Author, executive advisor, and Managing Partner and Founder of Rossman Partners, John Rossman, rejoins the show to discuss “the innovator’s dilemma”, building foundations, chasing perfection, and making big bets, how to REALLY use metrics and make metrics a verb, 3 megatrends for the future of business, the role of business in democracy, and the #1 mistake leaders make.
Mentioned in this episode:
Download John’s free Business Manifesto and learn more at RossmanPartners.com.
Rossman Partners / John Rossman
Download John’s free Business Manifesto and learn more at RossmanPartners.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Host (00:00):
We are pleased to welcome back to the program John
(00:04):
Rossman, an author, executiveadvisor and keynote speaker on
digital transformation,leadership and business
reinvention. He was an earlyexecutive at Amazon and now
(00:53):
serves as the managing partnerand founder of Rossman Partners,
and he was previously our gueston episode 433, of the Action
Catalyst. John, welcome back.
John Rossman (01:03):
Great to be back.
Host (01:05):
A lot of your public work in the past has touched on your
time at Amazon; The Amazon Way,Think Like Amazon, that was sort
of the focus the last time wecaught up. You've got a few new
works out now. But I want tostart with the Rossman Business
Manifesto (01:17):
The Pig, The Lipstick, and The Playbook of
Champions, This really soundslike you're taking the more
holistic ownership of all ofyour experience, bringing it
together. Who's the targetaudience for this manifesto, and
what's the specific problem it'saddressing, and how did you come
to identify that problem?
John Rossman (01:35):
So I get to do a lot of keynote speaking, and I
have some clients, and one ofthe interesting things I've seen
over the past year is most of mywork has been about kind of
major transformation,innovation, but I've had a half
dozen keynotes where it's like,no, no, no, no, no. We want to
focus on our culture andexecution and kind of like some
(01:57):
of the basics. And so that waslike one clear signal, and the
other signal is last year we sawa number of just gold standard
brands. Ironically, a lot ofthem out of the Pacific
Northwest. Here, a number ofgold standard brands who went
from being lauded in thepinnacle within their category
(02:20):
to like a substantial businesschallenge that they have, right?
So the brands I'm thinkingabout, think about this set of
gold standard brands, Starbucks,Boeing, Nike and Intel, right?
Very different sectors. All ofthem a different sort of
situation, but they clearly havesuffered from a combination of
(02:42):
what I think are kind of twofactors. One is they get kind of
trapped within their ownbusiness model, and they're just
incrementalizing themselves tothe next thing. So that's kind
of the innovators dilemma. Andthe other is a cultural thing,
of like, what their expectationsare in the business between
(03:03):
themselves, and that's kind of aculture of mediocrity that
hasn't become just accepted.It's actually become the
standard within a number of kindof healthy companies. And I
think that that combination isreally the challenge that I
address in the pig, the lipstickin the playbook of champions, of
(03:26):
being both trapped from our ownsuccess and not seeking high
performance, both for ourbusiness and for the way that we
work. And so that's the specificproblem. But I wanted to get it
out. It's a free resource ebook.It is a playbook. We outline
specific things to do that Ithink are both practical, but
(03:48):
they're underplayed. They'reunderstated within most
organizations, but a couple thatI think are super powerful and
simple. So there's threesections of the book, building
the foundation, chasingperfection, taking big bets
under building the foundation,one of the key plays is about
people, and I think everybodystarts with the wrong place when
(04:10):
they think about getting theright people in the
organization, helping them besuccessful. Because everybody
thinks it's about like theperson, and I disagree. I think
it's about a thoughtful designof the organization and what the
job is that needs to be needed.And so many companies haven't
(04:31):
really thought through, youknow, for this role, for this
team, for this core capability,or a company, what's the job
that's needed now and goingforward. How would we define it?
What do we think kind of theconsistent goals are going to
be? What's the decision makingcriteria and scope of this? What
are the key metrics that weimagine this role having? And
(04:54):
what do we think the the nonobvious skills and background
and actions? Attributes thatwould help somebody be
successful, even if you havesomebody in the role today and
you want to help take theirperformance from good to world
class, rethinking what the jobis, is a super powerful way to
(05:15):
help that person achieve thosegoals. But it goes so
underplayed in companies, andthis is not a big exercise to
do, you know, and everything,but companies don't do it. So
that's an example. Here'sanother one, and it's kind of
from the chasing perfectionsection of the book, which is
all about, like, how do we run agreat business today, and how
(05:40):
companies design and use metricsto actually get the signal of
where aren't we good enough froma customer experience or from an
operational standpoint. Today, Iwas a partner at Arthur
Andersen. I was a green belt.I'm an industrial engineer by
education. I thought I knew howto use metrics for impact, and I
(06:05):
learned a whole graduate levelcourse at Amazon, and it's been
kind of one of the consistentthings I work with clients in my
keynotes on since then, is likemetrics and how we use them. And
there's two parts that I'll talkabout here today. One is like,
just how you design metrics, andit always has to be a balanced
(06:26):
scorecard of metrics, right? Youcan't have just like one metric.
You need efficiency, you needquality, you need cost metrics,
right? And it's the designrelative to those. But then the
second part is like, what do youdo with those metrics, right?
And so I always talk about, makemetrics a verb, right? They're
not a thing, they're not static,they're a verb. And the and the
action that we take is, how dowe discover the signal, not to
(06:50):
pat ourselves on the back, butto see where there's opportunity
to chase perfection? And thatwas, I think, the design of kind
of the metrics meetings, and thetone and the tempo and the
purpose of those meetings is anabsolute game changer for teams
and companies that can turnmetrics into the fuel that a
(07:12):
improve the business for today,but it also it's like going to
the gym. If you do this all thetime, you're going to get the
idea that fuels the next sectionof the playbook, which is big
bets, like, how do you actuallyinnovate and transform?
Host (07:28):
You've mentioned part three as big bets, and you've
already alluded to your otherwork, which is Big Bet
Leadership, Your TransformationPlaybook for Winning in the
Hyper Digital Era. But we've allheard about the digital era.
We've been in it for a whilenow, but before we dive deeper,
just give us the definition ofwhat the hyper digital era is.
(07:48):
Exactly what's that distinction?
John Rossman (07:50):
We know we're not good at making change happen,
right? Like, if you look at thehistory of time, like the
competitive advantage and lifeof companies tends to be pretty
short. And if you think the past2530 years of digital
transformation and digitaldisruption has been something,
(08:10):
the next 25 is going to makethat pale in comparison, right?
Like we are heading to an era,and it's not just because of
technology. I outlined kind ofthree mega forces with kind of a
fuse tying them together. Andthe three mega forces are a
disruptive technology, which is,by itself, a highly disruptive
factor. But the second one isjust as disruptive, which is the
(08:33):
aging of our population, theability to attract, retain and
get better leverage out of outof our skills and out of our
people, is going to be a corecompetitive advantage. Because
if you are just going to try to,like, continually hire and
compete, you're going to be at acompetitive disadvantage. So
(08:54):
that's the second major, majorforce. Mega trend is, you know,
the aging of a population andhow scarce skilled talents can
be. And the third is the overallindebtedness of our country to
entitlement programs and tosurfacing our debt, and that's
going to create downwardpressure for capital, so you're
(09:16):
going to have to be bothefficient for your capital, but
it's also a calling, which isfor our country to win, we have
to innovate, and that innovationcomes from all of our companies.
It doesn't come from somebodyelse's place. It comes from our
place. And so those three megaforces together are going to
create a vortex that createsboth an opportunity and a
(09:39):
challenge, and there's going tobe a bunch of new winners.
There's going to be a bunch ofnew losers in what I call the
hyper digital era. And we youcan't wait until you go, Oh, now
I get it. Now I really need tochange. You need back to kind of
the athletic metaphor, like youneed to get good at how you go.
(09:59):
About innovating andtransforming. It is an
organizational capability. Andso the best attribute you can
always have is some patienceright time to do these things.
And so if you wait until you seethe signals of kind of slowing
growth, customers who don't loveus, competition, that's that's
(10:21):
kicking us in the rear. Nowyou're under pressure. Do it
from a position of strength andgrowth. That's the time to build
the capability of like, buildingthe next businesses, innovating
better, delighting customersbetter. That's the championship
way.
Host (10:37):
To point number three about debts and entitlements.
We're now at the beginning of anew government administration
looking to make a lot of changesto business and regulations and
other things. Do you see a bigimpact there?
John Rossman (10:48):
Yeah, well, a couple of things. I think that
these changes were going to takeplace regardless of
administrations. And I would sayI'm hopeful and supportive of
any administration that wouldseek to both serve our citizens
better and do it moreeffectively. And I think that
that is what every company needsto do, and all of our federal,
(11:09):
state local government shouldserve you. Do it better, do it
more efficiently. The governmentis here for the people, not the
other way around. It's We thePeople, right? We the People
grant the government thesepowers. It's not the other way
around, right? That's why it'san important call to action to
me, if our plan is to wait forthe government to address and
(11:32):
fix the situation, I'm notoptimistic about that. That's
why I think, especially small,mid sized, large companies, they
need to see it as part of themission of like, our company
needs to play a role in howAmerica is more competitive and
more innovative, because that'show we keep our great democracy
going. And so don't wait for thegovernment to fix it. That's
(11:55):
never a great idea. I thinkthat, you know, I'm optimistic
that they're going to starttackling some of this. But
that's not the whole playbook.The playbook is our businesses
need to play a role in this. Oneof the phrases I'm fond of is
that complaining is not astrategy, right? And so what do
we do with these observationstoday, in our business, in our
(12:18):
team, in my life, that's whatI'm always interested in, is action.
Host (12:22):
Well, that's perfect for our podcast, right?
John Rossman (12:26):
Exactly, The Action Catalyst!
Host (12:28):
You make a pretty bold claim. You say that there are
countless books making the casefor digital transformation,
innovation and reinvention, butthey're not sufficient. But what
are they lacking that Big Betbrings to the table?
John Rossman (12:40):
Wow. You really did read it. I love it. I love
it. So here's what'sinsufficient. What's easy to do
is to talk to senior leaders,and it's like, Oh, I know I need
to transform. I know I need toinnovate. I know I need to
leverage technology. I know Ineed to delight my customers
better. I know I need to evolvemy my operating model. I know I
(13:03):
need to understand kind of this,this trial and error,
experimentation mindset, butthere's very little that
actually for senior leadershipand the teams that serve senior
leaders. There's very littlethat actually says here's things
that you the senior leadershipteam need to do different and
the team that's driving thistransformation. And so there's a
(13:26):
lot written for kind of theindividual contributor and the
team leader around agilemethodologies experimentation,
but we couldn't find anythingKevin McCaffrey, I'm referring
to and myself. We couldn't findanything that's like, here's
what senior leaders need to do.Kevin ran new business
incubation for T Mobile. I gotto be the senior innovation
(13:48):
advisor, working with them forthree years. This is what we had
to do AT T Mobile. Was ourchallenge. Wasn't like this
tactical process of like, how dowe explore, you know, new
business models for T Mobile. Itwas helping the senior
leadership understand how theyneeded to adjust or recalibrate,
how they make decisions, howthey allocate resources, how
(14:11):
they spend time on thesebusinesses and opportunities of
the future versus theiroperating expertise in running
today's business. And thebiggest mistake that senior
leaders make is they think thatbecause they're really good
operators and they understand,they've heard these concepts of
innovation and experimentation,and so like, okay, I can do
(14:33):
that. It starts from a beliefsystem and an understanding
fundamentally of what that isabout and how to go about it,
and if you apply the sametactics, the same belief
systems, the same things thatmade you a great operator into
this playbook of experimentationand major transformation, you
will fail at it. And that's whywe wrote the book. Big bet
(14:56):
leadership is to for seniorleaders and the teams. Serve
senior leaders to really pointout to them, these are things
that you need to do different.Again, it's a very action
oriented book, not theoretical.And that's what is missing in
most books about innovation andtransformation, is it's like,
yeah, no duh, I need to changeand I need to be competitive,
(15:19):
but tell me what I need to dodifferently today as a senior
leader to help make that happen.That's what we tried to answer
in this book.
Host (15:28):
But as a companion to that book, you've got a lot of tools
available on your website fortaking this big bet theme
further, but one of the mostintriguing to us was Big Bet
GPT. Can you explain what that is?
John Rossman (15:41):
Yeah, so, you know, we kept the book very
readable, right? It's, it's45,000 words. It's a great
narrative. It's a great audiobook. And so we offloaded from a
lot of the templates and toolsand, you know, checklists and
things to do. And so one of thethings we did with, with all of
that, was we created a purposebuilt GPT, and we have a prompt
(16:05):
sheet that goes with it that canhelp you do these exercises of
kind of developing the whatsucks, memo of really thinking
through your three futures.Exercise of putting these
practices into place, it won'tthink for you. It won't do the
work for you, but it is anincredible companion to help you
(16:25):
see different framing, differentphrasing, different options that
you have out there. And so itreally is a kind of a turbo
button to help you speed yourway through thinking this
playbook through for yourself. Ithink there's more for us to do
there too.
Host (16:42):
Well. I'm glad you said that. So what's next, and where
can people find you?
John Rossman (16:46):
Yeah, so people can find me on LinkedIn. John
Rossman, that's really simple,or bigbetleadership.com is where
all the resources and everythingis, and that's also at
rossmanpartners.com. What'snext? Like, that's what I'm
thinking about right now, and Ithink it's something that is a
combination of for seniorleaders and team leaders. How do
(17:09):
I actually address these twocore challenges that we identify
in this business manifesto,which is a kind of being trapped
by our success, that's theinnovator's dilemma, and B, kind
of suffering from acceptingmediocrity, but leveraging AI to
help you do that better. And howdo I incorporate AI into
(17:30):
everything that I do within anorganization? That's what being
an AI first company is about,and I think it's both kind of
small tactics that you take, butit's also about re envisioning
and leveraging AI. And so Ithink it's a combination of kind
of business strategy leadership,but leveraging these very real
(17:50):
and dynamic, fast changingcapabilities that generative AI
and other technologies bring tous. Because it's like a new
internet. It's like, oh, now wehave electricity. Like, it truly
is a fundamental capabilityshift and again. Like, don't
wait until it's too late. Yougotta get comfortable, both
(18:10):
individually and as a company,in how you leverage these things
to make change happen.
Host (18:16):
John, thanks for being here once more.
John Rossman (18:20):
I love it. Thanks for having me.
We are pleased to welcome back to the program John
(00:04):
Rossman, an author, executiveadvisor and keynote speaker on
digital transformation,leadership and business
reinvention. He was an earlyexecutive at Amazon and now
(00:53):
serves as the managing partnerand founder of Rossman Partners,
and he was previously our gueston episode 433, of the Action
Catalyst. John, welcome back.
John Rossman (01:03):
Great to be back.
Host (01:05):
A lot of your public work in the past has touched on your
time at Amazon; The Amazon Way,Think Like Amazon, that was sort
of the focus the last time wecaught up. You've got a few new
works out now. But I want tostart with the Rossman Business
Manifesto (01:17):
The Pig, The Lipstick, and The Playbook of
Champions, This really soundslike you're taking the more
holistic ownership of all ofyour experience, bringing it
together. Who's the targetaudience for this manifesto, and
what's the specific problem it'saddressing, and how did you come
to identify that problem?
John Rossman (01:35):
So I get to do a lot of keynote speaking, and I
have some clients, and one ofthe interesting things I've seen
over the past year is most of mywork has been about kind of
major transformation,innovation, but I've had a half
dozen keynotes where it's like,no, no, no, no, no. We want to
focus on our culture andexecution and kind of like some
(01:57):
of the basics. And so that waslike one clear signal, and the
other signal is last year we sawa number of just gold standard
brands. Ironically, a lot ofthem out of the Pacific
Northwest. Here, a number ofgold standard brands who went
from being lauded in thepinnacle within their category
(02:20):
to like a substantial businesschallenge that they have, right?
So the brands I'm thinkingabout, think about this set of
gold standard brands, Starbucks,Boeing, Nike and Intel, right?
Very different sectors. All ofthem a different sort of
situation, but they clearly havesuffered from a combination of
(02:42):
what I think are kind of twofactors. One is they get kind of
trapped within their ownbusiness model, and they're just
incrementalizing themselves tothe next thing. So that's kind
of the innovators dilemma. Andthe other is a cultural thing,
of like, what their expectationsare in the business between
(03:03):
themselves, and that's kind of aculture of mediocrity that
hasn't become just accepted.It's actually become the
standard within a number of kindof healthy companies. And I
think that that combination isreally the challenge that I
address in the pig, the lipstickin the playbook of champions, of
(03:26):
being both trapped from our ownsuccess and not seeking high
performance, both for ourbusiness and for the way that we
work. And so that's the specificproblem. But I wanted to get it
out. It's a free resource ebook.It is a playbook. We outline
specific things to do that Ithink are both practical, but
(03:48):
they're underplayed. They'reunderstated within most
organizations, but a couple thatI think are super powerful and
simple. So there's threesections of the book, building
the foundation, chasingperfection, taking big bets
under building the foundation,one of the key plays is about
people, and I think everybodystarts with the wrong place when
(04:10):
they think about getting theright people in the
organization, helping them besuccessful. Because everybody
thinks it's about like theperson, and I disagree. I think
it's about a thoughtful designof the organization and what the
job is that needs to be needed.And so many companies haven't
(04:31):
really thought through, youknow, for this role, for this
team, for this core capability,or a company, what's the job
that's needed now and goingforward. How would we define it?
What do we think kind of theconsistent goals are going to
be? What's the decision makingcriteria and scope of this? What
are the key metrics that weimagine this role having? And
(04:54):
what do we think the the nonobvious skills and background
and actions? Attributes thatwould help somebody be
successful, even if you havesomebody in the role today and
you want to help take theirperformance from good to world
class, rethinking what the jobis, is a super powerful way to
(05:15):
help that person achieve thosegoals. But it goes so
underplayed in companies, andthis is not a big exercise to
do, you know, and everything,but companies don't do it. So
that's an example. Here'sanother one, and it's kind of
from the chasing perfectionsection of the book, which is
all about, like, how do we run agreat business today, and how
(05:40):
companies design and use metricsto actually get the signal of
where aren't we good enough froma customer experience or from an
operational standpoint. Today, Iwas a partner at Arthur
Andersen. I was a green belt.I'm an industrial engineer by
education. I thought I knew howto use metrics for impact, and I
(06:05):
learned a whole graduate levelcourse at Amazon, and it's been
kind of one of the consistentthings I work with clients in my
keynotes on since then, is likemetrics and how we use them. And
there's two parts that I'll talkabout here today. One is like,
just how you design metrics, andit always has to be a balanced
(06:26):
scorecard of metrics, right? Youcan't have just like one metric.
You need efficiency, you needquality, you need cost metrics,
right? And it's the designrelative to those. But then the
second part is like, what do youdo with those metrics, right?
And so I always talk about, makemetrics a verb, right? They're
not a thing, they're not static,they're a verb. And the and the
action that we take is, how dowe discover the signal, not to
(06:50):
pat ourselves on the back, butto see where there's opportunity
to chase perfection? And thatwas, I think, the design of kind
of the metrics meetings, and thetone and the tempo and the
purpose of those meetings is anabsolute game changer for teams
and companies that can turnmetrics into the fuel that a
(07:12):
improve the business for today,but it also it's like going to
the gym. If you do this all thetime, you're going to get the
idea that fuels the next sectionof the playbook, which is big
bets, like, how do you actuallyinnovate and transform?
Host (07:28):
You've mentioned part three as big bets, and you've
already alluded to your otherwork, which is Big Bet
Leadership, Your TransformationPlaybook for Winning in the
Hyper Digital Era. But we've allheard about the digital era.
We've been in it for a whilenow, but before we dive deeper,
just give us the definition ofwhat the hyper digital era is.
(07:48):
Exactly what's that distinction?
John Rossman (07:50):
We know we're not good at making change happen,
right? Like, if you look at thehistory of time, like the
competitive advantage and lifeof companies tends to be pretty
short. And if you think the past2530 years of digital
transformation and digitaldisruption has been something,
(08:10):
the next 25 is going to makethat pale in comparison, right?
Like we are heading to an era,and it's not just because of
technology. I outlined kind ofthree mega forces with kind of a
fuse tying them together. Andthe three mega forces are a
disruptive technology, which is,by itself, a highly disruptive
factor. But the second one isjust as disruptive, which is the
(08:33):
aging of our population, theability to attract, retain and
get better leverage out of outof our skills and out of our
people, is going to be a corecompetitive advantage. Because
if you are just going to try to,like, continually hire and
compete, you're going to be at acompetitive disadvantage. So
(08:54):
that's the second major, majorforce. Mega trend is, you know,
the aging of a population andhow scarce skilled talents can
be. And the third is the overallindebtedness of our country to
entitlement programs and tosurfacing our debt, and that's
going to create downwardpressure for capital, so you're
(09:16):
going to have to be bothefficient for your capital, but
it's also a calling, which isfor our country to win, we have
to innovate, and that innovationcomes from all of our companies.
It doesn't come from somebodyelse's place. It comes from our
place. And so those three megaforces together are going to
create a vortex that createsboth an opportunity and a
(09:39):
challenge, and there's going tobe a bunch of new winners.
There's going to be a bunch ofnew losers in what I call the
hyper digital era. And we youcan't wait until you go, Oh, now
I get it. Now I really need tochange. You need back to kind of
the athletic metaphor, like youneed to get good at how you go.
(09:59):
About innovating andtransforming. It is an
organizational capability. Andso the best attribute you can
always have is some patienceright time to do these things.
And so if you wait until you seethe signals of kind of slowing
growth, customers who don't loveus, competition, that's that's
(10:21):
kicking us in the rear. Nowyou're under pressure. Do it
from a position of strength andgrowth. That's the time to build
the capability of like, buildingthe next businesses, innovating
better, delighting customersbetter. That's the championship
way.
Host (10:37):
To point number three about debts and entitlements.
We're now at the beginning of anew government administration
looking to make a lot of changesto business and regulations and
other things. Do you see a bigimpact there?
John Rossman (10:48):
Yeah, well, a couple of things. I think that
these changes were going to takeplace regardless of
administrations. And I would sayI'm hopeful and supportive of
any administration that wouldseek to both serve our citizens
better and do it moreeffectively. And I think that
that is what every company needsto do, and all of our federal,
(11:09):
state local government shouldserve you. Do it better, do it
more efficiently. The governmentis here for the people, not the
other way around. It's We thePeople, right? We the People
grant the government thesepowers. It's not the other way
around, right? That's why it'san important call to action to
me, if our plan is to wait forthe government to address and
(11:32):
fix the situation, I'm notoptimistic about that. That's
why I think, especially small,mid sized, large companies, they
need to see it as part of themission of like, our company
needs to play a role in howAmerica is more competitive and
more innovative, because that'show we keep our great democracy
going. And so don't wait for thegovernment to fix it. That's
(11:55):
never a great idea. I thinkthat, you know, I'm optimistic
that they're going to starttackling some of this. But
that's not the whole playbook.The playbook is our businesses
need to play a role in this. Oneof the phrases I'm fond of is
that complaining is not astrategy, right? And so what do
we do with these observationstoday, in our business, in our
(12:18):
team, in my life, that's whatI'm always interested in, is action.
Host (12:22):
Well, that's perfect for our podcast, right?
John Rossman (12:26):
Exactly, The Action Catalyst!
Host (12:28):
You make a pretty bold claim. You say that there are
countless books making the casefor digital transformation,
innovation and reinvention, butthey're not sufficient. But what
are they lacking that Big Betbrings to the table?
John Rossman (12:40):
Wow. You really did read it. I love it. I love
it. So here's what'sinsufficient. What's easy to do
is to talk to senior leaders,and it's like, Oh, I know I need
to transform. I know I need toinnovate. I know I need to
leverage technology. I know Ineed to delight my customers
better. I know I need to evolvemy my operating model. I know I
(13:03):
need to understand kind of this,this trial and error,
experimentation mindset, butthere's very little that
actually for senior leadershipand the teams that serve senior
leaders. There's very littlethat actually says here's things
that you the senior leadershipteam need to do different and
the team that's driving thistransformation. And so there's a
(13:26):
lot written for kind of theindividual contributor and the
team leader around agilemethodologies experimentation,
but we couldn't find anythingKevin McCaffrey, I'm referring
to and myself. We couldn't findanything that's like, here's
what senior leaders need to do.Kevin ran new business
incubation for T Mobile. I gotto be the senior innovation
(13:48):
advisor, working with them forthree years. This is what we had
to do AT T Mobile. Was ourchallenge. Wasn't like this
tactical process of like, how dowe explore, you know, new
business models for T Mobile. Itwas helping the senior
leadership understand how theyneeded to adjust or recalibrate,
how they make decisions, howthey allocate resources, how
(14:11):
they spend time on thesebusinesses and opportunities of
the future versus theiroperating expertise in running
today's business. And thebiggest mistake that senior
leaders make is they think thatbecause they're really good
operators and they understand,they've heard these concepts of
innovation and experimentation,and so like, okay, I can do
(14:33):
that. It starts from a beliefsystem and an understanding
fundamentally of what that isabout and how to go about it,
and if you apply the sametactics, the same belief
systems, the same things thatmade you a great operator into
this playbook of experimentationand major transformation, you
will fail at it. And that's whywe wrote the book. Big bet
(14:56):
leadership is to for seniorleaders and the teams. Serve
senior leaders to really pointout to them, these are things
that you need to do different.Again, it's a very action
oriented book, not theoretical.And that's what is missing in
most books about innovation andtransformation, is it's like,
yeah, no duh, I need to changeand I need to be competitive,
(15:19):
but tell me what I need to dodifferently today as a senior
leader to help make that happen.That's what we tried to answer
in this book.
Host (15:28):
But as a companion to that book, you've got a lot of tools
available on your website fortaking this big bet theme
further, but one of the mostintriguing to us was Big Bet
GPT. Can you explain what that is?
John Rossman (15:41):
Yeah, so, you know, we kept the book very
readable, right? It's, it's45,000 words. It's a great
narrative. It's a great audiobook. And so we offloaded from a
lot of the templates and toolsand, you know, checklists and
things to do. And so one of thethings we did with, with all of
that, was we created a purposebuilt GPT, and we have a prompt
(16:05):
sheet that goes with it that canhelp you do these exercises of
kind of developing the whatsucks, memo of really thinking
through your three futures.Exercise of putting these
practices into place, it won'tthink for you. It won't do the
work for you, but it is anincredible companion to help you
(16:25):
see different framing, differentphrasing, different options that
you have out there. And so itreally is a kind of a turbo
button to help you speed yourway through thinking this
playbook through for yourself. Ithink there's more for us to do
there too.
Host (16:42):
Well. I'm glad you said that. So what's next, and where
can people find you?
John Rossman (16:46):
Yeah, so people can find me on LinkedIn. John
Rossman, that's really simple,or bigbetleadership.com is where
all the resources and everythingis, and that's also at
rossmanpartners.com. What'snext? Like, that's what I'm
thinking about right now, and Ithink it's something that is a
combination of for seniorleaders and team leaders. How do
(17:09):
I actually address these twocore challenges that we identify
in this business manifesto,which is a kind of being trapped
by our success, that's theinnovator's dilemma, and B, kind
of suffering from acceptingmediocrity, but leveraging AI to
help you do that better. And howdo I incorporate AI into
(17:30):
everything that I do within anorganization? That's what being
an AI first company is about,and I think it's both kind of
small tactics that you take, butit's also about re envisioning
and leveraging AI. And so Ithink it's a combination of kind
of business strategy leadership,but leveraging these very real
(17:50):
and dynamic, fast changingcapabilities that generative AI
and other technologies bring tous. Because it's like a new
internet. It's like, oh, now wehave electricity. Like, it truly
is a fundamental capabilityshift and again. Like, don't
wait until it's too late. Yougotta get comfortable, both
(18:10):
individually and as a company,in how you leverage these things
to make change happen.
Host (18:16):
John, thanks for being here once more.
John Rossman (18:20):
I love it. Thanks for having me.
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