Leadership Lessons From The Great Books

Hello. My name is Jesan Sorrells, and this is the

Leadership Lessons from the Great Books podcast.

Bonus. There's no book reading

on these bonus episodes. These are

interviews, rants, raves, insights, and other gentle

and sometimes not so gentle audio musings and interesting conversations

with interesting people about leadership.

Because listening to me and an interesting guest talk about

leadership for at least a couple of hours is better than reading and trying

to understand yet another business book,

even that business book that I wrote.

As founder and CEO of Los Global and creator

of the Los Academy, Our guest today is

passionate about creating dynamic organizations and

partnering with leaders to lead in a way that improves

impact and agility with less stress.

His unique leadership disruptor approach improves personal

performance while increasing leadership effectiveness, focus

and clarity. This opens facilitation for alignment

between leader and employees. The

results create healthier, more agile companies, positively

influencing culture and business impact while solving some of the

current talent retentions and attraction challenges many

organizations are facing in the business world today.

And as a side note, I initially met this guest

through my work with the World Ethics Organization. You should go

back and listen to our interview with, Richard Messing, of

the World Economics, Organization or World Economic Forum.

I'm sorry. Not World Economic Forum, not WEF. Sorry. World Ethics

Organization. Not the WEF. We're not interviewing

Klaus Schwab on this on this show today. But

I initially met my guest through working with Richard, and you should go back and

listen to that, listen to that podcast episode. And we

connected offline as a result of that. And,

he gave me some interesting insights about this podcast

and talking about this podcast. And I thought, you know,

hey, it might be really interesting to bring him on as a

guest and introduce him to you as my audience

today. And so I'd like to welcome to the podcast, Peter

Ainley. How are you doing today, Peter? Hey, Jesan. Thanks very

much. I am doing excellent. Thank you. And as you can see,

or as you can hear, you'll be able to see it on the video, the

video version of this podcast later on. But as you can hear, Peter has

a rich British accent, so that makes him sound smarter than

me, which is great. So he's going to elevate the intellect

of this podcast just by talking. It's gonna be

great. So let's just let's just correct something out of there.

Shall we? Go ahead. Yeah. The accent

is they're actually originally South African. But there you go. That's even

better, though, actually. That's even better. Like, even makes you sound even smarter.

Thank you. It does. Like, this is a

Americans fall for the act that we do. We anything that sounds vaguely,

you know, accented and then you put some interesting conversation inside of

that, People are like, oh, oh, that guy's smart.

Okay. It's it's great. Whereas the basic American accent, you

gotta really struggle with that with other Americans. You really do. You have to struggle

with that because they don't they don't trust it. They're like, well, how smart could

he be? He sounds like he's from name your state here.

So Got it. You know?

Okay. So, yeah, we'll open up with that.

And now first question of the day, you know, I read through

your book, and I talked a little bit about our background and how we got

connected. But for our listeners, what is it that

you do exactly, Peter?

Besides having a few jokes here and there on on a podcast? Yeah.

Besides that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Besides that. Yeah.

Well, I work with executives to make their lives just

that little bit easier. Mhmm.

So if you frame it another way, let's get a little more

technical here. Specializing in closing the leadership skills gaps.

Okay. Creating greater clarity, cohesion, alignment

for the executive Tom specifically.

So that they can better navigate the global uncertainty.

A little less stress is always useful, less anxiety. A

lot of them deal with impostor syndrome. So let's try and, you know,

navigate around that one and get that out of the way so that

they can better balance demands for stakeholders, shareholders,

and employees. Employees can be pretty demanding too.

Yeah. So that all

sounds awesome. Let's delve a little bit more into

that. So how did you go from No, I'll frame

it this way. Every time I talk to someone who's in the leadership development space,

I kind of ask a variation of this question and I preface it by saying

this. No one wakes up in the morning when they're 7

and goes, hey, I wanna be a leadership development consultant, coach,

trainer, facilitator, whatever. Nobody nobody does that at the age of 7.

So how did you how did you start in South

Africa and and wind up in this spot? Walk us through a little bit of

your a little bit of your history. Well, that's a

it's a bit of an interesting journey. I will give you a caveat quickly on

this one. Mhmm. I am writing a book with a

bunch of other people, and a story will appear in that

book. Oh. Dot dot dot. Alright.

Yeah. We're previewing the book. This is good.

So the book should be coming out in June or July sometime. So

k. Cool. You can read a bit more about that. But covering that

book, so no, you're right. I didn't think about leadership in any which way,

shape, or form at the age of 7. In fact, I don't think I thought

of anything other than how much more fun I can have with doing whatever

it was at the time of the day. Right. But towards the

end, I'll just set it up. Towards the end of

my high school career, the one thing I wanted to do was be a pilot.

Okay. Wanted to fly. And how that came

about is a is an interesting story. So I spent a lot of my time

traveling. My parents kept traveling back and forth to Europe.

So, you know, I've been in a plane since I was

at Ye High. And so I always wanted the

idea of being a pilot just gave just sort of gave me the

sense of a certain degree of freedom. Something I wanted to enjoy

doing. Couple of challenges in pursuing that career at the

time in South Africa. I won't go into those details. So

I figured, well, I've gotta get something else. I've gotta get at least a degree

under my belt. So when all else fails, I have something to fall back

on. That landed up being engineering,

got a degree and a master's degree then in engineering,

that being potentially the springboard to get me into Europe That would

allow something like becoming a pilot, joining the airlines, whatever,

to become more of a reality. Well by the time that was

done, the need for making money that seemed to have

grown a little bit more on the importance scale.

So went into the engineering world into corporate,

started at the Tom, and systematically over the

next 2 decades worked myself up to, you

know, director and running engineering departments.

Figuring I knew how to do all of that based on everything I observed,

and therein lies a key. And

you're not always feeling, hey, man. You know, this is fun

and exciting. I am empowered to to be this great

engineer, manager, leader, whatever you care to call it. But I always

landed up having run ins with bosses I had. Mhmm. Always had

a different view of things, a different opinion, a different idea,

whatever it was. But it always created a little bit of tension.

Some were more amicable to that that tension, shall

we call it, and were willing to discuss it. Others maybe not so

much. And, eventually this

underlying desire for independence, for

readers, broke me out. I went out on my own with a

business partner, and we went into the realms of consulting in the

engineering space, project management space. And that

was probably where the biggest wake up call to what leadership

really is, what it's all about, and

the importance of doing it right. So you begin to

land. You know, when you're dealing with your own employees,

there's a different dynamic to dealing with employees

when you're part of a bigger mechanism and just another cog in that

mechanism. Even if you're a bigger cog in that mechanism, there's a different

dynamic. Because now you're responsible for people in

a way that, well, their livelihood depends on what you do and how

successful as an organization you are. And then

leaders, when you go to not only lead your own own

people, but lead much bigger Tom, how

do you get things done when these people are just

contracted to work with you? How do you get things done

when you've got a client who's got a number of stakeholders

in a in a given project? How do you get them all on

board? How do you get everybody working in a

synergistic way to affect an outcome.

And that really is where I started cutting my teeth as it were on

on the whole notion of leadership and understanding what was wrong.

The mistakes I was making and the lessons I was learning.

And then just going through the course and going doing other ventures

and all of that, I began to see sort of almost like a began to

see sort of almost like a common theme,

a common problem. In that

well this isn't leadership. And what that person is doing is not real

leadership. Look how they're treating their people. Look look what they're doing

there. Look what they're doing here. So there's this whole thing.

No. But leadership is so much more than that. You can actually get people

on your side who are willing to play ball with you, who want

to work with you, who want to follow you. Mhmm.

But, you know, the more I looked at it, everybody was going to a

job. And as the expression goes, doing the bare

essays minimum to get a paycheck at the end of the month. Right? Mhmm.

You know, no more. So what was the level of commitment? What what

was the you know, there there had to be something more to it.

Mhmm. People just having to go to work just to carve out a living

and exist. Yeah. It seemed like that's the way society

was structured, but it didn't add Tom me it didn't add up.

And I I've always had if I can make somebody else's life better I'm

gonna try and do that. That's my what I sort of I

guess grew up learning. If you're gonna do something do it well and help

people in the process. And over time

I had a through some of the moving around the globe that

I did, I'll end up taking a part time position

with a non profit organization just to re establish

myself back here in Canada at the time.

And there was a classic example of

what I would define as poor leadership. Mhmm. Being told I have

to control everything That is my duty

as the leader of this organization.

No. That's not your duty. Your duty is Tom inspire people

to really wanna be here. And the more people I spoke to

who were in that organization, the bigger the problem I saw.

That was probably the trigger. And

then the final nail or

the push over the edge was 2020

and watching how things transpired in that year. And we

won't dive into that but that was a highlight for me to

see. Man, people don't know how to lead.

It's yeah. So I've got to do something about it. And that's then

what got me more into the leadership development space

and more into working with more senior leaders going after that

market because that's where change begins to happen in any

organization. So that's a a a fourth

version of the longer story you might find in the book. Yeah. It's coming

out in, July or June or yes. We'll sometime. We'll

talk more about the book, later on or or even as we go.

Okay. So I was taking several notes while you were talking, writing

down several things, because there's there's several pieces of that

that I wanna pull apart and I wanna I wanna play off of a little

bit. So.

I guess the first thing is this idea. You you said you wanted to be

a pilot, initially in high school, but then that that

sort of readers, you sort of redirected your your your

focus into the space of engineering. Now

here's what I know about engineers. And I love engineers, by the way. I don't

have a problem with them. We need engineers. We need people who could build the

bridges. We need both engineers and construction workers. We need people who could build the

bridges and who could put them up, right? The theory and the practice, right? We

need them both together. We need the people who can come

up with the idea of the internet and then the people who can actually develop

that thing and, and kind of make Tom, make that work.

I was recently listening to a podcast interview with a guy named

Ian McGillchrist. Fascinating guy in the,

in the neuroscience, excuse me,

philosophy and and book writing space.

And he made a point that I think is relevant to our conversation

here. He said the current society that we live in,

our current ethic is built around a fourth of left brain engineering

ethic. Writers. And this relates to

leadership by the way. It also relates to ethics, which I want to talk

about today as well, because of your work with, with WEO.

But in a in a in a in a

society, particularly a Writers society where we've

sort of reached this pinnacle of and I call it the idea of utility. That's

not the word that he used, but where every idea has to have utility

in order to particularly market utility in order to be

valued. We are throwing away and this was his concern.

We are throwing away all of the right brain stuff, or we're

saying that that doesn't matter.

Now when I now oh, here's where that idea ties together. When I run

into folks with an engineering background Mhmm. They tend

to be some of the hardest folks to sell on the

idea of leadership because they're

convinced that because and I this is how I sort of frame it for them.

I know you're convinced by data. I get that. But you're surrounded by a bunch

of people who aren't, and you have to lead them sort of differently.

Leaders that been something that you've seen in

your experience or am I totally off the mark there?

I'm gonna start off by saying, I engineers, yes,

definitely left brained, technically orientated, 1 plus one has to

equal 2. Fourth. Something majorly wrong.

The challenge from a leadership point of view is a lot of those people

are promoted into position of leadership without actually understanding what

leadership is. Thinking that, oh, well, I'll just do 2+2 and I'll get 4

out of it. Right. And

my from my own personal experience,

data's great if you're wanting to build a bridge.

Right. Okay. But I have not found

2 the same people. Right. Okay. So

2 plus 2 ain't gonna equal 4 at this point.

So you got the human behavioral factor to take the

human psychology factor to take in. And maybe my

brother used to jibe me out, this is going

back a few years, he said, you know, Peter, you shouldn't have done engineering. You

should have been a psychologist. You should have studied psychology.

And, well, maybe there's an element of truth to that because I find human

behavior rather interesting and the psychology behind some of this lot and

why people do what they do and what impacts people not

only mindset but the behavioral aspect of

how does your how does your teenage years, your younger years

impact how you lead later in life? Mhmm. Now

that thought is I I mean, working on developing that fourth, does

that become a PhD in leadership? I don't know, but time will tell.

So right brain being the more creative side,

but also more the people side of things,

is something that is important to develop. Not everybody has it.

Some people are slower at getting it. But without

that aspect of it, without understanding

how you think. So you referring

to any given leader who's turning. How you think, when you

understand how you think, you've crossed a lot of that bridge of the right

brain side of things. So you can start

balancing between left and right brain.

So, I've said this before on this podcast. I'm a

humanities major. I'm one of those annoying humanities major people.

Right? You know, I went to school for art.

I've never used my art degree in any practical

way Tom, like, draw or print, make, or paint and make money

from that. Instead, I took all of the ways

of seeing. That's how I frame it. And I went into

I went into the very, at least in comparison to what I came out

of, the very left brain business world.

Writers? And I can read an Excel spreadsheet and, you know, and actually have

taught Excel, which is interesting. I find that to be amusing. I've taught at

business schools. I know how to do a pivot table. I know all that,

right? But

I always thought that the biggest challenge that we

have and we sort of sort of see this with the with the rise of

what we euphemistically call artificial intelligence. I just call it large language

algorithms, which is the next great frontier. We could talk a little bit about that

today, but I find it interesting that. Or at

least the biggest challenge I've had is dealing with people

who are leaders, who are very technically proficient

at what they do and tend to look at all of the

human psychological stuff as a bug that

needs to be erased rather than a feature that's inbuilt to

to the human experience. And in my

experience, getting them to cross over from, oh, this is a bug,

and if I just put enough resources behind it, it'll be fixed fixed Tom this

is a feature. Now I have to navigate around it because it's not going

away, for myself anyway, and my consultancy, that was the

biggest Rubicon that I had to cross. Does that make sense?

Yeah. And I think it is the biggest Rubicon. Many leaders who come from the

technical background have to cross. Right. So the

others, I think maybe I'm maybe one of the essays

soer ones. By the way, I think. But it it

is a challenge for a lot of people, a lot of technical people Tom become

effective at the human element of business,

leading people effectively. Well, and that becomes

because you mentioned, you know, having commitment. You mentioned,

the importance of doing, doing the thing correctly, writers? Doing

the thing right. And you and I, there were, there were sort of 3

sort of,

prompting. Right. Tom use artificial

intelligence terms. There were 3 prompting questions for you, which were, you know, how

do you get things done? How do you get people on board and what is

real? And I put it in air quotes, but what is real leadership? So

those are all fascinating to me, and I love to be able to pull some

of those apart today. Maybe starting with this idea of how do you get

things done. So if I'm a leader listening to

this, how do you get things done?

Like, if you're talking to that leader, like, you know, what do you

what do you say to them? Like, how do they get things done? Because if

I'm a new leader let's let's look at a new leader, not not an experienced

one, not with some life on them. But if I'm a new leader, if I've

been newly promoted into a position, typically, I

might be in a corporate bureaucracy.

Typically, I'm going to be given people that I would not have selected,

necessarily to work with. I won't even real I don't even really wanna have these

people over to my house for a barbecue on a nice Saturday.

And, yes, by the way, I'd like to continue to get paid because I've got

a mortgage. So, you know, I've

got bigger concerns than whether or not these people feel good. I gotta keep the

money flowing in because, you know, inflation's all over the place and, you

know, hey, the baby needs a new pair of shoes.

Right? So for me as a new leader, this is very

practical. This isn't like pie in the sky theory.

This is very practical. So how do I get people to get

things done? How do I do that as a new leader? And not screw up

so your boss doesn't complain? Or fire me fourth my tech

gets cut or right. Or get demoted or you know? Because I like to I

like to say this because I also have I also have ideas about status

in my head, which I've not fully acknowledged, but I do have ideas about

status and my place in the in the social hierarchy, not only of the bureaucracy,

but also of my neighborhood, my community, blah blah blah blah blah blah. I like

my neighborhood, my community, blah blah blah blah blah blah. I like saying that I'm

the VP of x, y, z thing and that I lead a, b, c number

of people. I enjoy saying that when I go to church

or when I volunteer at a local community or or whatever.

Yeah. And that because that just gives me this perception of status

and prestige and hey, people Yeah. We like that. I mean that's

the human nature. That's the ego. We're speaking to the ego at that point. Correct.

So to answer your question, that is the

probably the biggest

Rubicon that that people need to cross is that initial

position of now you've got these people that while you've been told

they report to you, you're very good at what you're doing.

And I'm going to use the term technical here. It doesn't matter what the vocational

aspect of it is, but it's doing, you know, be it an accountant, dealing with

numbers, or being an engineer, fourth or a research scientist, whatever. That's your

technical work. They're good at

that and they get promoted into some form of position, a

leadership position. They now have a bunch of people. The

very first thing that I work with

people on, who are you? As your

as a leaders, you got you got this position that's great. It's all wonderful and

all of that. But who are you? Do you know who you are? Do you

know what trips you up? Do you know what excites you? Do you know what

really gets you going within the technical space or

anywhere else for that matter? Mhmm. But it's un

beginning to understand who you are as a Jesan. Because there's

everybody's got something that trips them up. Every everybody's got some

saboteur that's going to come and, hey, I wanna do this great job. Get the

right metrics for my boss. Hey, you know, I gotta I gotta prove that I

can do this. And something's gonna happen that's gonna screw up. And now your

stress level's just gone through the roof and then something.

So but are you aware of that, what that is?

Are you aware of that trigger that's gotten you there? So now

you're in firefighting mode. On the moment people go into firefighting mode,

it's sort of tunnel vision and everything else gets blurred

and doesn't feature anymore. That's the biggest

challenge. So the more you

become self aware,

the better you're able to now lead. Now what do I mean by that?

When you understand yourself, when you understand the things that

trip you up, when you understand things that motivate you, when you understand

where your strength lie,

You begin to realize that other people have

the same thing. They have their

saboteurs, the triggers that trip them up. They have their strength.

They have their motivators. Oh, well, that means they're not that

different from me. Mhmm. Interesting.

That creates an awareness

that you've got a bunch of other people, not a bunch of robots.

Because I think too many people in that first and I and I

I experienced that in some of my own leadership in the corporate

space. Oh, well, now you report to me. Now you must go do do do

do do. Right. You're not robots.

You can't people do not operate as robots. I had I had

bosses who basically said, well, just go and do this and get that done and

do this and do that. You know, all technical stuff. Well, that's great.

But I if I slipped up, then what?

And, you know, then you got the royal the look, the the speaking

to, the threat, the, you know,

everybody has their own story on that one as you did to me, I'm sure.

But that's I found is the biggest turning. When I can recognize

that the people who are reporting to me now, be they the

chosen ones or the ones given to me, which in as to your

point, is invariably when we are promoted within a corporate

structure, we inherit those people. Mhmm.

Mhmm. But when we can recognize that they're human beings

with the same desires well, with with desires,

needs, saboteurs,

triggers just like I do. Now I can have a

different perspective on how I can go

about getting them to do what they're doing. Now

this doesn't happen overnight. So how do I get people to do

to come back to your question, try and bring this full circle,

getting people to do things. Well, one, they're technically, for the most part,

have an idea of what they should be doing. Writers? 1+1 is

going to equal 2. So just go through the steps that make

it equal 2. But it comes

down to how do I then, and this we're delving into the

depth, starting into some of the depth stuff here is how can I

influence them to make sure that they want to do 1 +1 equals

2? That you use the word

inspire, a duty to inspire. Right?

But I like that the other I word influence a little bit

better because I think a lot of new

leaders and quite frankly, a lot of seasoned

leaders, actually

don't understand the word inspiration.

I think that comes loaded with a lot of Yep.

Ideas about charisma and I'm not a leadership theories guy. I mean, I know what

they are, but I'm not a leadership theories guy. I think that a lot of

that's, well, much of that is noise.

And it's an attempt Tom, by the left brain,

to just structure, a lot of the right

brain chaos that that is seen in in in the leadership space. This is why

there's over 400,000 books on leadership just on Amazon.com

alone, just in the United States search for Get Global,

because almost everybody. And I said this in my book on leadership,

almost everybody knows leadership is like pornography. Almost everybody

knows what it is when they see it and they know what it is when

they don't see it. Jesan. And so there's 315,000,000

people in, in, in the United States, roughly, And

that's 315,000,000 different versions of what leadership is. Sorry.

It just it just is. And so theories are an attempt to sort

of pull all that together and and sort of systematize that. And that's why many

of them fail at the individual level.

But I say that to say this, I think people hear the word

inspiration and they think that that means that you have to have charisma as

a leader. Whereas influence means you actually

have a skill set there. And I take that influence and I

take the definition of influence from Robert Cialdini. You know, this idea

that, okay, influence is part of persuasion

and influence is a skill set, whereas persuasion is the ability.

Right? And if I could merge those two things together, anyone can get a skill

set. Anyone can learn how to ride a bike. Some people will ride it well.

Some people will ride it poorly, but anyone can ride a bike

within their own physical capabilities, right, to ride a bike. Right. So,

the same thing with leadership, same thing with this idea of influence versus inspiration.

But you put the word duty next to that. Why do people have a

duty to influence or a duty to, as you said,

inspire?

When so the the the reason why I use the word

duty because we're when we get promoted into a position of

leadership, there is an out well, there's responsibility.

And depending on where you are, there's authority that comes with it and all of

that. But that renders you and using the word

duty is you have you have a a a

group of people who now in the corporate structure

report Tom you. Mhmm. There's a group of people who are looking up to you

for guidance and fourth, quote, leadership.

They wanting direction. They wanting

to feel significant. They're wanting to

experience something of value and have a sense

of importance. Mhmm. No different to you in

that position of leadership coming from above you.

So there is an inherent duty when you have been given the

responsibility to guide people, to guide

them well. Yes, we spoke about

inspiration. You're right with the word influence. Influence, I mean

ultimately leadership is about influence.

Influence can happen in 2 essays, though. 1

is inspiring, the other one is not. One is positive the

other one has a negative impact. It does,

one you can get people to rise to the occasion as it were. You

get people behind you, behind the cause, whatever it is. And the other one they'll

do, I mentioned earlier, the bare minimum just to get

paid at the end of the month. Mhmm. And that is that is the effect

of influence. Inspiration leaves people feeling excited about what they

do. And that,

I believe, is also falls under the banner of

influence, getting into the detail of it. Influence

you as a as an influencer, as a leaders, influencing people,

your goal is to inspire them to do what they're doing, to

do what they're doing technically well.

Now does that mean I have to entertain people? No.

Like, am I required to be like Taylor Swift, who I

didn't know who I did not know who that person was until

literally a year ago? Like I had no clue who that person

was. And I was happy in my life. I was fine. Like I was I

was continuing to exist. I continued to eat 3, 3 meals a

day, roughly. I continue to breathe. I continue to live at my house.

I continue to love my kids. Like everything was fine. And then all of a

sudden, this person popped up and now I'm like, I've gotta know who this

person is. Do I have to entertain? Because I

think a lot of leaders confuse

that idea of of in of of being of influencing or being

an influencer. Because, you know, social media is filled with people

who are quote unquote influencers. Writers? And really they're just

they're just Glorified entertainers? They're lower they're low

rent versions of Taylor Swift. Do I need to be a

low rent version of Taylor Swift for my team? Do I really need to do

that? No. Okay. Alright.

Thank you. Thank you for freeing me from that. No. I don't

believe you're a mint. I some people's personality

might lend itself to being a little bit more entertaining.

Right. But not necessitating being an

entertainer. Entertainer. Right. Yeah. Okay. Well, I

but I do. I think a lot of leaders because of the and this gets

to sort of how our leadership culture has

disintegrated, I think, is probably the best term over the or

atomized. Maybe let's be more a little more friendly has atomized over the

last, you essays 20 years. I think it's atomized over the last

25 years. And I think that part of that,

or my theory on that, and let me kind of run this by you a

little bit. My theory is that when the commercial internet got

turned on in 1989 and the Berlin wall came down,

those were 2 events kind of

like, similar to Woodstock and

Apollo happening in 1968 that

that were that were what I call thunder

clap events, except one we recognize as a thunder clap

event, the fall of the Berlin wall. But one the

other one, we didn't. We didn't hear the thunderclap go off because it's

boom, took a while Tom to hit us. Right?

Yep. But both of those events

began the heralding of the decline of what I call mass leadership.

So the if you look at the leaders of the 20th century, they led big

things. They led big bureaucracies, big company big companies,

big civic organizations. Big was the thing. Mass was the

thing. Get as many people and think of IBM, right? Get as many people

as you can working at IBM. Get as many people as you can working

at Lockheed Martin. Get as many people as you can working at any of the

great 20th century brands, Pepsi, Coke, whatever, right?

Fourth so Books than Pepsi, probably. But get them turning.

You know, people will will follow because they're a

generation that came out of World War II. So they're going to follow. They're going

to say, yes, sir. They're going to salute and they're going to be dutiful little

readers. They're going to go, and they're going to be happy with 3 hots and

a cot in their neighborhood. And it's going to take a while for all this

to kind of fall apart. And it did begin to it did begin to atomize.

It began to disintegrate, in the late sixties and going into the seventies

and the eighties, but there was still enough power underneath of that idea of mass

leadership to push it through even into the early

2000. But as the Internet became more powerful, this is my

theory, as the Internet became more powerful and as the ability

for me to connect with Peter or Peter to connect with

somebody in India or somebody in India to be able to connect with

someone in Russia. As that individual connection

became more powerful, Now we moved from

mass leadership being the thing that was being prioritized

to the space where we are at now, which is where I

believe individualized leadership is the thing that everybody's looking for. And

that's really hard if you're still working in a corporate bureaucratic

structure Tom understand. Understand. I think it's hard to understand. I think it's hard to

accept. So when I talk to not

new leaders and not veteran leaders, but leaders who are sort of on their path

to being veteran leaders are kind of in the middle. One of their biggest frustrations

is, well, I've got all these people and they want to bring their whole selves

to work. And let's say I got a team of 20 people. Does that mean

that I need to be a different person for all 20 of these people? And

I say, yes. That's what it means because their

phones are set up with social media that caters to

them. And their dopa, their dopaminergically

being goosed to want things individually their

way. Just like if you show me the front of your iPhone leader,

mister and missus leader, your phone doesn't look like mine. You're being

dopaminergically goosed in the things that you like, but you don't

have that. I love to how you framed it as self awareness. You don't have

that self awareness, that hardheaded empathy. Instead, you want

the math thing because it's easier for you. Not

easier for the people you're leading. This is my theory.

Yeah. And and and you you've got a valid point there in terms of the

mass leadership thing being something that

came out of the world wars back in the, you know,

forties. Yep. That came to an end. Corporate took off,

especially when you look at North America. Europe had to rebuild.

It there was that sense, I am the leader. Do

as you're told. You know, yes, sir. And off you go and do it.

Mhmm. I think that's also

a remnant of the industrial age when

it took off back in sixties whenever. Mhmm. And

you got because at the beginning of 19th century, the whole idea of automations

and and production line efficiencies really took off. I

mean, that was Ford's Henry Ford's,

doing Big idea. Yeah. Big idea. Yeah. Bringing that to fruition.

And there is a sense whenever something

big and new comes along, while it may it

needs some mass leadership, it needs somebody very powerful,

very strong to push it through, to

pull it through. Distinction between push and

pull. Yep. And then, you

know, when you essays the Internet came along, you gave people a lot more access

to the masses that made communicate intercommunication

between individuals a lot easier than doing the old

snail mail turning, and you only knew a handful of people. You wrote a letter

to me anyway. Right. So we now get exposed

to a lot more information. Did that drive

the individualization aspect of

people? I'm gonna say I don't think it did. I think what it did

is it brought it to the surface. Okay. Okay. I think

we've all had the individualization turning, but Sorrells

norms dictated. No, you do as you're told, because this is a corporate

structure and you go to work and every, that's just the way it is. And

if fourth already accepted that, But it's interesting to observe from

about the 19 sixties onwards that began to bit by

bit break down. Right. And

the Internet was almost where a momentum took

off Mhmm. Because of of what it what it ushered in.

So I don't think it's necessarily new. I just brought to the

surface something that is inherently there. And then the

generation, so the millennials, Gen z, gen z's

now, well, they've grown up with these things in their hand the whole time.

That's what they used to, you know. Social media feeds.

Right? But now they have a very different awareness to what

we had when we were teenagers. Mhmm.

Well, and you you well, and you mentioned the generational differences. I wanna talk a

little bit about that too because I do think well, I think a couple of

things. So we're having a massive generational

turnover. Right? So the baby boomers Yeah. Are are are

dragging themselves, kicking and screaming out the door. There is a lot of kicking

and screaming going on, but Yes. They are they are they are dragging themselves

out the door. Now they're not leaving succession

plans because they don't trust Gen Xers, and there just aren't enough Gen Xers as

a generational cohort globally or in America.

They just start the numbers just start there. You know, the 13 I'm part of

that generation that was fourth between 1960 1980. There's only,

like, I think, 25,000,000 of us. That's tiny.

But I do know with the Gen X's though,

they're part of the challenge with the gen x's is they're looking after those

baby boomers extracting themselves out of the workforce. Correct. Right.

They're not only are they looking after the baby boomers, but we're also raising gen

Z. And, and we had to

do, we didn't do battle with the millennials because we were just like,

all right. Let's have to accept the message.

Writers. Well, and there's just so many of them. There's 80 there's 80 some odd

million. Like, what are you gonna do? You're really gonna go into a street war

with 80,000,000 people? Like, give me a break. Come on. It's just easier to just

shrug and go whatever. Okay. But I

think that in that generational turnover, I do

think that, we are in the midst of and this is a

larger idea that I explore on this podcast. We're in the middle of

in the United States anyway. And also I think in Canada Tom, although I

think it's a little bit harder to see in Canada. We're in the middle of

a or we're at the end of a historical

cycle. We're at the end of a historical seculum cycle, an

80 year cycle. Yep. And at the end of an 80 year cycle, there's always

chaos in the last 20 to 25 years at the end of a at the

end of a cycle. But then on the other side of that is a new

cycle that starts sort of like winter going into turning, right?

And this is from the ideas of William Strauss and Neil Howe, The fourth

Turning. I really bought into that sort

of idea because I think it explains a lot of this generational

the generational differences narrowly in leadership, but also communication and a whole lot of other

places. Because and this is why I bring

this up because I think. Gen Xers who

in general are in their mid forties to touching on their early

sixties now. Are people who

are going to have to lead in that in the

next spring. But unfortunately, a lot of us,

because we've just been surviving the last 25 years and adapting to

chaos that has basically just been going on

since, at least in my life, chaos has been going on since 2,001, since

September 11th happened. Like, bagged. That was the beginning of chaos, and it's just been

chaos year on year on year on year on year on year. You get

into a certain sense of adaptability as a leader. Yep. And there's

always another brick, not shoe. There's always other brick that's dropping.

And so when spring comes, you don't believe it. And you're the cynical

old, Sorrells, ladies, but you're the cynical old guy

leader who no one wants to listen to because now there's spring

and there's hopefulness. And I think millennials sense

that something else is coming as a generational cohort, but they don't have the words

to describe it. And then you've got Gen Zers, or, yes,

Gen Zers, who are, number 1, scare the hell out of millennials, which

I find to be amusing. But then number 2 right. I just laugh. That's just

Tom makes me giggle. That makes me giggle. But but then

number 2, in Gen Z, you see a

split between folks who

they don't want to return to mass leadership, but they don't

know how to describe their need for leadership. And then you've

got the people who are just very just very individualistic, and

they're just gonna they're just gonna run on the thing they're gonna run on. And

they have no time for the other the the mass folks. They just don't and

so they just don't talk because they understand how the Internet works because they were

born in it. And they understand how social media works, so they just they just

don't engage. They used to go in for their own silos. There's an individual thing,

and they're just gonna drive. They're just gonna drive. They're just gonna drive. They're just

gonna drive. I've been I've met a lot of Gen z ers who are very,

very strong workers and very, very good team players,

who do who refuse to make any

on a Tom, they refuse to give pushback to other Gen

Zers who are engaging badly or who are behaving badly.

And then you've got Gen Xers who are trying to lead these teams fourth older

millennials who are trying to lead these Tom. And they're like, I

don't know what's happening here. And we see

this sort of in the split between, folks

who I'm just gonna use the the public example.

Folks who are very loudly,

promoters of DEI in various

organizations and cultures and the and everybody else who just sort sits quietly by and

just kinda hangs out. Yeah. I think that is

definitely something that is appearing

to be very prevalent. Where you've got this divide

between those that are vocal. They're pushed. They're

more engaged, they're dynamic, versus those who are more

complacent, quiet, get down, they do their thing. And it's not that they

don't work or anything. But there's that divide.

But I do wonder though Tom your point about the internet. Did

the internet create this

distinction more definedly? Did

it really bring it to the surface? Something that has always been there

generation to generation to generation? Because it speaks partly to

people's personality. Some people are quieter, withdrawn people.

Mhmm. Others are more loud in your face. It's

their fundamental personality. Yeah.

Okay. Some people argue you can change your personality. However,

is that any different to what the the baby boomers

were when they were the age of the mania. But

it wasn't societally,

the the perception was different. Right. Yeah.

I I think that's the thing. Writers? So so history doesn't

repeat. It just echoes. Right? And

so boomers have now taken on the role

that the World War 2 generation, the couple of World War 2

generations, both the silent generation and the generation that fought in World War 2 because

there's a split there. But, you know, they've now

taken on the role that those folks took. But

because I think of the Internet and the applications built on the Internet,

I think you're correct. The the The cultural

disintegration that took place around those structures

has allowed those structures to be the institutions, Tom be the new

that's what everybody,

I think, is trying to figure out. Right. And I don't think there's a good

that's what everybody, I think, is trying to figure out. Right. And I don't think

there's a good answer for this. I think we're all kind of grasping for what

the answer is. And I I I'm and I think this

is where leadership comes in because I think fundamentally at the end of

the day, and this is how I run my consultancy

leadership toolbox, and this is how I do, you know, you know, not

only this podcast, but also coaching and book writing and

all that. I fundamentally believe that, and you talked about self

aware, I frame it as the intentional application

of effective leadership practices. Things that have worked as human

beings haven't changed in 10000 years or 6000 years, depending upon what

your number is that you'd like to use. Human beings still need the

same things they needed back when we were rubbing 2 sticks together turning to make

a fire. Correct. None of that's changed. Yep.

The the circumstances of the environment may have shifted

around, but the basic needs are the same.

And that's why we do this podcast in the way we do it because you

could find out some of that stuff in old books versus the brand new

shiny business book. And that aspect, you know, so coming back to the

whole leadership thing in the context of this, nothing has changed. Human beings are

still human beings. They still have their fundamental needs. And

whatever those are, but we all have them. What I

think has shifted is the rate of change of technology

Mhmm. Is something that a lot of people might be

struggling to stay on top of, keep up with.

Mhmm. Right? You've got a lot of baby boomers who quite

frankly are struggling to wrap their head around anything and everything Internet

related email and forget social media on top of that. That's just

another headache to learn. The the millennials and the

gen, gen z's, well, that's natural

for them. They just get it. But when they are 20,

30, 40 years from now, what technology

that they are having to deal with and its rate of change

Right. Are they going to be experiencing the similar sort of struggle

to what the baby boomers today are? And and you can look through every

generation. It has its Sorrells to deal with the change

that is being experienced in society at large.

So let's talk a little bit about artificial intelligence because

this, every leadership consultant who I've ever talked to leadership,

author performance leadership,

project management, whatever. Right. Coaching

everybody's holding their breath.

Yes. Trying to see, just like Peter just held his breath

there, trying to see how these

how these algorithms, a, are going to go to scale, and,

b, disintermediate what we do.

Now I fundamentally am not holding my breath, and maybe that's

just my level of ignorance of the science and the engineering behind it as a

humanities major, but I look at all these algorithms

in their current state, and I think

I don't really have anything to worry about.

Well, then and then you get those people who look at movies

like Terminator and go, crap. What are we in for? You're right. Yeah. Like,

if like, you know, Boston Dynamics, I wish they'd Tom making the robots and then

making the videos that show us the robots that can stand up once they've been

knocked over. Stop it. Has anybody ever stop it, you people. It's

this is what I'm talking. This gets back to my idea about, oh, it's just

a bug, not a feature. Quit with the engineering. Like,

stop it. Stop it. Getting humanoid robots

is not an engineering problem. Stop.

It's actually a leadership problem. It's actually a leadership problem.

No. And are there those people

at the engineer level, at the doer level,

and at the leadership level who want to develop, oh,

we want the greatest AI thing there is. You know, there there is a race,

and you read through all the the literature out there

talking about gen AI and all of that. There is a race to

who can who can create the next best

language algorithm, who can create the next best feature

set, who can oh, yeah. You know, ChatGPT came out

in November of 22. Mhmm. And now we're looking at

well, ChatGPT is advanced with version 4. Now

you can create sound or a person's voice

blank, and you wouldn't know the difference. You can create video. You can create images.

Well, we couldn't do that. What's that? Year and a half

ago, but we came down. So what is the next iteration?

Where is that going? The older generation, I think it does

freak out a little bit. Where can it go? And how, well, you know, what

what's it mean? The younger generation, I think,

is split in terms of its embracing of that. Mhmm.

Oh, yeah. No. This is great. Let's do it. Yeah. Well, hang on. You know?

I mean, I don't know. I'm I'm not so sure.

But is that a feature of this

generation, or is it just a technology

that has got two sides to it? So I

take the posture that or I take the position.

Versus a humorous one. I always think of Marty McFly in Book

to the Future when he goes back to, when he goes in Back to the

Future 2, when he when he's in Hill Valley And, he's

standing there in front of the movie theater, and the 3 d jaws shark comes

out, and he freaks out and he, like, books. And, like, the shark, like, bites

and then because it's the ad for the it's the ad for, like, jaws in

3 d or whatever. Yeah. And it, like, bites him and then it shrinks back

into the into the movie theater. Then he stands up and looks around, and, of

course, nobody else is looking around. They're all like, but when you do it, you

idiot, like, it's in 3 d thing. And he goes he

shakes his head a little bit, and Michael j Fox goes, Shark still

looks fake. He Sorrells walks away.

Yes. So, you know, because I'm a cinema guy. Like, I'm

a movie guy, so I'm like, oh, that's that's so that's the first thing I

think of in relation to all of this. Like, I long I

long ago wrote a a series of blog posts about

how I thought, and and and nobody read them at the time, and maybe I

should republish them, about how Google as a search

engine was going to leap, was going to be the 1st internet

company that was going to escape the internet into the real.

I firmly believe that the I still firmly believe that that's the path they're on.

They're trying to get out of the box. They're trying to get out of the

box of the Internet. They're trying to get out of the box of your

computer or your mobile device because

their stated goal is to collect all the data in the world.

That's their stated goal. Well, there's a whole

bunch of data that's outside of the Internet

that they need to get to if that's their stated goal. And so if

you just look around. Everything

that I am surrounded by that you're surrounded by, you have a bookshelf in

your office. I got a bookshelf in my office. You've got computers, You've got your

your biometrics. You've got your your book fourth bio your your actual biology

of your body. That's all data. Right? These are all data points.

Yep. We don't think of the world in that kind of Tom. But if you're

Google, that's how you think about the world. And so you gotta get out of

you gotta get outside of the box you're trapped in.

And I think the large language algorithms, that's the next step. You talk about

voice, you talk about video, you talk about images. I think

the next step is try to get that out of the Internet and

get it into the real world, kind of like a

reverse sort of matrix kind of idea.

Do I think that that will be a good thing or a bad thing? We're

going to talk about ethics here in a minute. We can have that conversation,

but I do think at a practical level, it is being looked at as a

engine engineering problem to be solved. Yep. Versus

a versus something that

probably should be left alone.

And I do think that's the next step. I do. I do with those large

English. I think they're going to escape the Internet. I do. I think they're going

to escape the Internet. They're going to be walking around the real world with us,

which is going to create all other kinds of complications, that

we, in our postmodern conception of

reality, don't have the words or the

ideas to wrap our arms around, but I think

a lot of pre modern

societies had the words and the language to wrap their arms around.

I sometimes frame it as postmodern problems have pre modern

solutions, but we don't wanna learn any of the pre modern solutions because

we're too sophisticated for that.

Partly because we are stuck in when we were that

age and wrapped our minds around what

was then postmodern. Writers, exactly. Yeah.

These are just thoughts I have in my head about about artificial intelligence. I'm open

to being I'm open to being wrong. You know, maybe it will all be

paradisiacal and and awesome. And, you know, the algorithm will give me

everything that I desire. We'll build our own gods Tom paraphrase from

Google Gemini. Yeah. And I think you

what you've just said there, I think, is the key thing from a leadership standpoint

Mhmm. Remember is that well, there's still

you and I around. There's still all of our employees around. The

human factor. Mhmm. If we take the human factor out of this

from a leadership as a leader in

embracing AI, doesn't matter what you're doing with

Tom. Mhmm. You're just embracing it.

Leadership is fourth humans. You don't need to lead

an AI model. You do not need to lead a robot. You just give it

defined instructions, and it does because it has no emotion. Instructions, and it does because

it has no emotion. Right. Human beings have

emotion. They have reason they have the ability to

reason. That's where leadership is

key. And you cannot you cannot take leadership and the human factor

and separate it and bring AI into a place.

Right. Right. Yeah. I often think of Star Trek. I mean, the next

generation, like data. Data was an Android. And

when data was driving the ship, the ship was driven by artificial intelligence.

Correct. So it's a machine driving another machine. But you still had

human beings walking around inside of that machine dealing with each other.

Exactly. And that's the thing we mustn't forget is there's always a

human factor in everything that we do. Right. And

leadership will always deal with the humans. Okay. So let's talk

about dealing with the humans. Let's let's move fourth maybe this

fourth of technical sort of algorithmic conversation to to more maybe

more of a human one.

All things I struggle with as a leadership

guy. And maybe you can help me out with some of this. You can help

me walk through some of these areas,

because maybe you're seeing the same thing. So

I am on a mission to make people competent.

Okay. Because I think that the decline

in competency you talked about 2020, I think a lot of things happened in

2020. A lot of people were given and I'm going to use the

broad term people, but I actually think it was leadership teams and organizations

and cultures were given permission. They were granted permission

to let competency slide because we had a public

emergency fourth perceived public emergency.

And so when it perceived public emergency, every, the

discipline kind of falls apart because people

are in panic mode. Writers. And the longer

that emergency was allowed to continue, rightly

or wrongly, the fourth the discipline

around competency loosened up and loosened up and loosened up. And

now we're in a situation where we can see

incompetency all around us. But to stand

up and say that is looked at as

being disagreeable or being the dirty end of the stick. And I'm actually I've I've

recently had a had a.

Business interaction around this space, which is kind of why I'm thinking about it. So

importantly, right now, I recently had a business interaction around this space

with a third party client that we do some work with without

going into names or the specific situation. But

but basically, we've decided to

end our relationship with that third party client because of

incompetencies on their part that were not in evidence before

2020. I don't think that

we're alone in seeing this as a firm. I think

this is everywhere. I think people can see this everywhere. I think we can see

this most notably in the decline of customer service when we go into retail.

Like we can see this. So how do we as leaders

ensure competency? By the way, another example of this, when the bridge

in Baltimore, was hit by the cargo ship,

tragic accident, took a lot of people's lives,

you know, essays all the caveats. Right. And I read

a story because this drove me crazy. This drove me over a cliff

where the engineers were estimating that it

would take 10 years to rebuild that bridge.

And I thought, is that because we

don't have competent enough people to put up that bridge

Or is that because and I kind of went on a little bit of a

rip on this on LinkedIn? Or is this because we we have

people who have overemphasized empathy

and underemphasized being disagreeable? Because sometimes

you gotta be disagreeable to put up a bridge really fast so that commerce

can continue. Right.

And so this, this idea of competency versus empathy, or maybe if it's, maybe

it's even competency versus agreeableness. I think this is something

else that we're struggling with on the human end. And I think that

leaders are struggling with this most most importantly right

now. Or of wanting to

avoid some form of conflict disagreement.

And instead of utilizing conflict to come up with a better solution,

everybody just apathetically says

Right. Want fourth doesn't get involved fourth, you know, there's

various ways that apathy can manifest itself.

Which leads to more incompetency because

iron sharpens iron. To paraphrase Tom to phrase phrase that, a horary old book of

the bible. You know, iron sharpens iron. Right?

And so how do I get better? How do I become more competent?

Well, it isn't through avoiding the conflict, and and maybe it's because

I'm a conflict management guy too. Like, I don't avoid conflict. Like, it's fine. Like,

let's let's have an argument. Let's figure it out.

We can disagree without being disagreeable. Exactly. I

think that's one of the challenges that exist is people are not willing

to to put their view on the

table for the fear of creating an argument. Well, I've got other

things to do. I'm not gonna say anything. I mean, the reasoning can

be can be a myriad of things. I think

you're right that 2020 was a divide, a threshold in

in some ways where competency was allowed

to slip. Mhmm. Because, oh, you know, well, they,

this, they, that, whatever. Does that

mean as leaders we should be less competent leaders?

Does that mean we should just allow people just to

sink back Tom sit back, to

withdraw from becoming the

best they can be? Because that's one of the things a leader

should be doing, is working with it

their employees to be the best they can be. How else do you

get a successful organization? How do you how else do you get the

best product on the market? Well AI might seem to

be the antithesis of this where there is but

it's the newest thing on the block. So everyone's dung ho about it.

Everybody, oh, this is thing. You know, let's go go go go go.

I mean, we thought of the Internet, you know, 2020.com Tom all

of that lot was a class at 20 2000, sorry, not 2020,

you know, the whole Tom era. Mhmm. Are we seeing that

again? And everything else is being allowed to be to

slip in terms of its competency Libby? My question is,

who's slipping on its competency at that point?

Is it the worker, or is it the leader?

Always and it always one contingent not an easy contingent,

but as a result of the other. Well, if leadership is

fundamentally relationally based, which I do believe it is,

only remember exchange theory tells us that, but also

just the practical ways in which we see

leadership developing, but in our own lives tells us that this is a

relational act. And so I think the

the the team member or worker or employee, or however you want

to frame it, gets emotional cues

from the leader and the leader gets emotional

cues from the team member. And now we're in this now

they're they're book they're all in this hot house, right, of

emotional turning. And to your point earlier, if the

leader isn't self aware enough, they could easily

be drawn into, I think

they could be drawn by the siren song of

becoming undisciplined in certain areas. Yep. Very much

so.

How is how do I as a leader I'm going to ask you this fourth

a conflict management guy, because I think I know what the answer is, but I

want Tom, let's see what your answer is. So how do I, as a leader

manage conflict effectively, in particular,

I'm on a diverse I'm leading a team of diverse people, a team of always

people have always been diverse. But I'm leading a I'm leading a team of diverse

people post 2020,

post I'm gonna go here, post George Floyd,

writers? Post all of that. Writers. And now we're into a space

where particularly in the United States, I don't know how it is in

in Canada, but particularly in the United States where,

diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts are being

pulled back, by major corporations,

but pulled back in the sense that they are being repackaged and put in different

spots to avoid government regulators and to avoid law

the law looking at them.

But on the ground, and I'm hearing this from real people working in real corporations

on real teams, this kind of stuff is still happening. You know? And and by

the way, this kind of stuff, meaning the trainings that divide and fragment

people based on identity. Right? The

the ways in which people are labeled and put into their own little

boxes based on their sexual orientation or their

racial designation or their ethnic background. We're also

seeing in the culture in the United States increasing pressure being

placed on organizations and corporations from the outside

around geopolitical moments that are

occurring, as in the Ukraine, Israel versus

Hamas, da da da da da. Right? These these external social and political

pressures are being paced on leaders and on Tom. Well, on organizations first,

and then it filters down into leaders and teams. And then we throw into,

then we throw ESG into there where corporations are

being.

What's the word I'm looking for? They're being

no. Yeah. I coerced.

Okay. Yeah. No. That's the hard word, but it's probably the right one, are being

coerced into following along with with mandates from

governmental entities that

in very many cases don't match what's going on in the real world that they

could really see. Okay. So you've got these you've got these these things that are

pushing on on organizations, which then in turn push on

leadership, which then in turn push on teams. And at a at a

very practical level, leaders are looking at their diverse

teams, and they're asking the question, how can I

have a conflict here to grow in competency when there's all

these to paraphrase an overused word fourth to use an overused word? There's all

these triggers all around, and I feel like I'm walking into a

landmine every time I talk to, you know, my 14 people.

How can I have an honest conversation with them? I'm just trying to not hit

any landmines. What do we say what do you say to leaders like

that? Because I I have an idea what the answer is, but what do you

say to leaders like that who who may who may be asking those kinds of

questions? Maybe I look at things slightly a little bit differently.

Sure. Yeah. Maybe. Conflict. I will put I will put it

that. Conflict isn't a bad

thing. I mean, I I think society has placed this,

oh, conflict is bad. Oh, you got to avoid it. Yes. You got the Jesan.

They are People have the personality trait that are conflict

avoidant. Mhmm. Conflict.

I mean, when book at the root word of conflict, I

mean, it goes back to we had the conflict between this

nation and that nation. That's where it was

armed conflict. Somebody had to die. Somebody had to there had to be a winner

and there had to be a loser. That is our

presumption as to what conflict constitutes. So

leader has conflict with team team there. Somebody's got to lose. Somebody's

got to win. That's just the way it is. Whereas

if you look at conflict, and maybe conflict is the wrong word to

use, maybe we need to create a new word. That just a thought

that popped into my head right now. But,

you know, it's a points of view.

You you have a different point of view to I,

and Mary has a different point of view yet again.

Does Tom mean everybody's point of view other than mine

is wrong? Well no. Now you're potentially creating

conflict. However, can I learn something from your

point of view and Mary's point of view and

John's point of view if we were to share our

points of view so that we

understand why you have that point of view and you

have that point of view? We have a much better

understanding of everybody around the table

and can therefore come up with a much better solution

to the challenges that we are facing. As opposed to

viewing it as conflict

between on a Tom. It's conflict on a

team between leader and employees or and their team or

if I wonder, looking at the origins of

the word conflict, if we're using the wrong word.

Maybe we're using the wrong word. I I'd be open to the idea we could

use a different word, like disputes or disagreements, maybe.

Disagree. Differences of opinion.

Yeah. Yeah. I'd be, I'd be open to using a different word. I think there's

also, so we, we demand, we are increasingly demanding of

our leaders, without really

getting a response by the way, from them, which I also think is driving average

people nuts. And they don't really know why, but

we are asking our

leaders. And increasingly, I

think the term is demanding of our leaders that they have

epistemic, they possess epistemic humanities.

Doctor. Yes. Doctor. In a way that we weren't demanding of them, as we were

previously talking about a few minutes ago, we weren't demanding that

of them during the mass leadership of the 20th century, because there

was just trust there. Right. Yeah. We just trusted

Henry Ford to, you know,

create a business. And if he had epistemic humility

or if he didn't have it, that wasn't what we were looking for. We

were trusting in his competency to build Ford Motor Company

fourth we were trusting in

Steve Jobs to build Apple, or we

were trusting in whoever, you know,

even our presidents. We were trusting our presidents to lead the country.

Mhmm. With the breakup of trust

and the United States is still a high trust society, more so than

most societies in the world, even though that trust has

declined. With the with the decline

of trust in leadership, we are

asking our leaders to be more epistemically humble,

and our leaders don't know how to ask, and this

is this is where where the and the disagreements really begin to occur, I

think. I don't think leaders understand how to ask their teams

to exhibit more epistemic humility.

Right. And you I think you've got a valid point there. And I I

wanna bring around from a different tact to this is what we

mentioned earlier on. When you

understand who you are.

When you understand who you are, other people on your team have

needs, have desires enough are

fundamentally human beings like you. Is that where we're

coming at from the need for this level of humility

and understanding that leaders we demanding of

leaders to have. Because it's not just the humanities. It's an understanding. But

you cannot gain an understanding without seeking

information in order to understand.

Right. So all we're

asking our leaders without actually saying it, oh, you gotta

be more humble and blah blah, all of that lot, Find

out more about the people on your team. When you

look at this great resignation that 2020 kicked into high gear

Mhmm. It brought what was brewing underneath to the

surface. And that and what that fundamentally

simplistically phrased was, I'm an individual. I have needs

and I want to feel valued. What are you gonna do to what what

contribution do I make to this organization other than

to be a number on a leaders, and I get paid basically on to do

to put 2 nuts and bolts together. You know, very simplistically.

But it it it serves a point. People

wanna feel valued. And our leaders,

what is being demanded of leaders is to see their people as

human beings. This comes back to the human

factor I mentioned. Is that what we're demanding?

Maybe we're phrasing it again wrong

and just using the word humility. What else is there? Being human.

What is human what is a humanity perspective in the

context of this? Well, I think so

if I'm sitting the essence of what leadership is, you mentioned a moment

ago, it's relational. Right. Relational can only exist

between 2 human beings. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right.

So if I'm sitting around let me make this very practical. So if I'm sitting

around a table with fourth members of my team,

right, I, as a leader of

that small Tom,

am resuming, for lack of a better word, that the

people who are coming to this table with their opinions and their

ideas, are the best people

to be sitting at that table. I'm presuming that even before

I start having a conversation about a, about a problem that we need to solve

or a project we need to start. Writers?

I think where the frustration for leaders comes in and which is

probably why they they're not evincing the humility necessary in

all Tom. And by the way, I think it I think it's easier to evince

that humility the smaller and smaller the team is. Right?

So True. If if you got 4 to 6 people, there's

nowhere to hide. There's nowhere to hide with your ego.

There's nowhere to hide with being incompetent. There's nowhere to

hide with having with having the ability to not face conflict. There's nowhere

to hide with a lack of self awareness because everybody can see that. Now,

but now when you go to scale, when you go above Dunbar's number,

writers, when you go above that number of folks, now there's plenty of places

for the leader to hide. There's also plenty of places for the team member to

hide. Don't get me wrong. But there's plenty of places for the leader to

hide their own incompetency, their own fear,

their own lack of of humility. So I think

that if I'm on a small team, I

have to trust that those people are the right people. But as the

team gets bigger, the trust level falls.

Yes. That is that is invariably the

perception of what happens. Not that it doesn't actually happen.

But trust all because, well, I'm just 1 or 20, now

30, now 4 whatever number of people. Right. You don't

because the leaders in at that junction not able to interact

with the individual. He's now interact

or she is interacting with a a mass. The

mass. Yeah. Right. So there's that mass concept.

Again, therein lies the problem. So how do you deal with conflict

at that point? How do you deal with all of this?

The bigger the team, the harder it is to

find fourth get agreement across the board and the

commitment to to whatever is agreed. Mhmm. Absolutely.

Does that mean that the team is too big? And

I'm gonna I'm gonna challenge it and say that the answer is yes. It is

too big. Yeah. Because reality is how many people can you lead?

Oh, you can't go above double digits. I I think

you can. I think I think your ratio is 1 to 8. 1 to 8?

1 to 8. And I think you're really and I think you're really pushed it

at that point too. Absolutely. So, you know, if you get 10, you're you

I've gotta be really, really, really, really good. Right.

And that's another conversation. But, you're right. Tom might be

it's it's about where when you look at all the literature and you look at

the almost anecdotal evidence.

Mhmm. You know, my own anecdotal evidence

suggests I can't leave more than 8 people. Right. I

well, there's enough examples going back that

you can see that. I mean, even biblical examples, you can't more than

about 8 people. Really, it's a small number of people. So how

do you structure? Because at that point, when you've got a small group of people,

you can deal with the notion of conflict fourth the word using the word

conflict and what that means. Because you don't have as

many diverse opinions and you don't have people rallying behind

and and creating, factions. That's the

problem with larger teams. You create factions. Mhmm. And And then they start

in then you get the infighting that goes on, and you'll never reach a resolution.

So how do we so if I'm if I'm beating a large

corporation, or even just a small

a small one. Right? Like, 5,000

employees. Right?

What is the best way to construct a

leadership ecosystem?

Well, the first is creating the the high level, the

executive team leadership ecosystem. That's the

first one that needs to exist because from everything else flows.

Mhmm. So embrace

now I'm gonna use the word conflict again, but embrace that

within utilize it to get

understanding and get agreement and

then commitment. So you're cohesive around that. Everybody

agrees to it because everybody understands it. That

example of leading and creating that alignment within that

executive Tom, is what each one of those leaders then

takes to their immediate Tom. And it fosters the

same process. That's the I mean, this is ideal. Absolutely. I get

it. Mhmm. But you gotta start somewhere.

So you start with that executive team and let that flow through.

Now there's a concept known as customer driven leadership. Mhmm.

And that's and and the premise there is is that the

CEO is serving his executive team. The executive team is

serving the next level team that exists and so on and so forth till

you get to the frontline team that is serving the the customer, the clients.

Mhmm. And that service. So you're taking the traditional pyramid and you're inverting it.

You're inverting it. Yep. Okay. So

you're serving, serving up. And if you really wanna take that Tom

any degree, you're serving fourth clients to serve their clients and

so on. But but when when you look

at that model, I am here as CEO, I'm to serve my

executive team. How do I do that best? How do I

create the alignments, the cohesion? How do I get them all to

commit? Now there's a number of different elements you've got to deal with on all

of that. There's trust factors you've got to know. You really want to know who

the individual is, what motivates them, what drives them, why they,

what trips them up, what sabotages them, all of these

things. The more you know about them, you understand. Oh, now I

understand why Shazan did that. Mhmm. Because of

that, because this factor, that factor, what it is. Now

I have understanding, I can give you some empathy.

The moment that is, now you suddenly feel more inclusive. Now you feel,

okay. Now I I don't feel like the enemy. I'm trying to do things. Now

you know why I'm doing whatever. But now there's understanding.

Hey. How can I support you? Now you get other people on the

executive team that can support you too, and that goes

all the way around the table. Yep. People then have a different

perspective of, oh, this is what leadership is. If I don't do that, wow. Aren't

that? Okay. Now can I do that with my team? Because that's what I want

on my team. So that the executives are taking it one level lower.

And so that goes down throughout the organization.

Yes, the bigger the organization, the heck of a lot more work it is, but

you gotta start somewhere. Right. Right. And and and what

else are you gonna do with your with your life? Like, really, like, what else

are you gonna do? Okay.

Let's turn and talk a little bit about ethics, because you mentioned the word

alignment, and I love that word. That was a, that was a key word, in

our consultancy for many, many years was

we are going to help managers and supervisors, the

much put upon middle managers, get alignment

writers with their teams, with themselves, with the culture.

Because what we were seeing, what I was seeing was misalignment all

over the place. And misalignment of course leaders

to fourth maybe misunderstandings lead to misalignment. I don't know.

Which invariably leads to miscommunication, which invariably

leads to the the word we keep using, but we need to find a better

one for, what I call false conflict or fake

conflict, conflict that doesn't need to doesn't need to happen.

And by the way, I think a lot of this misalignment

in organizations and cultures post 2020,

has occurred because of that that loss of that

loss of of the of the tightening of the discipline, the the more fourth apathy,

right, in the system, which has allowed space for misalignment

to to to be all over the place, and in

general has allowed false or fake conflict. And I,

and I do think fundamentally that most of the conflicts that we have around

identity inside of our cultures or inside of organizations are not

real conflicts. That's not that's not real. That's not what

it's really about. It's about wanting to be seen

fourth it's about wanting to be recognized fourth honestly, and I think this is

a lot of it, it's wanting to redress

grievances that are individualized to that organization, to that

team, to that culture that were never addressed previously.

Absolutely. To an individual's satisfaction. Might have

been addressed to the organization or the corporate culture satisfaction,

but not to the individual's satisfaction. Because the

individual is never seen. Well, and and because

and because this goes back to the tension that I said about having our cell

phones, We live now. This is the thing that's happening on the other

end as it when I go to work, I'm

part of a mass. Right. But when I look at my phone, I'm

not. There's a tension there.

Writers. And no organization right

now, not even a government,

is not anywhere on the globe that I'm aware of. Maybe Canada, it's

different. Writers? Maybe in Europe, it's different, but no organization,

no government I've heard of is addressing that tension

and is seeking to solve that. No. Because

it's there in lies the biggest one of the biggest problems with leadership, and

that's your ego. Right. Well, and it works for me, right,

to have that tension. No. There you go. Now you now you hit

on something there. Yes. It does work.

Because it keeps people in line. Right? It keeps them you know, they're gonna keep

coming to work. It's it's like a fish with a it's like a fish with

a hook in it. Right? Like, you're gonna you're gonna keep turning on it. Eventually,

it's gonna become your your meal. Yeah. It keeps

working as long as everything else falls in line with it.

Right. Except the problem except one of the problems is as

misalignment then occurs between the individual and the organization,

the individual feels comfortable becoming more apathetic and less

competent at their work. And now the domino falls

into incompetency. And now we're gonna talk about

unethical and unethical behavior. Now the door opens to unethical behavior.

And I think a lot of this false conflict falls underneath the realm of unethical

behavior. I'm not saying the grievance isn't genuine. I

wanna be very clear on that. But I think the behavior

around the grievance is unethical. I don't think it's ethical for you to

do a a sit in like what recently happened Tom Google.

I'll just use this as a big public example. I don't think it's ethical for

you to do a sit in in your boss's office because of some political thing

that's happening that has nothing. You could talk

all day you want about Google doing research for the Israeli Defense Forces.

If you're a developer in some other part of Google

and you're not working on that project, it has nothing to do with you.

Right? Right. Hey.

So why am I sitting in the office of some vice

president protesting to free Palestine?

My short answer is gonna be, and probably not the most popular answer, is

that your ego Tom satisfy you says I

can do that because I have a right to do that. Well that's nothing but

an ego talking. Right.

Right. You have an opinion and you believe your opinion is right

and they should and others, whoever others are, should not

be doing that because I said so. 1 of the biggest problems we have

post 2020. Well, and and Google has now respond

not responded. Google. Well, yeah, Google reacted or

responded. But by turning those 20 people.

Yep. And I think that that's probably the correct move for

Google. I'd fire those people. Those, those people you, you want to protest

if it were, if if if I'm the VP and you're in my office

and you have nothing to do with this and you don't work over here, or

even if you do and you haven't brought this

grievance to me directly, instead, you staged a protest and you've

put a flag out and you're chanting, you are fired.

Pack your box up and get out. There is the

you're at I I I don't disagree with the move. I will say

this though, and this is a caveat to that to me saying I don't

disagree with the move, is that

did and and this comes back to the size of teams that we mentioned

earlier. Did relevant leaders,

were they aware of those

individuals, those 20 individuals motivation,

what would trigger them? Maybe completely

separate from a work issue as to why they did it. Sure. But

you have to ask from a leadership perspective, you have to ask the

question, what did leaders do or not do

that precipitated that action,

those actions of those 20 people? Well, and I'm going to and by the way,

before I before I fire you, I'm going to sit down every single one of

those individual 20. I'm going to sit them down individually,

and I'm going to say I'm not firing you for protesting. That's not

why I'm firing you. I'm not firing you for executing on free speech.

Not doing that either. I'm firing you because I

failed.

To recognize what your motivations were in the internal Google

chat, the internal version of Google Slack, basically, that's running

around and fomenting all of this. And because I failed

and my boss isn't going to fire me, but I have the capability to fire

you. The consequence of my failure falls on you.

You have a good day. Pack up your boxes. You're gone. Interesting ethical

question. Right. This becomes an ethical

question right now. The only way,

the only way that conversation actually works though, because I'm fairly

sure that VP or those VPs that fired those 20 people didn't have that kind

of conversation with those folks. I'm fairly sure that's not how it went. I would

agree. The only way that works is if

myself is the VP doing the firing

goes to my president and my books, and

I say to them, Jesan. The fact of

the matter is we have this Google internal Slack

channel that's proven to be a real problem, and it's been a

real problem for a while. We thought it would allow people

to blow off Tom,

around their their political progressive activist

tendencies. And that has not proven

to be what this tool has done as a result of

this tool, not turning, which

we did put in for ethical reasons, at least initially,

it has failed to work. And this is what I'm saying to my boss

because it's failed to book. Now we have to fire these people.

But that failure is actually on us. So

what are we going to do to fix this? A, so it doesn't happen again,

but also B, what are we going to do?

So that I don't have to be placed in a position of leadership

failure? And I have to go

fire another subsequent 20 people for showing up for something else tomorrow. Oh,

and by the way, because I'm an ethical leader, I'm gonna take a 10% pay

cut on this this year. Just gonna put that on the table. Tom my

boss is, of course, gonna go, oh, no. No. You don't have to do that,

like, 10%. There has to be some book. There has to be some

skin in the game as Nicholas Nassim Tyler would say, from all of us on

this. And by the way, me voluntarily putting that 10% on the table, that puts

pressure on you. And I know that's what it does because this is the chess

game we're in. And now you look like a fool if you don't take that

Tom right. So this is the chess game we're gonna play. So I'm gonna push

you into a position where you have to address this, number 1. But also

number 2, you have to look like you've got skin in the game in an

ethical way. I'm going to guarantee

you that that did not happen. I would guarantee that too. Yep.

How do we get ethical leaders to be

right to engage around this to to

engage in these spaces ethically and to to have those kinds of

conversations, not necessarily with their teams, which is interesting,

but with their bosses ethically. Because

ethics rolls uphill and the fish such as it were rots

from the head down. Yeah. And

that's it's one of the I'm gonna go so

far as to say it's it is a systemic issue. Mhmm. In

that as you climb the ranks in a corporation, especially the

larger ones, you get sucked into the politic

the political shenanigans and

maneuvering that goes on because it is the only way to maneuver.

Mhmm. And and that

kind of then necessitates that you put ethics on the back burner

Mhmm. If you don't dismiss it altogether.

Because your ambition, driven by your ego,

is to climb the rank and not to be held responsible

for that. There's an interesting

book, Jako Wilnick,

Extreme Ownership. And it's about the Navy SEALs. And I the

to me, this is the quintessential example of what

what does need to happen. Mhmm. Leaders need to take

ownership for everything that goes wrong even if they're not the ones

who did it. Mhmm. But it is their

team who failed at something.

They, as a leaders, needs to take ownership fourth. What does that mean? It

doesn't mean you take and everything falls on your head and, you know,

oh, book. You know, I'll take the pay cut. I'll take this. I'll get fired.

All my team stays untouched. Now that's not what that means. Mm-mm.

No. It means you take the responsibility for what happens,

and you work with your team to find a

solution. What failed? How do we correct it? What do we

need to change? What is the system, the process, Whatever that needs

to happen. So that this does not happen again.

That's taking extreme ownership on the leaders part to initiate that

action. It's not to be the one

to, to beat yourself up because of it. No.

That's not what it means. And I think a lot of leaders miss

that component of leadership because it's

it's very interesting. When when a leader were to do that, the influence

they have over their team Mhmm.

Is completely unspoken, but is so powerful that

in fact is more powerful than the spoken at that point.

I'm glad you brought up Extreme Ownership because we've talked about that book on this

podcast. We've actually added a conversation. We'll be releasing that,

later on this year, with another gentleman around Jocko

Willock's book. We facilitated that book in our

consultancy, and information from that book combined with another

book called, the Oz Principle, which is about how you how

you scale up accountability. Because Jocko does an excellent

job of describing what ownership looks like, at a at an

individual and at a small team level. There are challenges when you

go to scale with that, though, and his book doesn't address any of those, but

the Oz Principle, does. It addresses it very,

very well. And so we've actually combined those 2 books together and

gotten some really interesting insights out of it, particularly around alignment,

because. The, the misalignment around

ownership is this. So again,

I'm leading 6 people, writers? Cause I can't lead more than that. Can't lead

more than 6 to 8. Writers? Those people are

loyal to me because I'm exhibiting ownership,

in every single sphere of influence that I

touch, which of those 6 people are, fourth 6 to 8 people are working

for me. They're all in my sphere of influence. Thus to your point, I'm

responsible for everything they do, and I'm responsible for

everything they don't do. Now I'm effectively aligned.

And by the way, I tell them this. I don't hide it from them. I

don't, I don't I don't I don't,

obvious skate on it. Right? I I actually tell them this is

I say it out loud. I'm I'm I'm in I'm not in charge of

saying I'm taking ownership over the whole team. I'm taking

ownership over these projects. Now what

that means is when you fail and eventually at a certain point, you will

on something, I'm going to take ownership of your failure because it will be something

that I didn't do that allowed you to fail.

But it also remember I talked about that epistemic humility that has to be

on the part of both leaders and followers. I also need

you to take ownership of everything in your sphere of influence if I'm gonna do

this. And and that's the absolute key thing because if I as a

leader take leadership, you as my

direct report, I'm gonna put it that way. Mhmm. You take ownership for what

you are doing with equally your Tom. Or even if it's

only just you, you need to take ownership for you. Right.

Okay. So now we're doing this. And I'm one team of

4 to 6 people, 6 to 8 people in a much

larger organization of 25,000 people. But my team is rocking and

rolling. My team is clicking. We're getting

stuff out. We're behaving competently. We're having

disputes, but they're not driven by ego. Our part

of whatever the process is that we own

is humming. And because it's humming other

teams where it's not humming, where there's misalignment

on all those other teams and fake conflict and done it and all the Jesan

and that organization of 25,000 people,

all those other teams are jealous of us and are angry.

A resentful, claim that I've

got some Svengali mind control over my 68 people

that makes them loyal to me. I've heard this, right? And really, it comes down

to human jealousy. Absolutely. You know, and we

don't talk a lot about that because we think that we're podcast. And again, this

is one of those postmodern problems that require pre modern language to actually

describe. And so and

so let's let's call jealousy what it is. It's it's jealousy. Right? It's envy.

Right? It's the green dragon. Okay. Well,

as a result of me being good with my 6 to 8 people,

I am then offered another position. I am given

now 2 teams of 6 to 8 people, because if I could do

a well with 1, of course I could do it well with 2,

And then I could do it well with 3, and then I can remake the

whole culture. This is the ego now getting involved in this. Right?

Yep. How does a leadership me wrap this idea up with a

question. How does a leader check their own ego? Because

Jocko talks about this in his book, Check Your Ego, right?

If I've got my 6 to 8 people humming along, how do I check my

ego and just stay with those 6 to 8 people? Check my

ambition and just and just stay with those 6 to 8 people ethically? How do

I do that? That is a very interesting and a very difficult

question.

It's it comes back to your humility factor for 1. Mhmm.

But it requires that understanding of

self. Mhmm. Now

could you take on, for the sake of the example,

another team of 6 people? Mhmm. You could do

that. And ego doesn't really step into

it. Maybe it says, well if I can do that, I could probably do it

with them. Let's give it a go. Reasonable response.

The question is, do you have enough insight into yourself

when you begin to see I am struggling to do this with

team number 2. I

need help. Mhmm. Whatever that means.

Mhmm. Right? And that is that level of self

awareness because, yes, my ego can take off. Yeah. Can do it with 2.

I can do it with 3. I can do it with whatever number. Bring them

on. Right? Because we feel invincible. Look at this. We've got this. This team is

running perfectly. I'm not overly stressed. It's easy. I can

add more to it. That's the ego

talking. There's no two ways about it. I'm

not saying you can't do 2 Tom of sex.

The question is, are you aware enough to know that you are

doing the same with team number 2 that you did

with number 1 and are not sacrificing

team number 1 for the sake of team number 2. Yeah.

Mhmm. Yep. And that it does take self

awareness. That's not you know, do you

can I train that into somebody in 6 months?

Probably not. Right. That takes a lot

of self initiative as well. I can give you the foundation, but

it does take you doing a lot of the work. Yeah. And

being able to objectively evaluate, there

might be that so your boss in that

sense then. Mhmm. What's their involvement

in all of us? So that brings the the question of

going up the tree, going up the ladder as

to how do we put the checks and balances in.

So how do how does my boss's boss and so on take

ownership of what's going on? How do we go to

scale with this? How do we go to scale at that point? Because it

does require just because there's this pocket in an

organization that's doing really well. It's thriving. It's it's going

gangbusters, and is the envy of everybody else.

The question is why? Mhmm. And are other

people book in the in the horizontal,

but as well as the vertical structure in the in the organization at that point.

So the pyramid above it. How

open are they and how willing are they to learn? And you know, now you

turning in a whole lot of other dynamics into that. Do we

want to replicate this? And there's the question of how do you scale?

How do you scale that? And that is always the challenge

but it requires self awareness to begin with. Otherwise,

you're not going to get there. One of the solutions that

I've had to give folks at a practical level is,

and I, a very occasionally when I'm working with

bureaucracies, whether they're governmental or corporate, it doesn't matter.

You'll get the leader in there, who is that leader who's got their

team aligned correctly. Right. And they've got ownership

and they're exhibiting these traits. And it's a small team,

usually no more than 10 people. And they're, you know, and they're, and

they've got even, they've even had talk to people cycle in that they've been able

to turn around. Right. And the

other leaders who are who are pair not parallel, but

who are vertical, who are on the same vertical, the peer group Tom

them. Had this recently

happened as it called as just as just as recently leaders about 9 months ago

with a group I was working with that they will

say, okay, well, x y z Jesan.

Let's just give her a name, Victoria. Of course, Victoria's team is

working well. Like they're hyper loyal to her. Like we can never

replicate that on my team.

Fourth we'll get the question, which I love. Well, Jesan, you

talk about alignment and accountability and ownership, and

that's all well and book. But you don't understand

that team over there led by that person is gonna send me

someone Tom, and then I'm gonna have to deal with them.

And the answer I always give, and let me tell, tell, let me, let me

find out what you think about this. The answer I always give when that question

comes up is this. I say, Okay, well, there's a very simple solution to solve

this problem. And you're not going to like it. It's simple,

but it's not going to be it's not gonna make you happy. Do you wanna

know what it is? Everybody goes,

grumble grumble grumble. Okay. This is not gonna make them happy. Like I I tell

you, it's not gonna make you happy when I tell you what the solution is,

but it is simple. I said, here's what you do. You do an invite

only meeting. Of everybody who's at the same peer group.

There's, like, 25 of you in this room, invite only meeting. Not fourth boss doesn't

get to show up and your subordinates don't get to show up. It's the 25

of you on a Saturday morning. You lock yourselves in a room in person for

3 hours and everybody figures out how to get aligned.

And everybody cries and you get to an agreement, you figure out how to get

aligned and how you're going to lead your teams and nobody gets to leave the

room until everybody's aligned.

One Saturday, you could figure it out. And committed. And

committed. That's right. One Saturday for, like, 4 hours. You could

figure it out. And everybody all of a sudden has nothing to

say. Yeah.

And because because the challenge is getting you all

as peers aligned because what you've done, and you don't wanna

say this out loud, is you've carved out little

kingdoms where you like your

toxicity and you like your unethical behavior and you like

being jealous of this thing that's working well. And by the way, even the

person who's turning extreme ownership in

the Jocko Willock fashion over there, 4 to 6,

6 to 8, whatever number of people they've carved out their

own little sinecure.

And, yeah, I am. You see that up and down every organization,

right? And so you want Tom you want to you want to fix that problem

of misalignment. You all have to get aligned.

So that when subordinate a goes to

Tom B, They already know what the deal

is. They're not escaping. They're going to

the same deal over here. But the 25 of

you won't spend a Saturday getting together because you're too

busy fourth I don't wanna spend my Saturday or I'm not getting paid for this,

or at the bottom of it, I'd like to just have this chip to complain

about, which I really think is a lot of it.

Absolutely. A lot of it is, well, if I've got something to beef about and

put somebody else down, it makes me feel better about myself. Right.

Because I don't wanna deal with me. Who why would I wanna deal with

me? Heck no. Me, I'm the I'm the worst person to deal

with. It's me. You know? No. People don't wanna do that.

And that but and and to your example, get together on Saturday

morning, all that level, nobody else above below.

Oh, do

I'm supposed to go there? I'm gonna put my stuff on the

table? Yeah, it's it. Yeah.

It puts you on the spot and people don't like being put on the spot,

but they will pull up very quickly, but they don't do anything.

Right. It's the sad box. So pushing that fourth idea is

brilliant. It works, but it has to be pushed through.

Right. Yep. Yep. Alright. So we're rounded

the corner here. We've had a good conversation. This has been this has been an

excellent conversation. We're rounding the corner here. I wanna ask you a couple

of other questions. Talk a little bit actually, just talk a little bit

about, your work with, World Ethics Organization and sort of how

you came to be involved with those folks and what do they do,

and how do they impact how does ethics

overall is a maybe a not even a

philosophy, but a practical level. How does that get inserted

into, into organizations and into cultures through leadership?

Well, how I got involved with, Richard and the

WEO came about through another conversation I

had with somebody else who was involved with Richard and Jesan the ethics,

and in general. Mhmm. And, we just got a conversation

about it was leadership related. And I said, you know,

one of the biggest things that's missing in in in in leadership,

but universally what we're seeing in the world is

is is an act of ethics. People are not,

either not aware, and the younger generation has that problem as aware as awareness

turning, but the middle generation, say fourth your gen

x's and partly your millennials, ethics means, oh, well, I

have to sacrifice something. And, well, I can't do

what I want and whatever else. You know, they're they're all in

that vein. But he but this person said to me, you need to

meet Richard. So Richard and I had a

conversation and Richard then shared with me the change

agent program. Mhmm. Went through that with him.

And I said to him, Richard, you need an organization

that takes ethics on at a global

level much like now we mentioned

the WEF at the writers at the beginning. I'm just gonna throw it out here

to finish it off and essays, well, you gotta compete with that because we've gotta

put ethics on the table. And he said, yeah. We started that last month.

So oh. Oh.

Hey. Well, they you know, I said Sometimes I'm behind the curve.

Yeah. I said, see, Paul, do you wanna come and join us? I said,

sure. Well, let's let's see this. You know, maybe I can give my 2¢ and

help you guys get off the ground and whatnot else. And that's what I spent

a year and a half doing as sort of in a more of an advisory

capacity. And yeah, I've got yeah. I mean, it

it's ethics

is one of those missing ingredients now more than

ever that leaders need.

Because we understand the fundamental dilemma of

human nature. Mhmm. We are so driven, you know, we've used

the word ego. It's about me. Mhmm. What can

I get? What what doesn't matter who suffers,

but it's about me. What Me. Mhmm. And and

I'll I'll leave it there. But ethics essays,

it's not about me. It's about how is

what I want to do going to impact others.

If it's going to be a positive impact. If it's gonna be any an uplifting

impact. Well then potentially it is good. It is

ethical. But if it's gonna have a negative impact

and and really hurt people in whatever which way,

then is it really a good idea? And that

in a nutshell is the problem with ethics today.

It has become so many leaders. And,

you know, I'll I'll I'll I'll call the

elephant in the room on this one then and essays, yeah, just look at government.

It's very classic. Mhmm. The ethics isn't there because it's driven

by my ego because what I can get. Right.

And we all know what the I can get is. Right. So

do we need more of that? Do we need examples of leaders exhibiting

ethical behavior? Yes. And that's the goal of the WEO.

To get those conversations ethics going so

that we instill the awareness. Oh, my

ego can be detrimental to to you and to the people on

my team. Oh, is that a

good idea? Yes. I might get this in the moment,

but I might pay for it tomorrow. Consequences

of unethical behavior. You know,

people don't look at this anymore. They don't see

the the the the notion the the not the notion,

the, the cycle of action,

reaction, consequence. There's always for every action there's a reaction. It

doesn't matter which way shape or form you look at it. So an ethical

action is going to yield potentially success. An

unethical action. I might get a moment to

re satisfaction out of it, but the long Tom,

yeah, you're gonna pay for it. It's just a question of when, not if.

So can can we instill in leaders?

I turning this in through, I weave it into my academy, is the ethical

obligation duty, coming back to that

word, that leaders have that their

actions are measured against an ethical standard. Now

everybody's got their own ethical standard, and the WAs are looking at addressing some

other. How do we bring, you know, this group's standards and this

group and this group, the diversity of these groups into 1 and

and figure out, you know, there is a standard of ethics

and establishing that. So when we're not

Yeah. Yeah. And a standard of ethics that

because I took Richard's change agent course as well, and

I've I've I've had some engagement with the

w e o. Probably needs to be more significant.

I'll admit to that.

I think we, we, we have to

say fundamentally that an

objective standard outside of our subjective experience does exist.

And that we can know that objective standard. It's not cloudy.

It's not unknowable. It's not

mysterious. And I think we can say, we know what the

standard is, primarily because we're not

primarily, but we know what the standard

is because evidentially to make up a word, in

the material world that we built in the 20th century,

the results Tom your point about choices have

consequences, the results of choosing to behave at an

unethical standard can be seen in the deaths of a 100,000,000 people in the

20th century. Mhmm. They

can be seen in the results of world wars, 2 of them.

There were just massively catastrophic events outside of the other 100,000,000

deaths. We can also see

in real time the decline of, and this is something we've talked about on this

podcast a lot, particularly last year, decline of meaning,

particularly meaning among you talked about younger generations,

particularly meaning among younger generations, particularly young males, the

decline of meaning in the amongst young males in the West, which

is to my mind, more of a catastrophic

event overall for civilization

than anything having to do with the changing climate, quite

frankly. Because if we can solve for the turning

crisis, which I do think ties back to ethics,

we can solve for all of these other things. Agreed. But we

have to admit, not agree, just

admit that there's an objective standard outside of our subjective experience.

And unfortunately, we have 150 years of people

convinced through education and entertainment and other means that there is

no objective standard, or even if there is, we can't know it. And

so once you say there's no objective standard, or even worse, once you say we

can't know an objective standard, now you've,

you've pulled up all of the gates and you've opened up all the fourth.

And unfortunately for us, it's the gatekeepers of

education, the gatekeepers of government, the gatekeepers

of entertainment, who are the ones busiest pulling up the

gates and saying that there is no standard fourth that we can't know it for

150 years. Correct. And so

this is a massive problem that is of our

own making as human beings, particularly human beings in the West,

But it is one that we can solve because we created it.

We can solve this problem. Any problem that we've created, we can solve. It's just

what do we do to solve it? And I see the World Ethics Organization as

part of that solution. I definitely agree with you. It is part of

the solution. And, yeah, I mean, Richard,

keep going. I'm in support of his work, what he's

doing. And, yeah. And that's why that's one of the reasons why I

bring ethics into the to the whole notion of what

leadership actually is. Yep. Yep. It's almost like it's

one of the 3 legs of the 3 legged stool. Yep.

Okay. So to wrap up here, we're a podcast that

obviously believes in the power of great books of the past to teach

us lessons, and to lay the foundation for the

future fourth us. So what are some great

book? Not necessarily business books, but what are some great books? And

we talked about extreme ownership and talked about a couple of other books on the

podcast today. But what are some great books that have led to

where that have led you to where you are right now? You have a bookshelf

there. You're a literary guy. I see Never Split the Difference there. I

see Chris Voss hanging out over there. So I know

that book cover. I know that one. But, of course, some

and I suspect you probably also have some Nicholas Nassim Taleb on there and maybe

some Daniel Kahneman, who just recently just

recently passed away. But there were some books that were

some great books of the can of the Writers canon that which is kinda what

we focused on in this podcast that have led you to where you're at now

with, with LOS Global? I I

you can't go without mentioning some of John Maxwell's

stuff. I he's got a ton of books out there. He's

got some valuable insight. It needs, in my opinion, it

needs to be mixed with a few other things to really round it out. He's

very good in in what he's got. And

then Ken Blanchard, and he's got a couple of books that

focuses more on servant and situational leisure, which is an

important aspect of it. And it it brings

depth to some of John's material as well.

You know, just looking at some of the books. An interesting book, you know,

we spoke about influence and inspiration earlier. In influence,

there's a book called Growing Influence. Okay. It was

a as a as a novel. Mhmm. You know,

interaction between, a senior retired

CEO and a young aspiring, leader

in an organization keeps getting overlooked. Yes. She's female and he's

male. And so it brings some of those dynamics, the sexual

the gender dynamics into the, Internet. But

it's I think it's very well written as a structure.

How can you build your influence? So especially the younger

leaders, newer leaders, how can they establish some level

of influence? That's a very good book. There is a

book, lead when you when you're not in

charge fourth know, because you can be

a manager, but you're still not in charge. Mhmm. You know, you

you can have a position within an other than the work

of be in an organizational chart, but

you still are not in charge of anything. You still so how can you

lead in that? Because a lot of people there say, well, I'm I'm not a

leader. I'm just manager Joe. No. Well, you're a leader because

you you are in a position where you're required to lead

yourself first. That's the first one. And the second one is you do

have a few people that you are to that you influence.

Mhmm. However that so how do you do that? Yeah. So there's that one I

found very useful.

Yeah. Looking at some of the other books,

Brene Brown has got some good stuff on leadership, but she gets

very into the the philosophy, the psychology

of it all. Useful anecdotes. I mean, there there's

some she's got some good stuff. But I'd I'd say that's more for

the more the more

experienced leader. Mhmm. Okay. So that that'd be more for

them. I mean, it's leadership.

What's it called? Developing the leaders within

2.0. That's John Maxwell. That's a good book.

Oh, from an executive

perspective, The Advantage is a good book, Patrick Lancione.

Mhmm. Okay. Yeah. Of the team. Those are all some

of the good you know, it's the whole reason why you got

podcast is because, you know, I can read all of these books, but it's gonna

take me a long time. And, you know, a lot of the stuff that I've

shared with you and you shared is the culmination of a lot of reading we've

done. Right. So, you know, those are just a handful of books. But

the reading that I've done, and I've done reading beyond that, you

know, books about I'm gonna I'm

gonna go into the realms of even abuse when you understand

how easily people can verbally and emotionally abuse someone

else. Mhmm. Powerful book on leadership to understand how it

happens because gaslighting is a big issue in

leadership. Mhmm. That how you know?

Now you're aware of it. Now you can put a stop to it. You

can help somebody who's doing it to do

it less. Mhmm. Aware of it in turn. You

know, those sort of things. So I think there's more

It's you you said not just business books, but that's that's

another realm. It's how do you communication

styles. Mhmm. Heck, what does that do to

impact your communication with your

spouse? Your kids, your friends that you

never act with in work because they don't work in the same company as you

do. How do you interact with that and how does that impact your leadership?

So how do you communicate? Understanding your communication stuff. Things

like that. And I I some of the things that I do

with with, people that I work with with leaders is something called

bank, b a n k. Okay. Crack you

crack the code or you and understand how you communicate.

Mhmm. What your style of communication is. Understand that other people

have different ones. Now you know how to communicate with them. Yeah. That goes into

the books of, you know, Robert Cialdini. You mentioned that about influence and

all of that. There's so many books on communication.

What else? No.

What about good what about good fiction? Because we do we do we we do

a lot of classical fiction on this. Like, we just came off a month of,

we just came off a month of the Russian writers, right? So we read Turgenev

and we read Tolstoy, and we read, we didn't

read Dostoevsky. We're still trying. I'm still trying to wrap my arms around the writers

carom resolve enough to be able to pull. And there's stuff in there. Just you

gotta. You're you're you're a bigger man than me. Are you? You well

well, War and Peace is 1400 pages. We just got through part 1 of it.

And where are we where we where we where myself and my cohost,

and this is the most one of the most recent episodes we dropped this month.

I think it was episode 104, I think.

But, we, we determined that one of the big things you can

learn from the beginning of war and peace, because it opens with a party, is

how to communicate and what and how Tom engage in appropriate

networking etiquette when you're a business leader. Oh, and how to

evolve, and you use this word, how to evolve the

drunken shenanigans, you call political shenanigans, but the drunken

shenanigans of organizations and cultures so that you don't get, you know, well, so you

don't have to go off to war and fight Napoleon in, like, 18/12 because

that sucks. Yeah. It does. Well, I mean,

fiction books, I haven't read in in recent times, I haven't read a lot of

fiction books. I'll be honest with you on that one. I sort of Sure. I've

gotten lost on that. But to your point

of fiction, because of the depth of research

that is done to create a book of fiction.

There's a lot of anecdotal type

lessons we can learn from them, I think. How, oh this

happened, this happened. Oh that gives me an awareness

of a certain situation. Mhmm. That in a business book

I may not have got again because it was never mentioned. Right.

Yeah. I read, I've read, the one book that's

that's sort of coming to mind is, Barnhofer.

Oh, yeah. Okay. Yep. You know, and it's yes, it's a biography.

But it's interesting to see how he

led himself, granted through the eyes of Eric.

Eric Metaxo wrote the book, but it is interesting to see how he

led himself and how he chose to interact with other

people. The humility, the grace,

things like that, powerful lessons for leaders.

So yes. Bonhoeffer was one of the probably top fourth

theologians of the was produced in the 20th century,

along with, GK Chesterton, CS Lewis, and Francis Schaeffer.

Those are probably your big four of the 20th century.

At least that came out of both the Protestant and a Catholic ethic,

writers Should she get GK, Chester, Tennessee as Lewis were, were

in that we're in that space. And so,

okay. By the way, we'll be

covering Bonhoeffer on the podcast in,

I believe August or September.

I'm going to be looking at some of his writings. I'm personally

fascinated by him, just as

a person. I don't know because of the level of

the level of commitment he had. To talk about leading yourself,

the level of commitment he had to

continuing to engage in

no continuing to walk down a path

where the clearing and what was going to fundamentally be

at the end of that path. I think he understood better even than the

people around him better than his friends.

And there's a lesson in there for the leaders in Bonhoeffer's

life, in understanding human nature,

understanding the knock on effects of patterns that have repeated throughout

history. That way you're not surprised

when you wind up in the place where you were

going to wind up that. I think Bonhoeffer was the

least surprised that he was executed by the Nazis.

I think probably the the even the Nazis were surprised they executed him, but

he wasn't because he understood

the nature of the thing he was fighting against.

He understood the fundamental nature of human evil,

and that is something I think that the postmodern mind, which has banished

evil, even the concept of talking about it, other than in

a political context, of course, which is the only place we can ever have any

kinds of theological conversations is in a political context, which

is really too bad because it's way too narrow a context for such

conversations to happen. The postmodern mind struggles

when it when it faces evil.

And we're seeing that currently in our geopolitical moment that we're in right now in

the west, vis a vis Israel and Hamas,

but we're also seeing it in our own individual lives.

And when evil does show up, the postmodern secular

materialistic mindset has nothing for that.

Mhmm. Bonhoeffer had a solution for that because he

understood other things about human nature. Yeah. And so was unsurprised

when human nature showed up. So he's a fascinating character.

Just quickly, you mentioned CS Lewis. Yes. You're talking about fiction

for a moment. The other book that Sorrells that I

found rather interesting and maybe it needs a couple of reads

to really get it out is the Lord turning Sorrells, which

is Tolkien, who was a contemporary of CS Lewis and

was actually very strongly influenced by CS Lewis, which is interesting. But

he's been as a result of that influence and where that

led is when he wrote the Lord of the Rings series. And

you see leadership and the challenges of leadership.

And it's a small group of people. Right. The interesting part,

right, like we said earlier, and being able to lead and

how the different people led

different aspects of that

journey in that story. The most interesting

part of the Lord of the Rings is in the beginning of

return of the king. The 3rd book and Gandalf shows

up, at,

at, gosh, it's not fourth door. It's,

Boromir's father, the king who was looking through the, the, the looking

glass and could see basically had basically,

he saw evil. He saw the face of evil. He saw the face. Yeah. And

he and he lost his mind. Right? And

Gandalf was unable to save him.

Right? And at the same time, you have his son Faramir,

who he does not honor, who's trying to lead the people and trying

to mount a defense against the forces of Mordor

and is getting no help whatsoever from his father. Who's supposed to be

the steward of Gondor. Right. Who's supposed to be that king.

And so, and even the name, the steward of

Gondor. I mean, come on. So you've got, you know, you've got the steward of

Gondor. You've got turning Theoden. Those are 2 different leadership

examples there. And you're right. I I had a conversation recently

with somebody about Tolkien, CS Lewis, and and sort of their

how they came Tom. How they came

to having how they came to writing the way that they

writers, And, you know, they were both heavily influenced,

obviously, as their entire generation was by the impact of World

War 1 and and just the killing fields of Europe and and just

the Psalm and just all the things that they saw. But with

Tolkien, interestingly enough, Tolkien and Lewis had the

same experience, but pulled slightly

different lessons from that that you can see in their writing if you're

sensitive to that. So, yeah, we, we've covered abolition of man,

by CS Lewis on this podcast. And we've also covered,

all 3 of the Lord of the Rings books that we've covered The Hobbit, it

will be going back to them, again, not this year, but next year, we'll be

going back to them again, and diving in with a, with a guest

co host who I think is going to bring a certain level of passion to

that conversation because he's deeply engaged with those books, at at

multiple levels. So, yeah, there's so much you can learn from leadership. I

one of the things I'll say to folks is, you can learn more about emotional

intelligence from Sense and Sensibility than you can from Daniel Goleman's emotional

intelligence. But read them both together. Read Goleman and then read Jane Austen, and

now you've got it. You've got emotional intelligence. Now you understand it. Pretty much. That's

that's a good way of describing it. Yeah. So, well,

let's let's close with this question. I I was I ask everybody when they when

they come on Tom podcast, what would you like to promote today, if anything? Well,

thanks fourth that, Janssen. And we host as

LOS Global, we host VIP, so

invitation on the executive leadership fourth. Nominally once

a month, every 5 books, depending on, on

schedules and that. And we cover, insights

that are relevant to leaders today.

And I'll often have either some of my team on that and we discuss

it and bring the audience in, or I bring in other experts to to

talk about a particular topic that's current on that. So I'd invite people

to that. The website is a simple, you know,

Sorrells global.com/home.

Come along, you know, it's an it is invitation only. So go to the

website, fill in the form, you know, submit your your your

invitation request. Not your application, your invitation request.

And you know if it's a fit, you know, well yeah, you're welcome to to

join us and join the conversation. So I'll leave that as

my phone number for the, for the podcast. Thank you. Awesome. And

we will have a link to that site so you could fill out that

invitation request, and maybe you can join, this, this

global fourth, put on by Ellis Global and Peter Aimeli and his

team once every 5 weeks, once every 4 weeks or so. But

we'll have that link right there in the show notes below the player

that you are listening to. And, of course, watching this

podcast on. We'll also have links to all the places where you

could find Peter Angley, and LOS Global LOS Academy,

in the show notes as well. We'd encourage you to connect with him

on LinkedIn. He is on LinkedIn. He's pushing out content on there as

well. And so like and share if you liked what we were talking

about today. Once again, I would like to thank Peter Ainley of

LOS Global for coming on the podcast today. And with

that, well, we're

out.