I've had
• 1:05:49
  plenty of personal and work related failures and they've never wavered so I that is a privilege
• 1:05:57
  that I that is never lost on me because I know that I don't want to sound I don't want to sound
• 1:06:04
  too sentimental but I don't it doesn't feel like a sentimental thing it feels like a knowledge
• 1:06:09
  that there is always in there's a there's uh there's a lift there you know what I mean I can try
• 1:06:16
  things because I can't feel bad enough that they're going to be gone you recommend a book or a
• 1:06:21
  podcast besides your own we'll get we'll get that in the show notes but a book or a podcast that
• 1:06:27
  somebody should go check out um I'm a big fan of a woman named Joanna Macy who wrote a book called
• 1:06:34
  Active Hope and that was and that and her the the the book that she wrote before that um I mean see
• 1:06:43
  if I can recall the name of it um let's stick with Active Hope uh and then Joanna Macy who is a
• 1:06:51
  uh she's she's an amazing person who uh who is an environmental activist um but also a Buddhist
• 1:06:59
  teacher and she is all about actually feeling what's happening in the world and and finding the
• 1:07:05
  ways to activate that to use the feelings of of grief and pain and um and love and you know to
• 1:07:15
  find your ways into the right ways to support given who you are and what you have to bring to it
• 1:07:20
  gee I just I just googled her she has a client she has a wild love for the world coming back to life
• 1:07:27
  pass it on world as a lover a widening circle there's like she has like some like 10 15 different
• 1:07:33
  books very impressive I don't know her I have to check out her uh her stuff yes do definitely the
• 1:07:39
  work that reconnects okay very good um and then uh most important question would be what does
• 1:07:46
  success mean to you uh so success for me means that the work that I'm doing uh and the life that I'm
• 1:07:55
  living um is in service to uh making making the world a better place uh for future generations and
• 1:08:07
  I don't just mean like the world is like the small w world of the people around me I mean I
• 1:08:13
  want to bring what I have to to I want to know that I have wrung out who I am in service of doing
• 1:08:20
  something that will be good in the world and not just for myself but uh but for my kids and for
• 1:08:26
  people that I don't know on the other side of the planet I love that and then where do people
• 1:08:30
  reach out uh email phone email phone social website whatever whatever you want to draw does
• 1:08:36
  that uh you yeah you can you can find information about me on my my website which is www.teenaburger.com
• 1:08:47
  and all my links are there to my social and my book and my book links are there as well