October 21, 2025 • 46 mins
Marcus is the founder of Mammoth Leadership & Organizational Development, where he combines clear strategy, advanced leadership skills, and adaptive technology to help leaders and organizations achieve lasting results. His diverse career spans multiple leadership arenas, including serving as a former non-profit CEO, President and GM of two semi-professional athletic teams, entrepreneur, college professor, and U.S. Air Force veteran. With an MA in Management and Leadership, MS in Organizational Development, and multiple AI certifications, Marcus brings both theoretical depth and real-world application to his work as a certified executive coach, helping leaders navigate complex challenges and drive transformational change.
Coaching isn’t just for those who are struggling; it’s a game changer, and we’re diving into that today. Our guest, Marcus Dudley, shares the lightbulb moment he had when he finally got a coach himself and realized just how invaluable that support can be. We chat about the importance of having a safe space to reflect, vent, and get challenged—all crucial for leaders looking to step up their game. Plus, we tackle the concept of "performance drag," which is all about those sneaky little distractions that slow us down and how to kick them to the curb. If you’re ready to elevate your leadership journey and get some practical insights, stick around, because we've got a lot to uncover!
Coaching isn't just for leaders who need to polish their skills; it's become a vital lifeline for anyone navigating the choppy waters of leadership. Marcus Dudley, a seasoned coach, shares his journey from the military to the corporate world, underlining how coaching can transform a leader's approach. He emphasizes the importance of having a safe space where leaders can vent, reflect, and be held accountable without the fear of judgment. This episode dives deep into the concept of 'performance drag', which Marcus defines as the invisible forces that slow leaders down and prevent them from reaching their goals. He discusses how leaders can identify these forces, whether they stem from time mismanagement, lack of strategic clarity, or insufficient technological support. The conversation is rich with insights about personal growth, the need for ongoing leadership development, and the importance of learning from mistakes. Furthermore, Marcus's experience provides a relatable backdrop for understanding how leadership challenges are universal, regardless of the industry, making this episode essential listening for anyone in a leadership role.
Takeaways:
- Coaching isn't just for those struggling; it offers a judgment-free space for leaders to vent and reflect.
- Leadership development requires a trifecta: knowledge, a supportive environment, and effective coaching to thrive.
- Understanding performance drag is crucial; it's about identifying hidden forces that hinder leaders from achieving their goals.
- Strategic clarity is key for leaders; aligning their time with their goals can significantly boost team effectiveness.
- The corporate world often lacks the supportive culture found in military leadership, leading to increased performance drag for leaders.
- Developing leaders is an ongoing journey; setting aside time for personal growth is essential, even when things get hectic.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
If you asked me five or sixyears ago what the value of a coach
was, I probably would havetold you that coaches were for people
that needed, you know, to workon their leadership skills. I had
no idea how valuable a coachwas until I got a coach. I think
that there absolutely is valuein having a safe, confidential, judgment,
(00:27):
free space to vent, toreflect, to think through, to be
challenged, to be heldaccountable in a way that is extremely
freeing.
Hi there and welcome to theStep up expert Voices for Leadership
Growth. I'm your host, KentKnievel. Every week I talk to experts
(00:51):
who focus on helping leadersstep up their leadership game. If
you're new to the show, thenon whatever platform you're using,
I encourage you to subscribeso you never, never miss an episode.
One last thing. As aleadership development consultant
and executive coach, I have aparticular interest in supporting
recent internally promotedleaders. If that's you, or if you
support a leader who has beenrecently promoted, I encourage you
(01:11):
to visit my website at KentCoach Playbook and download a free
copy of my 90 day blueprintfilled with practical advice for
you or the leader you supportin hitting the ground running and
truly stepping up to their newleadership level. Without further
ado, on with the show.Welcome, everybody. Today we are
here to talk about performancedrag. And with me for this conversation
(01:34):
is Marcus Dudley, author ofrecently released book Mammoth Success.
Marcus, thanks for coming on today.
Thank you so much for havingme, Ken. It's a pleasure to be here.
Yeah, well, I'd love to hearabout your background, like, walk
me through, you know, thatyour career arc to the recent release
of your. Your book.
(01:55):
Yeah, great. You know, I havekind of an eclectic background, so,
you know, it's. Maybe sincewe're talking about leadership development,
I'll look at it kind ofthrough that lens a little bit and
maybe that'll help kind ofarticulate how I got here. So I grew
up in Kansas and, you know,after high school, ran off to college
and didn't excel at school, sospent about a year and a half at
(02:16):
school majoring in everythingbut, but academics, which led me
to the United States AirForce, which was fantastic for me.
It was great. And, you know,as someone who has adhd, you know,
that kind of structure andaccountability and discipline and
purpose was excellent for me.And, you know, it was one of those
(02:37):
things that I don't think Irealized how much it would change
my life at the time and howmuch of my career, you know, has
been impacted from thatexperience. And it really happened
in a couple different ways. Ithink. First off, because I was.
I was. I was a couple yearsolder, so I went in at 20, so a lot
of kids going at like, 17 or18. And so I got kind of thrown into
(02:59):
leadership positions rightaway. And, you know, even in basic
training, like element leaderand then a flight chief and then
into tech school, I wastrained as a. As a medic. So I, you
know, they kept kind ofthrowing responsibilities on me,
which was great, you know,from a training perspective and a
responsibility perspective.But all of that really, you know,
kind of formed a foundationfor me. And, you know, and I know
(03:21):
we talked a little bit off airabout some of my unique backgrounds,
but one of the other thingsthat happened to me in that experience
that I think really kind of, Idon't know, created a passion for
leadership was I startedplaying rugby for the United States
Air Force and the UnitedStates Combined Service Team. And
so I spent about three or fourmonths of the year not really working
(03:43):
as a medic, just travelingaround the country and playing rugby.
And a lot of the makeup ofthose teams were of they were officers,
they weren't enlisted guys.And so I was really fortunate to
be around a lot of guys fromthe military academy, so West Point
and Air Force Academy andNaval academy and VMI and the Citadel.
And, you know, for someone whohadn't done so well in school, that
(04:07):
was a fantastic environmentfor me to be around for the, you
know, the next four years. Andbecause my position required, you
know, kind of a. It was kindof a leadership role, you know, I
really had to kind of pick upon some skills and learn some traits
pretty early on in order tokind of even survive. And. And so
that was an incredibleexperience for me. And really, I
(04:28):
think kind of got me on thetrack of, you know, on the leadership
track, so to speak. Then I gotout of the military and went back
to college, and within acouple of years, I jumped into the
pharmaceutical and biotechindustry and then spent about seven
years in that and that, youknow, business world. So start off
in pharma, then went tobiopharm and then biotech. And that's
(04:48):
where I got my toes kind ofdipped in, you know, business and
marketing and sales and kindof the cutthroat world that that
is. And then I kind of got, Idon't want to say disenfranchised,
but I think I was really kindof shocked that just the differences
in culture between the AirForce and what I thought was just
corporate America. I think nowit may have just kind of been a sales
(05:10):
background that I didn'treally, you know, understand some
of the nuances of that. And Ithink a lot of that was around leadership,
like just the difference inquality of leadership, you know,
the lack of accountability,the, you know, in the military, everybody
kind of has everybody's back.And here it was kind of cutthroat,
you know, you make a mistake,everybody, you know, is ready to
tell you about it or. Yeah, right.
(05:32):
So, yeah, hide their head.
That's right. And you know,or. Or blame, you know, he's, you
know, I remember one thing Isaid, oh, that was my fault. And
you know, I heard someone say,you heard Marcus? You said it was
his fault. That is not howthis is supposed to work. Yeah, it
was not my training. So I gotback, I got out and went back to
school and got my firstgraduate degree in management and
(05:54):
leadership with kind of aconcentration in conflict management,
dispute or dispute resolution,which is kind of a weird mix. You
know, I had looked at a bunchof business, you know, kind of programs
and most of them had a ton offinance classes. And I was like,
I don't need finance, I justneed to have a good accountant. You
know, I wanted to focus onkind of the leadership topics is
(06:15):
really where I was, you know,really kind of focused. And so at
the same time thought at 32years old that I'd try to start consulting,
you know, thinking, hey, this,this will be a good idea. You know,
I've got worldly experienceand that didn't go so hot. So, you
know, so as I was kind oftrying to make ends meet and building
(06:35):
a coaching practice at apretty young age and had this new
degree, I started working atthis college. It was called the Tucker
Leadership Lab. And they hadthis giant ropes course, like three
story ropes course thing washuge. And so I started kind of volunteering
and then I started gettingpaid to kind of work as a facilitator
and started noticing that allof these, you know, teams are coming
(06:57):
through for like team buildingevents. And so it was a lot of corporate
groups. And so, you know, Ilearned how to facilitate and debrief
a lot of these, you know, kindof the behaviors that you're seeing
on the ropes course and wheredoes that kind of intersect in your
professional world and, youknow, all those types of things.
Who's belaying you at?
Right, that's right. Yeah. Allof us have trust factors and all
(07:19):
that stuff. So they had kindof low ropes and, you know, high
ropes horses. And so, youknow, I kind of made A pivot in my
business. And I startedthinking, you know, maybe I need
to start providing teambuilding activities. And there wasn't
a lot of that type of businessback in the early 2000, so, especially
in the Midwest. So I starteddoing, you know, scavenger hunts
(07:41):
and corporate Olympics andportable challenges and the bikes
for tikes and amazing racesand all these different things. And
business just started floodingin and I was, you know, almost didn't
know what to do. I was doing alot of work with groups like Sprint
and, you know, there'd be 20groups that would contact me and
oh my God, okay. So I'd startbuilding staff and trying to build
(08:02):
these team building events.And what I started noticing was that
usually when teams would callme or leaders would call me, it was
usually because they were inthe storming stage, there's some
kind of poop storm going on,and they're trying to fix it. And
so that really kind of got me,got me thinking, right? So I started
having more deeperconversations about what's going
(08:22):
on and what's worked, whathasn't worked, you know, what are
your objectives with this teambuilding event? And then I started
kind of changing them andmodifying them in a way that would
be a little more diagnostic,if that makes sense. And by that
I mean, you know, early on,you know, whenever, I don't know
if you came from the corporateworld, you know, when everyone's
(08:44):
anybody says team building,everybody holds hands and sings kumbaya
and puts on their teambuilding mask. So I really got good
at figuring out ways to catchpeople being themselves. Right. So
how could I create certaintriggers or certain, you know, challenges
that I would, you know,provoke reflexive behaviors, and
you'd be shocked at what youcan find, you know, in a group on,
(09:07):
you know, trying to earn $3and 45 cents legally in downtown
Kansas City. Like, yeah, Imean, you see who dominates the conversation
with the brainstorming is howthey handle conflict, what the personalities
are, how much does the leaderget involved, how much does the leader
allow others to get involved?You know, and you set up several
challenges like that. You geta pretty in depth analysis of what's
(09:28):
going on in that team and, youknow, within a couple hours. And
so then that really becamepart of the process, right. Was,
was here's some of the thingsthat we saw and we talk about them,
and then I'd have a deeperdebrief with the leader afterwards.
And that led to a bunch ofother, a bunch of other services,
you know, strategic planningand leadership Development and assessments
(09:49):
and social styles and conflictmanagement training and just, you
know, you know, a buffet ofdifferent, of different things. And
then my business startedgrowing kind of around the country
and started working with a lotof different types of groups from
federal to nonprofit to, youknow, telecom to construction there
was just all over the board.So I really got, really got exposed
(10:12):
to a lot of differentenvironments. Yeah, you act like
you're going to ask me a question.
Well, no, I was just, I wasjust going to say it sounds like,
like a smattering ofindustries because even in my experience
it's interesting the premiumsome clients can put on. Do you have
telecom experience orexperience consulting with telecom?
(10:33):
And so it's great that you'recollecting all these experiences.
But then my guess is like mostpeople that do what we do, there's
like leadership's prettycommon across, like I always joke,
having having entered intoenough organizations. Like one of
the first things I hear on thefirst day is we're a relationship
based company and I'm alwayslike, yep, the only one. And I hear
(10:56):
it everywhere.
Yeah, what's that like? Right?
What's that like?
Yeah, you know, so I did thatfor like five or six years and we
had three kids that kind of inthe elementary, middle school age
and it was taking its toll,you know. So, you know. Yeah, yeah,
just a lot of travel and thegrind of, you know, owning your own
business and you know, youhave things stacked up and then you
(11:19):
wouldn't. And so there's just,you know, how it is with, with these
types of, you know, this typeof business. And so then one of my
clients just approached meabout that I'd had for a while that
I was really kind ofvolunteering for locally that said,
hey, would you be interestedin becoming, you know, our, our executive
directors for a nonprofit, thenon profit CEO. And you know, I thought
about for a little while, Iwas like, yeah, you know, this would
(11:41):
decrease travel. I'd be home alot more. Let's see what this is
like. And so did that forabout 12 years.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, so I, you know, we kind.
Of opened a minor departure.
What's that?
It's a minor departure.
Yeah, minor departure. And itwas kind of, it was, you know, I
got, I got, I, you know, I wasteaching at the same time. I went
back and got a second graduatedegree in organizational development.
(12:02):
And it really allowed me tokind of play a lot with my own leadership
styles and some organizationaldevelopment frameworks and really
had a lot of success. Youknow, we went through a couple of
different mergers and triplerevenue and tripled memberships and,
you know, helped lead thegroup through a pandemic and learned
a lot and grew a lot as aleader. And then in 2022, I decided,
(12:24):
you know, I think I'm readyfor something else. And so I started
to take a step back and. Andwas going to start consulting and
coaching again, and then wasapproached about becoming a fractional
COO for a little while. So Idid that for about seven months,
which wasn't expected at all.And then while that was going on,
my wife got recruited for ajob in Georgia, kind of her dream
(12:46):
job. And we'd been in Kansasfor 20 some years, so our kids had
all graduated high school andwere out in college or not in college
anymore. And. And so about twoyears ago, we packed up and moved
to north of Atlanta, which hasbeen a shock. And so since that time
period, I've really just beenkind of focusing on growing my own
practice and really working askind of a leadership and organizational
(13:09):
coach, consultant, continueteaching, and now an author. So here
today.
So there's a couple of thingsI wanted to ask about as we. As you
were talking here, and I'mwondering if I'm gonna. Well, so
first of all, and I think youmaybe you'll laugh at this question,
and anybody who knows folks inthe military might understand where
(13:32):
my question's coming from. Didyou meet your wife in tech school?
I met my wife. I met her intech school, but we didn't really.
We just knew of each other.
Okay.
We actually spent time,interestingly enough, so we had stationed
at the same base. I didn'treally know her very much, but she
was wearing a Kansas Jayhawk Tshirt. And so I saw her coming back
(13:53):
from the gym, and I was like,hey, like. Because I grew up in Lawrence,
Kansas, which is where theUniversity of Kansas is, and then
it was a national championshipT shirt, and we had won the national
championship a couple yearsago. I was like, hey, wait a second.
Where did you get that? Andthat started a conversation. And
then, you know, here we are 29years later, because I. I think.
I think the joke was, like,you can't really. You know, there's
only so much socializing youcan do in basic. And so people start
(14:16):
to couple up and get marriedin tech school right away.
No, it's. It's surprising howmany do and how many end up married,
you know, and it's alsosurprising, you know, we have a number
of friends who, you know, thatdidn't Last very long. And we have
a number of friends who arelooking at 30 years now. Like, it's
really. You know, I don't knowof any other group that really has
(14:37):
that kind of success either.You know, it's a pretty. It's pretty
odd, but it's. But yes and noto your question.
Yeah. All right, so here's myother question, which might be our
segue into talking aboutperformance drag somewhat unintentionally,
as I. As I. As I'm rememberingthe question. You had talked about
(15:00):
just the stark differencebetween leadership that you saw in
the Air Force. Leadership yousaw in, you know, the quote unquote,
corporate world. And therewas. There was a online conversation
I took part in somewhat todayaround. And I'm curious. I call it.
I don't know if everybodycalls it this, but I call it the
player coach model. It's kindof what happens in corporate America,
(15:23):
I'm sure, at least the C suitelevel that starts to die off and
maybe a layer below, but lesslikely, in my experience of the leader
has their own book of workthat they have to do and lead the
team. My curiosity is, in themilitary, at least in your experience
(15:43):
with the Air Force, did theAir Force use that player coach model,
or were leaders set out tolead? Your job was to strategize
and lead, not do the work thatyour team is doing.
Also, I think it reallydepends on what level, you know,
I'm talking about. You know,early on, for sure, you know, it
(16:04):
was kind of the player coach,you know, situation. You know, so
I was in basic training andstill in a leadership position. I
was in tech school and had togo through all that.
Yeah.
Still had to be in.
Yeah. Okay.
You know, even when I wasassigned, you know, kind of a. A
leadership role with, youknow, within the hospital, I still
had my own work and then hadto mentor and, you know, help lead
(16:26):
and, you know, other. Otherairmen. Yeah. But as you kind of,
you know, you know, grow inyour capacity, in your role, then
that starts changing a littlebit and. Yeah. And usually around
E5, you start seeing, youknow, in the Air Force anyway, that
you start kind of seeing thatyou still have leadership, your roles,
(16:48):
your technical role startsdecreasing, and you're kind of leading.
Leadership role starts increasing.
Yeah. Like leadership as the profession.
That's right. I think it'ssimilar on the officer side, too,
but I think they get into theleadership roles much faster in terms
of rank. Yeah.
So this might be what pushesus into performance drag, because
(17:09):
I think in my Own experience.And this was even when I was working
for a leadership consultancy,right. And I was managing a team,
I was still accountable tospend 30% of my time doing client
work. You know, I did get the,the luxury quote unquote of being
able to spend 70% of my timeon like process and my team.
(17:30):
Right.
But I would say like one of mybiggest observations both from consulting
and being inside is, is howdistracting the player coach model
is from leadership, from beingable to effectively lead the team.
Focus on your own development,focus on strategy, focus on coaching.
There's, there's just 10. Itbrings about this tension between
(17:53):
one's own productivity andleading the team, which I'd imagine
is somewhat at the heart of,you know, as we were talking before
we hit record, around thisconcept of performance drag that
you've been playing around with.
Yeah. You know, I think, Ithink you mentioned a couple of things
that are interesting. I thinkfrom an, you know, an ideal situation,
right. We'd love just to focuson kind of execution and helping
(18:16):
our, the members of our team,you know, execute and give them the
resources they need and bethere for support. I think in this
day and age and with how somany organizations, I don't want
to say abuse their leaders,you know, I think it's really easy
for leaders to get down in theweeds in part not because we want
(18:37):
to be, but because we know howoverburdened our own staff is already.
Right. And so we start takingat least. I see this a lot and I
know I had, you know, some, Istruggled with this at times, you
know, something else would popup and you, you know, like, well,
I gotta go be a firefighterbecause I need to fight that fire
so they can do their job orI'm gonna take this because they're
(18:57):
already overburdened. I'lljust throw that on my sled. Right.
And that leads to 60 and 70and 80 hour weeks and you know, burnout
and you know, so some of it'sself imposed. I don't know that it's
the, necessarily theorganization doing it. I think some
leaders do it because theyfeel like it's alleviating some of
the pressure and work on theirteam. But I also think that, that
(19:22):
some organizations know thatalready and you know, and if they
can get work out of you andleadership out of you, you know,
why hire someone else if they.
Two for one, right?
You know, so I think there's alittle abuse that goes on with that.
Sure.
Yeah.
But you know, to your pointabout performance Drag, I think both
either scenario, you know, itpulls, you know, performance. Drag
(19:47):
is really the idea that thereare hidden forces or reasons that
slow leaders down. Right.That, that either or sometimes even
prevents them from achievingtheir goals. And it's identifying
where those sources offriction are, where those forces
are, and then being aware ofthem in a way that helps a leader
be more mindful or learn toeliminate or, you know, minimize
(20:15):
those that drag so that theycan focus more on, you know, the
strategic piece or, you know,the execution piece or helping others
execute. And so that's kind ofthe concepts that I've been playing
around with is where are thesesources of drag and how much is it
impacting leaders? And thenhow do I create awareness around
that so that we can helpleaders do more of, you know, spend
(20:38):
their time where they reallyneed to be spending their time?
Yeah, well, let's dive in,because I know you said there was
the three main factors. I'dlove to hear what those are. And
like, how have you been, youknow, working with leaders? How's
that going?
Yeah, you know, I think. Well,first of all, kind of the concept
came from my own. My own kindof issues, you know. You know, I
noticed several years ago,just as a leader and running an organization
(21:01):
that, you know, and a lot ofthis, I think, came from my organizational
development background. Youknow, because it's so much system
based that I. Whenever Istarted feeling like I was overburdened
or I was kind of gettingbogged down in things, I started
kind of really trying to beconscious of taking a step back and
saying, okay, what am Ispending my time on? And so early
(21:22):
on I noticed that it was megetting away from kind of the strategic
elements. Right. It's like,I'm not. Here's the things I'm supposed
to be focusing my time on.Here's the thing I am spending my
time on. There's a disconnecthere. So I need to get better at
delegating or I need to getbetter at staying focused or not
getting distracted. And so alot of it was around myself. That
was kind of the first elementwas strategic clarity, and the next
(21:45):
was kind of leadershipeffectiveness. And I think as we
start growing as leaders, youknow, it's not just about our own
execution. It's about helpingothers execute. And there's just
so many challenges that Ithink leaders face. It's never ending.
Our leadership journey iscontinual. You know, it's a lifelong
journey.
And so, of course, no, we'llget around to it when things Slow
(22:08):
down.
Right.
Of course, when things slowdown, I'll attend to my development.
Right. But of course, youknow, we have gaps in our knowledge
and gaps in our experienceexperience and, and, you know, difficulties
applying new things that we'velearned. And so I've spent a lot
of time kind of, you know,identifying my own, you know, kind
of gaps in that. And then, youknow, that's, you know, kind of expanded
(22:29):
into other people. And thenthe last was just, how am I using
technology? You know, nowthat, you know, it's about AI. But
even, you know, 10 years ago,it was like, what software is out
there, what platforms are outthere? You know, how do I, you know,
how, what, how much of ourprocesses could be more efficient
so that we could, you know,create, you know, more productivity
(22:51):
from the members of our teamor myself so that I can focus on,
on, you know, on really theexecution piece of the strategy piece.
So it kind of started withmyself and then I started noticing
that as I started developingleaders, you know, within my own
organization, I startedsaying, okay, well what are your
priorities right now? Youknow, you start having those kind
(23:11):
of coaching conversations. Andthen, well, let's talk about some
of your, you know, yourleadership opportunities, you know,
to, to, to, you know, withexecution. And then it was like,
well, how are you leveragingtechnology? So that kind of evolved
into, you know, coaching withorganizations outside of, of myself
and then to individualsthemselves. And so now it's really
(23:33):
where I focus all of my timeis, is how do we identify these,
these areas of drag and then,you know, how do we build a developmental
plan around helping them getgreater, you know, clarity, you know,
be more effective as a leaderand then leverage whatever technology
they have to be more, youknow, efficient and productive. And
then it's just kind of acycle. So it's a continual evaluation
(23:56):
of. Right, Those things are.Yeah, so.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, Ilike it. It's a very logical model,
you know, with my experienceas well. I think the thing that you
said that really I've seentime and time again, especially as
you were saying, like, hey, Inoticed this in myself and then I
started coaching my peoplearound like the very same thing is
(24:16):
like, yes, there are someunique aspects of what the executive
director or CEO of the nonprofit is accountable for and the
ways that they need to leadthat are different from say the director
level or the manager level.But interestingly enough, there's
common problems that happen atevery level. Right, right. One of
(24:38):
which is, and it's the veryfirst one you mentioned, which is
like, basically, how are youspending your time? Right? And I've
had this experience ofbasically coaching a CEO and a director,
you know, multiple. Not samecompany, but multiple layers apart
around the same challenge of.It's like scope creep, you know,
(24:59):
for sure, from a projectperspective, it's like suddenly,
if you're not attending to it,if you're not stepping back and saying,
how am I spe spending my time?You're, you know, before you know
it, three, six months down theroad, you're spending your time in
ways that have nothing to dowith how you intended to be spending
your time. Right. And so Ialways love that as a. It's an interesting
(25:19):
exercise to coach leadersthrough, which is, what are you accountable
for? What are the big rocksthat, like, only you really can help
push? And does your calendar,like, match up with that, you know?
Well, and I'm shocked at howmany people don't really know, right?
Or it hasn't been clearlycommunicated from the level above
them. And so they're just kindof left like, well, I have this outcome
(25:42):
that I'm supposed to hit, butthere's been no real conversation
around how important is thatoutcome. And so people kind of, you
know, they're. They startdrifting in their own direction.
And so even in their ownminds, they may think that they're
on track, but that may not bein alignment with what the, you know,
the, you know, the peopleabove them or the organization as
a whole is really focused on.So I, you know, and I think. I think
(26:04):
you talked about somethingelse. All of these things are relevant
on a macro and micro level,right? I mean, if you're a leader,
you. You always have thingsthat you're accountable for. You
always have people, you know,ways of getting better as a leader,
learning to communicate. Youknow, some of the skill sets may
be more advanced, but, youknow, or. Or at a higher level, so
to speak. But, you know, youknow, sometimes it's. It's even.
(26:27):
You don't have to. I don'tthink it has to necessarily be leadership
growth. It can almost beemployee growth. Like, what do your
employees need? Right? So youcan even take it down even further,
right. Are they on track? Howdo we help them become better at
execution, whether they're ina leadership role or not? You know,
are they leveraging tech in away that would help them be more
efficient? So I don't think itnecessarily has to be directly, you
(26:49):
know, pointed at leaders. Ithink leaders just tend to be more
sensitive of, where am ISpending my time, you know, and,
and you know, and. Becausethey're more accountable for that
than.
Yeah.
Than maybe some others.
Yeah. Yeah, I think one. Andthen the, the second thing that you
were mentioning is, you know,are you learning? Are you attending
(27:10):
to your own development too?Right. Which I jokingly said, you
know, well, I'll attend tothat when things slow down, which
is my, my favorite corporatesaying and myth ever, which is, you
know, things don't everactually really slow down. What are
you going to do instead? Butaround leadership development, I
know you've had some, we had abrief conversation around your thoughts
(27:33):
on sort of academia and theleadership development industry.
I'd love to just dive intothat really quick.
Yeah. You know, and before wejump into that too, you know, you
know, when I talk aboutperformance drag, it's almost become
a framework for me, a personalframework. Right. So, you know, I
think it's, it's. If you'reconstantly as a leader, you know,
asking yourself, right, what,what are my, what are my strategic
(27:55):
objectives? What are the, whatare my biggest priorities? You know,
you know, what are my smartgoals or my smart tactics? You know,
what is it that I need to befocusing my time on? And you're also
saying, what am I doing togrow as a leader this year? Right.
What are the two or threethings that I really need to be focused
on? And you know, what are thethings my team needs to be focused
on? And you're saying, what doI need to do as a leader to get more
(28:17):
aware of AI, for example, andyou know, how much time do I need
to invest then you're reallyconscious of growing in all three
of those areas and it reallyamplifies each other. I mean, these
things aren't in isolation.They, you know, the, the more clear
you are, you know, the morefocused you are, the more, the better
leader you are, the moreexecution you're going to have, you
(28:38):
know, the more time you canfree up, the more time you can spend
on the other two areas. And soI really do think it's, it's a cyclical
process. Yeah. That, that'sconstant. And as a leader, if you're
constantly aware of those andyou're asking yourself the same questions
of yourself as, as your team,it just, it's kind of a three pronged
attack that you're alwaysfocused on. And so I found it to
(29:00):
be really. Yeah. Reallyimpactful and it kind of accelerates
growth and in a lot ofdifferent ways, both in your business
and yourself personally. And,you know, I Don't think you get bored
either because you'reconstantly learning something which
I think is, you know,sometimes a challenge for leaders.
So now it's built into yourown, you know, developmental process.
Yeah.
I find that coaching often,like, at least in my experience with
(29:23):
coaching and the people thatI've been coaching, life is so busy,
frenetic, that oftentimes I'vefound coaching to be the permission
structure that people have tojust not attend to, work for an hour,
and even be able to attend tothese kinds of questions. And I think,
(29:43):
you know, what I hear youtalking about is would love to see
more leaders create their ownpermission structure to carve out
that time for themselveswithout a coach. Not that I'm trying
to put you or I out of. Well,yeah, there's something magical about
coaching in the permissionthat it gives people to focus on
(30:07):
themselves for a minute.
Yeah, I 100% agree. We talkeda little bit about, you mentioned
kind of our conversation aboutwhat I kind of consider to be the
leadership development myth.And I do. I found it both in academia
and I found it both incorporations. I think that there's
this fallacy that somehow thetransfer of information, you know,
(30:31):
leads to transformation.Right. And it's. It just doesn't.
Right. And, and I think, takethat a step further, that even though
you're in a specific role, aleadership role, you know, and you
have the opportunity to applythis information, that that also
leads to development. And I,and I felt the same way for a long
time, you know, like if I givethese leaders this new information,
(30:51):
these new frameworks, they'renaturally going to use it. But over
time, what I've, what I'vereally found is that there's really
three really, really importantingredients for, for leadership development.
One is, is knowledge andtraining and skills and having a
good library of. Ofinformation to pull from. Right.
Tools. The second part ofthat, which I think needs to be talked
(31:14):
about a lot more is, is aroundthe environment that you have to.
To apply that information. Youknow, it's. And sometimes it's that
you have the opportunity to doit, but the climate or the culture
is not one that is forgivingenough that you can afford to make
a mistake. And if you are sofearful of making a mistake, you're
(31:38):
not going to use it, you'renot going to play with it, you're
not going to learn from it.And, and I think that that has become
a real issue, whether it'sperceived or real, that people are
just afraid to really startapplying it or they don't really
dive all in and use theinformation or the new skills and
knowledge that they havebecause of that. And then the third
(32:00):
element is around what youtalked about, which, which is coaching.
You know, if you asked me fiveor six years ago what the value of
a coach was, I probably wouldhave told you that coaches were for
people that needed, you know,to work on their leadership skills.
I had no idea how valuable acoach was until I got a coach and,
and then eventually went andgot my own, you know, became a certified
(32:23):
executive coach myself. But,you know, I think that there absolutely
is value in having a safe,confidential, judgment free space
to vent, to reflect, to thinkthrough, to be challenged, you know,
(32:43):
to be held accountable in away that is extremely freeing. And
you know, I think people miss,maybe understand how lonely leadership
can be, especially in someenvironments, and how valuable that
space and time is to kind ofreset and to talk through some things.
(33:08):
And yeah, I, I really, youknow, since having those experiences,
I really don't think that youcan develop without those three things.
I think you really, you know,some organizations have one and sometimes,
you know, that's, there'sproblems with even what they're teaching.
A lot of organizations, Iwould say more than I really thought
(33:30):
initially, don't have anenvironment that's conducive to learning
and applying and you know, to,to developing those skills. And third,
very few of them providecoaching. And that combination of
things is just, you know, it,it doesn't lead to leadership development.
That's why I kind of call itthis illusion, right? They're spending
tons of money on once a yeartraining or, you know, right. When
(33:51):
you get this role and, andthen there's no real follow up on
how much you're growing and,or whether the information you just
received is relevant to thechallenges that you're facing right
now. So then you don't evenhave the ability to apply it because
you're not, you're not facingthat challenge. Well, so many people
there.
Yeah, yeah, we, when I workedfor PDI and Korn Ferry, we, and I
(34:15):
still to this day usePeterson's development pipeline,
which if you're at allfamiliar, interestingly enough, it
all goes back to what I onlylearned recently was smoking cessation
research, which also theProsci organization uses. They have
their, their ad car model.They're kind of the same, but it
talks about, you know,insight, motivation capabilities,
(34:37):
practice and accountability.And you know, most leadership development
programs, if there's anassessment involved, there's some
focus on Insight.
Right.
Mo most try to be experientialin such a way that's exciting and
motivating to be there. Soyou're hitting motivation and we're
pouring some level, trying topour some level of knowledge into
your brain around theknowledge and capability piece. But
(35:00):
where most programs fall is onthe practice and accountability part.
Right. And you know, so I'vealways said, even when I was in HR
and we were looking at orevaluating programs, I would just
say, oh, it's a three day offsite. Are we comfortable with the
only real outcome beingengagement coming out of that? Because
that's no time to build inactual, on the ground practice in
(35:24):
any way.
Right.
So even, even when I build aprogram, I'm much more comfortable
chunking it out into an houror two at a time across months where
we can build in the, like,cool. You're gonna now go give, you
know, if we're teachingfeedback. Your, your assignment before
the next meeting is to go usethis model and give someone feedback.
(35:45):
And let's come and talk abouthow that, you know, how that worked.
Okay.
I want to be mindful of time,but I wholeheartedly agree. Right.
You have to have the knowledgepieces. You have to have practice
in some level of safeenvironment. My other reflection
that I was thinking about whenyou were saying that is, I've seen
it. I wish it weren't thecase, but sometimes your peers and
(36:08):
your manager and your HR aremaybe not the right people to reflect
with. Depending on yourcorporate culture and your environment.
It depends on how muchposturing there might be or what
are the conversations that arehappening when you're not.
I would argue they're never.To be honest with you. I mean, I,
I know that's a, that's.
I was holding on hope.
Yeah. Yeah. You know, and Ithink, I think there's such the freedom
(36:32):
of having when it's a thirdparty, you know, that they have no
ability to impact, you know,really your, your career trajectory
or there's no judgment to it.And you've, you know, there's a difference
between a mentor and a coach.And I think, you know, and there's
a difference between someonefollowing up on you doing something
(36:52):
versus creating an atmospherewhere you can really work through
things and reflect and feelopen enough to talk about things
that may be bothering you or,or that you have, you know, some
concerns about. And so I knowthat's not what some people want
to hear, but, you know, I dothink that it's something that, that
more organizations should beProviding, if not, I think coaches,
(37:16):
I think people ought to be.This isn't just because we want more
jobs. I really think thatthere is a benefit to having someone,
even if you hire themyourself, say, okay, let's do some
sort of assessment. For me,it's to look at these three areas
and then to build adevelopmental plan around all three
of those areas. Right. And youdon't have to tackle it all at once.
But how do you help thatperson? Because they're coming to
(37:38):
you to become a better leader.That's it. So how do you help them
do that and have more of animpact? And so, yeah, I agree. I
wish we could get moreorganizations to invest the right
dollars and the right, Ithink, kind of approach. But if we
keep talking about, maybe,maybe someone will see this podcast
and say, that's the one.
There you go.
(38:00):
Yeah.
Well, I want to get us intoour advice column quick, and then
I want to hear a little bitabout your book before we wrap. So
I always ask everybody to comewith two pieces of advice, one for
leaders and one for those whosupport leaders. So what's your big
piece of advice today for anyleader out there who's listening?
Yeah, you know, I think. Ithink we've been talking about it.
I think as a leader, you don'tneed to wait for someone else to
(38:22):
give you this information. Ithink all leaders need to really
be asking themselves, howclear are we on strategy? Am I spending
my time where I need to bespending my time? You know, what
am I doing to develop my ownleadership skills every year or every
quarter, whatever it is? And Ithink the third piece, again, is
around, what am I doing tokeep up with technology? And is me
(38:44):
investing a little bit of timein that gonna free up more time for
me to help my team? And Ithink most of the time you're gonna
say, yes, it will, especiallywith AI right now. And I think just
that piece for leaders, Ithink, can really help them just
be much more mindful of theirown development and how it's going
to impact their team and thesuccess of their team by investing
(39:05):
that in themselves. So thatwould be my advice for leaders for,
you know, I think people inthe leadership, you know, coaching
hr, you know, OD realm, Iguess, so to speak. I think it kind
of goes back to what we'retalking about, about this leadership
development myth. You know,what are we really doing? Are the
programs that were providingreally giving us the return on investment
(39:29):
and developing the type ofleaders who can really manage the
day to day challenges thatthey face. I know most people don't
want the answer to that, butas you and I know as coaches, we
see where a lot of thosedeficiencies are. And part of it
is just, it's about time, partof it's about, you know, you know,
(39:50):
how much money and resourcesare invested in those things. And,
you know, I mean, there's alot of different limitations to that.
So it's not to say that some Land D people aren't doing their job.
That's, that's not, you know,there's a lot of other issues involved
there. But I think that's theconstant conversation we need to
be having is what are theneeds of our leaders? How do we make
them as effective andimpactful as possible? And are we
(40:12):
giving them the real toolsthat they need to be as effective
and impactful as they can?
Yeah. Yes. And I would circleback to, you know, I think for a
long time L and D said, youknow, one of the keys to people implementing
learning or transfer oflearning is manager support, which
I don't disagree with. I thinkgoing upstream it's like. But what
did, how much are we expectingsomeone to learn at one time?
(40:36):
Right.
And be able to implement atone time? Right.
Yeah.
Like I, I curl every winter.I'm now learning how to skip, but
I had to spend a number ofyears learning how to just throw
the rock and sweep.
Right, Right.
Like if I would have tried tolearn from the get go, throwing the
rock, sweeping and strategicstrategy and skipping, like, I would
(41:00):
have been a nightmare.
You wouldn't have been good atany of them. Instead of being good
at one or two and thenbuilding on it. Right.
So yeah, it's, it's thatscaffolding or however you want.
Right. Well, and I thinkthat's the other thing too. I think
oftentimes we organizationsapproach this and academia is the
same thing. You have a class,you have a, you know, here's your
class, you just got promoted,here's your, you know, now you're
(41:21):
expected to have all this andmaybe you have a three day or a one
day, you know, workshop acouple times a year if that kind
of renew or review or youknow, the skills and it's really,
it's just not enough. And youknow, I know that there's better
systems and processes outthere that, you know, I'm sure we
all have examples of thingsthat we can share from best practices,
but it's not working. Andright now you're seeing generations
(41:45):
of people that don't wantleadership positions like you're
seeing a pushback, right?Because they're like, I don't want
that accountability, I don'twant that responsibility. And so
now it's becoming even harderto find people, you know, to fill
those roles. And now if you'renot training them, you know, who's
going to want that? Let mejust do my job, you know, I don't
want that responsibility. Andso I think it's going to catch up
(42:06):
with organizations quickly ifthey don't want to change the way
that I'm facing this. So.
Yeah, yeah, so tell us, I wantto hear a little bit about your book
and then how can people get ahold of you? So tell us a little
bit more about Mammoth Successand then how if, you know, people
want a little more MarcusDudley in their lives, what should
they do about that?
Yeah, great. So for the first,the first question about the book,
(42:27):
it's called Mammoth Success APractical Guide to Strategic Clarity,
Leadership Growth and AIDriven Productivity. So, yeah, go
figure, right? All the thingsyou've been talking about. You know,
I think there's really threethings that are really pretty different
about this book. I mean, I'veread a ton of leadership books and
so I want to kind of talkabout them because it's, it's been,
it's only been out five weeksand it's doing very, very well. I've
(42:48):
actually been kind of shockedby how well it's been doing, but
let me kind of run by thatdown that a little bit. The first
is because it covers thesethree topics which I think are very
unique in and of itself. Mostbooks kind of focus on strategic
clarity or leadership or AIthat you don't get kind of all three
of those things. So I thinkthat's the first thing that's pretty
unique. The second is, youknow, most books on leadership talk
(43:10):
about their successes andtheir stars. This one doesn't. It
is some of my biggestleadership lessons have been learned
the hard way in this, thisbook. You know, every chapter starts
as kind of a no moment, like,what, what happened? What did I not
do well? And, you know, here'sthe scars that I bared from that
and here's what I've learnedfrom that, and here's what you can
(43:33):
learn from that too, which Ithink is, is a much more realistic
for a lot of people. And Ithink it makes it easier to see yourself
in some of those mistakes.And, and quite frankly, I think that's
where I've grown the most, iswhen I've had those types of moments.
And then the third piece thatI think is really different about
(43:53):
it is, you know, we're, asleaders, we're exposed to so many
different models and so manydifferent frameworks, but they're
never in one place unlessyou're in some kind of textbook.
And so if you're like me, Icould run to the Internet and say,
what was that model? And tryto remember the name and how to use
it. You know, I really triedto create a Swiss army knife, right.
Of like, this is a book thathas about 25 different frameworks
that have been simplified. Cutout all the fluff. No, Theo, you
(44:15):
know, theoretical nonsense.Just how do you make it as usable
and applicable and asaccessible as possible? And then
even in the end, it's like aquick, like, here's these models,
like, you know, it's meant tobe used, not read and thrown on a
shelf. So those are really thethree things that I've really tried
to attempt with this book. AndI think it's been. It's been helpful.
So.
(44:36):
Awesome.
So you can get it on Amazon.You know, it's, It's. That's where.
That's where it's at. So, youknow, go get it. I think everyone
will benefit from it. In termsof contacting me, there's a couple
things. Probably the two orthree best ways is, is LinkedIn.
I'm always available onLinkedIn. You can go to my website
and schedule time with me. I'malways available. Free consultation,
(44:58):
discovery call, whatever youwant to call it. Complain session,
I don't care. You know, Iknow, I know. I know where you are.
I've been there. So, you know,feel free to do that. And the last
thing that I'll mention, I'llput it a little plug in, is because
this is 100% free. It'scalled, you know, the Modern Leadership
Scorecard. And it's, it's.It's the tool that I developed to
assess performance drag. It's21 questions. They shift three minutes.
(45:22):
It gives you instant feedbackand feedback you can use. It's not
generic. It's like, here'swhat you can do, or here's these
three things in thesecategories that you can do as a leader,
you know, to kind ofminimizing drag. So I'd say those
would be the three things thatI'd kind of share with you guys.
Cool.
And that assessment's right onyour website.
It's on my website, just atthe very top. It'll say free or Leaders
(45:45):
Modern Leadership scorecardand I can give you the link if you
want to drop it in the.
Cool. Yeah, put it in the shownotes for sure. Awesome. Well, Marcus,
it was great having you ontoday. I appreciate talking you for
a while, but I'm sure someoneeventually is going to want us somewhere
else. So I appreciate,appreciate much.
It was great.
All right.
All right.
Take care of that brings us tothe end of our episode. Thanks for
(46:06):
listening. I'd encourage youto head on over to my website, Kent
Coach and start a conversationwith me there or check out my promotion
playbook at Kent CoachPlaybook. Before you go on with your
day, I ask that you pleasetake a moment to leave a rating and
a review wherever you listento podcasts. Five stars. That helps
put this podcast in front ofmore eyes and ears. Until next time,
take it easy.
If you asked me five or sixyears ago what the value of a coach
was, I probably would havetold you that coaches were for people
that needed, you know, to workon their leadership skills. I had
no idea how valuable a coachwas until I got a coach. I think
that there absolutely is valuein having a safe, confidential, judgment,
(00:27):
free space to vent, toreflect, to think through, to be
challenged, to be heldaccountable in a way that is extremely
freeing.
Hi there and welcome to theStep up expert Voices for Leadership
Growth. I'm your host, KentKnievel. Every week I talk to experts
(00:51):
who focus on helping leadersstep up their leadership game. If
you're new to the show, thenon whatever platform you're using,
I encourage you to subscribeso you never, never miss an episode.
One last thing. As aleadership development consultant
and executive coach, I have aparticular interest in supporting
recent internally promotedleaders. If that's you, or if you
support a leader who has beenrecently promoted, I encourage you
(01:11):
to visit my website at KentCoach Playbook and download a free
copy of my 90 day blueprintfilled with practical advice for
you or the leader you supportin hitting the ground running and
truly stepping up to their newleadership level. Without further
ado, on with the show.Welcome, everybody. Today we are
here to talk about performancedrag. And with me for this conversation
(01:34):
is Marcus Dudley, author ofrecently released book Mammoth Success.
Marcus, thanks for coming on today.
Thank you so much for havingme, Ken. It's a pleasure to be here.
Yeah, well, I'd love to hearabout your background, like, walk
me through, you know, thatyour career arc to the recent release
of your. Your book.
(01:55):
Yeah, great. You know, I havekind of an eclectic background, so,
you know, it's. Maybe sincewe're talking about leadership development,
I'll look at it kind ofthrough that lens a little bit and
maybe that'll help kind ofarticulate how I got here. So I grew
up in Kansas and, you know,after high school, ran off to college
and didn't excel at school, sospent about a year and a half at
(02:16):
school majoring in everythingbut, but academics, which led me
to the United States AirForce, which was fantastic for me.
It was great. And, you know,as someone who has adhd, you know,
that kind of structure andaccountability and discipline and
purpose was excellent for me.And, you know, it was one of those
(02:37):
things that I don't think Irealized how much it would change
my life at the time and howmuch of my career, you know, has
been impacted from thatexperience. And it really happened
in a couple different ways. Ithink. First off, because I was.
I was. I was a couple yearsolder, so I went in at 20, so a lot
of kids going at like, 17 or18. And so I got kind of thrown into
(02:59):
leadership positions rightaway. And, you know, even in basic
training, like element leaderand then a flight chief and then
into tech school, I wastrained as a. As a medic. So I, you
know, they kept kind ofthrowing responsibilities on me,
which was great, you know,from a training perspective and a
responsibility perspective.But all of that really, you know,
kind of formed a foundationfor me. And, you know, and I know
(03:21):
we talked a little bit off airabout some of my unique backgrounds,
but one of the other thingsthat happened to me in that experience
that I think really kind of, Idon't know, created a passion for
leadership was I startedplaying rugby for the United States
Air Force and the UnitedStates Combined Service Team. And
so I spent about three or fourmonths of the year not really working
(03:43):
as a medic, just travelingaround the country and playing rugby.
And a lot of the makeup ofthose teams were of they were officers,
they weren't enlisted guys.And so I was really fortunate to
be around a lot of guys fromthe military academy, so West Point
and Air Force Academy andNaval academy and VMI and the Citadel.
And, you know, for someone whohadn't done so well in school, that
(04:07):
was a fantastic environmentfor me to be around for the, you
know, the next four years. Andbecause my position required, you
know, kind of a. It was kindof a leadership role, you know, I
really had to kind of pick upon some skills and learn some traits
pretty early on in order tokind of even survive. And. And so
that was an incredibleexperience for me. And really, I
(04:28):
think kind of got me on thetrack of, you know, on the leadership
track, so to speak. Then I gotout of the military and went back
to college, and within acouple of years, I jumped into the
pharmaceutical and biotechindustry and then spent about seven
years in that and that, youknow, business world. So start off
in pharma, then went tobiopharm and then biotech. And that's
(04:48):
where I got my toes kind ofdipped in, you know, business and
marketing and sales and kindof the cutthroat world that that
is. And then I kind of got, Idon't want to say disenfranchised,
but I think I was really kindof shocked that just the differences
in culture between the AirForce and what I thought was just
corporate America. I think nowit may have just kind of been a sales
(05:10):
background that I didn'treally, you know, understand some
of the nuances of that. And Ithink a lot of that was around leadership,
like just the difference inquality of leadership, you know,
the lack of accountability,the, you know, in the military, everybody
kind of has everybody's back.And here it was kind of cutthroat,
you know, you make a mistake,everybody, you know, is ready to
tell you about it or. Yeah, right.
(05:32):
So, yeah, hide their head.
That's right. And you know,or. Or blame, you know, he's, you
know, I remember one thing Isaid, oh, that was my fault. And
you know, I heard someone say,you heard Marcus? You said it was
his fault. That is not howthis is supposed to work. Yeah, it
was not my training. So I gotback, I got out and went back to
school and got my firstgraduate degree in management and
(05:54):
leadership with kind of aconcentration in conflict management,
dispute or dispute resolution,which is kind of a weird mix. You
know, I had looked at a bunchof business, you know, kind of programs
and most of them had a ton offinance classes. And I was like,
I don't need finance, I justneed to have a good accountant. You
know, I wanted to focus onkind of the leadership topics is
(06:15):
really where I was, you know,really kind of focused. And so at
the same time thought at 32years old that I'd try to start consulting,
you know, thinking, hey, this,this will be a good idea. You know,
I've got worldly experienceand that didn't go so hot. So, you
know, so as I was kind oftrying to make ends meet and building
(06:35):
a coaching practice at apretty young age and had this new
degree, I started working atthis college. It was called the Tucker
Leadership Lab. And they hadthis giant ropes course, like three
story ropes course thing washuge. And so I started kind of volunteering
and then I started gettingpaid to kind of work as a facilitator
and started noticing that allof these, you know, teams are coming
(06:57):
through for like team buildingevents. And so it was a lot of corporate
groups. And so, you know, Ilearned how to facilitate and debrief
a lot of these, you know, kindof the behaviors that you're seeing
on the ropes course and wheredoes that kind of intersect in your
professional world and, youknow, all those types of things.
Who's belaying you at?
Right, that's right. Yeah. Allof us have trust factors and all
(07:19):
that stuff. So they had kindof low ropes and, you know, high
ropes horses. And so, youknow, I kind of made A pivot in my
business. And I startedthinking, you know, maybe I need
to start providing teambuilding activities. And there wasn't
a lot of that type of businessback in the early 2000, so, especially
in the Midwest. So I starteddoing, you know, scavenger hunts
(07:41):
and corporate Olympics andportable challenges and the bikes
for tikes and amazing racesand all these different things. And
business just started floodingin and I was, you know, almost didn't
know what to do. I was doing alot of work with groups like Sprint
and, you know, there'd be 20groups that would contact me and
oh my God, okay. So I'd startbuilding staff and trying to build
(08:02):
these team building events.And what I started noticing was that
usually when teams would callme or leaders would call me, it was
usually because they were inthe storming stage, there's some
kind of poop storm going on,and they're trying to fix it. And
so that really kind of got me,got me thinking, right? So I started
having more deeperconversations about what's going
(08:22):
on and what's worked, whathasn't worked, you know, what are
your objectives with this teambuilding event? And then I started
kind of changing them andmodifying them in a way that would
be a little more diagnostic,if that makes sense. And by that
I mean, you know, early on,you know, whenever, I don't know
if you came from the corporateworld, you know, when everyone's
(08:44):
anybody says team building,everybody holds hands and sings kumbaya
and puts on their teambuilding mask. So I really got good
at figuring out ways to catchpeople being themselves. Right. So
how could I create certaintriggers or certain, you know, challenges
that I would, you know,provoke reflexive behaviors, and
you'd be shocked at what youcan find, you know, in a group on,
(09:07):
you know, trying to earn $3and 45 cents legally in downtown
Kansas City. Like, yeah, Imean, you see who dominates the conversation
with the brainstorming is howthey handle conflict, what the personalities
are, how much does the leaderget involved, how much does the leader
allow others to get involved?You know, and you set up several
challenges like that. You geta pretty in depth analysis of what's
(09:28):
going on in that team and, youknow, within a couple hours. And
so then that really becamepart of the process, right. Was,
was here's some of the thingsthat we saw and we talk about them,
and then I'd have a deeperdebrief with the leader afterwards.
And that led to a bunch ofother, a bunch of other services,
you know, strategic planningand leadership Development and assessments
(09:49):
and social styles and conflictmanagement training and just, you
know, you know, a buffet ofdifferent, of different things. And
then my business startedgrowing kind of around the country
and started working with a lotof different types of groups from
federal to nonprofit to, youknow, telecom to construction there
was just all over the board.So I really got, really got exposed
(10:12):
to a lot of differentenvironments. Yeah, you act like
you're going to ask me a question.
Well, no, I was just, I wasjust going to say it sounds like,
like a smattering ofindustries because even in my experience
it's interesting the premiumsome clients can put on. Do you have
telecom experience orexperience consulting with telecom?
(10:33):
And so it's great that you'recollecting all these experiences.
But then my guess is like mostpeople that do what we do, there's
like leadership's prettycommon across, like I always joke,
having having entered intoenough organizations. Like one of
the first things I hear on thefirst day is we're a relationship
based company and I'm alwayslike, yep, the only one. And I hear
(10:56):
it everywhere.
Yeah, what's that like? Right?
What's that like?
Yeah, you know, so I did thatfor like five or six years and we
had three kids that kind of inthe elementary, middle school age
and it was taking its toll,you know. So, you know. Yeah, yeah,
just a lot of travel and thegrind of, you know, owning your own
business and you know, youhave things stacked up and then you
(11:19):
wouldn't. And so there's just,you know, how it is with, with these
types of, you know, this typeof business. And so then one of my
clients just approached meabout that I'd had for a while that
I was really kind ofvolunteering for locally that said,
hey, would you be interestedin becoming, you know, our, our executive
directors for a nonprofit, thenon profit CEO. And you know, I thought
about for a little while, Iwas like, yeah, you know, this would
(11:41):
decrease travel. I'd be home alot more. Let's see what this is
like. And so did that forabout 12 years.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, so I, you know, we kind.
Of opened a minor departure.
What's that?
It's a minor departure.
Yeah, minor departure. And itwas kind of, it was, you know, I
got, I got, I, you know, I wasteaching at the same time. I went
back and got a second graduatedegree in organizational development.
(12:02):
And it really allowed me tokind of play a lot with my own leadership
styles and some organizationaldevelopment frameworks and really
had a lot of success. Youknow, we went through a couple of
different mergers and triplerevenue and tripled memberships and,
you know, helped lead thegroup through a pandemic and learned
a lot and grew a lot as aleader. And then in 2022, I decided,
(12:24):
you know, I think I'm readyfor something else. And so I started
to take a step back and. Andwas going to start consulting and
coaching again, and then wasapproached about becoming a fractional
COO for a little while. So Idid that for about seven months,
which wasn't expected at all.And then while that was going on,
my wife got recruited for ajob in Georgia, kind of her dream
(12:46):
job. And we'd been in Kansasfor 20 some years, so our kids had
all graduated high school andwere out in college or not in college
anymore. And. And so about twoyears ago, we packed up and moved
to north of Atlanta, which hasbeen a shock. And so since that time
period, I've really just beenkind of focusing on growing my own
practice and really working askind of a leadership and organizational
(13:09):
coach, consultant, continueteaching, and now an author. So here
today.
So there's a couple of thingsI wanted to ask about as we. As you
were talking here, and I'mwondering if I'm gonna. Well, so
first of all, and I think youmaybe you'll laugh at this question,
and anybody who knows folks inthe military might understand where
(13:32):
my question's coming from. Didyou meet your wife in tech school?
I met my wife. I met her intech school, but we didn't really.
We just knew of each other.
Okay.
We actually spent time,interestingly enough, so we had stationed
at the same base. I didn'treally know her very much, but she
was wearing a Kansas Jayhawk Tshirt. And so I saw her coming back
(13:53):
from the gym, and I was like,hey, like. Because I grew up in Lawrence,
Kansas, which is where theUniversity of Kansas is, and then
it was a national championshipT shirt, and we had won the national
championship a couple yearsago. I was like, hey, wait a second.
Where did you get that? Andthat started a conversation. And
then, you know, here we are 29years later, because I. I think.
I think the joke was, like,you can't really. You know, there's
only so much socializing youcan do in basic. And so people start
(14:16):
to couple up and get marriedin tech school right away.
No, it's. It's surprising howmany do and how many end up married,
you know, and it's alsosurprising, you know, we have a number
of friends who, you know, thatdidn't Last very long. And we have
a number of friends who arelooking at 30 years now. Like, it's
really. You know, I don't knowof any other group that really has
(14:37):
that kind of success either.You know, it's a pretty. It's pretty
odd, but it's. But yes and noto your question.
Yeah. All right, so here's myother question, which might be our
segue into talking aboutperformance drag somewhat unintentionally,
as I. As I. As I'm rememberingthe question. You had talked about
(15:00):
just the stark differencebetween leadership that you saw in
the Air Force. Leadership yousaw in, you know, the quote unquote,
corporate world. And therewas. There was a online conversation
I took part in somewhat todayaround. And I'm curious. I call it.
I don't know if everybodycalls it this, but I call it the
player coach model. It's kindof what happens in corporate America,
(15:23):
I'm sure, at least the C suitelevel that starts to die off and
maybe a layer below, but lesslikely, in my experience of the leader
has their own book of workthat they have to do and lead the
team. My curiosity is, in themilitary, at least in your experience
(15:43):
with the Air Force, did theAir Force use that player coach model,
or were leaders set out tolead? Your job was to strategize
and lead, not do the work thatyour team is doing.
Also, I think it reallydepends on what level, you know,
I'm talking about. You know,early on, for sure, you know, it
(16:04):
was kind of the player coach,you know, situation. You know, so
I was in basic training andstill in a leadership position. I
was in tech school and had togo through all that.
Yeah.
Still had to be in.
Yeah. Okay.
You know, even when I wasassigned, you know, kind of a. A
leadership role with, youknow, within the hospital, I still
had my own work and then hadto mentor and, you know, help lead
(16:26):
and, you know, other. Otherairmen. Yeah. But as you kind of,
you know, you know, grow inyour capacity, in your role, then
that starts changing a littlebit and. Yeah. And usually around
E5, you start seeing, youknow, in the Air Force anyway, that
you start kind of seeing thatyou still have leadership, your roles,
(16:48):
your technical role startsdecreasing, and you're kind of leading.
Leadership role starts increasing.
Yeah. Like leadership as the profession.
That's right. I think it'ssimilar on the officer side, too,
but I think they get into theleadership roles much faster in terms
of rank. Yeah.
So this might be what pushesus into performance drag, because
(17:09):
I think in my Own experience.And this was even when I was working
for a leadership consultancy,right. And I was managing a team,
I was still accountable tospend 30% of my time doing client
work. You know, I did get the,the luxury quote unquote of being
able to spend 70% of my timeon like process and my team.
(17:30):
Right.
But I would say like one of mybiggest observations both from consulting
and being inside is, is howdistracting the player coach model
is from leadership, from beingable to effectively lead the team.
Focus on your own development,focus on strategy, focus on coaching.
There's, there's just 10. Itbrings about this tension between
(17:53):
one's own productivity andleading the team, which I'd imagine
is somewhat at the heart of,you know, as we were talking before
we hit record, around thisconcept of performance drag that
you've been playing around with.
Yeah. You know, I think, Ithink you mentioned a couple of things
that are interesting. I thinkfrom an, you know, an ideal situation,
right. We'd love just to focuson kind of execution and helping
(18:16):
our, the members of our team,you know, execute and give them the
resources they need and bethere for support. I think in this
day and age and with how somany organizations, I don't want
to say abuse their leaders,you know, I think it's really easy
for leaders to get down in theweeds in part not because we want
(18:37):
to be, but because we know howoverburdened our own staff is already.
Right. And so we start takingat least. I see this a lot and I
know I had, you know, some, Istruggled with this at times, you
know, something else would popup and you, you know, like, well,
I gotta go be a firefighterbecause I need to fight that fire
so they can do their job orI'm gonna take this because they're
(18:57):
already overburdened. I'lljust throw that on my sled. Right.
And that leads to 60 and 70and 80 hour weeks and you know, burnout
and you know, so some of it'sself imposed. I don't know that it's
the, necessarily theorganization doing it. I think some
leaders do it because theyfeel like it's alleviating some of
the pressure and work on theirteam. But I also think that, that
(19:22):
some organizations know thatalready and you know, and if they
can get work out of you andleadership out of you, you know,
why hire someone else if they.
Two for one, right?
You know, so I think there's alittle abuse that goes on with that.
Sure.
Yeah.
But you know, to your pointabout performance Drag, I think both
either scenario, you know, itpulls, you know, performance. Drag
(19:47):
is really the idea that thereare hidden forces or reasons that
slow leaders down. Right.That, that either or sometimes even
prevents them from achievingtheir goals. And it's identifying
where those sources offriction are, where those forces
are, and then being aware ofthem in a way that helps a leader
be more mindful or learn toeliminate or, you know, minimize
(20:15):
those that drag so that theycan focus more on, you know, the
strategic piece or, you know,the execution piece or helping others
execute. And so that's kind ofthe concepts that I've been playing
around with is where are thesesources of drag and how much is it
impacting leaders? And thenhow do I create awareness around
that so that we can helpleaders do more of, you know, spend
(20:38):
their time where they reallyneed to be spending their time?
Yeah, well, let's dive in,because I know you said there was
the three main factors. I'dlove to hear what those are. And
like, how have you been, youknow, working with leaders? How's
that going?
Yeah, you know, I think. Well,first of all, kind of the concept
came from my own. My own kindof issues, you know. You know, I
noticed several years ago,just as a leader and running an organization
(21:01):
that, you know, and a lot ofthis, I think, came from my organizational
development background. Youknow, because it's so much system
based that I. Whenever Istarted feeling like I was overburdened
or I was kind of gettingbogged down in things, I started
kind of really trying to beconscious of taking a step back and
saying, okay, what am Ispending my time on? And so early
(21:22):
on I noticed that it was megetting away from kind of the strategic
elements. Right. It's like,I'm not. Here's the things I'm supposed
to be focusing my time on.Here's the thing I am spending my
time on. There's a disconnecthere. So I need to get better at
delegating or I need to getbetter at staying focused or not
getting distracted. And so alot of it was around myself. That
was kind of the first elementwas strategic clarity, and the next
(21:45):
was kind of leadershipeffectiveness. And I think as we
start growing as leaders, youknow, it's not just about our own
execution. It's about helpingothers execute. And there's just
so many challenges that Ithink leaders face. It's never ending.
Our leadership journey iscontinual. You know, it's a lifelong
journey.
And so, of course, no, we'llget around to it when things Slow
(22:08):
down.
Right.
Of course, when things slowdown, I'll attend to my development.
Right. But of course, youknow, we have gaps in our knowledge
and gaps in our experienceexperience and, and, you know, difficulties
applying new things that we'velearned. And so I've spent a lot
of time kind of, you know,identifying my own, you know, kind
of gaps in that. And then, youknow, that's, you know, kind of expanded
(22:29):
into other people. And thenthe last was just, how am I using
technology? You know, nowthat, you know, it's about AI. But
even, you know, 10 years ago,it was like, what software is out
there, what platforms are outthere? You know, how do I, you know,
how, what, how much of ourprocesses could be more efficient
so that we could, you know,create, you know, more productivity
(22:51):
from the members of our teamor myself so that I can focus on,
on, you know, on really theexecution piece of the strategy piece.
So it kind of started withmyself and then I started noticing
that as I started developingleaders, you know, within my own
organization, I startedsaying, okay, well what are your
priorities right now? Youknow, you start having those kind
(23:11):
of coaching conversations. Andthen, well, let's talk about some
of your, you know, yourleadership opportunities, you know,
to, to, to, you know, withexecution. And then it was like,
well, how are you leveragingtechnology? So that kind of evolved
into, you know, coaching withorganizations outside of, of myself
and then to individualsthemselves. And so now it's really
(23:33):
where I focus all of my timeis, is how do we identify these,
these areas of drag and then,you know, how do we build a developmental
plan around helping them getgreater, you know, clarity, you know,
be more effective as a leaderand then leverage whatever technology
they have to be more, youknow, efficient and productive. And
then it's just kind of acycle. So it's a continual evaluation
(23:56):
of. Right, Those things are.Yeah, so.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, Ilike it. It's a very logical model,
you know, with my experienceas well. I think the thing that you
said that really I've seentime and time again, especially as
you were saying, like, hey, Inoticed this in myself and then I
started coaching my peoplearound like the very same thing is
(24:16):
like, yes, there are someunique aspects of what the executive
director or CEO of the nonprofit is accountable for and the
ways that they need to leadthat are different from say the director
level or the manager level.But interestingly enough, there's
common problems that happen atevery level. Right, right. One of
(24:38):
which is, and it's the veryfirst one you mentioned, which is
like, basically, how are youspending your time? Right? And I've
had this experience ofbasically coaching a CEO and a director,
you know, multiple. Not samecompany, but multiple layers apart
around the same challenge of.It's like scope creep, you know,
(24:59):
for sure, from a projectperspective, it's like suddenly,
if you're not attending to it,if you're not stepping back and saying,
how am I spe spending my time?You're, you know, before you know
it, three, six months down theroad, you're spending your time in
ways that have nothing to dowith how you intended to be spending
your time. Right. And so Ialways love that as a. It's an interesting
(25:19):
exercise to coach leadersthrough, which is, what are you accountable
for? What are the big rocksthat, like, only you really can help
push? And does your calendar,like, match up with that, you know?
Well, and I'm shocked at howmany people don't really know, right?
Or it hasn't been clearlycommunicated from the level above
them. And so they're just kindof left like, well, I have this outcome
(25:42):
that I'm supposed to hit, butthere's been no real conversation
around how important is thatoutcome. And so people kind of, you
know, they're. They startdrifting in their own direction.
And so even in their ownminds, they may think that they're
on track, but that may not bein alignment with what the, you know,
the, you know, the peopleabove them or the organization as
a whole is really focused on.So I, you know, and I think. I think
(26:04):
you talked about somethingelse. All of these things are relevant
on a macro and micro level,right? I mean, if you're a leader,
you. You always have thingsthat you're accountable for. You
always have people, you know,ways of getting better as a leader,
learning to communicate. Youknow, some of the skill sets may
be more advanced, but, youknow, or. Or at a higher level, so
to speak. But, you know, youknow, sometimes it's. It's even.
(26:27):
You don't have to. I don'tthink it has to necessarily be leadership
growth. It can almost beemployee growth. Like, what do your
employees need? Right? So youcan even take it down even further,
right. Are they on track? Howdo we help them become better at
execution, whether they're ina leadership role or not? You know,
are they leveraging tech in away that would help them be more
efficient? So I don't think itnecessarily has to be directly, you
(26:49):
know, pointed at leaders. Ithink leaders just tend to be more
sensitive of, where am ISpending my time, you know, and,
and you know, and. Becausethey're more accountable for that
than.
Yeah.
Than maybe some others.
Yeah. Yeah, I think one. Andthen the, the second thing that you
were mentioning is, you know,are you learning? Are you attending
(27:10):
to your own development too?Right. Which I jokingly said, you
know, well, I'll attend tothat when things slow down, which
is my, my favorite corporatesaying and myth ever, which is, you
know, things don't everactually really slow down. What are
you going to do instead? Butaround leadership development, I
know you've had some, we had abrief conversation around your thoughts
(27:33):
on sort of academia and theleadership development industry.
I'd love to just dive intothat really quick.
Yeah. You know, and before wejump into that too, you know, you
know, when I talk aboutperformance drag, it's almost become
a framework for me, a personalframework. Right. So, you know, I
think it's, it's. If you'reconstantly as a leader, you know,
asking yourself, right, what,what are my, what are my strategic
(27:55):
objectives? What are the, whatare my biggest priorities? You know,
you know, what are my smartgoals or my smart tactics? You know,
what is it that I need to befocusing my time on? And you're also
saying, what am I doing togrow as a leader this year? Right.
What are the two or threethings that I really need to be focused
on? And you know, what are thethings my team needs to be focused
on? And you're saying, what doI need to do as a leader to get more
(28:17):
aware of AI, for example, andyou know, how much time do I need
to invest then you're reallyconscious of growing in all three
of those areas and it reallyamplifies each other. I mean, these
things aren't in isolation.They, you know, the, the more clear
you are, you know, the morefocused you are, the more, the better
leader you are, the moreexecution you're going to have, you
(28:38):
know, the more time you canfree up, the more time you can spend
on the other two areas. And soI really do think it's, it's a cyclical
process. Yeah. That, that'sconstant. And as a leader, if you're
constantly aware of those andyou're asking yourself the same questions
of yourself as, as your team,it just, it's kind of a three pronged
attack that you're alwaysfocused on. And so I found it to
(29:00):
be really. Yeah. Reallyimpactful and it kind of accelerates
growth and in a lot ofdifferent ways, both in your business
and yourself personally. And,you know, I Don't think you get bored
either because you'reconstantly learning something which
I think is, you know,sometimes a challenge for leaders.
So now it's built into yourown, you know, developmental process.
Yeah.
I find that coaching often,like, at least in my experience with
(29:23):
coaching and the people thatI've been coaching, life is so busy,
frenetic, that oftentimes I'vefound coaching to be the permission
structure that people have tojust not attend to, work for an hour,
and even be able to attend tothese kinds of questions. And I think,
(29:43):
you know, what I hear youtalking about is would love to see
more leaders create their ownpermission structure to carve out
that time for themselveswithout a coach. Not that I'm trying
to put you or I out of. Well,yeah, there's something magical about
coaching in the permissionthat it gives people to focus on
(30:07):
themselves for a minute.
Yeah, I 100% agree. We talkeda little bit about, you mentioned
kind of our conversation aboutwhat I kind of consider to be the
leadership development myth.And I do. I found it both in academia
and I found it both incorporations. I think that there's
this fallacy that somehow thetransfer of information, you know,
(30:31):
leads to transformation.Right. And it's. It just doesn't.
Right. And, and I think, takethat a step further, that even though
you're in a specific role, aleadership role, you know, and you
have the opportunity to applythis information, that that also
leads to development. And I,and I felt the same way for a long
time, you know, like if I givethese leaders this new information,
(30:51):
these new frameworks, they'renaturally going to use it. But over
time, what I've, what I'vereally found is that there's really
three really, really importantingredients for, for leadership development.
One is, is knowledge andtraining and skills and having a
good library of. Ofinformation to pull from. Right.
Tools. The second part ofthat, which I think needs to be talked
(31:14):
about a lot more is, is aroundthe environment that you have to.
To apply that information. Youknow, it's. And sometimes it's that
you have the opportunity to doit, but the climate or the culture
is not one that is forgivingenough that you can afford to make
a mistake. And if you are sofearful of making a mistake, you're
(31:38):
not going to use it, you'renot going to play with it, you're
not going to learn from it.And, and I think that that has become
a real issue, whether it'sperceived or real, that people are
just afraid to really startapplying it or they don't really
dive all in and use theinformation or the new skills and
knowledge that they havebecause of that. And then the third
(32:00):
element is around what youtalked about, which, which is coaching.
You know, if you asked me fiveor six years ago what the value of
a coach was, I probably wouldhave told you that coaches were for
people that needed, you know,to work on their leadership skills.
I had no idea how valuable acoach was until I got a coach and,
and then eventually went andgot my own, you know, became a certified
(32:23):
executive coach myself. But,you know, I think that there absolutely
is value in having a safe,confidential, judgment free space
to vent, to reflect, to thinkthrough, to be challenged, you know,
(32:43):
to be held accountable in away that is extremely freeing. And
you know, I think people miss,maybe understand how lonely leadership
can be, especially in someenvironments, and how valuable that
space and time is to kind ofreset and to talk through some things.
(33:08):
And yeah, I, I really, youknow, since having those experiences,
I really don't think that youcan develop without those three things.
I think you really, you know,some organizations have one and sometimes,
you know, that's, there'sproblems with even what they're teaching.
A lot of organizations, Iwould say more than I really thought
(33:30):
initially, don't have anenvironment that's conducive to learning
and applying and you know, to,to developing those skills. And third,
very few of them providecoaching. And that combination of
things is just, you know, it,it doesn't lead to leadership development.
That's why I kind of call itthis illusion, right? They're spending
tons of money on once a yeartraining or, you know, right. When
(33:51):
you get this role and, andthen there's no real follow up on
how much you're growing and,or whether the information you just
received is relevant to thechallenges that you're facing right
now. So then you don't evenhave the ability to apply it because
you're not, you're not facingthat challenge. Well, so many people
there.
Yeah, yeah, we, when I workedfor PDI and Korn Ferry, we, and I
(34:15):
still to this day usePeterson's development pipeline,
which if you're at allfamiliar, interestingly enough, it
all goes back to what I onlylearned recently was smoking cessation
research, which also theProsci organization uses. They have
their, their ad car model.They're kind of the same, but it
talks about, you know,insight, motivation capabilities,
(34:37):
practice and accountability.And you know, most leadership development
programs, if there's anassessment involved, there's some
focus on Insight.
Right.
Mo most try to be experientialin such a way that's exciting and
motivating to be there. Soyou're hitting motivation and we're
pouring some level, trying topour some level of knowledge into
your brain around theknowledge and capability piece. But
(35:00):
where most programs fall is onthe practice and accountability part.
Right. And you know, so I'vealways said, even when I was in HR
and we were looking at orevaluating programs, I would just
say, oh, it's a three day offsite. Are we comfortable with the
only real outcome beingengagement coming out of that? Because
that's no time to build inactual, on the ground practice in
(35:24):
any way.
Right.
So even, even when I build aprogram, I'm much more comfortable
chunking it out into an houror two at a time across months where
we can build in the, like,cool. You're gonna now go give, you
know, if we're teachingfeedback. Your, your assignment before
the next meeting is to go usethis model and give someone feedback.
(35:45):
And let's come and talk abouthow that, you know, how that worked.
Okay.
I want to be mindful of time,but I wholeheartedly agree. Right.
You have to have the knowledgepieces. You have to have practice
in some level of safeenvironment. My other reflection
that I was thinking about whenyou were saying that is, I've seen
it. I wish it weren't thecase, but sometimes your peers and
(36:08):
your manager and your HR aremaybe not the right people to reflect
with. Depending on yourcorporate culture and your environment.
It depends on how muchposturing there might be or what
are the conversations that arehappening when you're not.
I would argue they're never.To be honest with you. I mean, I,
I know that's a, that's.
I was holding on hope.
Yeah. Yeah. You know, and Ithink, I think there's such the freedom
(36:32):
of having when it's a thirdparty, you know, that they have no
ability to impact, you know,really your, your career trajectory
or there's no judgment to it.And you've, you know, there's a difference
between a mentor and a coach.And I think, you know, and there's
a difference between someonefollowing up on you doing something
(36:52):
versus creating an atmospherewhere you can really work through
things and reflect and feelopen enough to talk about things
that may be bothering you or,or that you have, you know, some
concerns about. And so I knowthat's not what some people want
to hear, but, you know, I dothink that it's something that, that
more organizations should beProviding, if not, I think coaches,
(37:16):
I think people ought to be.This isn't just because we want more
jobs. I really think thatthere is a benefit to having someone,
even if you hire themyourself, say, okay, let's do some
sort of assessment. For me,it's to look at these three areas
and then to build adevelopmental plan around all three
of those areas. Right. And youdon't have to tackle it all at once.
But how do you help thatperson? Because they're coming to
(37:38):
you to become a better leader.That's it. So how do you help them
do that and have more of animpact? And so, yeah, I agree. I
wish we could get moreorganizations to invest the right
dollars and the right, Ithink, kind of approach. But if we
keep talking about, maybe,maybe someone will see this podcast
and say, that's the one.
There you go.
(38:00):
Yeah.
Well, I want to get us intoour advice column quick, and then
I want to hear a little bitabout your book before we wrap. So
I always ask everybody to comewith two pieces of advice, one for
leaders and one for those whosupport leaders. So what's your big
piece of advice today for anyleader out there who's listening?
Yeah, you know, I think. Ithink we've been talking about it.
I think as a leader, you don'tneed to wait for someone else to
(38:22):
give you this information. Ithink all leaders need to really
be asking themselves, howclear are we on strategy? Am I spending
my time where I need to bespending my time? You know, what
am I doing to develop my ownleadership skills every year or every
quarter, whatever it is? And Ithink the third piece, again, is
around, what am I doing tokeep up with technology? And is me
(38:44):
investing a little bit of timein that gonna free up more time for
me to help my team? And Ithink most of the time you're gonna
say, yes, it will, especiallywith AI right now. And I think just
that piece for leaders, Ithink, can really help them just
be much more mindful of theirown development and how it's going
to impact their team and thesuccess of their team by investing
(39:05):
that in themselves. So thatwould be my advice for leaders for,
you know, I think people inthe leadership, you know, coaching
hr, you know, OD realm, Iguess, so to speak. I think it kind
of goes back to what we'retalking about, about this leadership
development myth. You know,what are we really doing? Are the
programs that were providingreally giving us the return on investment
(39:29):
and developing the type ofleaders who can really manage the
day to day challenges thatthey face. I know most people don't
want the answer to that, butas you and I know as coaches, we
see where a lot of thosedeficiencies are. And part of it
is just, it's about time, partof it's about, you know, you know,
(39:50):
how much money and resourcesare invested in those things. And,
you know, I mean, there's alot of different limitations to that.
So it's not to say that some Land D people aren't doing their job.
That's, that's not, you know,there's a lot of other issues involved
there. But I think that's theconstant conversation we need to
be having is what are theneeds of our leaders? How do we make
them as effective andimpactful as possible? And are we
(40:12):
giving them the real toolsthat they need to be as effective
and impactful as they can?
Yeah. Yes. And I would circleback to, you know, I think for a
long time L and D said, youknow, one of the keys to people implementing
learning or transfer oflearning is manager support, which
I don't disagree with. I thinkgoing upstream it's like. But what
did, how much are we expectingsomeone to learn at one time?
(40:36):
Right.
And be able to implement atone time? Right.
Yeah.
Like I, I curl every winter.I'm now learning how to skip, but
I had to spend a number ofyears learning how to just throw
the rock and sweep.
Right, Right.
Like if I would have tried tolearn from the get go, throwing the
rock, sweeping and strategicstrategy and skipping, like, I would
(41:00):
have been a nightmare.
You wouldn't have been good atany of them. Instead of being good
at one or two and thenbuilding on it. Right.
So yeah, it's, it's thatscaffolding or however you want.
Right. Well, and I thinkthat's the other thing too. I think
oftentimes we organizationsapproach this and academia is the
same thing. You have a class,you have a, you know, here's your
class, you just got promoted,here's your, you know, now you're
(41:21):
expected to have all this andmaybe you have a three day or a one
day, you know, workshop acouple times a year if that kind
of renew or review or youknow, the skills and it's really,
it's just not enough. And youknow, I know that there's better
systems and processes outthere that, you know, I'm sure we
all have examples of thingsthat we can share from best practices,
but it's not working. Andright now you're seeing generations
(41:45):
of people that don't wantleadership positions like you're
seeing a pushback, right?Because they're like, I don't want
that accountability, I don'twant that responsibility. And so
now it's becoming even harderto find people, you know, to fill
those roles. And now if you'renot training them, you know, who's
going to want that? Let mejust do my job, you know, I don't
want that responsibility. Andso I think it's going to catch up
(42:06):
with organizations quickly ifthey don't want to change the way
that I'm facing this. So.
Yeah, yeah, so tell us, I wantto hear a little bit about your book
and then how can people get ahold of you? So tell us a little
bit more about Mammoth Successand then how if, you know, people
want a little more MarcusDudley in their lives, what should
they do about that?
Yeah, great. So for the first,the first question about the book,
(42:27):
it's called Mammoth Success APractical Guide to Strategic Clarity,
Leadership Growth and AIDriven Productivity. So, yeah, go
figure, right? All the thingsyou've been talking about. You know,
I think there's really threethings that are really pretty different
about this book. I mean, I'veread a ton of leadership books and
so I want to kind of talkabout them because it's, it's been,
it's only been out five weeksand it's doing very, very well. I've
(42:48):
actually been kind of shockedby how well it's been doing, but
let me kind of run by thatdown that a little bit. The first
is because it covers thesethree topics which I think are very
unique in and of itself. Mostbooks kind of focus on strategic
clarity or leadership or AIthat you don't get kind of all three
of those things. So I thinkthat's the first thing that's pretty
unique. The second is, youknow, most books on leadership talk
(43:10):
about their successes andtheir stars. This one doesn't. It
is some of my biggestleadership lessons have been learned
the hard way in this, thisbook. You know, every chapter starts
as kind of a no moment, like,what, what happened? What did I not
do well? And, you know, here'sthe scars that I bared from that
and here's what I've learnedfrom that, and here's what you can
(43:33):
learn from that too, which Ithink is, is a much more realistic
for a lot of people. And Ithink it makes it easier to see yourself
in some of those mistakes.And, and quite frankly, I think that's
where I've grown the most, iswhen I've had those types of moments.
And then the third piece thatI think is really different about
(43:53):
it is, you know, we're, asleaders, we're exposed to so many
different models and so manydifferent frameworks, but they're
never in one place unlessyou're in some kind of textbook.
And so if you're like me, Icould run to the Internet and say,
what was that model? And tryto remember the name and how to use
it. You know, I really triedto create a Swiss army knife, right.
Of like, this is a book thathas about 25 different frameworks
that have been simplified. Cutout all the fluff. No, Theo, you
(44:15):
know, theoretical nonsense.Just how do you make it as usable
and applicable and asaccessible as possible? And then
even in the end, it's like aquick, like, here's these models,
like, you know, it's meant tobe used, not read and thrown on a
shelf. So those are really thethree things that I've really tried
to attempt with this book. AndI think it's been. It's been helpful.
So.
(44:36):
Awesome.
So you can get it on Amazon.You know, it's, It's. That's where.
That's where it's at. So, youknow, go get it. I think everyone
will benefit from it. In termsof contacting me, there's a couple
things. Probably the two orthree best ways is, is LinkedIn.
I'm always available onLinkedIn. You can go to my website
and schedule time with me. I'malways available. Free consultation,
(44:58):
discovery call, whatever youwant to call it. Complain session,
I don't care. You know, Iknow, I know. I know where you are.
I've been there. So, you know,feel free to do that. And the last
thing that I'll mention, I'llput it a little plug in, is because
this is 100% free. It'scalled, you know, the Modern Leadership
Scorecard. And it's, it's.It's the tool that I developed to
assess performance drag. It's21 questions. They shift three minutes.
(45:22):
It gives you instant feedbackand feedback you can use. It's not
generic. It's like, here'swhat you can do, or here's these
three things in thesecategories that you can do as a leader,
you know, to kind ofminimizing drag. So I'd say those
would be the three things thatI'd kind of share with you guys.
Cool.
And that assessment's right onyour website.
It's on my website, just atthe very top. It'll say free or Leaders
(45:45):
Modern Leadership scorecardand I can give you the link if you
want to drop it in the.
Cool. Yeah, put it in the shownotes for sure. Awesome. Well, Marcus,
it was great having you ontoday. I appreciate talking you for
a while, but I'm sure someoneeventually is going to want us somewhere
else. So I appreciate,appreciate much.
It was great.
All right.
All right.
Take care of that brings us tothe end of our episode. Thanks for
(46:06):
listening. I'd encourage youto head on over to my website, Kent
Coach and start a conversationwith me there or check out my promotion
playbook at Kent CoachPlaybook. Before you go on with your
day, I ask that you pleasetake a moment to leave a rating and
a review wherever you listento podcasts. Five stars. That helps
put this podcast in front ofmore eyes and ears. Until next time,
take it easy.
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